The first set footage from Star Wars: Skeleton Crew has managed to leak out, indicating that a speeder bike sequence of some kind will be in the show. Possible spoilers ahead.
Bespin Bulletin has managed to snag some footage from Skeleton Crew from a set built at California State University, Dominguez Hills, which appears to be a rehearsal for a stunt scene that will be filmed at a later point. The stunt in question involves a speeder bike speeding forward before unsuccessfully braking, with the poor driver careening off a cliff. Check out the footage below:…
While Andor may have just started its journey on Disney+, the streaming service will always be synonymous with The Mandalorian. The story of Din Djarin and Grogu has quickly become one of the most popular parts of the entire Star Wars franchise.
Fans have been patiently waiting for the show’s third season to arrive, which is now slated to land at some point in 2023. Though, if the trailer release at D23 is any indication, it’ll be well worth the wait.
The teaser showcases some insane spectacle, including Bo Katan on her new throne, a handful of new Mandalorians, the return of Greef Karga, and Mandalore itself.
While the world lays in wait for the next Mando adventure, the stars of the series have revealed they’re already looking ahead to the future—well, sort of….
Following last week’s global premiere of the first three episodes of Andor, Lucasfilm has revealed three new character posters from the series. They follow the same template than a batch released shortly before the series’ debut that featured Cassian, Mon Mothma, and Stellan Skarsgård’s Luthen Rael. The new batch features Bix Caleen, Syril Karn, and Maarva Andor; check it out here:…
The news is out that Episode III will be shot with the new generation of digital high-definition (HD) camera, the HDC-F950. Stories of this type are usually filled with confounding acronyms, numbers and highly technical information. Just what does it all mean, and why is it important? ILM’s HD Supervisor Fred Meyers helps clarify some of the technology.Episode II was the first major motion picture to be shot entirely on digital cameras. Sony developed the first generation HDC-F900 camera. By not using film, the production team saved the time and money usually invested in film stock and photochemical processing, and was able to attain an image of incredible clarity already in the digital medium ready for postproduction use.
For effects-intensive movies like Star Wars, imagery shot on film would have to be scanned and converted into digital information for the artists at Industrial Light & Magic to incorporate their amazing effects. By starting in the digital medium, the use of HD cameras saved a time-consuming step, and kept the picture digital throughout the production pipeline, from the editorial department, through to effects, through to the final mastering, and — in select theaters — through to film-less digital projection.
The First Generation
“Episode II used the first generation of cameras specifically tailored around a new HD format called 24-p. That was the enabling technology to produce a digital camera and a digital recording system that could be used for a motion picture project,” says Meyers. Though the HDC-F900s are seen as the first step, HD cameras had existed before that for broadcast applications such as television. The 24-p, which in this case denotes a 24-progressive frame rate, was the breakthrough.
A frame rate is the number of individual still images that are played back in a second, which when viewed sequentially, produces the illusion of movement. You may have experienced this phenomenon when working with simple flipbooks. When the human eye sees similar still images in rapid succession, it combines those images into motion.
Broadcast video plays back at a different frame rate than traditional film. Traditional film projected in theaters flickers at a rate of 24 distinct still images per second. Video plays back at 30 frames per second, and it’s not distinct images but often “interlaced fields,” where two images are on the screen at the same time, drawn electronically in alternating lines. This disparity between the playback nature of broadcast and film has long been a hurdle when moving images back and forth between the electronic and physical worlds.
The main accomplishment with the HDC-F900s used for Episode II was that they shot at 24 progressive frames per second. The 24 frames fit in perfectly with the traditions of film projection and editing, and the progressive frames meant that each frame was a rock-solid image, and not an interlaced halfway point of merged fields.
As with all digital innovations, as soon as the first generation is produced, a second generation of improvements is waiting around the corner. The improvements focused on three related pieces of technology: the lenses (which gather the light), the camera (which turns that light into image data), and the recorder (which stores the image data). Lucasfilm provided Sony and Fujinon with detailed feedback from the trailblazing efforts of Episode II to build a better image acquisition system.
“They listened,” says Meyers. “Sony and Fujinon have devoted some resources into delivering something that is going to raise the bar for digital acquisition. We were in close contact with Sony about our Episode II experiences, and our hopes to keep the momentum going to see incremental and substantial new features in the camera and the recorder. We shared what we learned, and Sony came up with a new camera format that could be based on the 900-series camera, and had much cleaner image output than the first generation.”
