Category Archives: Episode VII

Star Wars: The Force Awakens trailer – Fan Art Strikes Back

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Via Thegaurdian.com:

The Star Wars: The Force Awakens trailer wasn’t just a gift to the semi-dormant legion of Star Wars fans forced into hiding since The Phantom Menace came along. It’s also been tremendous boon to practitioners of internet fan art, arriving just as they began to tire of pictures where Harry Styles and Benedict Cumberbatch and Loki kiss each other on a cloud.

The Star Wars trailer has inspired creativity like little else before it. We’ve had analysis and liveblogs – and even a spoof trailer of George Lucas’s Episode VII, rendered unwatchable by millions of clunky CGI inserts.

But mainly we’ve just had fan art. This is why I’ve scoured Tumblr, Twitter and DeviantArt to bring you a definitive ranking of the key pieces, from best to worst:

1) This, of course, is just about the only sensible way to produce a poster based on a short and deliberately obtuse teaser trailer – just take the most iconic moment (in the case the new, ridiculously impractical-looking crucifix lightsaber), view it from a different angle and make it look really cool. Job done.

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Celebs Geek Out Over New ‘Star Wars’ Trailer

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Via Cnet.com:

When the teaser trailer for “Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens” debuted on November 28, it “surpassed 40 million YouTube views in less than 72 hours online,” according to The Hollywood Reporter.

In addition to the millions of eager fans who watched the 88-second trailer, quite a few celebrities voiced their excited opinions online. Actors, directors, pro-wrestlers, rock stars and authors alike all tweeted their thoughts about the new “Star Wars” footage.

“As a Kenner-buying, Bantha Tracks-reading Star Wars fan from way back,” indie filmmaker Kevin Smith tweeted that he had plenty to say about the new trailer. Smith told a story about seeing the trailer for “The Empire Strikes Back” with his parents when he was a kid. “It was a real time machine back to my youth,” Smith stated in a video. “Take my money J.J.!”

Director James Gunn tweeted, “Because everyone keeps asking me my opinion, I LOVED the Star Wars trailer. It infused me with a giddy-little-kidness.”

“That ‘Star Wars’ trailer gave me the tingles,” filmmaker Edgar Wright tweeted. “So thrilled to see John Boyega in there.”

“Star Wars! Language and emojis fail to express what’s in my heart at this moment,” actress Anna Kendrick tweeted.

After seeing the trailer, “Hannibal” creator Bryan Fuller tweeted, “How am I supposed to get any writing done today?”

“That Star Wars trailer is pretty killer,” actor Colin Hanks tweeted.

“The Star Wars trailer is awesome, right?!” actor Simon Pegg wrote in his blog.

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‘Star Wars’ Trailer Blasts Past 40M Views in 72 Hours

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Via Thehollywoodreporter.com:

The Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens teaser trailer — 88 seconds of geeky goodness — has surpassed 40 million YouTube views in less than 72 hours online, according to a preliminary estimate by The Hollywood Reporter.
For comparison, the Fifty Shades of Grey trailer did 36.4 million YouTube views in its first four days when the trailer dropped in late July.
Avengers: Age of Ultron racked up 50.6 million in its first five days, giving it the biggest debut week of any coming attraction in 2014.
THR and technology firm Zefr use a Monday-to-Monday week to calculate trailer views through proprietary monitoring of YouTube. Comprehensive Zefr numbers will be available Monday (Dec. 1).
The Star Wars trailer has been met by positive reviews, parodies (what would Lucas do?), a Lego version and comparisons with the Jurassic World trailer that dropped a few days ahead of The Force Awakens.

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‘The Force Awakens’ in Lego

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Via Cnet.com:

When Disney and Lucasfilm gave us a quick sneak peek at what’s to come in the new “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” teaser trailer yesterday, fans everywhere showed their excitement online, dissected the trailer image by image and a few even debated the new lightsaber design.

With all the fan hullabaloo over the cast appearances, new lightsaber and the ball-rolling astromech, it’s comforting to know that you can rewatch the entire teaser trailer lovingly remade in Lego.

Everything from appearances of “Star Wars” newcomers John Boyega, Daisy Ridley and Oscar Isaac to the iconic Millennium Falcon’s exciting flyby is recreated brick by brick in Lego form. Even the cameo of the new lightsaber design gets its own Lego likeness.

