Star Wars with occasional sarcasm
IMAX and Collider held a live Q&A with The Last Jedi director Rian Johnson last night. They livestreamed it, and while I’ve been hoping for better video, you can still watch it at Facebook. Johnson answered questions about the throne room scene and prequel parallels, among other things.
Collider themselves have finally weighed in with Johnson on the deleted scenes, lack of a funeral for Han Solo, Rey’s parents, and figuring out Poe’s journey. And finally, here’s the full Q&A in a proper video:
Andy Serkis is making the rounds for Black Panther, but naturally /Film asked him about Snoke, and his reaction to the character’s death. Serkis plays it a little coy:
The Last Jedi has now made more than $1.3 billion, making it the all-time 9th-biggest global grosser. It’s unlikely to go any higher as we start heading into blockbuster season, with Fifty Shades Freed and Black Panther on the horizon. Scott Mendelson at Forbes writes why it’s still (duh) a big win for Disney.
→ Rian Johnson did another podcast! This time it’s the /Filmcast, and here are the highlights.
→ Domhnall Gleeson was at Sundance for National Lampoon biopic A Futile and Stupid Gesture, and we’ve gotten several interviews from him that touch on the sequel trilogy. In an IMDB interview, he revealed the origins of Hux’s blaster scene.With The Huffington Post, he talks about Hux and the aim of the character, while on the Happy Sad Confused podcast he touches on The Last Jedi‘s “broken phone call,” surviving the film, and his relationship with Kylo Ren. Also recently unearthed in a Japanese guide to The Force Awakens is a behind the scenes photo of Gleeson (with J.J. Abrams) filming the snow rescue scene that was cut.
→ Lupita Nyong’o is profiled in The Hollywood Reporter, and she talks a bit about the security measures of getting The Force Awakens script. On Episode IX: “I don’t know yet,” she says. “I’ll know soon.”
→ Rotten Tomatoes says that The Last Jedi was 2017’s best-reviewed SF/F movie.
In this week’s returning Star Wars Show, Rian Johnson and Jason Fry tease additional scenes that made The Last Jedi novelization – including a glimpse at the footage of one that was cut from the film. The book will be out on in hardcover and eBook on March 6.
Continue reading “Rian Johnson, Jason Fry tease The Last Jedi novelization, cut scenes”
Despite some faint hopes, there were no real Star Wars surprises in the Oscar nominations. The Last Jedi is up for four: Sound Editing, Sound Mixing, Visual Effects and an Original Score nod for John Williams, his 51st.
Director Rian Johnson shared a video of Williams conducting the movie’s opening fanfare:
Continue reading “The Last Jedi gets Oscar nods for John Williams, VFX, sound”
On Twitter this morning, The Last Jedi director Rian Johnson revealed that Luke Skywalker’s Force illusion on Crait has some precedent in Legends – a mention in 2010’s The Jedi Path.
UPDATE: Since Johnson has deleted his old tweets en masse in the time since the post was originally written, here are the screenshots:
In addition to a 40-page booklet, Target’s exclusive The Last Jedi Blu-ray will also come with a “Meet the Porgs” featurette.
Sadly, it doesn’t sound like the faux-nature documentary I’m hoping for, but hey: It’s early yet.
Some sad, scared little men edited almost all the women out of The Last Jedi. Their version is 46 minutes long, less than half the actual running length, cutting out most of Holdo, nearly all of Rose’s lines, and of course Luke milking the thala-siren. (No boobs allowed!) But the best part? The reaction of the actual men involved in the movie.
Continue reading “Crybabies edit The Last Jedi down to a 46-minute ‘chauvinist cut’”
The Last Jedi director Rian Johnson appeared on the Empire Podcast Spoiler Special to talk about the movie. It’s two hours long, so for those of us who prefer to read or are all podcasted-out for the day, Empire has helpfully written up some of the highlights. They include more about Luke and Kylo, broom boy, new Force powers, and the Rey/Kylo connection, but I’m sure there’s plenty more on the podcast.
In the fifth weekend, The Last Jedi has passed Beauty and the Beast at the global box office to become 2017’s highest earning movie and the 10th highest of all time. More figures via Scott Mendelson at Forbes:
The sci-fi sequel earned another $11.25m (-51%) in its fifth weekend to set the stage for a 32-day total of around $595m by tomorrow. If it can get to $600m domestic before Friday, it’ll still be the second-fastest grossing movie between Jurassic World and The Force Awakens.
He speculates that the movie will end up making about $1.3B worldwide.