Third Generation Lenses
Facilitating the gathering of sharper, cleaner images are the latest generation of lenses from Fujinon. “They listened to us on our experiences on Episode II, and they’ve made significant improvements on the quality of the lens and the usability of the lens in a motion picture style environment,” says Meyers. The new E Series lenses are now considered third generation, and while better suited to cutting edge digital cameras, still retain the familiar user-interfaces that traditional cinematographers are familiar with.
Last year, Fujinon’s Cine Super C series of zoom lenses were used for the majority of visual effects photography, including motion control, miniature, greenscreen and pick up shots. Now, the Cine Super E series will be used for all photography, including on-set, location, and postproduction.
Image Quality & Compression
Image Quality: What’s the 4:4:4 for?
One of the improvements with new HDC-F950 was a re-examination of the way the camera gathered image information. All cameras are built for the same basic function: the gathering of light onto an imaging surface. Whereas film cameras use lenses to funnel light onto the photochemical surface of unexposed film, digital cameras sample that light, and assign numerical data to describe its qualities.The first HD systems were primarily developed for use in broadcast (the transmission of visual data through electronic signals) and not theatrical exhibition (the transmission of visual data through the projection of light). Broadcast applications favor different qualities of light than theatrical projection does. The first generation HD cameras followed the broadcast standard of capturing light at a YCBCR 4:2:2 output, while the new HDC-F950 provides RGB 4:4:4 output. So, what does that mean?The letters (YCBCR, RGB) represent the type of data recorded, while the three numbers (4:4:2, 4:4:4) are representative of how detailed that data is sampled. Whereas RGB stores red, green, and blue light data, YCBCR stores the differences between colors.”The Y stands for the luma, or brightness data, which your eye is most sensitive to,” describes Meyers. “The CB and the CR stand for differences between the luma and the color, and those differences the eye is somewhat less sensitive to.” The numbers indicate that that the luma is stored at twice the information complexity as the differences (4:2:2). The new format records the colors red, green and blue each at a full 4:4:4.
“The broadcast formats use a different way of storing and transferring color and luma information — the brightness and the hues — out of the camera that are based on sampling rates. The original first generation used a system that saved bandwidth — it reduced the amount of data that comes off the camera to be recorded onto tape. That fit very well with the broadcast format, but was not the most direct path to go into motion picture postproduction,” explains Meyers. “So Sony changed that format from YCBCR 4:2:2, which was 8-bit, to a RGB 4:4:4, which is 10-bit. That’s more numbers to represent each color and each brightness value of the pixels, and a true RGB format which is what is used in feature post-production, film recording, and digital cinema.”
Having a richer, purer image to start results in increased flexibility further down the production pipeline. “Not only is this good for the amount of subtle differences in brightness and color that can be output from the camera and recorded onto tape, but it also means there’s more information to manipulate in computers,” says Meyers. “If you’re going to enlarge an image, or if you’re going to take a bluescreen element, extract it and replace the blue with other elements, you have more data to process and you get improvements in the quality.”
Kiss Compression Goodbye
While the use of digital cameras has eliminated the generational image degradation experienced in film production, there are still processes that lessen the quality of a digital image.
In the traditional photochemical process, the production pipeline that added visual effects to filmed imagery greatly degraded the quality of the original image. A complex device called an optical printer would combine many separate pieces of film — the starships, the laser blasts, the space background — into a single composite image. Each layer that was added muddied the quality of image — much like repeatedly photocopying a photocopy results in a degraded duplicate of the pristine original.
Digital imagery does not undergo such degradation, since the numbers that define the image remain intact throughout the pipeline. However, to better run that cumbersome image data through the pipeline, sometimes the images are compressed or subsampled early on in the process.
Digital information can be averaged in such a way to reduce size. A large area of similar color, for instance, may be averaged to a single color, thus requiring less data to describe the differences. A background that sits mostly still, or an area of image information that remains mostly the same for a stretch of time is averaged, eliminating minute differences from frame to frame. Too much compression results in artifacts — telltale imperfections that a trained eye can spot, especially under magnification. There’s always a trade-off between image quality and image size.
“There are many different types of HD,” says Meyers. “It’s almost like you’re talking about an engine: there are high horsepower and low horsepower engines.” This new version has considerably more “horsepower,” as it can handle uncompressed data, preserving image purity.
Though Episode II was output at a resolution of 1920 pixels across and 1080 scanning lines deep, the initial image data was often less than that, and was enhanced up to that size by image processing within the camera and the recorder. “In this version of HD, the actual amount of image data that is captured with the new camera and the new recording format is now the full 1920 pixels across,” says Meyers.
