Cantina Talk: What Really Happened When BB-8 Met Rey
With Disney's D23 Expo less than a week away, fans are about to get all the Star Wars news they can handle. And considering most of the Lucasfilm updates recently have been about the directors of the Han Solo standalone movie getting replaced by Ron Howard, the (presumably) good tidings from D23 won't be coming a moment too soon. It's impossible to know what, exactly, will be revealed at the confab (a new movie title? some footage? a droid so cute people actually puke?), but it'll be big regardless. Until then, here's all the latest news and rumors from the galaxy far, far away.
Rey and BB-8 Launch a New (Animated) Star Wars Series
Source: Disney's YouTube channel, of all things
Probability of Accuracy: The Mouse House doesn't do anything by accident, so this is entirely accurate.
The Real Deal: In case you missed it during the Fourth of July holiday weekend, Daisy Ridley returned to Jakku and the origins of Rey in the first episode of the new Disney animated series Star Wars: Forces of Destiny with a new three-minute short expanding on the first meeting between her character and BB-8:
The clip is the first in a number of shorts focusing on the leading women of the franchise. In addition to the Rey clip, Disney also released a preview of the entire series that teases what's to come. Does it make the wait to see the heroines of Star Wars: The Last Jedi any more bearable? Um, not really! But even a little Rey is better than being left in the dark.
Is It Possible the Jedi Had It Wrong All Along?
Source: Kylo Ren himself
Probability of Accuracy: It's more of a tease than a statement, so we'll have to withhold any judgment on its accuracy until December.
The Real Deal: Is The Last Jedi going to upend what fans expect from the Star Wars mythology? That's the buzz after a recent interview in which Adam Driver (aka Kylo Ren) suggested things will be different after the next movie. Saying Rian Johnson's script for the movie was "remarkable," Driver told the Huffington Post the writer-director has "created new rules for the Star Wars universe and balanced the familiar and unfamiliar very adeptly while respecting that his audience can handle ambiguity." After the first trailer for Johnson's movie suggested that even Luke Skywalker might want an end to the Jedi Order, fans have been wondering if Johnson is going to put forth the notion that everything we know about the Force is wrong. That theory would at least help explain the movie's title, but would Lucasfilm really be in favor of such a notion? Everyone will find out Dec. 15.
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How Bad Did Things Get Before the Han Solo Break-Up? Pretty Bad, Actually
Source: Anonymous sources from the Han Solo set
Probability of Accuracy: Almost impossible to tell, to be honest.
The Real Deal: So what, exactly, was the fracas that lead to the directors of the Han Solo movie being ousted just a few weeks before the end of production? Well, according to a story in The Hollywood Reporter, Lucasfilm boss Kathleen Kennedy and the movie's screenwriter/executive producer Lawrence Kasdan were upset by the improvisational method of directors Christopher Miller and Phil Lord, complaining that they were shooting too slowly, not getting enough coverage for scenes, and not sticking closely enough to Kasdan's script. Miller and Lord, meanwhile, felt rushed and pressured by executives throughout the entire shoot. To make matters worse, Lucasfilm was also reportedly unhappy with the performance of leading man Alden Ehrenreich, eventually hiring an acting coach for him. And if all of that doesn't sound disheartening enough, then please consider this tidbit from an unnamed crew member: "An insider says much of what Lord and Miller shot will be 'very usable.'" Yeah. There are a lot of things that crew member could have said about Lord and Miller's footage that would've given fans some new hope, but "very usable" is not one of them.
Sorry, San Diego
Source: A Comic-Con International news site.
Probability of Accuracy: Likely spot-on.
The Real Deal: Bad news for anyone hoping for a Star Wars trailer reveal or official announcement from this year's Comic-Con International in San Diego: It turns out that Lucasfilm isn't going to have a panel for Star Wars at the massive show, with the SDCC Unofficial Blog getting a quote from the company that makes it clear: "Our presence at SDCC 2017 will be focused on our booth on the convention floor, so there will be no press events or interview opportunities this year." While this isn't a massive surprise considering the D23 Expo takes place in Anaheim a week earlier, it's still likely to be a disappointment for those Comic-Con attendees who hoped that some Star Wars news would come out of the convention. (Unless, of course, this is a fake-out, which isn't completely impossible.) Well, at least folks will be able to buy merch.
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