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Star Wars Bits: Force Awakens Editing, Disneyland Update, Celebration, Card Trader App

Star Wars Card Trader 2
By Germain Lussier/

Hot off the big ticket Star Wars news Thursday, we've got some Bits for you as well.

  • Bob Iger confirms Disneyland is expanding, but not with a third park.
  • J.J. Abrams' part in Star Wars Episode VIII is an afterthought.
  • Get some insights into the editing of Star Wars: The Force Awakens.
  • Kathleen Kennedy and J.J. Abrams will have "Force Awakens special guests" Thursday at Star Wars Celebration.
  • Topps and Lucasfilm team up on Star Wars: Card Trader.
  • Who named Star Wars: Rogue One?

    • Among the big Star Wars movies news revealed by Bob Iger Thursday there was a bit of news about the theme parks too. The Disney CEO said that while there are plans to expand Disneyland they have not yet been made public, those do not include a third theme park. Which basically means, if it is a Star Wars expansion as almost everyone thinks it is, it will be part of one of the two parks currently in Anaheim.

    A few weeks back, J.J. Abrams announced that he'd be an executive producer on Star Wars Episode VIII and IX. That's a role that's either very important, or title-based only. A misprint on the official Star Wars website suggests Abrams' involvement will be the latter. On the initial press release about Episode VIII, Abrams was not included at all. Later, he was added in the final line. Devin Faraci from Badass Digest picked this up.

    Making Star Wars has a post on the editing of Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Basically, the film's editors gave a seminar on the editing process and used their current project to talk about it. It's a long post with a ton of interesting information, we're just pulling our favorites. Head there to read more:

  • He shoots a TON of footage. I think one of the assistant editors said its close to 16+ hours of footage a day.
  • J.J. is somewhat hands-off during editing. He lets the editors go through footage and pick what they think is better.
  • J.J. also when editing likes to have sound as close as final as possible (temp music, etc)
  • They were shooting with 4 cameras with two separate units at the height of production.
  • Right now, they are in the heavy visual effects part of editing, which means they are receiving finished shots, or close to finished shots and sending them back to ILM for screenings, which occur 3 or 4 times a week.
  • The editors are the keepers of ALL of the footage. So marketing-wise, they have to go through editorial to get what they want. The only place that has the full movie, shot-for-shot, is at Bad Robot in LA. All footage that is released to other editors for trailers and TV spots are watermarked and prepped in a certain way so it won't be leaked.
  • The editors basically split the movie in half. So one day, one editor might focus on dialogue and drama scenes, the other action and much longer "big" sequences. They trade off every day.

    • Again, those are just a few of the coolest bits. Head there to read more.

    Star Wars Celebration is coming soon and a few new guests have been added. The most intriguing are "Force Awakens special guests" at the Thursday morning event with J.J. Abrams and Kathleen Kennedy. Also, Billy Dee Williams will be on hand among others. Read more here.

    A new Star Wars app has hit the iOS App Store. It's called Star Wars: Card Trader and is a digital way to collect Star Wars cards. This is an image below but Gizmodo has a good write up on the details.

    Star Wars Card Trader

    Though Star Wars: Rogue One was from an idea from ILM employee John Knoll, it seems initial writer Gary Whitta came up with the name:

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