“The first generation of camera used certain techniques to conserve the amount of storage and reduce the amount of data that had to come off the camera and into the recorder. The technical terms for those techniques are spatial and chroma subsampling,” explains Meyers. “The output from the camera was employing chroma subsampling, and the recording system was employing spatial subsampling. Those two techniques are eliminated in the new camera and the new recorder. Also, the new recorder uses substantially less image compression.”
Slow Motion, Recording and the Future
Slow Motion Instant Replay
Though Star Wars movies generally don’t have slow motion shots for dramatic effect, the technique is vital for ILM miniature photography. The illusion of a lethargic pace to camera moves helps miniature environments look bigger and more realistic. Achieving slow motion in traditional film cameras is an easy, mechanical process. Achieving the same results in digital has required some clever solutions.In traditional film, a process called overcranking creates slow motion. The term dates back to the old days of physically hand-cranking film through a camera. If film runs at a faster frame rate than 24 frames per second, more frames are used capture an event of a specific length. When that film is played back at 24 frames per second, that event now lasts longer, as it occupies more frames. So, if a camera runs at 60 frames per second, captures a second-long event, a 24-frame playback will slow that event to two and a half seconds long. Similarly, undercranking a camera ends up speeding the motion, since fewer frames are committed to capturing an event.”During the postproduction process, we made some suggestions to Sony based on what we had learned on how they might implement a feature in their camera systems that would allow motion control and miniature photography to simulate overcranking and undercranking, and do that in real-time, in the camera,” says Meyers.The ILM solution during postproduction was to average the frame imagery to the desired speed. It was a software solution that was done out-of-camera, in computers once the footage was already recorded. The new HDC-F950 can now do this in camera.
“Sony was able to implement in hardware much of that software process, allowing it to be done in camera and faster,” says Meyers. “That allowed us to gain more sensitivity in a better quality when we use that technique in postproduction.”
SRW-1 and SRW-5000 are not droids
The recorder is the next step in the chain, as the information coming from the camera needs to be stored somewhere. Advancements in one piece of technology necessitate advancements in the next, since it would do little good to have a recording system that degraded the new quality level captured by the HDC-F950.
The previous generation camera was cumbersome, since it included the recorder and the cassette inside the camera. The new camera is much smaller as it does not contain the recording unit within its frame.
“There was a kind of a one-and-a-half generation, if you will, of the F900 that we used in post-production. It had a new way to interface the camera with the recorder, which was using fiber optics, and that allowed us a little more ease and flexibility when we were doing our effects model photography.” This streamlining is now standard in the F950, which directs its output either to the SRW-1 portable recorder, or the studio SRW-5000. These recorders lay down the digital information onto specially forumulated BCT-SR series videocassettes.
To the Future, The Horizon
As with all things digital, innovations continue at a hurried pace. “Things seem to be moving. Every three years, we seem to see a fairly significant improvement,” says Meyers. “You’re going to start to see improvements come from numerous companies. Right now, it’s the early adopters that are encouraging this, as it becomes more mainstream, we’ll probably start to see more people involved in it, and there will be even larger improvements.”
Along with digital acquisition, improvements are being made on the digital cinema projection side of the coin as well. Lucasfilm has been working with key vendors such as Texas Instruments to improve the quality of digital projectors. “We’re looking at things on new digital projectors now, such as the Episode III camera tests, and we’re seeing things that we’ve never seen before,” says Meyers. “It’s an amazing improvement in the quality.”
Cal Kestis’ loyal and adorable droid companion comes to life in a rewarding build. Bria LaVorgna
There are a lot of reasons to love Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order. The story is compelling, the gameplay is fun and rich. However, if you’re like me, the absolute best part of the game came in the form of Cal Kestis’ pint-sized little droid buddy, BD-1. He’s adorable, a fount of useful knowledge about Cal’s world, and extremely helpful in some sticky combat situations. In a galaxy of some truly remarkable droid friends, BD-1 ranks right up there among the best of the best. There’s no better partner a Jedi in hiding could possibly ask for.
That’s why when the LEGO Group announced its BD-1 back at Star Wars Celebration Anaheim 2022 earlier this year, I immediately pre-ordered him and then began counting down the days until his release several months later. His eventual arrival in August was theStar Wars event of the summer in this household; here are four reasons BD-1 was worth the wait and is an excellent LEGO set….
