Movie and TV News

Entertainment Tonight met Jon Favreau at the recent Saturn Awards and he talked at length about Gina Carano (who stood right next to him, looking quite delightful) and the Mandalorian series. And then the Holiday Special was brought up, since a few elements from the special, like the rifle, are in the new series, and Favreau remarked that he is actually a great fan of the Special. Admittedly, he likes some segments more than others, and then Favreau said that one day he would love to do a Holiday Special on Disney+. And if fans want that, they should let Disney+ know.
Ignoring the possibility that Favreau may have just made a fun remark… what would you like to see in an all new Holiday Special? Rey and Kylo singing “I just called to say I love you”? A Finn and Rose ballet number? Old man Lando watching some spicy droid movies? Luke entering a lightsaber tossing contest? Chewie presenting the best Porg recipies (without any subtitles, of course)? Leave your ideas in the comments!
You can watch the whole interview with Favreau and Gina Carano on YouTube!

A new version soon(ish) on Disney+?

The prestigious Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films held their 45th annual Saturn Awards Ceremony last weekend. And Star Wars Resistance won the award for Best Animated Series on Television, other contenders were Archer, Duck Tales, Family Guy and Simpsons. Congratulations to Filoni and team! Click through for a bit more info and details!

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There are some rumors circulating the internet that Lucasfilm may develop a Disney+ spin-off series based on Solo. Website Star Wars Unity has a story about an alleged Solo spin off that would continue some of the story threads of the movie. The rumor report says that any series based on Solo would most likely revolve around Crimson Dawn and not so much Han Solo, Chewbacca and Lando. Click through to read more!

More love for Solo

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Entertainment Weekly has an exclusive story on their website with one all new detail about the upcoming Mandalorian show on Disney+.

The show will explore the origins of the First Order! Now if that is just a side plot or a major plot element is unknown. What we do know is that remnants of Imperial forces are still around. Perhaps we will see how these remnants reform to become the First Order. Not all of the former Stormtroopers, Moffs and Governors became good citizens of the New Republic. So it seems The Mandalorian might bridge the original and the sequel trilogy and provide some much needed background and add some worldbuilding to the sequels.

Check out the EW website for their exclusive story and some quotes by Dave Filoni and Jon Favrau, which add some perspective to the First Order angle!

This morning the official Star Wars YouTube channel released the much talked about D23 footage for The Rise of Skywalker! Click through to watch the video, for screenshots of several highlights and a short analysis! If you want to know nothing, then please stay away from this article. Some potential spoilers and rumors will be discussed!

Spoiler territory

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The Disney+ panel not only released the first official public trailer for The Mandalorian, but also officially announced the long-rumored Obi-Wan Kenobi series. 

The Disney+ panel was the first to announce an all-new Star Wars series in development, one that many fans have been asking to see since the closing scenes of 2005’s Revenge of the Sith. Ewan McGregor, who played Obi-Wan Kenobi, electrified the audience when he emerged following the announcement of his involvement in a new series taking place eight years after the events of Revenge of the Sith, where we last saw Obi-Wan delivering the infant Luke Skywalker to his Tatooine homestead.

Click through for all the details from the Disney+ panel at D23!

Click through to watch the official trailer for The Mandalorian… and discuss!

I’m Frozen In Anticipation!

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A brand new teaser poster for the upcoming Disney+ Star Wars series The Mandalorian was revealed today on the official Star Wars site! Click on the image below to see the full poster!

So what do we see here? Is that Tatooine? Twin suns… sandcrawlers… moisture vaporators… the scenery sure looks very familiar. What can all of that mean? Will the show take us back to one of the most famous Star Wars locations? A Mandalorian trailer is also coming, we will certainly know a lot more very soon! We will keep you posted!

Click for full poster!

Site ComicBookMovie.com has revealed the covers to all 10 of the new Blu-ray Star Wars films which are arriving in September. I don’t know how they got approved. They seem amateur. What do you think? Thanks to Cyberye for the alert!

A brand new trailer for the second season of Star Wars Resistance has been released today. Along with that comes the announcement that Resistance will also end after season 2. This is the official trailer description from the Star Wars YouTube channel:

The Emmy Award-nominated series Star Wars Resistance returns for its second and final season beginning Sunday, October 6 at 10:00 p.m. EDT/PDT on Disney Channel and in DisneyNOW, with subsequent airings on Disney XD. The concluding season takes place during the events of “The Last Jedi” leading up to “The Rise of Skywalker,” as Kaz and the team continue to fight against the threat of the First Order, culminating in an epic series finale.

In light of this it’s no surprise Hasbro no longer makes toys for the show. Also, ratings were very bad. Season 2 was probably greenlit / in production, long before season 1 even aired. In light of the ratings and lack of toy support it only makes sense for Disney to focus on something new. Of course, it may also be possible that Resistance was always supposed to be just a show with two seasons, but I find that unlikely, considering the costs developing the show and how animation usually works.

