Some dude that likes Star Wars.
Star Wars fans were faced with a bit of a mystery at the very end of the Star Wars Rebels Season 2 finale. We got a glimpse of a owl-like creature, a “convor“, that was perched above on a structure watching Darth Vader walk away from his fight with Ahsoka Tano.
We’ve spent some time thinking about Snoke. You can read our previous articles on him here, here, and here. We’ve explored many of the theories and rumors out there. That’s what we do at Spoiled Blue Milk. We dig up the theories from the unknown regions of the world wide web, and run them up the flagpole, and see if the evidence holds up. Today is no different. more “The one theory about Snoke that seems to hold up.”
Greetings, Star Wars fans! We’re back for another weekly Star Wars news recap. Last week we got our first footage of the first stand-alone “Anthology film” Rogue One. We also got some new information on Episode VIII. Let’s begin…
I’m so excited about seeing the Rogue One trailer tomorrow that I thought I would post a bonus article. Here goes…
OK, so I didn’t see this anywhere online, so either I’m crazy, or I could be the first to point this out. It appears that maybe, just maybe, JJ Abrams put Batman into the Maz’s castle scene. Why would I ever think such a thing would happen?
We’ve commented at lengths about the numerous parallels between Rey and Ren. Yeah, that’s right, I’ve called him “Ren” instead of Kylo as a usually do because we’ve recently learned that the Knights of Ren are named after Kylo Ren. Not the other way around as early reports suggested. It was originally said by Abrams in an Entertainment Weekly interview that Kylo Ren took the name “Ren” when he joined the Knights of Ren.
Rey’s hairstyle is taking the world by storm. There are now many, many, more, and even more websites and videos that guide Star Wars fangirls on how to fashion their hair into Rey’s signature 3 bun style. No doubt this hair style is one of the biggest things since Leia’s original hairstyle in A New Hope. Only a unique hairstyle like this can match Rey’s excellence as a character in Star Wars.
You’d better hurry to Dubrovnik if you want to get your last glimpse of Star Wars this year. Filming has ended a week ago, so pretty much everything has been cleaned up. That said, you might still get to see something Star Wars related. Not ready to book the tickets? Well, how about sitting back and enjoying this recap of the best and coolest news from Dubrovnik. more “Visit Dubrovnik! It’s great this time of year (Dubrovnik Recap)”
The origin of Rey has been quite a mystery and one of the most discussed mysteries in The Force Awakens. We discussed this earlier a few times, and we’ve concluded that a key part of her backstory, regardless of her parentage, is her “clan”. But who or what exactly was this “clan”? Presumably, the clan is Rey’s clan, and the group of people/tribe/clan in which she was born. Perhaps some of her early years were spent with the clan.
more “Who exactly was the “Clan Leader” in Rey’s flashback?”
Yes, yes. To Obi-Wan you listen. The cave. Remember your failure at the cave! -Yoda
Caves have had a recurring presence in Star Wars from the beginning. From the space-slug cave on an asteroid in ESB (“This is no cave!”), to the Wampa’s ice cave in the same movie, to the recent Episode of Rebels that found Zeb and Kallus trapped in a cave on a moon, to the cave in the deleted scene of Return of the Jedi where Luke finished building his lightsaber. Caves have been a common mythological motif going way back. Going all the way back to…well…all the way back to cavemen.
Greeting Star Wars fans! About this time last year, we were pretty deep into rumors and info about The Force Awakens. Way deeper than we are now for Rogue One, which suggests they are keeping this film a little tighter. Other than a few shots of set set construction, the news about Rogue One is pretty slim. That said, we have a few new pieces of info about Rogue One and Episode VIII (still two years away), so let’s begin.
Wednesday night’s Episode of Star Wars Rebels, “Shroud of Darkness” brought back some greatness to the series. Rebels finally delivered what many fans have wanted. In one episode, we got to see Yoda (voiced by the great Frank Oz), see the Grand Inquisitor’s identity/origin, and get to see the Jedi Temple on Lothal again. Millions of fans cheered as a series that many had felt was dragging its feet finally brought something excellent. That was my reaction at least. Up until this point, I was a bit ho-hum on the series; I’m finally excited again about Rebels.
Snoke and Kylo Ren had a pretty clear picture of what caused the downfall of the Empire, and the downfall of the Sith as well. In a conversation presented in the novelization, but not the movie, we have Snoke ask Kylo the question:
Empire day. On that day seen in Revenge of the Sith, Palpatine reorganized the Republic into the first Galactic Empire. That day also saw the birth of Ezra Bridger, causing him to hate that day for many years after. The crazy thing is, Luke and Leia were born just days after Ezra in another scene of RotS. According to Pablo Hidalgo (who is the next best thing to canon: canyon) in Rebels Recon going back to June 2015, Luke and Leia were born a mere two days after Ezra. So in a span of two days, we have the birth of the Empire, and the birth of Ezra, Luke and Leia. It’s as if this span of time represents a temporal nexus point in the Galaxy far far away…
more “How will Star Wars Rebels play into the Sequel Trilogy?”
Empire day. On that day seen in Revenge of the Sith, Palpatine reorganized the Republic into the first Galactic Empire. That day also saw the birth of Ezra Bridger, causing him to hate that day for many years after. The crazy thing is, Luke and Leia were born just days after Ezra in another scene of RotS. According to Pablo Hidalgo (who is the next best thing to canon: canyon) in Rebels Recon going back to June 2015, Luke and Leia were born a mere two days after Ezra. So in a span of two days, we have the birth of the Empire, and the birth of Ezra, Luke and Leia. It’s as if this span of time represents a temporal nexus point in the Galaxy far far away…
more “How will Star Wars Rebels play into the Sequel Trilogy?”
Colin Trevorrow has definitely got his mind on Star Wars, already planning a great finale to the Sequel Trilogy. He’s even gone as far as to contemplate how to do a shot in outer space. That would be truly amazing, but how would they do it? They’d maybe take an airplane very high in the atmospher to accomplish this, but even then to stabilize the camera for a “Star Wars shot” might be tough. Nevertheless, I like the way he is thinking. He wants to create an ultra-real Star Wars.
Greetings fellow Star Wars fans! I’m back to do some head scratching about The Force Awakens. There’s no doubt that Rey has some impressive Force powers in The Force Awakens. One power that she definitely seems to have is psychometry. She had a Force-vision when she touched the lightsaber for the first time. It makes you wonder what she experienced the second time she touched it…
Greetings Star Wars fans! Well, I must say for the most part things are a little quiet on the Star Wars news front the past week. That is, compared to previous weeks when news has been flying fast and furious.
…but there was one thing…
Hello Star Wars fans! We’re back for another spoiler-fueled article on The Force Awakens. This time, to contemplate whether or not Finn is a Force-sensitive. This is a question that a lot of people have been wondering after the movie.
Hello Star Wars fans! The news is coming fast now, for Rebels, Rogue One, and Episode VIII! This is the exciting part, when we have just enough information to start speculating. One thing is clear, there are a lot of opportunities for connections on all of these, plus with The Force Awakens. In particular, there is a specific line of events that has the potential to connect a great deal of the Star Wars saga, and it goes from the “Sith Temple” seen on Rebels, to the Death Star, to Star Killer base, connecting the PT, the OT, and the ST all in one fell swoop if done right. As usual with our site, spoilers are the norm, so consider yourself warned. Now let’s get into it.
more “Death Stars and Star Killers: New Insight from Rebels?”
Masks have a long history of symbolism in many different cultures. Masks can be used to evoke fear, humor, and reference something else like an animal or a monster or whatever. It can also serve a lot of other meanings too, and the Star Wars saga is no stranger to masks. Consider, for example, how the Storm Troopers used helmets that also serve to mask their faces. These helmets evoke fear, but also serve to dehumanize the troopers, and to remove their individuality. Importantly, masks symbolically can mean that someone is hiding their true self.
Greetings, Star Wars fans! I’ve been thinking about kyber crystals lately, what with all the occurrences in Rebels, and it got me thinking about Rey. Before we get into that, let’s talk about where they come from.
Happy New Year, Star Wars fans! I’m back to contemplate a very intriguing character from The Force Awakens, Lor San Tekka. He has a very brief role, but leaves a significant impression on viewers due to Max Von Sydow’s excellent performance. But who is he exactly? I wrote a speculative piece back before the move came out. Now that we’ve actually seen the movie, we know a little bit more.
more “The backstory of Lor San Tekka: Connections to Rogue One?”
Merry Christmas, Star Wars fans! We’re back after reviewing The Force Awakens to bring you more theories about the movie that we saw, and to begin theorizing about what comes next. If you haven’t yet, check out our reviews of TFA here and here.
more “Rey’s Force-vision, and what it says about the backstory to The Force Awakens”
Hi Star Wars fans! I hope everybody had a good couple of days as I assume most of you have seen The Force Awakens. I’ve seen TFA twice already (once in 3D and once in 2D), so I think I’m ready to give a little bit of a review. I had seen all the other Star Wars films so many more times than I had seen this one, so there really isn’t a fair comparison. That in mind, let’s begin. There will be spoilers in what follows, so don’t read on if you haven’t seen the film. See you after the jump:
That magic moment. That moment just before the opening crawl hits for the first time with a blast of the trumpets and John Williams classic score. You can feel in the excitement in the air at that moment when everything goes silent. The anticipation is palpable.
It’s Friday once again and time for the last of my Episodic Order Reviews of Star Wars. Next week, I guess I will do my best to review The Force Awakens. I can’t believe it’s less than a week away! This is just feels unreal. It just seems like yesterday I was happy that it hit 100 days away.
Many of you may be wondering why I did these reviews in episodic order. Basically, because this is the way that I think I’ve heard George Lucas had said to watch them. I know the twists already, so I don’t need to preserve anything, but if I was introducing Star Wars to someone that had never seen it before, I might suggest Modified Machete. Maybe I’d explain both to them and let them choose. You still get to see Luke’s reaction to the surprise revelation of his familial history.