Lego tributes to “Star Wars” have always been popular online, so when the first official photo of some of the main cast of the new “Star Wars” film was released in April, it was quickly re-created in Lego.

In “‪Lego Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens Teaser Trailer‬” by Youtube user Snooperking, we see cast members, including the Stormtroopers, in minifigure form, plus Lego builds of X-wings and the Millennium Falcon.

“I had nothing to do yesterday so I started once the trailer came out so I built the Falcon, the X-wing, the speeder bike, a mini TIE fighter, tried to build all the sets, and get all my minifigures put together,” Snooperking stated on his Youtube page. “Then just filming took forever, especially the special effects.”

To make the special effects in the video, Snooperking attempted using a makeshift green screen but decided in the end to use a thread to move the TIE fighter around the Falcon.

The New ‘Star Wars’ Trailer Was The Perfect First Look At ‘The Force Awakens’

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Via Forbes.com:

There’s been a lot of chatter about the new Star Wars: The Force Awakens trailer which LucasFilm and Disney unleashed upon the world this Thanksgiving weekend.

Some people thought the 88-second trailer was too short, didn’t reveal enough, and didn’t awaken the hype quite the way they’d hoped.

Others, like myself, thought quite the opposite. For my part, as an avid and long-time Star Wars fan, the trailer was a perfect opening salvo. It did everything it needed to do in less than two minutes.

Here are five reasons why it was the perfect opener for the new trilogy, and the right way to introduce fans to Episode VII, The Force Awakens.

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Mark Hamill Talking About Episode VII Plans In 1983

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Via mirror.co.uk:

It seems the Force was strong with George Lucas, who asked him to reprise his role three decades before the new film was announced

Star Wars fans were amazed when it was revealed the space saga would return for a third series in 2015 – but it seems it wasn’t a surprise to everyone.

In this amazing clip from 1983, Mark Hamill – who played Luke Skywalker in the original trilogy and will reprise the role in The Force Awakens next year – revealed George Lucas had already asked him if he’d consider returning to the franchise.

While that’s strange enough, it gets weirder when the actor, now 63, said that the filmmaker’s predicted time line for him taking on the part again was 2011 – only four years before the new movie will hit the big screen.

Details for the story are still being kept under wraps – although the first trailer is set to debut in the US on Friday – but it seems 30 years ago there were plans for Luke to take over Obi-Wan Kenobi’s guardian role.

He said: “I’m so loyal to George and I owe him so much. He, at one time, said ‘Would you consider playing an Obi-Wan-type character handing Excalibur down to the next generation?’

“I said, ‘When would that be?’ And at the time he said, ‘Oh, around 2011.’ I thought, gee, as much as I’d like to have a job lined up at the turn of the century I was figuring out how old I’d be at that point and I thought…well, I don’t know.”

Click here to see the video interview.
2014-11-29 20_33_11-Star Wars The Force Awakens_ Watch Mark Hamill talking about Episode VII plans i
 

RETURN OF THE STAR WARS RUMORS

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Via Starwars.com:

In the winter of 1979-1980 I was 10 years old and living in suburban Long Island, where I filled my time being depressed about the New York Mets and eagerly awaiting the next Star Wars movie.

(How is my life different 35 years later? Not at all, it turns out.)

Back then, the movie on deck was The Empire Strikes Back — the cultural earthquake that would change Star Wars from a story into a saga, from a thrilling Flash Gordon homage to a family saga with mythological overtones. But my friends and I didn’t know any of that. All we had were rumors that had filtered down to us, supplemented by our own wild imaginings and a tiny amount of actual information.

Back then the Internet barely existed; the Star Wars-mad children of Long Island got their information from reading Starlog and Famous Monsters in the drug store until the guy behind the counter yelled that he wasn’t running a lending library, at which point you’d ask your mom to buy the magazine and she’d say no. So a lot of the intelligence we received was from classmates who’d snuck a peek at a magazine…or claimed they had. More on that in a minute.

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2014-11-14 15_57_03-Return of the Star Wars Rumors _ StarWars.com

 

Who Thought Of The Force Awakens?