Meet the enigmatic leader in this preview of the Phase II YA novel. StarWars.com Team
Not everyone views the Force like the Jedi and Sith.
Phase II of Star Wars: The High Republic is almost here, kicking off with Justina Ireland and Tessa Gratton’s Path of Deceit, arriving October 4. The YA novel goes back 150 years before the events of Phase I, introducing two new Jedi Knights — Zallah Macri and her Padawan, Kevmo Zink — as they head to an Outer Rim world, Dalna, to investigate the missionary group called the Path of the Open Hand. The Path members believe the Force is owned by no one, and not to be wielded in the manner of the Jedi Order.In StarWars.com’s exclusive reveal of the prologue from Path of Deceit, a treasure hunter comes to Dalna for a meeting with “the Mother” — leader of the Path of the Open Hand who is seeking objects connected to the Force…
Radicaz Dobbs, known as Sunshine to his friends and far worse to his enemies, landed his decrepit pleasure yacht in the docking yard on Dalna, a nothing planet in a nowhere part of space. The frontier was full of hardship and scarcity, but Sunshine had never seen such a terrible docking yard. The area was little more than a mudhole, and the dockmaster hadn’t bothered giving him coordinates but instead mumbled through the staticky comms something that sounded like “Set it down anywhere” as Sunshine cleared the upper atmosphere. “Anywhere” being a large open area that looked like the aftermath of a bantha herd migration. As Sunshine set down his ship, the Scupper, he wondered just how there could be a collector of rare Force-related artifacts in such a miserable outpost. But he did not think on it too long. Credits were credits, no matter where they came from.
The ship touched down without incident, and thanks to its decrepit appearance it wouldn’t attract much attention, not even in the most pitiful excuse for a dockyard Sunshine had ever seen. And if the dockmaster did a random inspection, they would find nothing amiss. The inside of the Scupper was no more impressive than the outside. The deck was old and scuffed, and there was a peculiar smell that never really came out, no matter how many times Sunshine had his maintenance droid, DZ-23, scrub the walls. But the disrepair hid powerful sublight engines, a number of coded safes, and a cutting-edge databank and navicomputer. Sunshine liked to keep ahead of the competition, no matter the role he was playing.
Once Sunshine had landed the ship and tucked away some of the rarer artifacts destined for better buyers, he packed up the remaining items and wrapped them carefully before placing them in a knapsack. He wouldn’t take in all his loot at once, only a few items at a time. He might be rather new at fencing items, it being just one of the many things he did to get by, but he was a quick study. It was a rathtareat-rathtar galaxy, and Sunshine was determined to stay off the menu.
He was just about ready to go when there was a sudden pounding on the outside of his ship. Sunshine punched in the code and the boarding ramp lowered, the stabilizing legs at the end settling with a squelching sound that made Sunshine shudder. When he peered down to see who had been hammering the side of his ship, he saw a massive Nautolan dressed in strange blue-and-gray robes, blue paint smeared across his brow and decorating his hands and bare arms. But that wasn’t the most noticeable thing about the man: his head tentacles had been shorn away, leaving behind blunted and unnatural stumps. It was a brutal reminder that despite the man’s kind smile, the galaxy, and its citizens, could be very, very violent.
“You must be Sunshine,” the Nautolan said, holding his palms to the sky and bowing low. “I am delighted to make your acquaintance. You may call me the Herald.”…
The Corporate Sector is one of the most interesting places in the galaxy, and would shape the fate of the galaxy from the Old Republic, Clone Wars, and Imperial era on through the First Order and New Republic. Learn how they grew with CIS Separatist capital ships and droid army.
The opening moments of Andor retcon an admittedly small detail from Cassian’s past. But it is a retcon. However, I think the series absolutely nails the balance between making up something new to tell the best possible story while also acknowledging what came before, even if the small details are from a reference book only a small percentage of Star Wars fans read.
With the release of Attack of the Clones just around the corner, some of the film’s stars have begun the process of meeting with members of the press at Skywalker Ranch this week.
“I didn’t do anything like this on the original Star Wars,” recalled Director George Lucas. “Maybe I did a dozen interviews and one TV — that’s all there was. ‘The Today Show’ and then I did TIME magazine, the New York Times and a few other people, but there wasn’t an entertainment reporting business out there.”