I’m told that GL wanted the kind of surreal experience of seeing a sort of rock music number in the middle of a Star Wars movie. I typically find the scene frustrating because it’s such a departure from the rest of the saga, or at least from the rest of the OT. When I watched it tonight, I kind of felt like, you know, this is the kind of stuff that makes Star Wars great. The range. It can go from completely goofy to very sinister to heroic, to whatever. It can be anything. Maybe it’s also because I just watched the prequels. If you like the ring theory, and I’ve posted some stuff on that in the past, then you know that TPM is meant to mirror RotJ. So in a way, the Jedi Rocks scene is meant to mirror something equally goofy in The Phantom Menace. Maybe parts of the Podrace perhaps? I can think of a lot of scenes that are equally as goofy as Jedi Rocks. The more I think about it, watching RotJ tonight feels like much of the tone is similar to TPM in its levity, and goofy characters. Salacious crumb, Jedi Rocks, the ewoks, the burp jokes, some of Jabba’s wacky menagerie of characters. It all mirrors portions of TPM in tone and style. At the same time, like TPM it has some more serious moments. I won’t go into the Ring Theory any more in this review, but just wanted to put in words how I felt about the tone of the beginning of RotJ.
The deleted scene of Luke is a bit of a shame. I would have taken out the part where Vader is telepathically communicating with Luke, and just show him building his saber and hiding it in R2D2.
That laugh. The cackle laugh when we first see the Emperor in person in the OT. Man, it is so creepy and awesome. Ian McDiarmid strikes again with his amazing talent.
I’ve always loved the scene when Luke says “So I am a Jedi” and Yoda says “OOoooh?”. Seeing the prequels did change how I see Yoda. I felt that his passing was in a way sadder having known what he did during the Clone Wars and before. Definitely harder to see the little guy go. He has become part of the connective tissue for the whole saga. That’s part of why I want to see him in the Sequel Trilogy. I have wondered before if he will be in TFA somehow, but I’m starting to think it is pretty unlikely. I think a more likely scenario is that we’ll see Yoda’s Force ghost in Episode VIII. I don’t have any inside info or anything, but it feels right. It would parallel the OT in a way because Yoda is introduced in the second act.
Hearing Obi Wan say that Luke’s sister “remains safely anonymous” kind of clears up a complaint that I had about RotS, and the believability of Leia hiding with an important senator, and he does remind us that she has a completely different name and maybe could have never left Alderaan until she was 13 or something, when the idea of Anakin’s offspring was long gone. That said, Sidious and Vader are pretty powerful and I’m still surprised that she was never sensed by the Sith.
I’m so glad that C3P0 finally puts to use his translation skills in this movie. Come to think of it, and correct me if I’m wrong, but does he do any other translating in the rest of the saga? At any rate, the droid proves his use in this movie.
The Space Battles. When those trumpets kick in and you see the Rebel fleet start to organize and assume attack coordinates. At this point, the movie really kicks in. Before the introduction of the Rebel Fleet and those trumpets, the movie feels a bit slow at times. After this, for me tonight at least, it feels like it picks up speed. Who knows, it’s like the 100th time I’ve seen this movie, it might feel like the first half is a little slow because I’ve seen it so many times. At any rate, the Space Battles of RotJ are some of the best of the ENTIRE saga. yeah, I said it. I think I like the Space Battle of RotJ better than RotS. That’s saying someting. I mean the opening shot of RotS may be the best single shot in the whole saga, but I feel that hands down, RotJ takes the cake with the Space battle and gives some of the best choreographed, and for that matter some of the most real special effects of any space battle in the saga. The music is excellent too. John Williams work during the space battles in this movie is some of the best of the saga. I’m saying this a lot, but I feel like the Space battles (and the saber fights/exchanges with Vader/Luke/Emperor, see below) are what MAKES this movie beyond just “good”. These scenes are spectacular even today.
Of course Lando and Nien Nunb are awesome and the whole blowing up the Death Star. The whole scene where Lando figures out that the shields are still up, all that stuff is gold. Lando is an excellent character in this one! He is sort of a minor role, but ends up doing some good stuff. This totally makes up for Lando falling off the floating barge thing on Tatooine.
Love the speeder chase. Wicket redeems himself and proves his awesomeness! I assume that’s wicket at least. Anyway, the way that little furball grabs that vine and escapes is pretty awesome.
You got to love the exchanges between Vader and Luke. All of this stuff works, and is really one of the high points of the whole saga. The dialogue, the saber battles, the Emperor, and the balance of the Force. All awesome, and a great conclusion to the saga.
I’m going to have to say the saliva in that guy’s mouth during the Jedi Rocks scene (I’m watching the blue-ray version) and just other parts of that scene. I mean, this just gets a little over the top for me. I’m not sure it was that much better before, and maybe the movie did need some sort of humor and fun at this moment. I’m not sure how it could be done better, but maybe just toned down a bit. Maybe the fact that it goes over the top shows the audience that this movie is not to be taken 100% serious. It’s for fun too.
OK, maybe this will be very controversial, but somehow the exchange between Luke and Leia in the Ewok Village, when Luke asks about Leia’s mother, seems a little off to me at the beginning. At first I thought it was going to be good, but it seems a bit off to me tonight. I think Luke is going through some serious stuff at this point, and is kind of overwhelmed. Luke kind of has a wild look in his eyes that comes across a little off, but maybe he is just going through some really difficult times, which he certainly is.
Beyond that, I don’t have much of a problem with anything. I actually don’t mind the ewoks. I tried to look for the blinking thing, but I barely even notice it. As far as I’m concerned, it looks pretty good and adds more life to them. In fact, I wish Wicket’s mouth moved a little more. So if anything, I don’t object to cute furry characters, but I would have actually preferred it if they were a little more dynamic. Wicket is the true mirror of Jar Jar. It’s cool to see this when he leads Leia to the Ewok Village. With that said, some of the early scenes in the Ewok village seem a little slow at times.
All things considered it’s pretty good. The movie feels a bit slow these days compared to contemporary movies, but has it’s moments.
That brings me to my ranking. Having watched them all again over the past six weeks, here’s what I’m thinking:
Stay tuned next week for my review of The Force Awakens!
Follow me on twitter @davestrrr and stay tuned to SpoiledBlueMilk.com MWF for updates.
OK, so I know I usually get these up on Friday. Now I’m 2 days late, and 2 dollars short, but I’m here to give you another review as part of our lead up the The Force Awakens! If you haven’t, check out my review of A New Hope, or our other reviews here at SpoiledBlueMilk, including my review of the prequels.
Although I’m not a prequel hater, I am very much an OT lover. There was a long time in my life when Star Wars was just the trilogy. No OT, no PT, just “the trilogy”. The Star Wars Trilogy. And Empire has always stood at the top. It’s the darkest of the OT, and widely viewed as the best Star Wars movie around. In fact, there are some that rate it as the best movie ever.
The Imperial March. Empire is the first movie that had the famous Imperial March, and the first scene when that music is played is absolutely epic. The Star Destroyers flying around Vader’s Super Star Destroyer, and then you go straight to the “lead in the Hoth System” when the Captain Piett vs Admiral Ozzel confrontation begins. When Vader says with such certainty “That’s it. The Rebels are there” is one of my favorite moments. Vader kicks so much ass in this film! And it’s the little things, like the look that Ozzel gives Piett and this little spat between them is one of the many little things that makes this movie so great to rewatch. You can easily forget about those characters, but each to time you watch it it’s so good.
Luke pulling the saber out of the ice. This is such a good scene because in the release order, this is the first time Luke ever uses the Force to move something. When we first saw this movie back in 1980, it was like “whoa the Force can do that?” It’s easy to take this for granted. Vader had a Force choke, but nothing else really involved such controlled telekinesis. Obi Wan made those Stormtroopers hear something, but it isn’t clear how he did it and if it wasn’t some sort of a mind trick. This moment with the sword in the ice is sort of supposed to be an homage to King Arthur pulling Excalibur out of the stone according to some theories. Who knows what it means, but it’s definitely cool.
The Bounty Hunters scene. I know this is a common one, but you gotta love this motley crew of bounty hunters. Still pretty cool after all these years. Even cooler with the knowledge of the significance of these guys for the story later on.
Luke upside-down and Yoda. This scene with Luke upside down levitating rocks is the first scene when there is a really controlled use of the Force and to me is one of the most significant uses of the Force. That is, until Yoda…
One of my most favorite of all time scenes in any Star Wars production ever is the scene were Yoda lifts Luke’s X-wing out of the swamp. The whole thing. From the beginning when Luke tries to lift it out the the end where this exchange happens:
Luke: I don’t believe it.
Yoda: That is why you fail.
So amazing even on the kaggillionth viewing. I think this is so true of real life. If you want something to happen and to accomplish some difficult task; if you don’t go in believing you can do it, it won’t happen. This moment, when the Yoda’s theme and the movie for that matter hit a crescendo, when Yoda lifts the X-wing out of the swamp is kind of the one-two punch with the introduction of the Imperial March. This is when you know there is no ordinary movie.
The thing about Empire, is it was still that point in the OT when everything looked “real”. What made Star Wars, A New Hope and subsequently Empire so great was that they were all so real looking compared to anything that happened before. That is, until the not-so-real CGI Jabba was put in ANH. The thing that makes Empire so great is it doesn’t try and do anything with the special effects that is overly ambitious. It does all the special effects for the most part with technology established in ANH. The thing that made it great is it was about telling a good story using established technology. It feels like it is pushing cinema and content rather than special effects. The effects are great, don’t get my wrong, but it doesn’t try and pull some special effects feat that doesn’t work.
Of course the “I am your father” and the “I love you. I know” moments. Also, “I’m altering the deal”. I won’t bother saying anything else on these. Hard to say anything that hasn’t been said many times before about these scenes.
Are there any low points? There is no scene in this movie that I have issues with. None that I can think of or that come up in the movie. Some complain about Leia kissing Luke being gross, but to me it was an innocent mistake. Neither of them knew, and it was just a kiss.
No annoying characters. No sub-par special effects. No bad scenes. This movie has it all.
It’s really hard to criticize this film. I’m pretty sure this is my favorite of all of them!
