Star Wars with occasional sarcasm
Today’s Force Friday preview livestream revealed a number of toys for The Rise of Skywalker, The Mandalorian, and Jedi Fallen Order – and they’re over here if that’s your poison – but we also got a handful of hints, including two new characters.
Continue reading “Rise of Skywalker hints from the Force Friday preview livestream”
Per usual, the Vanity Fair story on the upcoming Star Wars film – The Rise of Skywalker, the final episode of “the Skywalker saga,” the grand finale of all three trilogies, etc. – was chock full of information. Granted, most of it’s peicemeal, but that’s where we tiny fan blogs live, isn’t it? Let’s dig in.
Continue reading “What we learned about The Rise of Skywalker from Vanity Fair”
→ Remember the old Episode VII rumor about Luke’s hand floating through space? Well, in yesterday’s Sun interview, Mark Hamill confirmed that it was indeed in the script at one point. On that note, Vox’s Todd VanDerWerff takes a look back at The Force Awakens and the challenges of making a remake/revival fun. Meanwhile, io9 is looking for VIII clues in yesterday’s Daisy Ridley video.
→ Chuck Wendig shares the first line of Aftermath: Life Debt. ComicBook.com has the first look at The Force Awakens comic adaptation. It’s scripted by Wendig, but the preview features only Luke Ross’s interior art.
→ John Jackson Miller talks about writing Star Wars with Omni.
→ Room’s Jacob Tremblay is fishing… He did get a response from one future Star Wars director, so that’s promising.
→ R2-D2 and C-3PO hung out in Entertainment Weekly’s elevator.
→ The Revenge of the Sith soundtrack is getting a limited release on vinyl.
→ StarWars.com has a look at upcoming The Force Awakens Funko Pop figures, including General Leia and Luke Skywalker.
→ And finally, my favorite new product: Star Wars Tiki cups.
Happy Star Wars Day! We’ve got a special episode of Unboxing Star Wars for May the 4th! First, Baby Jawa, Yowie and I check out the fun at “The Dome Awakens”, the Star Wars Day celebration at the downtown San Diego Public Library held on May 1, 2016. Then it’s time to review the recent C-3PO one shot comic by James Robinson and Tony Harris, and get excited for the new Star Wars novel, Bloodline, by Claudia Gray. We finish up with the results of our first try at making Star Wars Jell-o Jigglers, and then some Baby Jawa fun time!
Quick reviews
→ C-3PO #1 – A fun (and long-awaited) tale that does indeed explain the origins of Threepio’s red arm. Read this comic then watch the LEGO Star Wars short “The Resistance Rises: Poe to the Rescue” for an interesting crossover of canon and LEGO Star Wars.
→ Bloodline – Strongly recommend! I had high expectations for this novel because of Gray’s first Star Wars novel, Lost Stars, and she surpassed them. I really enjoyed this tale – it’s a top-notch story with some great characters, and Gray nails Leia’s character.
→ Star Wars JELL-O Jigglers Mold Set – Comes with two 6-character mold trays and 4 boxes of Jello! All the characters look great, except Yoda, who is in some sort of action pose which doesn’t quite work right. Be sure to use the special mold instructions on the big box instead of the regular Jiggler instructions on the inside boxes of gelatin.
Get more info on Wear Star Wars Every Day or make a donation at GoFundMe or sign up to make a per-day pledge.
Note: Del Rey provided a copy of Star Wars: Bloodline for review.
You’ll never believe what’s on the comic shipping list for Wednesday… It’s the much-delayed C-3PO special, which tells the story behind his red arm in The Force Awakens. Less surprisingly, Darth Vader #19.
Also now available is the free eBook sampler from Del Rey, which contains an excerpt of Claudia Gray’s May 3 novel Bloodline and several short stories.
There were no wins for Star Wars at the Academy Awards tonight, but at least The Force Awakens lost (mostly) to fellow genre films. Mad Max: Fury Road pretty much swept the technical categories at the Academy Awards, shutting out The Force Awakens in Editing, Sound Mixing and Sound Editing. Star Wars’ best chance was considered to be Visual Effects, which was instead won by Ex Machina in a surprising upset. John Williams lost out to The Hateful Eight’s Ennio Morricone, who paid tribute to 5-time winner Williams in his speech.
But hey, we did get an appearance by Threepio, Artoo and BB-8. Later, Daisy Ridley was joined by Dev Patel to present Best Documentary, and J.J. Abrams presented Best Director to The Revenant’s Alejandro G. Iñárritu.
Oscar Isaac talks to io9 about the Resistance, Poe’s Shattered Empire backstory (though it’s worth noting he was already old enough to be talking – he’s mentioned in #2 – before his parents settled on Yavin) and how the X-wings have evolved.
→ You can listen to both yesterday’s press conference(s) thanks to Full of Sith. Or watch the videos (1, 2.)
→ Captain Phasma was originally a man, Vulture reports, and the backlash to the initial casting may have played a part in the gender swap. That said, anything that saved us from Benedict Cumberbatch is fine by me.
→ Clutch your pearls, because J.J. Abrams talked midi-chlorians with /Film.
→ Droid tales: Anthony Daniels get profiled by Vulture, while CNN talks to the BB-8 designers about the droid and his adventures on set.
→ On Twitter, Greg Grunberg confirms his action figure and his character name.
→ Everyone wants their trailer on Star Wars! We know X-Men: Apocalypse will be there, but now The Hollywood Reporter says Star Trek Beyond will be attached as well.
This week’s double issue of Entertainment Weekly will feature four The Force Awakens collector covers. Inside. there’ll be articles going behind-the-scenes and tidbits from J.J. Abrams, Harrison Ford, Mark Hamill, John Boyega, Daisy Ridley and more. Stay tuned for more!
Of course the Threepio comic is about how he got the red arm, and the cover is basically his high school senior portrait. Of course.
Marvel’s second entry in Journey to The Force Awakens, C-3P0 #1 is written by James Robinson with Tony Harris on art. It’ll be out in December.
As San Diego Comic-Con approaches, actual The Force Awakens news is thin on the ground. Here’s what we have so far:
→ That promo art from last week has now appeared on a basketball hoop, of all things. (Now 200% tackier and more cluttered!) But it is newsworthy if only because this version contains a few additional figures, most notably Threepio, confirming that his cosmetic change is not limited to Mexican soda cans.
→ In a new interview, Alan Dean Foster talks a bit about novelizing The Force Awakens.
→ Rumor has it that a Star Wars exhibit may be coming to Disneyland in November which probably means at least some of it will be themed to The Force Awakens. On that note, Disney’s also looking to invest a billion dollars at the park for ‘new attractions,’ among other things.
→ Record revenue for Pinewood this year, helped along by Star Wars and others.
→ Spoiler corner: On how Skellig Michael might fit into the rest of the sequel trilogy.