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Via Cinemablend.com:

It’s safe to say that Star Wars: The Force Awakens hasn’t been the most popular film title to ever be unveiled. In fact, the response to its announcement was rather tepid. While it hasn’t been roundly chastised, it hasn’t exactly been celebrated either. But who came up with it? Disney CEO Bob Iger has the answer.

Bob Iger made the announcement during an interview with Bloomberg TV [via Star Wars 7 News]. The studio-head revealed that it was actually director J.J. Abrams and producer Kathleen Kennedy who came up with the title. Bob Iger was asked flat-out how the newly released title for Star Wars Episode VII was devised, and while he didn’t go in to many details surrounding its inception, he did explain that Abrams and Kennedy were the brains behind the operation. Said Iger, “It was a decision that was made by a few people involved in the process, Kathleen Kennedy who runs Lucas Film for us, and J.J. Abrams who is directing The Force Awakens … I was gonna say Star Wars VII but now there’s a new name. We are involved in the decision. We feel great about the film. We can’t wait until it comes out.”

I bet they can’t wait for it to come out. Star Wars: The Force Awakens promises to be one of the highest grossing movies of 201,5 and it will almost certainly once again line the pockets of all of the folks at Disney and Lucasfilm . I know I’m going out on a limb by saying that Star Wars: The Force Awakens might make a few bucks, but trust me – I think it might.

Meanwhile, any criticism over the name for Star Wars 7 is rather silly. In the end, a title can’t make or break a film. Yes in some instances it can help to sell an unknown release to a wider audience – I’m looking at you Snakes On A Plane and The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford – but if a film is either sensational or diabolical the blame can’t be put on its title. That’s just preposterous. As I noted in my pre-amble, though, the reaction to the unveiling of The Force Awakens was, as my good friend Bill Shakespeare used to say, much ado about nothing. Which is probably because there’s not much else you can say about it. Yes, it’s a tad hokey and on the nose in reference to the rebirth of the franchise, but it also warns us about the impending change and conflict that is expected to permeate throughout the rejuvenated saga. Other than that; it is what it is.

7 Funny Twitter Reactions To New Title The Force Awakens

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Via mirror.co.uk:

Disney made it official – the eagerly awaited new Star Wars film will be called Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

And naturally, just like anything to do with the secretive seventh film, the title has prompted fervent reaction from fans of the long-running sci-fi franchise.

But whether you love the title or hate it, you can always rely on Twitter to reduce you to a fit of giggles with its creative reaction to the new name.

We’ve rounded up seven of our favourite responses to the new title:

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Did ‘Rebels’ Just Set Up An ‘Episode VII’ Character?

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Via Mtv.com:

You know that thing that movies and TV shows sometimes do when they signal to the audience that they should remember a character’s name? It always sounds a little awkward, something like “Everyone remembers you, Monsieur Blah Blah.” Or “I’m Blah Blah. Monsieur Blah Blah, but you can call me Dave.”

Well, the new episode of “Star Wars Rebels” did that in a big obvious way with one of the Stormtrooper recruits that Ezra met while undercover.

So who is this guy?

At the very, very least, I think it’s safe to say that we will be seeing more of Leonis over the course of “Star Wars Rebels.” A friend inside the Stormtrooper academy is going to be indispensable to a team looking to foil all of the Empire’s plans.

So in that case, the possibilities for Leonis going forward are pretty much endless, and it will be exciting going forward to see what kind of trouble he gets up to while embedded in the academy.

But as with all things “Star Wars,” there’s already a fan theory growing in popularity since Leonis made his big debut.

Possible “Episode VII” Spoilers Below

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10 Lessons Episode VII Can Learn From The Prequels

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Via Whatculture.com:

The 1993 announcement that George Lucas was developing the long-awaited prequel Star Wars trilogy created a frenzy among Star Wars fans. The story of Darth Vader’s rise to power was the subject of much speculation, as was the anticipated dual between Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi. The prequels would not only answer many questions for fans, but would introduce a new generation of moviegoers to Star Wars.

Only it didn’t quite happen that way. Not as far as the fans were concerned.

When the first of the prequels was released in 1999, audiences turned out in droves. But it didn’t take long for the fan base to start taking shots at it. The movie received mixed reviews and is to this day the lowest rated film in the series. The perceived sins committed by Lucas in Episode I were carried over across both its sequels. Since that time, the much-maligned Star Wars prequel trilogy has been the subject of much rancor and debate.

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