For Hayden Christensen (Anakin Skywalker), his re-emergence into Star Wars came this last weekend at Celebration II in Indianapolis. “That was something else,” Christensen said. “It was like being a rock star for a day — it was weird. You walk out on stage and everyone starts screaming and they lose it. I’m glad I went because you realize how much these films mean to them and they’re not all nutty crazy Star Wars fans. They’re just people who want to have some mechanism for escape and I think the fantastical elements of Star Wars provides a great escape.”
The stars also had their first chance to see Episode II in final form.
“The intrigue is more intricate and gives the audience something to think about, even though we know the story,” said an excited Samuel L. Jackson (Mace Windu). “It’s being opened up to us and discovered. It’s still one of the most visually interesting things to sit down and watch, even though you know what’s going to happen to Anakin.”
“I’m not a Star Wars person, but I was so entertained by this film,” Natalie Portman (Padmé Amidala) smiled. “It was amazing. I tend to get bored in action movies. I really think it’s going to be great for young people. Girls get the cute boy, guys get a little skin and lots of action.”
Portman is particularly satisfied with the burgeoning romance her character experiences. “I like that she comes from a place where everything is rigid and formal, so uptight. It’s such an interesting place to start from in a love story, because you have to melt her to get her in a place where she can be vulnerable. I think the first film, the mask-like façade was a really wonderful place to have continuity from because you can see she’s had this formal rigid upbringing and that changes when she meets that young stud.”
“He’s not too bad lookin’,” she laughed. “He has a passion and intensity that’s similar to hers. She’s a fixer — she’s someone who thinks she can fix the world and then she sees this young man who’s very damaged and broken. She sees he’s not beyond repair yet and it’s attractive to her to be able to bring him out of that.”
For Lucas, the time for reflection on Episode II has been short. “I’m working on writing the next one while this one comes out. I can only worry about what I’m doing today.”
The actors are eagerly anticipating what the final Star Wars chapter will bring, though thus far they’ve been kept in the dark on the details.
“I hope I die on-screen,” laughs Jackson. “We know that’s what happens. There are only two Jedi left when the first Star Wars starts, Obi-Wan and Yoda. Unless the rest of us went on vacation, we’re dead. I just hope I have a great death scene. That’s what acting’s all about — dying great!”
“George has told me nothing. Absolutely nothing,” said Hayden shaking his head. “I’ll have more mechanical parts in the next one for sure. I’m told I might get to sport the dark helmet. I’d like to kill Mace Windu. I love Sam. He’s supposed to be one of the most powerful Jedi.”
Fans enjoying Padmé’s midriff in Clones will have a different perspective in three years. “I’m going to be with child,” said Portman patting her belly. “The next one, according to George, is going to be a tragedy. It’s going to be sad, but I’m looking forward to having more to do.”
Star Wars: Episode II Attack of the Clones opens May 16
Her Royal Highness has made honorary knights of John Williams, who has been with the Star Wars franchise since the very beginning, and Bob Iger, who acquired the franchise as part of his Lucasfilm purchase during his tenure at Disney.
Per The Daily Mail, it was learned that Queen Elizabeth II approved the honors of knighthood to both Williams and Iger some time before she recently passed away at the age of 96. Given that true knighthood is officially reserved for British citizens, neither Williams nor Iger will be able to officially carry the title of “Sir”. Williams and Iger join a list of Americans made honorary knights by the Queen that include the likes of Steven Spielberg, Angelina Jolie, and the late Bob Hope….
The first three episodes of Star Wars: Andor are now available to the viewing public, letting fans get a peek into Disney and Lucasfilm’s latest adventure as Diego Luna’s Cassian Andor gets his Rogue One prequel story. This also comes as one of the most unique Star Wars entries in some time, as it completed filming without the use of the Volume technology which The Mandalorian made popular.
This tech was used heavily throughout both seasons of The Mandalorian, allowing the actors to come onto a massive set with a near-360-degree screen that let them feel the full environment for which they were shooting. The Volume was later used for Marvel Studios on Thor: Love and Thunder, but even though it has its advantages, it’s caused some controversy amongst fans due to the environments not looking as realistic in the final cut.
Only a few weeks ago, Andor creator/producer Tony Gilroy revealed the fact that his series didn’t use The Volume for any shooting, causing some online controversy due to the fact that the show deviated from what had worked so well in the recent past for Lucasfilm. Now, Gilroy has cleared the air on the matter, explaining why he decided to go old-school and shoot with real-world locations for Andor….
After years of waiting, Andor has finally arrived on Disney+. The Diego Luna-led Star Wars series serves as a prequel to Rogue One, telling the story of its lead character, Cassian Andor, before he becomes the Rebel spy and hero that stole the Death Star plans.