Lor San Tekka is quite a mysterious character. Next to Snoke and Maz Kanata, he stands as the most unseen character in The Force Awakens. We know almost nothing about his backstory, but if we put the little bit that we do know together, we get the suggestion that he is much more than a village elder.
EDIT: I’ve just posted a new article about Lor San Tekka here since seeing the movie. Check it out for more insight! Also, I’ve just posted a review of TFA here , and it addresses some of the unanswered questions about Lor San Tekka.
A key plot point and the first live image of Lor San Tekka, played by Max Von Sydow, recently came out of a “Look and Find” book, from which we have the image:
The big news is that Lor has “a message that will help the Resistance against a new threat”. Not only that, we have that the message was placed inside BB-8 (thus mirroring ANH with Leia’s message in R2D2).
We have been told that Tekka is just a Jakku village elder, so why would this particular message be his? It’s possible that the message didn’t originate from Tekka, but rather was already in the lightsaber.
For those of you that may not be aware, Tekka is in possession of Luke Skywalker’s lightsaber, the one lost on Cloud City in ESB. He gets it from Nakka, who finds it, and it isn’t until Lor San Tekka recognizes it’s importance that it is kept safe. If we connect this to other rumors about BB-8, we have the potentially relevant peices:
From an old post at MakingStarWars, we have the following:
We follow our main hero, Rey as she says goodbye to the important players in the film, Leia, Poe, and so on. Meanwhile BB-8, Artoo-Detoo, and See-Threepio decode a puzzle. Rey makes a special stop to say goodbye to Finn in the medical bay.
So is it possible that the “message” that Lor leaves in BB-8 is the puzzle, or is encoded in the puzzle? We have from other rumors that the puzzle not only encodes Luke Skywalker’s location, but is also too difficult for humans to solve:
The Resistance cannot decipher the puzzle to find Luke Skywalker, everyone overlooks the droids as potential puzzle solvers.
There was a lot of speculation, and a hint at confirmation (thanks to Darth_Zidious for digging that up for me) over this that the puzzle was put inside Luke’s lightsaber, or was some how part of the puzzle. This is because another article, again from MakingStarWars, reports that:
Poe Dameron arrives and retrieves the lightsaber from [Lor San Tekka]. The only problem? They’ve brought the Empire there as well (not sure if the Empire followed Poe or intercepted the initially transmission he received). Poe sees Stormtroopers are coming and he places the laser sword safely in a little droid: BB-8.
It is believed that Lor San Tekka has Lukes lightsaber, which he got from Nakka. Therefore, we have to wonder if Lor’s message and the puzzle encoding Luke’s location are one and the same. Under this theory, Luke is the thing that “will help the Resitance against a new threat” (presumably Snoke?) This would certainly simplify everything, but could be more controversial than it first looks.
The reason why Lor San Tekka’s message encoding Luke’s location is questionable is because how would Lor know Luke’s location? The way around this is that Luke encoded the puzzle that contains his location, and it was already in the lightsaber. This would be fine, but it says it’s “Lor’s message” according to the official material. Therefore, we have the other possibility that Lor’s message and the puzzle are two different things. Under this scenario, we have from the quote above that Lor’s message “will help the Resistance defend against a new threat”. So it must be something to do with the StarKiller base and some critical piece of info to take down this weapon. This is equally problematic because it raises the question of how Lor knows about the StarKiller weapon?
So we have two possibilities:
The second seems most likely. This is because it is quite possible that everyone and everything on Jakku was formerly part of the Empire, left there after the fall of the Empire following the Battle of Jakku (at least initially; other scavengers later came there). We know that the landscape is full of wreckage of the Empire, and it is quite likely that Lor San Tekka, the Vicar, was once an Imperial officer.
This would be consistent with a rumor posted on Reddit, and covered by FuriousFanboys saying that
Lor San Tekka was an Imperial officer. He and his troops were abandoned on Jakku. The remaining Imps on Jakku are a warring faction with Unkar Plutt and his thugs, who run scavenging operations. Rey is caught somewhere between the two “tribes.”
Therefore, a very likely scenario is that Lor’s message contains key strategic information about the Star Killer base. If so, this would suggest that this weapon was under construction going way back to the times of the Empire. How else would Tekka know about it? It began construction during the times of the Empire before the Battle of Jakku. It would have to be, to give time to construct such a monstrosity. If all this is true, it gives a plausible backstory to the First Order. They could be the remaining officers left after being stationed on Star Killer base, which we recently learned was once Ilum, and were sent by Palpatine before the end of the Empire.
We reported before about Palpatine sending out scientists and brigades to the outer reaches of the galaxy. The Aftermath book has the quote:
“Palpatine felt that the universe beyond the edges of our map was where his power came from. Over the many years he, with our aid, sent men and women beyond known space. They built labs and communication stations on distant moons, asteroids, out there in the wilds. We must follow them. Retreat from the Galaxy. Go out beyond the veil of stars. We must seek the source of the dark side like a man looking for a wellspring of water.”
Perhaps these brigades were part of the group that started setting up base on Ilum, to seek the Force power in it’s kyber crystals, and forming the Star Killer base. The Ithorian character Byph stumbles upon a crystal on Ilum in the Clone Wars episode “The Gathering”, that almost suggests that the planet could also hold some Dark side power. Although the crystal is blue, there seems to be some red dark side energy that is amplified around it:
What else could do this other than some red Dark side crystals?
These machinations on Ilum were set in play before the Battle of Jakku, and Lor San Tekka was involved with it enough to know the base’s weakness, so that he could convey this in a message through BB-8.
Early concept art depicted Von Sydow as a cyborg character, and possibly former military with the helmets and armor he seems to have. Perhaps it is possible that some original conceptions of him were a damaged former officer with cybernetic replacements for the damage he endured fighting for the Empire.
In the end, we have two possibilities for Lor San Tekka (based on the two possibilities above). Either
Either way, Lor San Tekka has an intriguing backstory.
Stay tuned for more updates on SpoiledBlueMilk.com on MWF and follow me on twitter @davestrrr
It’s Friday, so that means I’ll be reviewing another Star Wars movie in Episodic Order as we lead up to The Force Awakens. The good news is, I get to spend the day after Thanksgiving re-watching A New Hope, the bad news is reviewing it is kind of a challenge.
It definitely feels weird watching A New Hope to review it. I mean, I’ve seen it probably hundreds of times. It’s hard to look at it objectively given what an influence it has had to movies, culturally, and to me personally. Given that, what can I possibly say that hasn’t been said hundreds of times about this movie? I’ll do my best to give my favorite and least favorite moments.
I think I always liked the Jawas. Something about them always intrigued me. I think when I was a kid, their clothes probably connected more to the fantasy genre (I don’t know like the Smurfs cartoon) where a character would wear the same attire as the Jawas. So this was the first point in the movie when you realize that this is more than your typical Sci-Fi movie, but also dips into other genres.
I still like hearing Obi Wan telling Luke about the Jedi and his father. I like how after a certain point you realize that this movie has everything. Old wizards, giant dragon skeletons, space ships, robots, Smuggler with side-arms, bounty hunters and somehow it succeeds in presenting it with credibility on all fronts. In other words, none of those parts come across as cheesy or not well done. It works on all fronts, and this is certainly not an easy task.
It’s very interesting how infrequently the Force is used in this movie, and I think that’s a plus in a way. After this movie, you are left wondering what exactly the Force is capable of, but you’ve seen some amazing things. Let’s see, you have the Jedi Mind-trick from Obi Wan, The Force-choke from Vader, the Noise-at-a-distance from Obi Wan (in the Death Star), Luke using the Force to target an exhaust port at full-throttle, and Vader Force-sensing Lukes’ Force powers from a distance. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think that is it. So you might say this is a less-is-more kind of approach and it works.
That spin that Obi Wan does when fighting Vader. Just seems like he is putting himself into a vulnerable position. I don’t know, maybe he is doing some sort of Force-block or something that I don’t know about, but it just seems too slow to be a wise move.
I don’t know, lately when I watch the end, I can’t help but get sad for Chewie and the fact that he didn’t get a medal. It almost looks like Chewie goes through a series of emotions. From “proud”, to “child-like nervousness”, to “wait a minute, why are you starting with Han and not left to right”, to “WTF. I’m not getting a medal am I”. I feel like if this movie were made today, Chewie would have gotten a medal.
OK, so somehow this movie does feel a little bit slow at times. I don’t know if my tastes have become a little modernized and I want something to be a little more fast-paced. I feel like movies these days try to keep you on the edge of your seats either with intense action or intense drama. So, now rewatching A New Hope, there are times when it does seem to dip to a slightly lower pace. This is a very minor thing, and isn’t a huge negative because the movie still works.
Follow me on twitter @davestrrr and stay tuned to SpoiledBlueMilk.com for updateds MWF
On the latest episode of “Now this is podcasting”, there was a discussion about the latest interviews about Snoke. Interestingly, there wasn’t complete agreement on how to interpret some things in the interview from Empire last week, in particular the thing about Serkis filming atop a 25 foot podium. While Jeremy Conrad, from furiousfanboys.com thought that it definitely meant a regular sized character sitting atop a real podium. Jason Ward from makingstarwars.net and Randy Lo Gudice (@cursinguser), however, interpreted it that Snoke might be really large character.
Although this discrepency between the usually agreeing hosts reveals how little we actually know about Snoke, the answer to what this says about Snoke may be right in front of our noses.
