After a bumper edition of The Week in Star Wars last weekend, we’ve got even more new footage from Star Wars: The Force Awakens with a couple of TV spots and new images, Mark Hamill on keeping Star Wars secrets, Andy Serkis talking Supreme Leader Snoke, George Lucas on Disney changing his vision for the Sequels, and some other bits and bobs from the Star Wars Universe…
…Kicking things off this week with Star Wars: The Force Awakens, and after the plethora of new footage from TV spots and on-set visits last week, we got two new spots this week. First up was our third TV spot which featured a few glimpses of unseen footage, and then we got our fourth spot that focused solely on John Boyega’s Finn. Last week I said we wouldn’t get anymore footage, which shows what I know…
…Absent from all forms of marketing has been Mark Hamill’s Luke Skywalker. Fans have speculated that he could be a Sith Lord and even Kylo Ren, and J.J. Abrams has said that his absence is all by design. But what does the man himself have to say? “It’s crazy though, this NDA stuff, people don’t know. None Disclosure Agreements, where you’re not allowed to talk about anything. I have something coming out where there’s an amount of money where if it leaks because of me, I don’t get that payment. If I keep it a secret until the day it comes out, I get that payment. I’m good about keeping secrets….”
…In that same interview, Hamill also revealed that he knew that Darth Vader was his father around a year and a half before the film came out. “I didn’t tell Harrison, or my wife because I thought it would be terrible if she said ‘You know what…’ to a fan and it got out. Irvin Kershner (director of The Empire Strike Back) said ‘I know something, I’m going to tell you. George knows, I know, and now I’m going to tell you and if it leaks we’ll know it’s you.’ Because the line originally was ‘You don’t know the truth, Obi Wan killed your father,’ and he said we’re going to take out that line and put it in ‘I am your father…'”
…Last week we got a possible first look at Supreme Leader Snoke, and this week Andy Serkis has been talking about the character again. “It was quite an unusual situation [on set]. I worked specifically with Domhnall Gleeson and with Adam Driver. My first day was basically standing on a 25-foot podium doing Lord Snoke without the faintest idea what he looked like… or in fact who he was! I was very high up, totally on my own, away from everybody else, but acting with them.” Read the rest of the interview here…
…Speaking of first looks, and this week we were introduced to another new character in the form of Constable Zuvio who is described as “a vigilant law officer on a mostly lawless world who keeps order in a frontier trading post.” Meanwhile, we also got a badass image of Kylo Ren being flanked by Stormtroopers…
…Not quite new footage, but Chewbacca and BB-8 featured in the new Verizon commercial this week., while BB-8 also popped up alongside C-3PO and R2-D2 in an O2 ad…
…And not quite a new poster, but you can win a competition to design your own one! That’s right, there’s a competition open to design an alternative poster for Star Wars: The Force Awakens, which will be displayed in Curzon cinemas in the UK…
…With just under a month to go before its release, Star Wars: The Force Awakens has broken another box office record, having pulled in $50 million in advance ticket sales in the States. The previous record was half of that, set by The Dark Knight Rises in 2012…
…Star Wars creator George Lucas has been speaking about Disney’s take on the epic space saga, and how they’ve changed his vision for the Sequel Trilogy: “The issue was ultimately, they looked at the stories [by Michael Arndt] and they said, ‘We want to make something for the fans.’ I said, ‘All I wanted to do was tell a story of what happened–it started here and it went there. It’s all about generations and the issues of fathers and sons and grandfathers.’ It’s a family soap opera. People don’t realize it’s actually a soap opera and it’s all about family problems–it’s not about spaceships. So they decided they didn’t want to use those stories; they decided they were going to do their own thing so I decided, ‘Fine.’ But basically, they weren’t that keen to have me involved anyway,” he said. “But at the same time, I said, ‘If I get in there I’m just going to cause trouble, because they’re not going to do what I wanted them to do.’ And I don’t have the control to do that anymore and all I would do is muck everything up. So I said, ‘OK, I will go my way and I let them go their way…'”
…The Flickering Myth News podcast also talked about Star Wars: The Force Awakens this week, listen the episode below:
…Taking a step back in time, and the chaps over at Screen Junkies have produced a new Honest Trailer that looks at Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope. One would assume that they’ll be doing the other two original trilogy movies in the lead up to The Force Awakens…
…And speaking of the Original Trilogy, and the classic SNES game Super Star Wars is available for download on the PS4 and PS Vita stores. If you think games are hard now, give this blighter a try…
…Sticking with the world of video games, and Electronic Arts unveiled details of the Star Wars Battlefront Season Pass, revealing exactly what you’ll get for your extra $50: 4 epic expansion packs featuring brand new content set across the Star Wars galaxy including over 20 new pieces of galactic tech including weapons, vehicles, and Star Cards for both Rebels and Imperials, 4 more heroes and villains for you to fight as or against, 16 additional multiplayer maps featuring new locations, 4 exciting new game modes, two-week early access to each expansion pack and the hilariously titled exclusive “Shoot First” emote…
…Unsurprisingly, EA has confirmed that it plans to make future instalments of the Battlefront series: “Our goal is to make future Battlefront games as well as other style games around the Star Wars franchise, both on mobile as well as console and PC. It’s a huge opportunity for us. t’s a big effort for us, and I don’t think there’s a human being in the world who hasn’t heard of the Star Wars movie coming. And so, [it’s a] great opportunity.” However, don’t expect to see any movie tie-ins: “We get access to all of the historical content as well as all the new content developed. The beauty of the Star Wars franchise is it’s almost unlimited in what you can do with it. We know Disney has done a great job with other franchises and we believe they’ll do the same with Star Wars over time in delivering new worlds, new characters, new vehicles, all the things that make great video games. Our goal is not to make video games directly about the movies, it’s to use the IP in the movie to make great, exciting games…”
…Kanan and Captain Rex embarking on an undercover mission as Imperial Stormtroopers in this coming Wednesday’s episode of Star Wars Rebels, entitled ‘Stealth Strike’, and you can check out a promo and batch of images from the episode here. Meanwhile, don’t forget to read Chris Cooper’s review of this past Wednesday’s ‘Blood Sisters’ here, and take a look at the Rebels Recon video for that episode here…
…Before we hit our comic book previews for the week, here’s Ricky Church’s review of Star Wars: Vader Down #1…
…And finally, here’s your comic book previews for the week. First up is Star Wars: Darth Vader #13: The first crossover of Star Wars’s new Marvel age continues here! Vader vs. All the Rebels…it’s not a fair fight! And here’s the preview for Star Wars: Chewbacca #4: RRRRrrrRAAAAHHHGHGGGG! Errf errrf errff AAAAANNNNG! GGGGGNNNNNaAaAaAaAaA!
That’s all for this week – may The Force be with you…
Luke Owen