The anticipation surrounding Andor has been sky-high, especially after the overwhelmingly positive reactions that it earned from fans and critics. This comes after the fact that it became apparent that it has a minimal amount of Star Wars Easter eggs, making it stand out from other shows that banked on such references, such as Obi-Wan Kenobi and The Mandalorian.
Now, in celebration of Andor‘s three-episode debut on Disney+, the series’ showrunner has offered some grim insight into what lies ahead for the characters in Season 1 and beyond….
Will B2-EMO’s personality matrix wind up inside the reprogrammed K-2SO? Will kids be able to enjoy Andor? These questions and more answered in this week’s Q&A!
The Long, Winding, and Shapeshifting Trail to Episodes VII, VIII & IX
The long conjectured third Star Wars trilogy has kept fans guessing for decades, and may even have a few numerologists working on their mysteries. George Lucas’ shifting feelings about future Star Wars trilogies have consistently clouded the picture. Given the difficulties associated with the birth of Star Wars in 1977, it’s no wonder that Lucas’s ideas kaleidoscoped. When trying to get such a big undertaking up and running and out the door, visions of the future are understandably hazy. But, as of October 30, 2012, Episodes VII, VIII and IX have been announced as real and soon to be tangible — but they’ve existed as gossamer spirits for nearly 40 years.
On December 29, 1975, in conversation with Alan Dean Foster per the novelization of Star Wars, Lucas mentioned the prequel trilogy along with what would become Episodes V and VI: “I want to have Luke kiss the Princess in the second book. In the third book, I want the story just about the soap opera of the Skywalker family, which ends with the destruction of the Empire. Then someday I want to do the back story of Kenobi as a young man – a story of the Jedi and how the Emperor eventually takes over and turns the whole thing from a Republic into an Empire, and tricks all the Jedi and kills them. The whole battle where Luke’s father gets killed. That would be impossible to do, but it’s great to dream about.”
As Lucas came to terms with Twentieth Century-Fox during the making of Star Wars, he secured the legal rights to his sequels, though they remained undefined at the time. On location for the first phase of principal photography in Tunisia in March 1976, Lucas began a long tradition of talking with close collaborators, voicing his ideas for these other episodes and trilogies, much as Walt Disney would do of his projects.
“You know, when I first did this, it was four trilogies,” Mark Hamill recalled in 2004, speaking of their conversation in 1976. “Twelve movies! Out on the desert, any time between setups… lots of free time. And George was talking about this whole thing… ‘Um, how’d you like to be in Episode IX?’ ‘When is that going to be?’ ‘2011.’ […] I said, ‘Well, what do you want me to do?’ He said, ‘You’ll just be like a cameo. You’ll be like Obi-Wan handing the lightsaber down to the next new hope.’”
In 1978, a Time magazine article reported that the Star Wars Corporation (a subsidiary Lucas had formed for Star Wars) would be producing “Star WarsII [Empire], and then, count them, 10 other planned sequels.” At that time Lucas consistently mentioned 12 films and even created a barebones outline to that effect.
In it, the original trilogy occupied Episodes VI, VII, and VIII; a Clone Wars trilogy took up Episodes II, III, and IV, while Episode I was a “prelude,” Episodes IX through XI were simply left blank – and Episode XII was the “conclusion.”
In 1979, however, Lucas said in an interview on the set of Empire, “The first script was one of six original stories I had written in the form of two trilogies. After the success of Star Wars, I added another trilogy. So now there are nine stories. The original two trilogies were conceived of as six films of which the first film was number four.”
While in postproduction in early 1980, Lucas used to kick back from time to time with ILM manager Jim Bloom and muse about the bigger story. “The first trilogy is about the young Ben Kenobi and the early life of Luke’s father when Luke is a little boy,” Lucas said. “This trilogy takes place some 20 years before the second trilogy, which includes Star Wars and Empire. About a year or two passes between each story of the trilogy and about 20 years between the trilogies. The entire saga spans about 55 years. I’m still left with three trilogies of nine films. At two hours each, that’s about eighteen hours of film!”
While Empire was originally part of a 12-film plan, by the time it was released, the number had clearly been reduced to nine. “The prequel stories exist — where Darth Vader came from, the whole story about Darth and Ben Kenobi — and it all takes place before Luke was born,” Lucas explained at the time. “The other one — what happens to Luke afterward — is much more ethereal. I have a tiny notebook full of notes on that. If I’m really ambitious, I could proceed to figure out what would have happened to Luke.”