This is because Jason further points out that the set piece is called “The Great Hall”, presumably the place where Snoke is staying, like a throne room, where he communicates with Hux (who was recently confirmed by the Empire interview to have scenes with Serkis) and Kylo Ren. In fact, the connection jumps out of one of the few pieces of concept art for TFA that could be of Snoke (above an old concept from Ralph McQuarrie via SWNN):
Therefore, we could have a more extreme version of the top concept, with a much higher throne, possibly in a much bigger cavern on the StarKiller base planet. It seems like it has to be on StarKiller base planet, because that’s the only place where he could talk to both Hux and Kylo. Many people thought that this was Luke, but the comparison to an old Emperor concept from RMcQ reveals that this is more likely Snoke. It is long well known that they are mining old McQuarrie concept art for TFA all over the place, and as fans know, McQuarrie also worked on Battle Star Galactica. There are some early concept work of the Boltar that resembles ideas that could be used with Snoke. The 25 foot podium mentioned by Serkis definitely brings this to mind:
Would JJ and Lucasfilm dig up old McQuarrie pieces that are not Star Wars, but BSG? They might if it sparked some ideas that could be incorporated into the other pieces. If they did, then that would explain what’s going on with the podium…except for the fact that in the other interview from Entertainment Weekly, Serkis also says that “He is large. He appears tall.” So which is it? Is he tall, or is he very tall? Meaning is he as tall as the Early Emperor concepts from McQuarrie?
Actually there were revisions in the early concept of the Emperor that may shed some light on what Snoke could look like. The first version looked like this:
which looks a bit decrepit in the face, fitting with other Serkis comments, and it also fits the quote “distinctive, idiosyncratic bone and facial structure” by Serkis (see below). This piece was later revised into something more like the Emperor we know (albeit taller and bluer):
We know the latter image inspired the McDiarmid’s Emperor, but could the earlier version have inspired some of the new concepts for Snoke? In both cases, this concept is very large, and could actually be 25 foot tall, and fits the description.
The Empire article also reiterates some stuff from interview from Entertainment Weekly, in particular the part about Snoke being a damaged, scarred, and disfigured character. We can’t help but make the connection with one of the early rumors of “Uber”, the early code-name for Snoke, where the guys at StarWarsUnderworld state that:
Andy Serkis’ character basically looks like an old man, zombie like, almost risen from the dead.
If we also connect this to some old McQuarrie concept art for the Emperor (found here), the first one that jumps out is this one:
we can see that this old McQ concept looks Zombie-like with skin hanging down off his fingers. Could this be what Serkis means when he says (in the EW article):
“there is a strange vulnerability to him, which belies his true agenda, I suppose.”
In other words, it might be that Snoke is a half-dead, damaged, and disfigured, almost hanging by a thread to life, but at the same time emerging in a very long elaborate plot to take over he entire galaxy. He’s a “long-term schemer”, that’s been around through the much of the previous events in the Star Wars movies, so he could be some sort of undead character that goes back to the prequels.
But what if they combine these two? What if we have a 25 foot tall zombie character, broken and frail because his weakened undead bones can barely support the weight of his 25 foot lumbering body? So either this is the vulnerability that Serkis is talking about, or it is a reason to reject this and accept that Snoke is a regular-sized guy that has a tall throne.
The other key point we have from these new interviews is that Snoke is a new character. This is key because in one fell swoop seems to take down both the Darth Plagueis and the Darth Jar Jar theories.
Is there any other concept art that might be relevant? Maybe one ther piece:
This early concept from Indie Revolver, depicts what appears to be Luke battling a very tall, yellow-lightsaber-wielding bad guy. We know it’s Luke because of the green lightsaber, given that Finn/Rey have Luke/Anakin’s old blue one. At this height could this be our tall Snoke character? This could certainly be an early Kylo Ren concept, but check that height! That character is actually almost twice the size of Luke, if not taller. However, almost everything points to Luke only being present for the very last scene of the movie. Therefore, could this showdown have been moved to Episode VIII?
I talked to @mazlow01 about this, and he is of the opinion that Snoke will be between 8-12 ft tall and be seated on a 10-15 ft tall podium. He doubts we will see him do anything physical in this film except for he will light a lightsaber at least once. Andy Serkis said something about Snoke would carry one and Mazlow01 thinks he will, and will have a look that’s a mix of early concepts of the Emperor and Voldemort.
One thing we can be sure of is, by not telling us about Snoke, and getting us to debate and dig through the details, there are creating incredible anticipation. In a way, it would be in their best interest to not tell us anything about Snoke! I’m glad they left us a few crumbs to chew one.
Follow me on twitter @davestrrr and stay posted to SpoiledBlueMilk.com on MWF for updates.
Here’s a summary of these two articles:
Interview from Entertainment Weekly. To paraphrase Serkis, we have the following facts about Snoke:
Interview from Empire last week. Again, paraphrasing we get this info:
It’s Friday night! That means it’s time for the reviews of the Star Wars movies in episodic order. As I did with The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones, I’m reviewing the entire saga as we lead up to The Force Awakens, and today, I’ll be reviewing RotS. By far, Revenge of the Sith is my favorite prequel. It’s witty, it moves fast, the visual effects are nearly impeccable. In my mind, a lot of the flak that the prequels got was because they wanted RotS all along. Ever since Vader says “When we last met, I was but a learner, now I am the master” in ANH, we’ve been yearning to see that last time. It’s said that Tom Stoppard gave the script a “polish”, and I think it worked because to me the script is tight, compact, and funny without being cheesy. I think it has more wittily structured lines than any of the prequels. Compare:
Greivous: It is a volcanic planet. You will be safe there.
Nute Gunray: Safe?!
from RotS to
C3P0: Oh! This is such a drag.
from AotC. I mean both are funny, but RotS just lacks the cheeseball factor. Appropriate too, given the dark nature of the film. There are moments like this that really bump this movie up and up in the saga for me.
I think Ian McDiarmid is one of my favorite Star Wars actors, and he shines in this film. I think his delivery is amazing for the vast majority of the film. In a way, McDiarmid is sort of Lucas’ “ace in the hole” for the prequels. An amazing actor that he uses sparingly until the third act. Although his performances in TPM and AotC were downright brilliant, his performance in RotS brings him to the forefront where he can really “bring it”. I actually think he is better in the first half of the film. Some of his most amazing lines in my mind: all the scenes when he is manipulating Anakin, “Do it”, “And we shall have peace” and “Execute order 66” when we see him say it in person the first time, are all so brilliantly executed.
That scene. That moment half way through the film when Anakin sits the the Jedi Council chambers watching the sunset over Coruscant. In my opinion, this scene is meant to mirror the famous sunset scene over Tatooine with Luke looking to the horizon. Whereas Luke longs for a more meaningful life off that planet, and for a more meaningful future; Anakin contemplates his own future and Padme’s. Right after Luke’s sunset moment, he starts on a path that would ultimately make him a hero. Right after Anakin’s moment he starts on a path, past the point of no return, to become an anti-hero. This scene in RotS has amazing lighting, great music, and one of Hayden’s best non-verbal performances. Speaking of Hayden, upon this viewing I feel that his performances in RotS, on the whole, are actually pretty darn good. I think his performance in this film, except for maybe one or two lines, are right on the money. He is certainly the main character of this film as the story follows him very closely. As I said in my last review, I liked Hayden in AotC except for a few scenes. In RotS there are just a couple of spots where the emotion doesn’t come through (when he says “No, it’s because I’m so in love with you” doesn’t do it for me), but he more than makes up for it in other scenes. Some other Hayden high points are “I’m doing for you…to protect you”, and the furious disdain he shows for Obi Wan after the fight.
I still think the CGI version of Yoda in the blue ray version of TPM is the best animation of Yoda in the whole prequels. Admittedly, the technology had improved because it was the most recent, but still. I wouldn’t be opposed to refreshed CGI to touch up a few spots of the whole prequels in a new 4K version of them. I mean, most of the CGI is great, but you know there are just a couple of shots here and there. The truth is though, it actually isn’t always clear which parts of the prequels are CGI and which are practical, but there’s a couple of CGI effects that could be better. In RotS, for example, the face of Dooku and Sidious on their respective stuntmen during lightsaber duels look fake at times. Certainly, those scenes were a major achievement for their time, but just imagine if, say in 2020, they took the old raw digital footage from RotS, and improved the digital model of Palpatine and Dooku, and beefed up those scenes. For example, if you took the original 3D scans used to make those models, performed some sort of 2020 3D anti-aliasing technology on them and rebuilt those models. With Yoda, some of the scenes are amazing, and no doubt better than AotC, but there are just a couple of shots that I could see improving. Probably not this one though:
OK, so at the end, when Yoda says that the twins need to be split up and protected from the Emperor, the logic baffles me. I know Luke and Leia have to end up in a particular location with particular people, but why send Leia with a high profile Senator when the Emperor is still in power? Why send Luke with the only family Anakin has left? Sure, Vader assumes that Luke and Leia died with Padme, but what if he ever had a clairvoyant image of his children alive? If he had one of his vivid dreams, and he recognized something in the dream, he would go looking for them. Why not send them to a completely obscure planet that no one would ever visit? At any rate, we know how the ending needs to end up to match with ANH, so we let this one slide.
The other thing that has always bothered me was Anakin’s motivations for killing the Jedi could have been beefed up just a bit. It isn’t made crystal clear why he needs to wipe out the Jedi, and he must “show no mercy in order to be strong enough with the darkside in order to save Padme”. I mean, I understand it. I understand that the darkside flows stronger when there is no mercy. I just think Anakin takes a huge leap here, and some more dialogue to motivate why he would go from “trying to save Padme” to blindly committing heinous acts wouldn’t hurt here. Maybe they left it simple because trying to explain only made things even less believable.
Upon re-watching the prequels, it has become more apparent of the idea of emerging characters, and also, for lack of a better term, vanishing characters. For example, although Padme plays a key role in the film, her scenes feel fewer compared to TPM and AotC. She gives some of her strongest acting of the prequels in these scenes, but it does seem like less screen time. Jar Jar has just a brief glimpse. As far as I can tell, Jar Jar just says “Excuse me” when he bumps into another major senator, possibly Orn Free Taa. In contrast to the much maligned “Exqueeze me” of TPM, in this one brief moment we see that Jar Jar is still a little clumsy, but has assimilated as a senator. Palpatine seems to keeps Jar Jar close, because he is easily manipulated, and other senators love him. He’s a lovable yokel-turned-Senator that is well liked and easy to control.