Watch the trailer by clicking the image below. It looks quite epic in places, with huge space battles. Kylo Ren makes a guest appearance even (not voiced by Adam Driver, it appears). As far as story arcs go: apparently the Colossus is in search of a new planet to call home, while the First Order can still track the Colossus. Kaz and friends don’t know how they can do that, but we know the answer already. Hyperspace tracking, of course.  Let’s hope the Colossus won’t have any problem with its fuel supply as well. Leave your constructive thoughts in the comments!

The Sith Trooper action figure was revealed a while ago, now the actual costume was also displayed at SDCC, the official Star Wars site has the story. Click the photo below for a good look at the all new trooper variant created for The Rise of Skywalker! You can also see what seems to be their new standard weapon. Overall, the Sith Trooper seems to be a nice blend of various trooper elements from across the trilogies, they certainly look better than the standard white First Order Stormtroopers first introduced in The Force Awakens.
There was also a sign (which has apparently been removed) with a short description of who the Sith Troopers are with following inscription:

In its ultimate push towards galactic conquest, the First Order readies an army of elite soldiers that draw inspiration and power from a dark and ancient legacy.

So the idea that the Sith Troopers may be Palpatine’s personal army is probably debunked by this. But as usual, we know almost nothing and have to wait until the movie is released. It’s doubtful JJ Abrams or Lucasfilm will tell us a lot more about Sith Troopers before the release date.

Click for large version!

Star Wars: Resistance has been nominated for an Emmy in the “Outstanding Children’s Program” Category. Also nominated in this category are “A Series of Unfortunate Events”, Carmen Sandiego (both Netflix shows), the HBO documentary “Song of Parkland” and HBO show “When You Wish Upon A Pickle: A Sesame Street Special” (Pickle Rick anyone?).
Dave Filoni and team did win an Emmy (three, actually) for Star Wars: The Clone Wars several years ago, Rebels was nominated several times but didn’t win, so Resistance is the third Star Wars animated show to be nominated for an Emmy.
Also, Star Wars: Resistance will see a home media release on August 20th. Will you buy the DVD for your kids (or yourself)?

During an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live for The Lion King, director Jon Favreau revealed that he is already working on the script for Season 2 of The Mandalorian TV series. IGN has the full story.

I only learned about this now, but on June 29th 2019 the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences held a special back to back screening of Rogue One and Star Wars A New Hope. What makes this so special is that Star Wars was, for the first time in decades, shown in its original, unaltered, pre special edition version. And according to someone from the audience it was an immaculate 70mm print of Star Wars. The only change to the original 1977 movie was the addition of “A New Hope” to the title crawl.
Apparently, the Academy needed a special permission from George Lucas himself to screen the original version of Star Wars. That begs the question if George Lucas still has some say over what happens with the movies he made. If the Academy needed Lucas’ permission and not just Disney’s that would imply “yes”. Does Lucas still own the prints of the unaltered movies? So even if Disney owns Star Wars, would even they need George Lucas’ permission, if Disney wanted to release the original, unaltered versions of the original trilogy movies on Blu-Ray? Or wanted to make some additional changes (updated CGI) to the special editions for a potential release in 4K? Also, if Lucas allowed the screening, could it mean he’s open to re-releasing the original versions in high definition? Read more about the screening on comicbook.com!

YouTube Channel Star Wars Theory received the alleged plot synopsis for Episode IX – The Rise of Skywalker. Now, we cannot say of course if this leak is legit or fake, but the synopsis is consistent with previous leaks, which still means nothing, but at least it sounds plausible. By now you know the drill: if you want to learn more, then click through, if you want to know nothing, well, I advise you to stay away from this article or else you will be spoiled. So let’s discuss the spoiler after the jump!

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Tim Rose, who was a puppeteer in Return of the Jedi and performed as Admiral Ackbar, Sy Snootles and Salacious Crumb, and who returned in both The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi as Admiral Ackbar once more, only this time actually inside a suit, was recently interviewed by Jamie Stangroom. Jamie’s YouTube Channel is still very unknown, he has very few subscribers and his videos don’t really have that many clicks, but over the time he interviewed quite a few Star Wars actors. Jamie also brought Ahmed Best to the forefront again, when he interviewed the Jar-Jar actor, this made quite a few waves back then when it was revealed just how devasted Ahmed felt at the time. And now Jamie interviewed Tim Rose. In the first half of the interview Tim shares a funny anecdote about filming Return of The Jedi, but then he talks about his experience on set of The Last Jedi and how he felt about being killed off unceremoniously. Spoiler: he was very disappointed. Watch the interview clip and then click through for a discussion!