Lucas mentioned these notebooks — or one big book — to me, a few years ago. I asked if I could see it, but he declined. My feeling is that this big book or these notebooks are private, though Lucas has occasionally sent me via an assistant miscellaneous handwritten notes from the period 1976-1983 to help in the writing of the making-of books.
But two years later while filming Jedi, for many reasons, Lucas was burning out, tired of the whole enterprise: “I’m only doing this because I started it and now I have to finish it,” he adds. “The next trilogy will be all someone else’s vision.”
As of today, Lucas has given his new co-chairman Kathleen Kennedy several ideas and is really going into semi-retirement. Now, in a relatively short time, compared to the decades of speculation, fans will learn the secrets of Episodes VII, VIII and IX. Star Wars has risen again!
As part of a new interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Andor showrunner Tony Gilroy revealed that Yellowjackets director Ariel Kleiman will be a director on the second season of the new StarWars series, which will film in the UK between November and August.
When asked if he’ll be directing on season 2, Tony Gilroy said the following:
“I am not. I can’t. This job is just too huge. I don’t have the time to spare. It’s a really poor use of my time. Ari [Ariel] Kleiman is out in Pinewood. I was out there this morning. We start shooting in November. He started prepping three weeks ago. He’s got his hands full out there just to get to November. I have all the rest of the things I have to do. There was some fantasy that I would end up doing the last block, but I just can’t, to be honest with you.”…
WhatCulture Star Wars is dedicated to all things Star Wars. We’ll have all the usual lists, features, and news, plus there’ll be Ups & Downs for all the latest shows and new Star Wars movies. The force is with us!
Since Star Wars first became a part of pop culture in 1977, James Earl Jones helped push the phenomenon to incredible heights thanks to his portrayal of the Sith Lord, Darth Vader. Although that character has gone through various adaptations and actors over the last 40 years, Jones’ voice is the one content in bringing the cyborg antagonist to life on the big and small screen.
Vader was last seen in this year’s Obi-Wan Kenobi, with a team of actors and stuntmen helping bring the villain back in his battle against Ewan McGregor’s hero. While it allowed Hayden Christensen to return to his iconic role, earning a much better reception than his first go as Anakin Skywalker and Darth Vader, James Earl Jones’ voice was also used through the Respeecher technology that Lucasfilm has employed numerous times on Disney+.
With Jones approaching his 92nd birthday, fans are naturally wondering how long he will continue working in Hollywood, especially with his workload having decreased fairly substantially over the last few years. Now, a new report has revealed that this time for Jones may come sooner than most fans were expecting….
In a new interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Andor showrunner Tony Gilroy discussed why they ultimately opted not to use the Volume technology for the show, and gave some insight into Luthen Rael, the mysterious character played by Stellan Skarsgård that we were introduced to in the second episode. In this article, we’ve condensed the most interesting parts of the interview, but you may head over to their site if you are interested in reading the entire piece.
When asked if shooting on location was a prerequisite for him when he was brought on board, Gilroy said that it was a decision that they took when they started to plan out the series and hired a production designer:
“When I came on, Sanne Wohlenberg was the producer of record. She came with the existing pieces of the show. So Sanne was there, but I didn’t know her. She had just done Chernobyl, and it was sort of a shotgun marriage. So here we were together, and I had no idea that she was just going to be this rockstar producer.
And so the first decision you have to make is who’s going to be your production designer. Even in writing, my first call is to the production designer, because everything we do has to be designed. So we put a marker down. It was kind of a test for Disney: ‘How serious are you?’ We didn’t want to go with any of the traditional Star Wars people. We wanted [production designer] Luke Hull, who was like 12 years old and had just done Chernobyl. He’s just a fricking genius, but non-Star Wars in every way. So we brought him over. As I was doing the [series] bible, I wrote the first three episodes as a sort of a test….
In the first three episodes of Andor, Cassian attempts to sell a stolen Imperial box to Luthen Rael. He says it’s an untraceable NS-9 Starpath unit, but what is it, really? Cassian explains that it can track Imperial traffic for nine radial parsecs, but we know a little more about it thanks to the 1998 novel I, Jedi by Michael Stackpole, the only other story where this device has ever been mentioned. There we can read that the Starpath was the navigation system on the Errant Venture, which was a liberated star destroyer owned by the smuggler Booster Terrik in the years following the Battle of Endor. So we can assume that the box Cassian stole from the Empire was meant to be installed as the navigation system for a star destroyer. It likely had far more functions than tracking Imperial coordinates, but that would be the primary reason a rebel fighter like Luthen Rael would want to have it.