The high points of the film are numerous. The opening shot space battle. The moment when Palpatine tells Anakin the story of Plagueis. Many of the exchanges between Anakin and Padme are quite good, and a welcome change to some of the dud scenes in AotC. The lightsaber battles are pretty excellent all around. I love the way the prequel style is morphed into the OT style smoothly in this film, until the end, we have a style very similar to the OT. I like the encounter between Mace and Palpatine.
The number of great scenes outnumber the scenes that are not so great by a large margin. In fact, my minor criticisms are a real stretch, I know. That’s because, I think it’s a great film. This is the film that people somehow thought the prequels would begin with. As a whole the prequels have been fun to watch again. RotS was certainly the best for me as it has always been, followed by TPM, then AotC. We’re now like 27 days from TFA, and if anything the only thing holding me back from enjoying the prequels more was the anticipation for new Star Wars in less than a month.
Follow me on twitter @davestrrr and stay tuned to SpoiledBlueMilk.com MWF for updates.
What’s not to love about BB-8? This little droid has taken the Star Wars fandom by storm, and has also had a huge impact on mainstream audiences. I’d like to take a moment to dig deep into the internet, to old rumors, and the latest spoilers to present 8 “tricks” that this new little droid has up his, ahem, ports.
First things first, BB-8 is a male. There are a lot of instances of people referring to him as a “he”. For example, there is a recent interview with JJ Abrams where he refers to BB-8 multiple times as a “he”. There is a recent post by Making Star Wars, that is supported by others, suggesting that BB-8 is in fact male. The report initially said female, but the update at the top says that there is some evidence that rules out him being female. So hereafter, I’ll use male pronouns to refer to BB-8.
Although we have known about this droid for a while, the full details are still being fleshed out. BB-8 begins this movie as Poe Dameron’s astromech droid. We see him in the same spot that R2 is known to sit, behind the cockpit in Poe’s X-wing.
After Poe lands, he goes and talks to the Vicar, and is able to get the Luke’s saber, the MacGuffin of the movie, from him. At this point, Poe sees the First Order troopers coming in and landing. The First Order comes to wipe out a village that they believe harbors the saber. Poe tells BB-8 to run away with the saber, while he is taken captive (mirroring Leia in ANH, perhaps?). Of course at this point, Poe is taken back to the First Order ship where he meets Finn. At some point, BB-8 is captured by Teedo, and is then found by Rey. Rey then seems to rescue BB-8, thinking that she could make some money off of the droid. Actually, this particular point I’m not sure about. She could have genuinely been trying to help the little guy and save him from captivity.
We all know that R2D2 has a ton of gadgets. So what kind of equipment does BB-8 have? Here is our list of the top 8 features of BB-8:
1. A compartment for storing a lightsaber. BB-8 shares this functionality with R2D2. We know this because he carries Luke’s saber for half the movie. Poe Dameron gives him the saber and tells him to run away with it.
2. A buzzsaw (see toy photo below). One possibility is BB-8 will use this buzzsaw to try to get out of the net he is trapped in by Teedo (photo above). This could be reminiscent of R2 using his buzzsaw to escape from the Ewok trap in RotJ. This scene is pure speculation on my part, but it seems all the pieces are there for this to happen. From the photo above, it is clear that Rey let’s him out before BB-8 can seal the deal and cut all the way through.
3. A taser-style shocker thing with blue electric bolts (see photo below found here). We know that Rey and Finn encounter some thugs in Cratertown, so maybe BB-8 uses this taser to defend himself?
By the way, the taser thing was featured on a new promotional campaign/special effects app from Bad Robot! Twitter user @GonzagoRaSa‘s tweet made me aware of this:
@StarWarsJunk @MakingStarWars @starwarsnewsnet #BB8 has more utility arms! Confirmed by the #ActionMovieFX app! pic.twitter.com/G4J0XSL9nX
— Gonzalo Ramírez S (@GonzaloRaSa) November 5, 2015
OK, so technically toys and apps aren’t “canon”, but I think it’s a strong indication that we’ll see something like this in the movies.
4. Escape mode: BB-8 has the ability to bring his head inside the ball for “escape mode”. We know this from a Walmart exclusive T-shirt. Again, this could come in handy to escape from the incoming stormtroopers in the Jakku village, or from the thugs in Cratertown. There are other functionalities labeled on this shirt, but it’s hard to read:
5. Possibly pufferfish spikes. There was an old Making Star Wars rumor about a year ago about BB-8 shooting out spikes in all directions like a pufferfish, then using these spikes to take out a Stormtrooper that tried to pick him up. That would indeed be cool to see, and presumably there would be some CGI involved in that shot.
6. A full articulated hand: There is an old report (again from MSW) that suggest that he has a foldable hand with articulated fingers. What will he use this hand for? One can only imagine. Maybe to pick something up, or to pull some lever on the Falcon. Anybody’s guess is good at this point, I guess.
7. A “scomp link” or data arm to interface a dataports on a computer terminal. This is probably similar to R2D2’s scomp link. At least, there is a recent Verizon commercial where BB-8 has this functionality. Somehow, I think if they built this functionality into the puppet for a commercial, I think this means that we’ll see it at some point in the movies as well:
8. Grappling Hooks! OK so this one is possibly the shakiest one on this list, but worth mentioning. There is another functionality seen in the #ActionMovieFX app, and in this video for example, BB-8 shoots out two grappling hooks, or some sort of cable that enables him to pull himself up and through a trap door:
Perks of working for #Disney…#StarWars characters visit your house! @Disney @starwars #actionmoviefx pic.twitter.com/E5vbuyaQFY
— Tim Sarquis (@PromoTim) November 12, 2015
Will we see this in the movie? This one isn’t as clear as the taser thing because it isn’t in the toys, but it would certainly be a cool thing to see! Let’s face it, if he does half of the things on this list, he will be nothing short of one badass little robot.
So the cool thing is BB-8 is practical. You probably already know that (although there was a time not too long ago when this was debated), but did you know there are in fact multiple puppets used for different scenes? The droid that came out and wheeled around during SDCC was actually built after filming. For example, in this scene from the first trailer, we can see that the head is lifted up higher, suggesting it is a different type of droid for going those kinds of speeds. Actually, this puppet could be based on a model more similar to this early drawing by Jason Ward here, so that it would be stable for fast speeds.
This version could be the “trike” mentioned in StarWars.com, in a list of versions of the droid:
There was the “wiggler,” which was static, but could twist and turn on the spot and was used for close-ups. There were two trike versions, which had stabilizer wheels, allowing them to be driven by remote control without a puppeteer in the shot. There was a version that could be picked up by actors and controlled via remote for specific reactions and movements. There was the “bowling ball” version, which could literally be thrown into a shot and never fall down (like a Weeble toy). Finally, there was the rod-puppet version, which was operated by Chapman and Herring — one controlling the head, adding nuance and attitude, and the other the body — who would then be digitally erased.
We’re now less than a month until The Force Awakens! Less than a month until we officially see this little guy in action. Speculation and anticipation is half the fun!
Follow me on twitter @davestrrr and stay tuned to SpoiledBlueMilk.com for updates MWF.
Attack of the Clones! I’m doing a series of reviews leading up to The Force Awakens in chronological order. Last week, I reviewed the Phantom Menace. In the end, TPM is a pretty good film, but AotC just falls short of it in my opinion. I think it’s the weakest of the movies, due to a few small low points. The high points soar pretty high, balancing it out to make overall a decent film. Although it’s my least favorite, it’s still Star Wars and still a fun time, and still has some excellent moments.
Some of the Yoda shots seem weak. Weaker than the BluRay version of TPM at least. Some of the close up shots just seem flat and a little too fluid at the same time. Just doesn’t come across as a physical object. Other shots look very good. When Yoda is seen at a distance, the detail is spot-on, and he looks like the puppet from ESB, but there are just those few scenes. In particular toward the beginning when Yoda says “Impossible to see the future is…”. Great line, but the CGI animation work just doesn’t pan out for me.
Obi Wan’s laugh in the elevator with Anakin just doesn’t seem real. I’m sorry, and I love Ewan McGregor’s performance for the most part and he carries most of the film, but that laugh just didn’t come off as genuine.
I don’t like the sound design for Zam Wesell’s speeder. It just sounds jarring to me and takes me out of the moment. Maybe that was the effect they are going for, but for me it just is kind of irksome. There are some parts of the whole speeder chase through Coruscant that bother me or just don’t seem right. The sound design, some of the dialogue. Even some of the CGI doesn’t work as well as it should.
Theres a point when Padme and Anakin are sitting in the grass talking, and they both let out a really fake laugh after Anakin says “I like two or three [politicians], but I’m not really sure about one of them”. It just jumps out at me. It is sort of a sigh crossed with a laugh. It gives the impression that the two of them are already sick of making the movie, which is not the impression you want to have.
The frustrated love scene. This is the one where Padme wears the black dress that has a choker built in. I think the design of this dress was made by George Lucas, and it is made to be symbolic of choking, in the sense that the neck part of the dress looks like Vader’s hand. All that stuff is excellent and downright brilliant. The part that gets me is when Anakin says “I wish I could just wish away my feelings, but I can’t” and squints his eyes. It just doesn’t feel right or real. Also, when Anakin says “I’m in agony” just doesn’t feel like it is suitable. Maybe it’s because Hayden doesn’t convey the necessary gravitas to use a word like “agony” instead of “I’m pissed!” or something else. I don’t know. I know I’m not the only one that feels this scene falls a little short in places.
“I am a slow learner”. Sounds weird, doesn’t come out right. Feels lame. Nuff said.
I think that is about it. Just those couple of scenes. I feel like my issues with the movie are pretty minor, but the problem is that a lot of these little moments tend to have a ripple effect and take down entire scenes with them. That’s unfortunate because to me they stick out like a sore thumb. I’m not saying I could do a better job. I’m sure if I were to write and direct Attack of the Clones it would be much, much worse. However, it’s just frustrating because so much of the film works. It’s just these little scenes that should have been rejected and replaced in reshoots or something, or rewritten and reworked. But again, that’s easy for me to say.
