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Post by redsfanman on Mar 12, 2015 22:12:23 GMT -5
I liked the Star Wars Rebels that I've seen, and I look forward to seeing the rest on Netflix at some point.
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Post by redsfanman on Mar 18, 2015 8:18:46 GMT -5
www.ign.com/articles/2015/03/17/star-wars-aftermath-novel-will-reveal-what-happened-to-the-empire-after-return-of-the-jediStar Wars: Aftermath Novel Will Reveal What Happened to the Empire After Return of the Jedi By Jim Vejvoda, 17 Mar 2015 Lucas Books announced today that Star Wars: Aftermath -- one of the 20 tie-in books set to be released this fall in the lead-up to the December release of Star Wars: The Force Awakens -- will detail what happened after the Battle of Endor in Return of the Jedi. As its cover warns, "the war is not over." "Aftermath will be the first book in a trilogy that begins to bridge the Star Wars timeline between Return of the Jedi and The Force Awakens," said StarWars.com, adding that readers "will be introduced to a sweeping new cast of characters, along with a fan favorite from the films." The Del Rey publication will be written by Chuck Wendig (Blackbirds, Under the Empyrean Sky). Here's the official plot synopsis and book cover art: "The second Death Star has been destroyed. Rumors are flying that the Emperor and his enforcer, Darth Vader, are dead. A new government is forming to replace the Empire. But the galaxy is a big place, and the fallout of this cataclysm will affect different worlds in different ways. Does everyone accept the fall of Imperial rule? Has everyone even heard the life-altering news? What rushes in to fill the vacuum the Empire has left? And who will try to stop them?"
--------- Longer article here: www.starwars.com/news/what-happened-after-endor-find-out-in-star-wars-aftermath--------- Can a book promoting a movie series make the best sellers list? We'll see.
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Post by kinsm on Apr 19, 2015 19:05:27 GMT -5
'Star Wars: Rogue One' Centers on Death Star Heist
On the final day of the Star Wars Celebration Anaheim, one of the newest members of the Lucasfilm family —spin-off director Gareth Edwards — took the stage to talk about joining a galaxy far, far away.
Josh Trank, who was also slated to appear at the panel, was not able to attend. Moderator Pablo Hidalgo said he has been “under the weather.”
Edwards is set to direct stand-alone film Star Wars: Rogue One, starring Felicity Jones, which is slated for release in December 2016. He was able to share more details about the film, including a logline, concept art and a bit of a sizzle reel at Sunday’s event.
The helmer was joined by Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy and head of development Kiri Hart for the event, held at the Anaheim Convention Center.
Hidalgo revealed that the Star Wars: The Force Awakens trailer, which debuted on Thursday, was viewed 88 million times worldwide in the first 24 hours.
But the focus of the panel was the stand-alone films. “We really wanted freedom to do some films that could stand on their own, and tell new stories,” said Hart, who revealed that they’re calling them “anthology films.”
Edwards says he’ll start shooting this summer. But he did come with a sizzle reel, of sorts. It showed a jungle landscape, and then, hovering large in the sky, the Death Star.
“The Jedi Knights were the guardians of peace and justice in the Old Republic, before the dark times, before the Empire,” said the voiceover.
Hidalgo also revealed an official logline for the film: “A rogue band of resistance fighters unite for a daring mission to steal the Death Star plans.”
Edwards, who said that the film is set after Episode III and before Episode IV, added that his film won’t have clear-cut villains and heroes. It’s also very much a war film, he said. “It’s called Star WARS,” he joked, getting a laugh from the crowd.
“It’s about the fact that god’s not coming to save us, and we’re on our own,” said Edwards. “The absence of the Jedi is omnipresent in the film. It hangs over the whole movie.”
Edwards confirmed that the one castmember who has been announced, Jones, will play a Rebel in the film.
Star Wars Celebration, which runs April 16-19 at the Anaheim Convention Center, is a fan-centric event focused on all things Star Wars that began in 1999. Unlike most conventions, this one has traveled not only around the U.S. but around the planet. Six were held in the U.S., one in Japan and two in Europe. The last one occurred in 2013 in Essen, Germany, attracting more than 20,000 attendees.
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Post by redsfanman on Apr 20, 2015 8:11:30 GMT -5
Another interesting thing learned at the convention and that the Empire and Rebel Alliance are gone. Instead of being replaced by the Imperial remnant and New Republic, like in the previous books, the new factions are the First Order and the Resistance. I guess even empires have to go through some rebranding when the emperor is killed.
The First Order has an intimidating feel to the name. Doesn't make me think of nice people.
They also officially introduced or presented or whatever the new Star Wars Battlefront videogame. I liked the old Star Wars Battlefront games from 2004 and 2005 - basically a first person shooter as Star Wars characters - and the series drastically needed an update. The trailer of the new game's graphics looked awesome, but who knows if it's actually fun to play like the predecessors. The game releases in November, then a couple of weeks before the late December movie release they'll add a free level of DLC, the Battle of Jakku. In other words the desert planet seen in the trailers, with the crashed Star Destroyer and upside down Super Star Destroyer. Presumably you'll be able to somehow participate in the battle, shortly after Star Wars VI, that turned that landscape into a ship graveyard. It's a neat and clever way to tie the game into the upcoming movie, in my opinion.