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The Cinema Behind Star Wars : The Disney Connection
It’s easy to watch Disney films and see the similarities between so many of the motifs of classic storytelling and the hero’s journey that is ever present in the Star Wars films. It’s difficult to pin whether the films and cartoons of Walt Disney directly influenced the creation of Star Wars (with a few notable exceptions), but the style of story and method of storytelling on display is so similar it’s hard not to feel they came from the same school.
Take The Sword in the Stone, for instance. It looks at young Arthur’s journey toward becoming king — with the help of an eccentric wizard that everyone thinks is just a crazy old man. Sound a lot like A New Hope? The entire movie plays like an extended, comedic training sequence of Master and Padawan, right down to the mysticism and hard life lessons. Parallels to Luke’s time on Dagobah in the cave could very easily be drawn to Arthur’s time spent as a squirrel or a fish. He learns hard lessons in a situation he doesn’t completely understand and has to face difficult truths about himself and his life.
Could anyone argue with the parallel between Snow White finding herself pursued by a huntsman in the woods and given refuge by kindly dwarfs, and Princess Leia on Endor, pursued by the Empire’s sinister agents and given refuge by kindly Ewoks?
You would easily be forgiven if you mistook Yoda for a little green man dispensing advice and telling you to trust your feelings that Disney created. His name was Jiminy Cricket.
There are more substantive similarities as well. As the middle act of a mythological story, The Empire Strikes Back has the distinction of being darker in tone, sending our heroes into the dark of the unknown, plunging them into the deepest pits of despair. Who could forget the Millennium Falcon bursting from the jaws of the Space Slug with all the aplomb and cinematic majesty of Geppetto freeing himself of Monstro the whale, one of Disney’s darkest early cartoons?
These parallels are no surprise, though, since the Star Wars films draw so heavily from the classic themes of the mythologies and fables that have permeated the world for as long as we have a history for it.
One of the most striking influences though, and one that I think is a direct and obvious influence, comes from the swashbuckling adventure films that Disney produced in the 1960s. The most prevalent is none other than Swiss Family Robinson, which was directed by a fellow named Ken Annakin.
Yes. You read that right: Annakin.
In any case, Annakin included in this classic film a scene that plays very much like one in A New Hope. Two of the young heroes and a girl in disguise are trudging chest deep in murky water, only to be attacked by a massive snake. Fritz struggles with the beast, dragged under the water repeatedly, shouting for help as his younger brother and the girl look on, shocked. Soon, the other boy (played by Tommy Kirk, a dead ringer for Star Trek’s Wil Wheaton) is embroiled in the battle until the snake just disappears in the water. Many of the shots and even some of the reactions are repeated almost verbatim in the trash compactor sequence on the Death Star.
The Star Wars movies follow the same patterns as all the best Disney films of this type and took so much more from them, even through subconscious inspiration. And the influence flows the other way, too. I could cite many examples of Star Wars, in turn, influencing the cinema of Disney. With Disney and Lucasfilm coming together to give us more Star Wars films, is there a doubt in anyone’s mind that they won’t carry on the same quality of mythological storytelling for years to come? They certainly have a good track record for it.
Should you travel the stars with C-3PO, roll with BB-8, or find a faithful unit like B2EMO? StarWars.com Team
Andor, the new Star Wars Original series, arrived on Disney+ this week and introduced the world to the Andor family’s loyal droid, B2EMO.
The latest in a long line of unforgettable droids in the Star Wars galaxy, the groundmech salvage assist unit had us wondering: which Star Wars droid would be your perfect counterpart? Find out in our quiz below!…
This week in Star Wars, join us on the red carpet for the Andor Launch Event in Hollywood. Featuring stars Diego Luna, Genevieve O’Reilly, Adria Arjona, Kyle Soller, Fiona Shaw, and other members of the cast; creator Tony Gilroy and the crew; and other fans to celebrate the premiere of Andor, with new episodes streaming every Wednesday on Disney+.
Something weird is going on in Andor! A ship crash lands on Cassian’s home world. The crew is wearing Separatist insignias, but Maarva calls them Republic officers. So are they from the Republic or the Confederacy of Independent Systems? Is this a mistake or a mystery to be revealed down the line? Let’s speculate!
