Now that Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker is out in theaters, fans have either walked away satisfied with the finale that director J.J. Abrams delivered, or disappointed that certain story elements didn’t play out the way they’d hoped. In the latter category, we have fans who never got to see any kind of romance blossom between Resistance pilot Poe Dameron and the defected Stormtrooper he helped to escape the First Order, which he decided to call Finn. But that’s not for a lack of trying.
In a recent interview, Oscar Isaac revealed that he pushed for Poe Dameron and Finn to have a romantic arc, but apparently Disney wasn’t ready to make that a primary part of the new Star Wars trilogy, even if fans felt like there was a spark between them. Find out what he had to say about the Finn and Poe romance in Star Wars below. Read More »
(This article is part of our Best of the Decade series.)
A well-cut trailer is a thing of beauty. To be clear: trailers are pieces of advertising. But that doesn’t mean they can’t be art, too. A bad trailer either shows us too much, relies heavily on cliches, or fails to grab our interest. A great trailer, however, can make or break a film. Put together a compelling, interesting, and original trailer, and you’ve gone a long way towards drawing in your audience. Which is exactly what the best trailers of the decade did.
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In Star Wars: The Force Awakens, the lightsaber handed down to Luke Skywalker by Obi-Wan Kenobi from his former apprentice Anakin Skywalker makes a surprising appearance. But many fans were wondering just how it came to be in the hands of Maz Kanata when Rey stumbles upon it in the basement of her castle. Han Solo even asks the question for us, but the only answer we get from Maz is that it’s a good question “for another time.” Well, it seems like that time may have come.
A new Star Wars comic set shortly after the events of The Empire Strikes Back will explore what happened to Luke Skywalker’s lightsaber after Darth Vader famously cut off his right hand while it was still clutching the weapon in question. The hand and lightsaber fell down into the depths of Cloud City, never to be seen again. But this new comic will have Luke Skywalker returning to Cloud City with Princess Leia and Lando Calrissian in order to find it. Read More »
When the first trailer for Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker debuted during Star Wars Celebration this past spring, fans went absolutely nuts when the return of Emperor Palpatine was teased with his signature evil laugh. But many wondered exactly how the villain would be returning after being chucked down a reactor shaft by Darth Vader. And why was he suddenly returning after seemingly having no presence in the first two installments of the new trilogy? Well, those answers could be coming, because director J.J. Abrams says the Emperor returning in The Rise of Skywalker has been planned since The Force Awakens. Read More »
George Lucas giving up Star Wars in his sale of Lucasfilm to The Walt Disney Company in 2012 was undoubtedly a difficult thing for him to do. It probably got significantly harder when he learned that producer Kathleen Kennedy, director J.J. Abrams, and writer Michael Arndt would not be following the new trilogy storyline he charted out long before the sale took place. So no one was surprised to hear that George Lucas was disappointed in Star Wars: The Force Awakens, but director J.J. Abrams says he doesn’t take it personally. And despite not having the same story Lucas envisioned for the future of Star Wars, he still made an effort to “adhere to some fundamental aspects of the story” after meeting with Lucas before The Rise of Skywalker. Read More »
There’s a lot of pressure on J.J. Abrams to not only finish the final chapter of this new Star Wars trilogy but bring an end to the entire Skywalker saga that began all the way back in 1977. It’s a Herculean task for a fanbase that has proven to be rather divisive in recent years, especially since the franchise started to appeal to people other than grown men desperate to hang on to the nostalgia of their childhood. But rather than take The Rise of Skywalker back to the safe place where The Force Awakens began by not veering too far from the structure and style of the original trilogy, J.J. Abrams said he felt “freer” and more “daring” on the new film, and that’s thanks to The Last Jedi director Rian Johnson. Read More »
After Star Wars creator George Lucas sold Lucasfilm to Disney in 2012, he stayed on as a “creative consultant” for the new movie trilogy but ended up being upset when the company chose not to use his ideas in Star Wars: The Force Awakens. He’s spoken about how his vision for the sequels differed from what was ultimately produced and how, along with having Luke Skywalker train a new Jedi in Episode VII, he wanted to shift the focus to the “microbiotic world” and explore creatures called the Whills before having Luke train Leia in Episode IX. But Disney clearly had a different plan in mind.
Disney CEO Bob Iger has published a new book about his time leading the company, and in it, he discusses how, even though Disney bought some of Lucas’s early ideas for the new trilogy, the creator of Star Wars was ultimately edged out of The Force Awakens.
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In early January of 2013, a few months after The Walt Disney Company had purchased Lucasfilm, a meeting was called to establish concept art for the film that would become Star Wars: The Force Awakens. This was long before a script was in place, and even a few weeks before J.J. Abrams was officially announced as the film’s director. One of the people present was Doug Chiang, a talented concept artist who now serves as Lucasfilm’s vice president and executive creative director, and you may have seen some of the concept art that was produced in the days after that early meeting.
Today, Chiang has shared a piece of concept art we’ve never seen before – one that involves a Death Star rising out of the sands of Jakku. Check it out below. Read More »
We may never learn what Bill Murray whispered in Scarlett Johansson’s ear in Lost in Translation, but we at least will know what Carrie Fisher whispered in Daisy Ridley‘s ear during their emotional hug scene in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. And considering the fact that this scene was filmed during the production of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, thus making it one of Fisher’s last scenes to be put to film, you might expect something profound or deep. Not at all, according to Ridley. But it was something pure Carrie.
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Cool Posts From Around the Web:
There are times when you look at visual effects in a movie and you just know that they don’t look good. However, it can be hard to specifically explain why certain visual effects don’t look good when you don’t know the many tools, terms and work that goes into creating them. That’s where Corridor Crew‘s recent series of videos comes into play.
In a series of videos, a group of VFX artists react to various shots with visual effects of varying quality. In their latest video, they laugh at the poorly created presidential plane from the ending of Air Force One, stare in awe of an incredibly composed mirror shot in Contact, laugh at a missing frame of visual effects in X-Men: Apocalypse, break down a Star Wars: The Force Awakens sequence, and explain plenty of details about all of these scenes and more. Check it out below. Read More »
