We already know that Alan Dean Foster’s The Force Awakens novelization will out first in eBook on the same the day movie comes out – December 18 – but we now have an exact date for the hardcover version: January 5. (via)
→ Some slight cosmetic changes to Threepio for The Force Awakens, if a Mexican soda can is to be believed. (Honestly, I wouldn’t place any bets on this one – it looks more like a coloring error than anything else, but stranger things, etc.) Also on MSW, The Force Awakens LEGO set names don’t really shed much light on anything.
Entertainment Weekly has a nice interview with Anthony Daniels yesterday. They touch on Rebels, of course, but he also talks about the Episode VII Threepio suit:
I will tell you that the team then got together and built a new suit. They made an entirely new look-a-like with changes that you will never notice [on screen] that made my life a lot easier. I can get it on and off very quickly.
He ‘s also asked about Threepio’s growth, George’s involvement, and some other stuff. However, on a personal note, I really like this:
My favorite line is — interesting you ask least favorite — my favorite line is, [in character as C-3PO] “We’re doomed.” It’s a phrase that encapsulates his whole philosophy. It’s his life. He always feels on the edge of disaster. That’s where the humor comes from because he is a humorous character, but mostly it comes by default. He doesn’t tell jokes. He’s just wrong about everything most of the time and lives on this precipice of fear, which gives a sort of tension. You and I hide that. You hid magnificently that you were terrified of talking to me. As humans, adults, we sort of do. He doesn’t have that guile. And in fact, now that I come to think of it, he is pretty much without guile. He says it as it is and that can occasionally be quite funny because he can be inappropriate without meaning to be.
That’s Threepio, yes. But it’s also, in so many ways, us, the fandom. He’s ‘our’ avatar, in a lot of ways. Particularly in times like these.
Chopper, Artoo and Threepio take the spotlight in the latest Star Wars Rebels promo video, ‘Droids’. From earlier trailers, we already knew that R2-D2 and C-3PO would be making an appearance in Rebels, but this seems to hint at a larger role in an episode arc. Star Wars Underworld guesses that these scenes are from the second episode, ‘Droids in Distress.’
Buzzfeed dug up in this clip from a 1986 TV special to promote Star Tours, A Vacation In Space. As for the tired ‘selling out’ commentary that always comes with this sort of thing, I have only one thing to say about that:
Dear everyone claiming that #StarWars is selling out: This is the franchise that INVENTED selling out. It laughs at your rage.
Leave it to Japan… A company over there is producing gold and silver sculptures of Artoo and Threepio – actual gold and silver – for the 35th anniversary of Star Wars. According to Highsnobiety, they go for $1,800 and $6,000 USD, limited to 35 each, and will be available in May.
So, for $6,000 you can get a life-sized Darth Malgus… Or a gold Threepio? No idea how big these things are, but clearly there are way too many overly-solvent Star Wars fans out there, and Lucasfilm (or someone…) is fully committed to parting them from that money. Bless.
Select members of Club Jade have long been creating custom Star Wars board games – it’s why we have a Games Night at every JadeCon – but no one has yet approached the game of Operation… But now there’s going to be an official version. Alas, perhaps in deference to the youthful audience, the ‘victims’ are droids. A lost opportunity!
Someday, we hope, some brave Wild Karrde or Star Lady will find it in them to create the game as it should be: With Extra Crispy Anakin Skywalker. Consider the gauntlet dropped.