It’s a packed edition of The Week in Star Wars following a new poster and trailer for The Force Awakens alongside some record breaking ticket sales, #BoycottStarWarsVIII, Luke Skywalker turning to the Dark Side and more…
Well, what a week this has been. We’ll kick things off with last Sunday’s new poster for Star Wars: The Force Awakens, which features Finn, Rey, Kylo Ren, Han Solo, Princess Leia, Chewbacca, C-3Po, R2-D2 and Poe Dameron. You can also take a look at the all LEGO version of the poster and the all Jar Jar Binks version…
…This was then followed on Monday with the latest and final trailer for the hotly anticipated movie (which was preempted by four short teasers). The trailer was so popular, it broke its own record of most views in a 24-hour period. You can read the thoughts of the Flickering Myth Writing staff on what we made of the trailer here…
…And it wasn’t just Flickering Myth staff that were excited, you can also watch the reactions to the trailer from stars Daisy Ridley and BB-8…
…You can also listen to FMTV producer and Flickering Myth Daily host Oli Davis break the trailer down shot for shot here, and read Rob Kojder’s theory on a potential spoiler for the trailer here…
…An interesting thing to note about the trailers for The Force Awakens is that we’re two months away and we still don’t really know what the plot of the movie is. However, our own Oli Davis thinks he has an idea of what the story structure will be…
…Conspicuously missing from the poster and trailer is Mark Hamill’s Luke Skywalker, which has prompted quite a bit of debate amongst fans about what role the Jedi Knight will play in the movie. Skywalker has not been on any of the posters, nor in any of the trailers, prompting several theories that he has joined the Dark Side. You can read Anghus Houvouras’ thoughts on the subject, and my own wild theory that Luke Skywalker is actually Kylo Ren…
…As for Hamill himself, a video from ten years ago reared its head this week where the actor was discussing the possibility Luke Skywalker turning to the Dark Side at the end of Return of the Jedi. “I pitched that to George [Lucas],” Hamill said on the show that also featured Kevin Smith, Jason Lee, Stan Lee and – more importantly – The Force Awakens director J.J. Abrams. “As an actor, that would be more fun to play. I thought that was where it was going. I thought that would be my pivotal moment – I’ll have to come back, but I thought it would be, I have Han Solo in my crosshairs, and I’m about to kill him, or about to kill the Princess, about to kill somebody that we care about. You know, it’s an old cornball movie.” Makes you wonder whether they had this conversation again while prepping The Force Awakens…
…With tickets going on sale for IMAX screenings, another new poster for The Force Awakens was released. This also coincided with the announcement from IMAX that Star Wars: The Force Awakens has broken all previous records for single-day ticket sales. The previous record was $1 million, and The Force Awakens earned $6.5 million. This means that the movie could earn around $39 million from IMAX screens alone on its opening weekend…
…Which ties into the news that The Force Awakens could break even more records. With it smashing UK pre-sale records (read more about that here), Star Wars: The Force Awakens could earn the biggest opening weekend of all-time with a whopping $600 million, half of which will come from its domestic release. That $2 billion total might now be as far off as we think…
…I talk about the trailer for Star Wars: The Force Awakens as well as its box office predictions on Radio Yorkshire’s Generic Streaming Service and Chill Podcast, as well as the rumoured budget for Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and Spectre‘s rather average reviews, which you can check out below…
…Another potential spoiler here, but there are some theories that Oscar Isaac’s Poe Dameron is closer to The Force than we think…
…And if that wasn’t enough theories and articles on The Force Awakens, here’s Anghus Houvouras’ round-up on the film’s hype…
…Hot Toys revealed their 1/6th scale First Order Flametrooper collectable, which joins their other Force Awakens collectables including Kylo Ren, First Order Stormtrooper, First Order Heavy Gunner Stormtrooper, First Order Stormtrooper Squad Leader, First Order Snowtrooper and First Order Snowtrooper Officer…
…But before we move away from The Force Awakens, we have one last story surrounding the trailer. Just before it was released during Monday Night Football, a group started a Twitter trend called #BoycottStarWarsVII, which was put in place to highlight that the Star Wars Saga had become “anti-white”. While many would have ignored the idiotic trend, director J.J. Abrams responded via the Bad Robot Twitter account…
…In slightly more docile news, here’s some stamps from The Royal Mail to celebrate the release of the new trailer…
…Prior to the release of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, select cinemas in the US will be holding a Star Wars marathon of the prequel trilogy (The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith) and the original trilogy (A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi). No word yet on whether UK cinemas will be doing the same thing, but it’s highly likely someone like The Prince Charles Cinema will…
…Speaking of the first six movies, here are the Top 10 Star Wars Fails you didn’t notice…
…Moving away from The Force Awakens to the first anthology movie Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, and a new rumour has surfaced that Christopher McQuarrie (Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation) is doing a polishing re-draft of the movie. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is currently in production, but it’s not unheard of for writers to come in during filming to touch up scripts and improve dialogue…
…It wasn’t just the trailer for The Force Awakens that we were all watching this week, as Sony released a Star Wars Battlefront-themed Holiday 2015 commercial…
…Lucasfilm has released the latest edition of Rebels Recon, which takes us inside this week’s episode of Star Wars Rebels, ‘Relics of the Old Republic’, as well as offering up a glimpse of next week’s episode ‘Always Two There Are’ with a sneak peek preview and batch of images. Check them out here…
…Before we jump into the comic book previews, here’s Ricky Church’s review of Journey to Star Wars: The Force Awakens: Shattered Empire #4 and here are some variant covers for Star Wars: Vader Down #1 and Chip Zdarsky’s (Howard the Duck) Jaxxon variant…
…Here’s the week’s comic book previews. First up is the aforementioned Star Wars: Vader Down #1, which is out on November 18th: Vader’s TIE Fighter has been shot down. Seeing this as their one, best chance to take him down once and for all, the Rebellion is ready to throw everything they have at him. Alone, outnumbered and outgunned, Darth Vader must now face the entire might of the Rebel Fleet. But the Rebels are about to learn the true unrestrained power of the Dark Side of the Force. To defeat their greatest enemy, the Rebel Alliance will risk it all. Yet with it all on the line, could this risky gambit cripple their forces in the fight against the Empire?
Next up is Star Wars: Kanan – The Last Padawan #7, set for release on October 28th: We’ve seen Kanan’s LAST adventure as a Padawan… …now we go back to his FIRST adventure! See Caleb Dume’s first steps in the Clone Wars!
…And finally, here’s the preview for Star Wars: Chewbacca #2, which is also out October 28th: Known as the skilled co-pilot of the infamous Millennium Falcon, the legendary Wookiee warrior CHEWBACCA will star in his very own limited comic series! After the battle of Yavin, Chewbacca is on his own when he crash lands his ship on an Imperial occupied planet. Now stranded, Chewie finds himself caught in the middle of trying to return to the rebellion and helping a young and feisty girl in need. Writer Gerry Duggan (DEADPOOL, 1872, HULK) and artist Phil Noto (BLACK WIDOW, X-23, UNCANNY X-FORCE) bring us a never-before-seen tale of the heroic Wookiee we all know and love.
Luke Owen is the Deputy Editor of Flickering Myth and a contributor on The Flickering Myth Movie Show. You can follow him on Twitter @ThisisLukeOwen.
