What’s been happening in general Star Wars-related news this week? Oscar Isaac hints at Yavin as Poe Dameron’s birthplace (The Big Story AP) Star Wars Rebels is nominated for a Critics Choice Television Award in the ‘Best Animated Category’ (Jedi News) … Continue reading News Round-up
The Atlantic yesterday reported on what George Lucas treatment was for The Force Awakens. Although we can’t find the section of the Vanity Fair article Spencer Kornhaber is apparently reporting on, he quotes VF and Abrams as follows: ‘[Abrams] said Lucas’s treatment had centered on very … Continue reading Corridor Chat: George Lucas’ EpVII Treatment Was to Focus on Young People
There has been a lot of chat that the second Anthology film, currently set to be released in 2018, will be an origin story for one of the most famous Star Wars characters: Boba Fett. The Wrap and other online sources … Continue reading Corridor Chat: Anthology #2 to be about Boba Fett
The Starwars Saga tributes Yes you have read it correctly! After a first post in the Tribute Videos Series about The Clone Wars I now want to look to the Saga as a whole. The Starwars Saga started off with the … Continue reading Awesome Tribute Videos #2: The Saga
The brilliant Vanity Fair article this week has given us a lot of scoops. Not only do we have names for two more characters, we also got some great interviews and behind-the-scenes photos. VF also sat down with J.J. Abrams, director of upcoming The Force Awakens, for an interview and unfortunately he once again catered to the so-called ‘prequel haters’ by discussing Jar Jar Binks. Talking to VF editor Bruce Handy, Abrams said:
“I have a thought about putting Jar Jar Binks’s bones in the desert [of Jakku]. I’m serious! Only three people will notice, but they’ll love it.”
Now, I’m all for jokes. I love jokes. However, Jar Jar Binks is a very controversial figure within the Star Wars-fandom. Many fans of the Original Trilogy use him as their favourite stick to bash the Prequel Trilogy with, arguing he is a ridiculous figure, disgraceful and not worthy of being in a Star Wars-film. It has come to the point where saying that you like Jar Jar, like I do, means you have to face a barrage of disagreement, if not abuse. The fact that the same things were originally held against the Ewoks in the OT is conveniently forgotten. Everyone is allowed their own opinion and you don’t have to like everything about Star Wars. Whether you like both the OT and PT or just one of them, you have a right to liking or disliking things. However, as I have previously argued, the disproportionate hate against the PT has led to many of its good points and layers of depth to go completely unnoticed. There is more to the figure of Jar Jar than most people acknowledge and I will be going into it below.
Scene It? is a feature we’re hoping to do frequently, if maybe not each week. As the title may suggest, we’ll be looking at different scenes within the Star Wars-canon and analyse how they can be interpreted.
Today I want to look at a scene that I believe is crucial to the development of Anakin Skywalker and sets him on the path to the Dark Side. This is the scene between Anakin and his mother, followed by the slaughter of the Sandpeople and Anakin dealing with the consequences of his actions. In the second prequel film The Attack of the Clones (2002) Anakin Skywalker goes through an enormous amount of development. The last time we see him he was a child, who had left home behind and was about to start training as a Jedi-padawan. In TAoC, Anakin has grown into a young man who is struggling with being mature at all times. He is torn between following his emotions and his high expectations of himself.
The scenes on Tatooine are truly tragic and, for the first time, we see Anakin take a conscious step towards the Dark Side. Shortly after finding his mother, she dies in his arms before being able to say she loves him. George Lucas and Hayden Christensen show us an Anakin who is already conflicted between what he knows is right and what he feels. I want to spend some time analysing what happens in this moment to show how delicate the film is in showing us Anakin’s development. The two scenes in the video above are the ones I will be looking at.
May the Fourth is always a special day to be a Star Wars fan because it’s the day on which you can be as open and ridiculous about your Star Wars obsession as you want to be. In the case of Vanity Fair, this has regularly meant a cover and a spread dedicated to the Star Wars film coming out. Lucky us, they repeated the tradition this year with some great behind-the-scenes pictures from the The Force Awakens set. Alongside this, there were some name and character reveals, which were all really exciting. All the pictures below belong to Vanity Fair.
The Cover
As far as covers go, I’d say this is a pretty great one. The tag lines ‘The New Heroes! The Old Heroes! The High Stakes’ definitely fits with the five characters chosen here. Although the cover doesn’t show us anything that we haven’t seen before, focusing in on Finn, Rey, BB-8, Han Solo and Chewbacca makes me think that the emotional arc of SW:TFA might potentially be about them. Clearly these are the characters which Abrams wants the audience to focus on most, at least for now. Vanity Fair always seems to have chosen covers with an “emotional” impact, rather than showcasing the villains etc, if one thinks back to the 2002 Anakin/Padme and the 2005 “whole family” covers.
Kylo Ren/Adam Driver
It should come as no surprise to have it confirmed that Adam Driver is indeed playing Kylo Ren, yet I think it’s interesting to see that Kylo is a human. The mask had led me to think that potentially we were dealing with a character that either wanted to remain disguised or was potentially disfigured the way that Darth Vader was. I personally don’t think this is the best of pictures since Driver looks slightly edited in, but I am still a major fan of the costume. It’s different from the Sith costumes we’ve seen before while clearly following in their tradition.
Maz Katana/ Lupita N
yong’o
Now for the character reveal that I am most excited about. There were some rumours that the hand initially holding Anakin’s lightsaber in the new teaser trailer was Nyong’o, but this picture makes it clear that her character is CGI. Best about this reveal for me is the fact that she plays a pirate. If I look at the pirate figure best known to me within Star Wars-canon, that would be Hondo Ohnaka from The Clone Wars series. He is a hilarious character who hides a good heart under a ton of swagger. Personally I think we will probably meet Maz on Jakku within the first part of the film, but any conjecture is still very much valid here. Also known is that she has a castle, which is filled with the riffraff below.
Who could they be?
I’m thinking that, as a pirate with a castle of her own, it wouldn’t be unlikely that Maz Katana has a similar crew the way that Jabba the Hutt, or even Hondo, did. All these creatures look like they would have fitted perfectly into Jabba’s palace. I like the different designs going on here and the throwback that they represent. Clearly there is a continuation here from The Return of the Jedi but I think we can be pretty sure there will be some CGI characters added to the mix.
Poe Dameron/ Oscar Isaac
Clone Corridor 
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