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Now this comes quite unexpected. Buzzfeed reports that Laeta Kalogridis is writing a script for the first movie of a potential KOTOR trilogy! Kalogridis wrote, among other things, Alita Battle Angel, Shutter Island, the TV shows Altered Carbon and Birds of Prey and also Terminator Genysis. So she has a lot of experience writing science fiction, and except for Terminator Geneysis most of the movies and shows she wrote are quite well liked.
But what is of interest here is that this KOTOR trilogy, according to Buzzfeed, is NOT the Benioff & Weiss project, which would be odd anyway, since they would certainly write their own scripts. It may as well be that Lucasfilm is just looking at options here. Writing a script doesn’t necessarily mean that if will be turned into a movie. But it’s certainly exciting that Lucasfilm is actively developing something for KOTOR, something Kathleen Kennedy only hinted at while being interviewed at SWCC. This also means, that whatever Benioff & Weiss will do won’t be a KOTOR project, but something else.
Incidentally, Laeta Kalogridis would only be the second woman after Leigh Brackett to write a Star Wars movie (Brackett co-wrote The Empire Strikes Back with Lawrence Kasdan, she passed away in 1978, however). So what do you think? Would you love to get a KOTOR trilogy? The question is, when it would be released.

Laeta Kalogridis

Early this morning, starwars.com reviewed some of the photos from Vanity Fair’s new article. Included are several wonderful behind the scenes photos from the production of the new film. I am loving Keri Russell and Richard E. Grant’s costumes. The lack of R2 and familiar aliens is rather conspicuous, though. Click through for more photos and let us know what your thoughts are in the comments!

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Avengers Endgame broke all box office records when it was released. However, 24 days into the release of the movie it becomes obvious that Endgame will not be able to beat the domestic box office results of The Force Awakens. The Force Awakens had very, very strong legs, especially for a modern day blockbuster movie, and Avengers Endgame just can’t keep up. So The Force Awakens will remain the number 1 movie on the domestic alltime box office charts in the USA (unadjusted for inflation). But the story doesn’t end here. Click through for some more thoughts and numbers (and bar charts) about Star Wars at the box office.

Bend Your Knee!

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BREAKING NEWS: David Benioff and D.B. Weiss’ “Star Wars” movie has been confirmed by Walt Disney Company chairman Bob Iger as the franchise’s next entry following the theatrical release of “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker” later this year. (i.e. NOT Rian Johnson) Yahoo! News has the full story.

Chris Avellone, one of the writers for the upcoming EA Star Wars Game Jedi: Fallen Order and former lead writer for KOTOR II, talked about returning to the Star Wars franchise after a long time and also shared his opinion on The Last Jedi in an interview with website VGC. Click through for the full story!

The face you make when your hero doesn’t meet expectations

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Ever since the new Star Wars movie release schedule was announced by Disney fans have been wondering whose movies we’re going to get: Rian Johnson’s or Benioff & Weiss’. ABC correspondent Clayton Sandell asked Lucasfilm just about that. And this is what he posted on Twitter:

We asked, but Lucasfilm is not yet saying if the new #StarWars films planned for 2022, 2024 and 2026 are part of the previously-announced Rian Johnson trilogy or the series from “Game of Thrones” producers David Benioff and D.B. Weiss.

In my opinion this can only mean one thing: Lucasfilm hasn’t decided yet. If everything was already set in motion they could have announced at least which name is attached to the movies. That they didn’t doesn’t necessarily mean that plans are going to change. But I wouldn’t be completely surprised that when we get the announcement neither Johnson nor Benioff & Weiss will make the movies. I suppose Celebration Anaheim in 2020 is the earliest we will learn more. Maybe there’s still hope we’ll get movies by Favreau and Filoni instead.

BREAKING NEWS! New Star Wars trilogy/three new films coming 2022! What could this mean? io9 has the full story!

It is with sadness I share a report from our friends at Fantha Tracks, that the wonderful Peter Mayhew who, as we know, portrayed Chewbacca in A New Hope, has passed away today. Follow this link for an official statement from The Kurtz Joiner Archive…

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As all of you are aware, Avengers Endgame is opening this weekend. And the movie already had a record breaking $156 million Friday in North America. And while it’s not really that important, I do wonder if Endgame might actually beat The Force Awakens and become the new number 1 movie in the all time domestic box office charts (unadjusted for inflation). Infinity Way also had a better opening weekend than The Force Awakens but eventually ended up making only about 2/3 of The Force Awakens’ box office. So, what do you think? Will Endgame beat The Force Awakens? And… do you think The Rise of Skywalker has any chance at all to beat Endgame and become the number 1 box office hit of 2019? It will be difficult to top Endgame’s opening weekend, that much is certain!

SNAP!