The High Points
I think Hayden Christiansen for the most part plays the part pefectly, apart from the couple scenes I mention above. Yeah, at times he comes across as a bit of a whiny, angsty teenager, but I think that was the point. I think that was exactly what he was supposed to be. I actually like the scene where he confesses to Padme that he killed the Sand people. I think he hits every note right. I know some people don’t like that, but it works for me. In short, I think this is a very tough part and I think he nailed it for the most part.
I love the scene where Palpatine manipulates Jar Jar. The expression on Jar Jar’s face is just perfect when he is sitting there contemplating the situation what Mas Amedda says “If only Senator Amidala were here”. As if little gears are turning. In fact, it is this scene, and how well it works that makes me reject the Darth Jar Jar theory. I discussed this theory a little bit in my last review of TPM, and I did a little excursion into the Darth Jar Jar theory. Although I do think the early concept art Indie Revolver posted of Snoke does look like it has the same shape as Jar Jar, in the end, I think that the theory has been taken too far by the internet. Although I think it is possible that Jar Jar, on account of him being so damned lucky, might be unwittingly tapping into the Force, I think he is still an idiot. If anything, I think he was manipulated by Darth SIdious and was never in control. Even if the whole part about Jar Jar using the Force is true, and even if the idea of Jar Jar manipulating some people is true, I think at best he was a pawn of Darth Sidious.
All the scenes with Jango Fett and Obi Wan are great. These two just went well with each other. The chemistry was there. I love their few interactions and wish there was more. In general, Temura Morrison is excellent, as is Ewan; therefore, putting them together is superb.
The encounter of Dooku and Obi Wan holds up nicely. I especially love the moment when Dooku says “It may be difficult to secure your release”. That look on his face…This scene is in many ways the “I am your father moment” of AotC in the ring composition. Not because Dooku says “I am your master’s master” in so many words, because that was given such a matter-of-fact way that it wasn’t even that interesting. It was because Dooku asks Obi Wan to join him to destroy the Sith, just as Vader asked Luke to join him to defeat the Emperor in ESB. Does it compare to ESB in any way in terms of quality? Of course not. But it’s still a decent scene nonetheless and holds up.
The last thirty minutes of this movie are fantastic. From basically the the point at which Mace Windu walks out into the arena the the end is great. In fact the cinematography and directing of Mace Windu entering the arena and ultimately taking out Jango is almost perfect. I certainly couldn’t imagine what could be improved. I’m in the camp that the Yoda fight scene was awesome. Yeah, it isn’t as cool as it was in 2002 when I saw this movie countless times, shelling out for the awesome projector at the Metreon in San Francisco, viewing after viewing, but it still is exciting for me despite how jading the past 13 years have been.
For me, the Phantom Menace flowed quite nicely, with no scenes for me that kind of fall flat and stand out as jarring. That’s why it ranks higher on my list than AotC. There are just a couple of minor points of AotC that I trip on, but for the most part, it’s pretty entertaining.
Follow me on twitter @davestrrr and stay tuned to SpoiledBlueMilk.com for updates MWF.
Howdy folks! Davestrrr here. As part of our countdown to the Force Awakens, I’m going review the Star Wars Saga in chronological order, every Friday until The Force Awakens! While I’m watching TPM this time, I’m going to have some fun and also contemplate the “Darth Jar Jar” theory going around. This sure sounds like an exciting task to me, so let’s get to it.
I’m among the older, original trilogy fans that likes the Prequels. The first time I saw TPM, I was 23 years old. My first reaction was “I like it”. My later reaction was “I still like it”. I was staying in Los Alamos, NM for the summer of ’99 and I saw that movie like every weekend at the local theater with a couple of other fans. Admittedly, it was a theater that only showed 2 movies and it was the only thing to do in town. I didn’t mind, and I liked the excuse to see the movie again and again. Yeah, there were some slow parts, but it was worth it for the good parts. I remember loving the fight scene with Obi Wan and Darth Maul. Still do.
Watching it again tonight was fun, but I must say I’ve seen it many many times since. On the blue-ray, a few things stand out to me. The CGI work on Yoda is amazing. Yoda is way more emotive and better in this version compared to the puppet. This is pretty much well known that this is the case, it just seemed especially true to me tonight.
A couple of CGI characters still look rubbery. Some of the pod racing pilots look a little dated, but for the most part, I think the special effects in TPM have held up quite well.
Personally, I think Jake Lloyd played the part of Anakin well. Some people wanted him to be darker, but I think it works out well by contrasting the levity of TPM with the darkness of RotS. If anything, I think Ewan McGregor’s performance could have been amped up. It seems really subdued in this film and it feels strange that he plays such a small “side role” for most of the film.
One thing jumps out to me that “Luck” plays a big role. I mean dumb luck. Let me take that back, there is some things that look like luck that are really the Force, and there are things that look like dumb luck. For example, Qui-gon winning with Watto’s chance-cube was the Force. Anakin blowing up the Droid control ship, was dumb luck. He is just fiddling with the controls and ends up shooting the main reactor. He just seems like a kid trying out the controls on a new video game, and just happens to get the high score. Makes you wonder, given how strong with the Force Anakin is, was he tapping into the Force? Was it not luck, but in fact some sort of playful use of the Force? Were other examples of dumb luck that won the day also part of the Force?
So, I have to bring up a new theory that has emerged on the internet. The “Darth Jar Jar” theory. If you haven’t read it, head over to the original post, or here for a good synopsis, here for a skeptical view, or the subreddit devoted to this theory.
Although I find this theory unlikely, I think it is a lot of fun and great to hear a new, well thought-out theory that looks at TPM in an original way, over 15 years after the movie was released. It brings up the interesting point: how did a bumbling fool make his way to one of the highest positions in the galaxy? If you consider for a moment that he isn’t a complete fool, you have to start wondering if he is a Force-sensitive genius for accomplishing what he has accomplished. Not to mention, Jar Jar, with his glowing yellow eyes (I think brighter than most Gungans), always kind of looked like a Sith.
General Binks effortlessly defeats more droids than any other Gungan.
He waves his hands around at key points in the film to get what he wants.
The list goes on. One thing that did stand out to me in support of this theory was what looked like a smile during Qui-gon’s Furneral, right before he looks down. Check this out:
I saw this in this reddit post here, but I don’t think his gif does justice to it. It’s better to see it in the context of the video. I may have also took more notice because it reminded me of the smile on Palpatine’s face when Queen Amidala prepares to leave Coruscant. You know, the one right before the wipe. That smile was a little wink wink to the fans about Palpatine. Jar Jar’s smile felt eerily similar.
Unlikely though it may be, this is still a cool way to look at TPM with some fresh eyes.
On the whole, I think TPM holds up pretty well for a 15 year old movie. Still a lot of fun. Although it is different than ANH, it came out over 20 years later in a very different time. I think it suited its time quite well.
Follow me on twitter @davestrrr and stay tuned at SpoiledBlueMilk.com on MWF for more updates (@spoiledbluemilk)
We have a poster, we have a trailer, we have a lot of news and spoilerific info about The Force Awakens. The question I’m going to revisit today is might we get a shot of everyone’s favorite little green Jedi? What are the chances of seeing Yoda in The Force Awakens? Let’s take a stroll through the internet and see what we can dig up.
A recent post over at StarWarsNewsNet (formerly StarWars7News) caught my eye, and is the main impetus for this post. There were a couple of rumors in this post, but the point that Yoda will be in The Force Awakens jumped out at me. The exact wording is:
I know someone who works in the ****** media (dubbing) who assured me that there was indeed a scene with Yoda in The Force Awakens.
So, it is pretty tough to evaluate this claim given that we don’t know this source, and SWNN claims their sources are just readers of SWNN making this claim. However, given the decent credibility of SWNN, I couldn’t help but stop and think how this could even happen.
We of course know that if Yoda is to make an appearance, he’ll have to be a Force ghost. That is, if he isn’t a hologram. We’ve only seen Force ghost Yoda talking to Luke in any of the films. Therefore, we can assume that the most likely scenario is if Yoda is talking to Luke. The possible exception could be that Maz Kanata is some kind of old wise alien that somehow also knows Yoda. We’ve speculated before that Maz is also some kind of a Jedi, or perhaps a non-Jedi mystic with deep knowledge of kyber crystals and the Force.
So Maz is the only other character I can imagine at this point that could communicate with Yoda other than Luke. However, as it turns out some of the earliest rumors about The Force Awakens was that Yoda would make an appearance.
Going back to December 2nd 2014, we have this report from Galactic News One (found via Star Wars Underworld) that gives a lot of alledged details on The Force Awakens. Actually the post just references a 4chan post as the evidence. A lot of this post has held up, but there are a lot of statements that are flat-out wrong (for example Gleeson being some sort of a “scoundrel”). However, enough of them are correct that I think it is worth taking notice. Among them was the point that
Luke speaks to Yoda’s force ghost in the film.
Going back even earlier, we have a post from January 2014 suggesting that Yoda will be in the film. This article quote Cosmic Book News, who cites their “DC Entertainment Source”. Now this isn’t exactly DC Entertainment news, but maybe they have some inside info. The direct quote is:
‘We’re told that Yoda will have words with Luke Skywalker about a rising unbalance in the force and the need to preserve the Jedi.’
Where would it make sense in the film, given what we know about the film? We actually know fewer details about the second and third act of the film than we do of the first. But given the MakingStarWars plot synopsis, which seems to hold up pretty well, there might be some places where Yoda could fit in. If anything, such a scene might fit into two points in the film.
The first scene could be during the flashback scene. We don’t know many details, but there is a believed scene where Knights of Ren attack on Luke’s Academy. From the MSW synopsis:
VISION: There is what looks to be a Jedi Academy, and the dead bodies of padawans are on the ground. Luke Skywalker shows up, too late. He sits by a funeral pyre with R2-D2.
Luke returns too late to save them, and many padawan have been killed. Depending on how long the flashback is, there might be room for a quick shot of Yoda’s Force ghost consoling Luke, perhaps close to the shot of Luke consoling R2D2.
The second scene that could plausibly make sense is at the end, with a shot of Luke communicating to Yoda’s Force ghost while in his seclusion in the huts above Skellig Micheal.