Also Star Wars: Aftermath, a ~300 page book that's supposed to cover the 30 year period between the Star Wars VI and VII, goes on sale on September 4th. Out of all the new books Disney is pushing that one seems the most relevant to the new series.
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Post by kinsm on Jun 22, 2015 13:19:30 GMT -5
Star Wars Rebels (animated series) has already been picked up for a 2nd season (just completed the 1st)...with twice as many episodes as the first. birthmoviesdeath.com/2015/06/21/star-wars-rebels-is-fixing-darth-vaderSTAR WARS REBELS Is Fixing Darth Vader The second season premiere brought back the real Dark Lord of the Sith. By DEVIN FARACI Jun. 21, 2015 Of all the many sins of the Star Wars Prequels the most mortal might be the way the trilogy recast Darth Vader as a petulant, whining brat whose first moments in his iconic suit involved him doing a hugely comedic “NOOOOO!” that became a major meme. Shedding light on the backstory of Anakin Skywalker cut Vader off at the knees, and the Special Editions of the Original Trilogy compounded matters by subbing in Hayden Christiansen over Sebastian Shaw as the ghost of Anakin Skywalker. It’s not just a shitty connection the Prequels, it’s a confusing choice - is Lucas saying that Anakin died that day on Mustafar and that everything since then wasn’t truly Anakin? Wasn’t the whole point of the movie that Luke believed his father was still somewhere inside all that metal and evil? By the time Vader showed up at the end of Revenge of the Sith a powerful part of his mystique was lost. The Dark Lord of the Sith just wasn’t quite the same after he had been exposed like that. I don’t know what was worse - that Anakin had been shown to be a total lame-ass, or that the characterization of Darth Vader bore no resemblance to Anakin. These were two different characters, smashed together by an abuse of canon, not by storytelling. Star Wars Rebels is here to fix all that. The show, which aired its season two opener this weekend, has already proven itself to be the absolute best Star Wars thing since Return of the Jedi, but with the introduction of Vader into the proceedings it is getting absolutely next level. Set about five years before the events of A New Hope, Rebels has Vader at his peak bad guy level, and it isn’t afraid to show that - and it’s more than happy to get the taste of Anakin Skywalker out of your mouth. In the season two premiere, The Siege of Lothal, Vader first appears in bureacratic mode, ie not the most inspiring or frightening version of the character. But once he confronts the two Jedi heroes, Kanan and Ezra, all bets are off. As the titular rebels attempt to steal an Imperial shuttlecraft Vader appears at the entrance to the dock, shot from a distance and framed in a deep black doorway. He ignites his red saber as a squadron of Stormtroopers run up behind him and any viewer with a connection to the OT must feel a shiver run down their spine. This image is classic Vader, an image that almost instantly wipes away the softening of Anakin. The battle that ensues is, without hyperbole, one of the best duels in the history of the franchise. Ezra and Kanan are laughably overpowered by Vader, who fights with one hand and casually tosses them around. Rather than even bother killing Ezra, Vader forces the young Padawan to bring his own lightsaber to his own neck using Force powers, a moment so ruthless and dripping with danger I couldn’t believe it was part of a TV show on Disney XD. Of course Ezra isn’t killed - he’s saved in the nick of time! - but the casual cruelty of Vader’s attempted murder method is extraordinary. The heroes can’t hope to defeat Vader, and they only manage to get away from him when their allies blow out the knees of a couple of Imperial Walkers; the duo Force push Vader into the path of the crashing, exploding metal… but that’s not enough to kill him. In a moment as iconic as any from the Original Trilogy Vader stands and pushes the twisted mass of metal over his head, framed in a red glow of fire. This is Vader the intergalactic badass. This isn’t the podracer or the murderer of babies, it’s a truly great villain who is at the top of his game and who presents a tremendous and unbeatable opponent for our heroes. In the original Star Wars Darth Vader was scary - Rebels makes Vader scary again. He has the relentless quality of a slasher movie villain, and the show’s version of his helmet, more like the original Ralph McQuarrie concept art, gives him an even more sinister look, if you can believe it. At the same time Rebels is a Lucasfilm production, so it’s not going to throw the Prequels totally under the bus. What this season premiere did was connect the Vader of the first Star Wars with the Anakin of The Phantom Menace by having him show up in his TIE Interceptor - alone! - and beat the hell out of the fledgling Rebel fleet. The Prequels picked up on a throwaway Obi Wan Kenobi line about Anakin being a great pilot and focused on that in a big way, but Vader only was a pilot in one of the Original Trilogy films, and even there he didn’t seem particularly extraordinary. Watching Vader do barrel rolls and fly his TIE with supernatural precision in Rebels I finally saw the great pilot we had been told about - not the guy flying in a straight line in Star Wars, and not the kid who was operating on the universe’s greatest bout of luck in The Phantom Menace. By coming in alone Vader shows his confidence (veering towards cockiness) and then he backs that up by really blowing Fecal Matter up. Darth Vader has always been a weird villain because Lucasfilm always merched him heavily, and he was always strangely beloved. Vader’s turn at the end of Jedi can be seen as less ordained by story forces and more ordained by the number of kids hanging Vader posters up in their bedrooms, like he had to be redeemed for the fanbase. Even still, Vader was a frightening bad guy in the first two films (and in parts of the third), and Rebels gets back to that iteration of the character. Having James Earl Jones voice him only adds to the weight of this version - he feels much more canon than any novel or comic book can, since it’s Vader’s actual voice coming out of your TV. This weekend on Rebels Darth Vader felt actually threatening for the first time since 1983 - an astonishing feat. I don’t know how involved the character will be in this season of the show, but just a few more appearances should be enough to totally clear the loser slaveboy and the sand-hating teenager out of our memories and re-cement the brutal, ruthless and plain old mean Dark Lord of the Sith as the pre-eminent villain of our time.
