We’ve got a couple of rumours in this edition of The Week in Star Wars surrounding trailers, ratings and runtimes. We’ve also got word on female directors joining the universe, comic book previews and new maps for Battlefront…
Kicking things off as we normally do with Star Wars: The Force Awakens, and a new rumour surfaced this week that the third and final trailer for the movie could land either today or tomorrow on NBC. There’s been no official word on these rumours, so you may just have to keep watching NBC to find out whether its true or not. With that said, pre-sale tickets for The Force Awakens go live on Monday, so this could be a good way to tie this all in…
…As an aside, you can hear me talk about this news on Radio Yorkshire’s ‘Generic Streaming Service and Chill’ podcast amongst other news like the new Die Hard movie, Fantastic Four and Marvel and more…
…Speaking of rumours for the much-anticipated movie, and a report was released this week that claimed J.J. Abrams’ runtime of 2 hours and 4 minutes (the same as The Empire Strikes Back) was a little off, as the film could run to 2 hours and 16 minutes. The film could also be rated 12A here in the UK, which would be a PG-13 in the States…
…Moving on to more tangible news, and J.J. Abrams revealed that he will have the final cut on The Force Awakens, so there will be no chances of an unseen version of the movie anytime soon…
…The Topps card trader app has already provided us with a tonne of character promotional artwork and images from Star Wars: The Force Awakens (see here and here), and now we have another two “cards”, this time featuring Finn (John Boyega) and Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac)…
…You know some of those random characters we saw in The Force Awakens Comic Con preview? Well they’re going to be explored in a new series of ebooks…
…Speaking of Star Wars books and Del Rey have announced three new books to be released over the next couple of years. First up is Star Wars: New Republic – Bloodline, which is written by Claudia Grey, author of the acclaimed YA novel Star Wars: Lost Stars, which is set to hit shelves on March 29th 2016 and we have the concluding two instalments of Chuck Wendig’s Aftermath trilogy – Star Wars: Aftermath – Life Debt, which is set to arrive in summer 2016, and Star Wars: Aftermath – Empire’s End, which will hit shelves in 2017…
…As a reminder, you can read Ricky Church’s review of Star Wars: Aftermath here and what he learned about The Force Awakens from the book here…
…When it comes to directors in Star Wars, there’s quite a lot of the “white male” demographic. You have J.J. Abrams, Rian Johnson, Colin Trevvorow, Gareth Edwards, Phil Lord and Chris Miller, and you even had Josh Trank at one point. Will we ever see a female take on the director’s chair? According to Kathleen Kennedy, it’s only a matter of time. “It is going to happen,” he said. “We are going to hire a woman who’s going to direct a Star Wars movie. I have no doubt. On the other hand, I want to make sure we put someone in that position who’s set up for success. It’s not just a token job to look out and try to find a woman that we could put into a position of directing Star Wars… If we do want to bring a woman in to direct a Star Wars movie, we want to make sure that it’s somebody who’s passionate and really, really wants to do a Star Wars movie. We don’t want to talk somebody into it. It is interesting because I have a huge number of men who call me constantly and tell me how much of a Star Wars fan they are and how much they want to get involved in anything to do with Star Wars. I don’t have a lot of women who call and have those conversations with me…”
…Moving on to the world of video games and three new game modes have been announced for Star Wars Battlefront: Cargo (basically Capture the Flag), Hero Hunt (a 7-on-1 mode) and Droid Run, which sees player battle over GNK droids…
…Speaking of Star Wars Battlefront, and Electronic Arts have announced the Season Pass for the game…
…Do you like cookies? Do you like Star Wars? Then you’re going to love this Star Wars cookie jar…
…Moving over the LEGO and the company has unveiled their new sets of 2016 which – amazingly – aren’t just focused on The Force Awakens or Rogue One. The sets will include Rebel Battle Pack, Empire Battle Pack, Obi-Wan’s Jedi Starfighter, Carbon Freezing Chamber, Hoth Attack, Kanan’s Speeder Bike andHoming Spider Droid. And, yes, there will be three new sets based on The Force Awakens…
…Star Wars Rebels returned to TV screens this week, and here’s a clip from the show in case you missed it, and here’s a clip for next week’s episode. You can also read Chris Cooper’s review of the episode “The Lost Commanders” here…
…Jumping over to comic books, and Star Wars: The Force Awakens – Shattered Empire #1 and Star Wars #9 held the number one and two positions in the top selling comic book of September. Star Wars: Darth Vader #9 was also in the list, but came fifth behind Deadpool vs. Thanos #1. Damn you Deadpool…
…Speaking of which, here’s Ricky Church’s review of Journey to Star Wars: The Force Awakens – Shattered Empire #3…
…And finally, here are your comic previews for the week. First up we have Journey to Star Wars: The Force Awakens – Shattered Empire #4, which will conclude the mini series: • Concluding the first new-canon comic tale set between episodes VI and VII! • As the Empire Shatters around them, Rebel heroes fight for a better tomorrow! • Greg Rucka (Punisher, Cyclops, Wolverine) and Marco Checchetto (Punisher, Avengers World) take us into the more recent long, long time ago! And we have Star Wars: Darth Vader #11: • Aphra’s private investigation on behalf of Vader… • Vader’s investigation on behalf of the Empire… • It all come crashing together…with deadly results.
That’s all for this week – may the Force be with you.
Luke Owen is the Deputy Editor of Flickering Myth and the host of the Flickering Myth Podcast. You can follow him on Twitter @LukeWritesStuff.