This would have to be before Rey arrives, assuming that when Rey hands off the saber to Luke, we then immediately get the closing credits. We don’t know this is exactly how it ends, but that seems to be what MSW thinks. Therefore, we might have a scene with Luke and a Force-ghost Yoda talking before Rey arrives. I mean, hey, Luke has to talk to somebody while in his seclusion, right? The problem with this is it could steal the thunder of revealing Luke at the very end. However, and forgive a brief bit of fanfic here, what if the scene is Luke in a hooded Jedi robe facing away from the camera, talking to Yoda? Then the sound of a space ship causes the hooded Jedi to walk outside and greet Rey.
I’m not completely convinced that Yoda is needed, but perhaps some sort of statement to Luke, telling him that it is time to come out of seclusion and rebuild the Jedi order could work. What do you think? Let us know in the comments below if you’d like to see something like this.
What an amazing trailer we had last week. The internet is still reeling from it all, and still chewing over the details of the footage. Now that we’ve had a week to digest the trailer, and for the internet to parse every second, we’re going to take some time to more deeply evaluate it. Let’s get right into it:
more “Weekly Recap #11: Digging deeper into the trailer and more!”
After they team up, the heroes Rey and Finn get chased down by TIE fighters. As Rey leads Finn and they run across the dessert, they end up to a ship with an open door and platform. It’s the Millennium Falcon, and the run in and take off. The Falcon is on Jakku, and Rey runs straight to it. Let’s try and navigate through the confirmed and rumored info, including spoilers, about the Millennium Falcon.
First things first if you haven’t watched the trailer lets take care of that now. If you have, lets watch it again.
Now that we have that out of the way lets break it down! ( Our interpretations of the trailer are based on spoilers, so consider yourself warned. Spoilers Ahead!!!)
It’s our 10th Weekly Recap, hence our 10th week of operation at Spoiled Blue Milk. And what a week! We’ve decided to devote part one of this recap to the newly released The Force Awakens official movie poster. How much can you get out of a poster? Quite a lot. 
Spanning the globe and the farthest reaches of the world wide web to bring you the latest news about the Force Awakens character Finn. He is one of those characters that we think we know a lot about, but somehow it seems like there is still quite a bit to know.
The big question that everyone wants to know…Does Finn become a Jedi? I had assumed that he would for a long time, and then these cards showed up saying that he wasn’t. However, we don’t know how seriously to take these cards. In fact, there is good reason to not take them seriously at all because it also says R2 is a Jedi! So, we’re back to the drawing board. We do know that he is carrying the lightsaber for most of the movie from the concept art:
but that could be just carrying it because he thinks it’s cool. The MSW plot synopsis suggests he is attracted to it, while Rey is repulsed by it. Therefore, that would make Finn the best person to carry it to bring it to Luke (until Rey takes it, as is rumored).
In a recent interview with V magazine, we get this suggestion:
Boyega plays the character of Finn, who he describes as being “in conflict, mostly with himself and also with the powers” but is tight-lipped about why this conflict exists, or which powers he means for that matter—the Force?
And when confronted with this point, most of the readers of SWNN (49%) voted that they thought that he was a Jedi, and the lightsaber is no coincidence.
Still, even Han wielded a lightsaber in ESB, so in my mind the lightsaber doesn’t guarantee anything. Or does it? To cut the guts out of a Tauntaun is one thing, but to use it in fighting? According to Wookieepedia, you need a certain strength dexterity to wield one. Perhaps even only the strength of a Jedi. The idea that Finn is in a lightsaber fight with Kylo goes way back, to a post by Jimjamjim on the Jedi Council Forums. A lot of what he posted has held up, and this was the first mention of Kylo’s crossguarded lightsaber (way back Sept 2014). So we can likely expect him to fight with the saber. However, we’re left then wondering with what skill does he use the lightsaber? Does he fumble around with it for a little bit and then just get taken down, or does he actually use it well enough? The synopsis says he is quickly taken down and then saved by Rey. Therefore, my money is on Rey being a Jedi. In the end, I don’t know if there is any solid evidence that he will become a Jedi, and I’m starting to think he just tried to use the saber, but couldn’t hack it. Could absolutely be wrong, but so far I’m struggling to find anything solid that he shows signs of being Force-sensitive. Please let me know if you’ve heard of anything!
There are some recent rumblings around the web that Finn’s story is loosely based on the Legends character “Finn Galfridian”. It’s interesting that this character interacted with the Solo twins and rode in the Millennium Falcon. In many ways, Finn Galfridian’s story has a couple similarities to Finn, but still pretty different. Finn Galfridian was a Jedi sent to help the Solo’s from none other than Luke Skywalker. Frankly, I’m not going to defend this theory, but it could be an interesting idea to look into, hence pointing it out.
In a the same article from V Magazine mentioned above, John Boyega basically stated that the fan theories are wrong. We’ve always thought that Finn is a stormtrooper, with number FN2187. There are some rumors that suggest that he might be just posing as a stormtrooper.
“We’ve seen him in the Stormtrooper outfit and his own clothes. Why is that?” The answer, he says, is “very surprising.” And if you think you’ve worked it out, the chances are you’re wrong. “J.J. will send me YouTube clips of fans reacting to things online and it’s funny. The fans have no idea. It’s great they are talking, but nobody has a clue.”
So it makes you wonder how the rumors could be wrong. It would be a nice surprise if he was in fact not a stormtrooper, and wearing the outfit as a disguise. If so, I guess he might be a Resistance fighter or spy trying to infiltrate the First Order. That would explain why he is shorter than all the other stormtroopers. That’s him in the middle:
Would someone that short make it into the StormTroopers? According the Leia in ANH, there are height requirements.
I’ve definitely all this time thought that he was a stormtrooper and I assumed that his name “Finn” was based off his stormtrooper id number “FN2187”. But what if it’s the other way around? What if he is a Resistance spy, infiltrating the First order, and when asked his number, he made one up, using “FN” as the characters based on his name? For example, this idea would explain why he was repulsed by the actions of the stormtroopers. Wouldn’t someone trained in the First Order be sort desensitized to the kind of violence that they do? Again, this is just entertaining a wild idea here, and I still think that the evidence points to him being an actual stormtrooper, but nevertheless again worth contemplating. What do you think? Share your comments below.
Follow me on twitter for more updates! @davestrrr
P.S. – John Boyega, is as excited to hear about the trailer as we are!
So connected with JJ and told him to hurry up with a trailer. Fingers crossed! That’s all I can do. #injjwetrust
— John Boyega (@JohnBoyega) October 14, 2015
Were are now only 11 weeks away from The Force Awakens! After a period of slim pickings, some new rumors are starting to trickle in. Seems like things are being kept locked down pretty good at LFL. Let’s take a moment to recap the past weeks news and rumors with Weekly Recap #9:
There is probably no theory about The Force Awakens that has garnered more controversy than the theory that Snoke is Darth Plagueis. In this spoiler-fueled speculation piece, I’ll take a critical, serious look at what we know of canon, and what we know of TFA and see if this even makes any sense.
more “To cheat death is a power only one has achieved: Getting serious about Plagueis”
A revolutionary new idea called “Star Wars Ring Theory” has taken the internet by storm, and even inspired a forthcoming documentary. The ring theory proposes that the Star Wars saga is set up to mirror itself using “ring compostion” in a ABC-CBA pattern. The mirroring is set up through parallels and common recurring themes. More basic than the ring theory is the idea that the different movies of the trilogies “rhyme”, with parallel themes and scenes that compare and contrast for added impact.The real question is, are the makers of the new sequel trilogy (ST) aware of this structure to the Star Wars saga, and do they have intentions of continuing it? How many glasses of wine into the conversation would it take for Lucas and Abrams to start talking about stuff like this?
more “Ring Theory, Parallels, and Rhyming in The Force Awakens”
Here we are. Another Monday, another time to take a moment and look back and recap what happened last week in Star Wars. Looking back and looking ahead I’m both amazed at how little we knew a year ago, and I’m also amazed at how little we know now given that we are less than 3 months away. Seems like some critical plot points are still clouded by mystery and confusion.
“Is it true, you’re just a scavenger?” -Kylo Ren, presumably to Rey
“Together we will destroy the Resistance and the last Jedi.” -Kylo Ren, presumably to Snoke.
In this spoiler-fueled speculation piece we consider the mounting evidence that suggests that Rey is in fact more than just a scavenger and is in fact a Jedi (or at least was once a youngling or a padawan). Hopefully, by connecting the dots, we can reveal a little something about Rey’s motivation as a character. For starters, let’s consider a recent German Translation from the Official Facebook page of StarWars.de (the official German site) of the second quote from Kylo Ren above (props to Trooper31 from the banthaskull forums for pointing this out):
In particular those last three words. “die letzten Jedi”. Now, I don’t speak German, but according to this map from this page from Wikipedia, we see that the definite article “die”, when used in the nominative case, means either feminine, or plural:
Since we know that at least Luke is a Jedi and is in TFA, this can’t be feminine. Therefore it must mean plural Jedi. This is potentially a major revelation, as it suggests there are more than just Luke.
Second, there is new evidence further supports the idea that Rey is already a Jedi at the start of TFA. We’ve already reported that there is at least some reason to think that Maz Kanata is a Jedi, but I also think Rey is too. This could either be obvious or controversial, but now the biggest piece of evidence comes from a set of trading cards that list character affiliations. MSW reported about this finding, and here is a shot of the relevant characters and all affiliations:
Latino Review also covered this point and posted the same image as did others. So Rey has the symbol that refers to Jedi and Finn does not. The way I see it, there are two possibilities. One, Rey was already a Jedi before the events of The Force Awakens. Two, she becomes a Jedi before the end of the film. However, I think this second possibility seems a bit unlikely. How could the events of TFA that we know of constitute her becoming a Jedi? We have to go back to the instagram teaser showing Finn with a lightsaber, so many have speculated that Finn becomes a Jedi. I would think that using the lightsaber as a weapon would start him on that path. So why does he not have the Jedi affiliation? Do we have to start considering the possibility that Finn doesn’t have Force powers? Up until this point, I would have assumed that Rey and Finn would at least be on the same Jedi path to the same degree, hence both get the affiliation. But the more I think about it…because of these cards I’m starting to realize that we don’t really have confirmation or strong evidence that Finn has Force powers (other than maybe the implication at the start of the first teaser trailer). He is certainly attracted to the lightsaber and uses it at some point in the film and carries it on his jacket. But this doesn’t necessarily make him a Jedi. We get this quote from the plot synopsis from MSW here:
Maz Kanata presents the blue lightsaber to them again. Rey is revolted by it, while Finn is attracted to it.