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Post by dukecrunchybagel on Jun 22, 2015 16:25:33 GMT -5
Isn't the working title of the next film Star Wars VII -- Return of the Lens Flare
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Post by redsfanman on Jun 23, 2015 10:30:21 GMT -5
Isn't the working title of the next film Star Wars VII -- Return of the Lens Flare I heard it was Star Wars VII - MONEY MONEY MONEY.
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Post by redsfanman on Jun 23, 2015 10:35:48 GMT -5
The Season 2 premier of Star Wars Rebels was, indeed, very good, much like the first season.
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Star Wars
Jun 23, 2015 21:28:54 GMT -5
via mobile
Post by Lark11 on Jun 23, 2015 21:28:54 GMT -5
The Season 2 premier of Star Wars Rebels was, indeed, very good, much like the first season. When and where is that on?
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Star Wars
Jun 23, 2015 23:28:56 GMT -5
via mobile
Post by kinsm on Jun 23, 2015 23:28:56 GMT -5
The Season 2 premier of Star Wars Rebels was, indeed, very good, much like the first season. When and where is that on? It's on Disney xd, Monday nights I believe. The clone wars series is available on Netflix streaming.
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Star Wars
Jun 24, 2015 0:21:29 GMT -5
via mobile
Post by Lark11 on Jun 24, 2015 0:21:29 GMT -5
When and where is that on? It's on Disney xd, Monday nights I believe. The clone wars series is available on Netflix streaming. Are the two shows related or do they stand alone?
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Post by kinsm on Jun 24, 2015 7:38:18 GMT -5
It's on Disney xd, Monday nights I believe. The clone wars series is available on Netflix streaming. Are the two shows related or do they stand alone? Clone Wars covers the 3 years between the prequel films Attack of the Clones (EP II) and Revenge of the Sith (EP III). Rebels is set fourteen years after Revenge of the Sith (EP III) and five years before A New Hope (EP IV).
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Post by kinsm on Jun 24, 2015 7:46:54 GMT -5
Rebels airs on Mondays at 9 pm EST on Disney XD.
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Post by redsfanman on Jun 24, 2015 9:22:36 GMT -5
Yep, Star Wars Rebels is on DisneyXD. They broadcasted the 1 hour season 2 premier on Saturday June 20 (which I saw) before the weekly broadcasts resume in the fall. Sorta a weird decision - starting the season in the summer and postponing the rest of the episode into the fall - but I guess they wanted to remind people to try to watch season 1 while they still have plenty of time.
As far as whether Clone Wars and Rebels are related or stand alone... they are lightly related but definitely stand alone. Most of the Clone Wars characters die or go into the hiding in Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith, and all of the relevant background comes from watching the movies.
I've seen the Clone Wars pilot movie and the first couple of episodes (so like 2 or 3 episodes out of 121 over 6 seasons). Star Wars Rebels is a whole different set of main characters. There's some tie-in, in that a character from Clone Wars appears later in the first season of Rebels, but you definitely don't lose anything by not knowing who the character is. But it's more a shout-out to loyal fans of Clone Wars than a key plot point.
Star Wars Rebels is about a rogue cowboy Jedi guy (Kanan) who's ashamed of what he is, for some reason, after surviving Order 66. And a 15 year old Aladdin-esq kid (Ezra) who he starts training as a Jedi. And a pilot lady. And an explosive expert lady. And an alien named Zeb, whose appearance is based on early sketches for Wookies, before they became walking carpets - he mostly beats people up. As they steal from, sabotage, and resist the empire they're pursued by various Imperial agents. Being on DisneyXD it's obviously a kids show, but it's good for all ages.
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Post by Lark11 on Jun 24, 2015 9:24:43 GMT -5
Thanks to you both!
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