To me the fact that Rey is revolted by it suggests that Rey has a history with lightsabers, and makes me think a traumatic event related to lightsabers makes her revolted by them. Could be the same traumatic events that led her to end up as a scavenger on Jakku.
The tantalizing theory in all this is that Rey was in fact a Jedi in Luke’s Jedi Academy, which was destroyed many years before the events of TFA, and left and went in hiding after the demise of the Academy. There is a definite possibility this the Academy and all the padawan were killed by the Knights of Ren or Snoke (who else is powerful enough to do it?). Kylo was taken by the Knights of Ren to join their order while she escaped to Jakku. This sheds some light to what Kylo says in the quote at the top, because he remembers her from their days as padawan.
We also know from the MSW plot synopsis that in a couple of places, Rey uses Force powers, like mind-tricks. Now, it’s certainly possible that she just was “a natural”, and just figured out how to do mind-tricks on her own, but somehow this seems like a stretch and would end up looking like a stretch to the audience. I think this is one of many “clues” that the audience will see in TFA that build up the the crescendo revelation at the end that she is a Jedi.
And then we have the bo-staff skills. From the plot synopsis:
A fight ensues between the heroes and the gangs. Rey almost single-handedly takes on the gangs using her skills with a staff.
These aren’t the skills of someone that just figured out how to use a staff while running around Jakku scavenging. How good are they?
We had an old piece here about her stunt double, and another post from StarWars7News, reported here that we got this statement from Kathy Kennedy about Daisy Ridley’s bo-staff skills:
Kennedy: She learned the bōjutsu fighting style. Rey uses the staff she has in the trailer to fight. Daisy’s gotten to be so good at bōjutsu that even grown men on the set fear it. [Laughs]
This is pretty intense. Check out this video of her stunt double if you haven’t already (jump to about 1:35 for the bo-staff):
As if that wasn’t enough, we have the halloween costume found here and reported here, that says she will kick some serious butt (implied with a staff).
Rey will not just be good with a bo-staff, she will be mind-blowingly bad ass with a bo-staff. If these scenes with the staff are as intense as her stunt double can do, it will be one of those moments that people will the talking about when leaving the movie, like the way Maul vs Obi Wan was what everyone talked about after TPM. Now why the heck would they get such a skilled stunt double and not use it? Now, given that, and what MSW calls “special skills”. It certainly sounds like she was a well trained Jedi, but after the traumatic events before TFA, she could never use a lightsaber again, and switched to the staff. While training with a staff has always been part of the early Jedi training (recall Anakin teaching the Felucians staff fighting in the Clone Wars), it is certainly possible that she was once well trained with a lightsaber, although I definitely don’t think she has a lightsaber staff. I think all signs point to her not wanting such a weapon and wouldn’t carry one because she is revolted by lightsabers due to her history.
What about electrostaffs? We have this image of Sarco Plank from the back of “The Weapon of a Jedi” book:
Note this weapon looks like the same kind of lightsaber-proof weapon “electrostaffs” wielded by the Magnaguard Droids from Revenge of the Sith (and similar to Zeb’s weapon):
And we also know that Sarco Plank is on Jakku (next to Rey!?) from this photo from Abu Dhabi from the Vanity Fair shoot (second from the right):
Look at the guy’s staff in the middle. It looks highly similar the Magnaguard Droid electrostaffs!
Now one has to wonder why is Rey leaving directly from Sarco’s location? Is there a deeper connection there? Although it is of course possible that Vanity Fair had them arrange characters in arrangements not seen in the film. Nevertheless, there is a suggestion that there is a deeper connection between Rey and Sarco (and maybe electrostaffs). That, and the fact that the Star Wars Databank for Sarco says he’s also a scavenger (then again, isn’t everyone on Jakku a scavenger?). All this makes me wonder if Rey, like Sarco, chose the only weapon that can defend against a lightsaber due to her traumatic history with them. Is her staff is also equipped with this protective lightsaber-repelling couplings? Just imagine how cool that would be if she fought Kylo with that thing!
In addition to all of this we have the suggestion from Weapon of a Jedi that Sarco meets Luke on Devaron, the same planet where it also sounds like he started the Jedi Academy. So this connects everything strongly. Could it be that Sarco was who brought Rey from the Jedi Academy on Devaron to Jakku after the attack on the Jedi Academy?
Finally, we have the scene at the end (again from MSW’s synopsis) where:
Finn is on the ground, preparing to die. Rey arrives, and Finn tosses her the Skywalker lightsaber, which she has been reluctant to accept up until this point. To save her friend and avenge Han Solo’s death, she takes the weapon and attacks Kylo.
We will get to see Rey use a lightsaber at the end, only because she is forced to, so we’ll know then for sure if she is a Jedi. Did I mention that her stunt double is also highly proficient with a sword? (kicks in after 35seconds):
Everything certainly points to her being be very skilled with a lightsaber, as Jedi typically are, and this final scene will remove any doubt to the audience that this is the case. Everything will build up to this final scene, suggesting that she is more than just a scavenger. At that moment, we will know Rey is a Jedi.
Follow me on twitter for more updates: @davestrrr
Here are some of the most interesting bits of news from the past week. As usual, we focus pretty much only on news that has direct implications for the movies. First, did you see the set of hi-res images that hit the web, like this one here that shows Kylo Ren and Storm Troopers behind him. The detail is stunning:
Poe Dameron is one of the new big three, but to a certain extent, a lot about him remains mysterious. I hesitate to say we know less about him than Finn or Rey, because something tells me we have a lot to learn about both of those characters…Nevertheless, let’s dig up the latest info on Poe and see if we can piece together news and spoilers to figure out anything about him.
Some new pieces of news emerged in the Shattered Empire comic book. Because sof this, we learned more about Poe’s motivations as a character. There is a strong suggestion that Poe’s parents fought in the battle of Endor. Although it isn’t explicitly stated in the book, other readers around the web share this feeling. At least, we have two characters introduced that are married and could plausibly be Poe’s parents:
There is also suggestion that Leia knew Poe going way back. This kind of gives a little frame of reference to the idea that Leia entrusts Poe with a very important mission. If we recall from Celebration, Oscar Isaac’s claims that “He’s been sent on a mission by a certain princess. He comes across John Boyega’s character and their fates are forever intertwined.”. It could be that Leia’s long-time connection to Poe and his family plays a big part in her entrusting this kind of a mission. That is, if we need more of a reason than him being the “best friggin’ pilot in the galaxy”!
We haven’t read the Leia young adult novel “Moving Target” either, but others that have read it suggest that when Leia asks about Jakku in this book, she is possibly asking about the pilot to whom she entrusted that mission, given that we know he is there at the start of TFA. This indeed suggests a strong connection and friendship between Leia and Poe. Some have even gone as far as to speculate that Leia is a type of mother-figure for Poe, maybe due to him losing his parents many years before TFA.
For me, the fact that Poe’s parents fought in the Rebellion sheds some more light on Isaac’s comments at SDCC that he could have been watching a video of the battle of Yavin (actually he says Yarvin) and looking up to the likes of Luke Skywalker. The dates would be off for him to see it live, but he may have watched videos of it because of his parents. Certainly his parents would make sure that he learned of the Rebellion and the Empire from a young age, and instilled a sense of loyalty from an early age. In fact, we have an early suggestion from Oscar Isaac (although I can’t seem to find the original source) that his character is in fact from Yavin IV. If this is true, given the timing of everything and his age, this would suggest that his parents moved back to Yavin IV after the battle of Endor. There is some speculation out there that the shot of X-wings flying over the rivers surrounded by mountains from the trailer is in fact on Yavin IV.
What else have we recently learned about Poe? Because of a recent update to the StarWars.com databank, we know that Poe was the “Black Leader”, a leader of a squad of Resistance X-wing fighters. We know that at least Poe flies a dark hulled X-wing in this role, shown in this toy and the image below to have red accents. It isn’t clear to me whether the rest of the X-wings in the squadron that Poe leads are also pained black. For example the photo above from StarWars.com shows nothing but the blue and gray X-wings. Makes me think that the “Black Leader” is the only pilot to have a black X-wing.
There was a claim earlier on MakingStarWars.com that Poe would be part of the “Black Squadron”, but it seems that it has recently been confirmed that the “Black Squadron” is in fact a First Order squadron of TIE fighters. Therefore, this strongly suggests that Poe’s squadron of X-wings is not called the Black Squadron. If that is the case, the idea that the “Black Leader” is the only resistance X-wing fighter with a black hull seems more plausible.
All I know is, black TIE fighers fighting a black X-wing in space is going to look pretty sick.
That last linked article also shows us that Poe’s helmet changes from blue to the black one we see in the trailer. That could mean that Poe starts associated with another (blue?) squadron, and at some point in the movie, Poe is promoted to black leader.
We also have that quote from MSW “The black TIE makes all the difference”. This quote is getting more and more confusing. It sounded like that Poe wanted to paint a TIE that he stole from the First Order black, so that people would know that it’s him, the “black leader”. However, given that we know that the black squadron was a TIE squardon, and we also know that Poe and Finn steal a TIE that certainly looks black (see image below) and crash it on Jakku, then this seems a big confusing. What could it mean?
Going back to X-wings, have you seen the Lego commercials? Check out the X-wing commercial here because that server isn’t getting hammered enough as of late. Who is that bearded X-wing pilot that greets Poe? Might be Greg Grunberg’s character. Maybe we will see a lot of interaction between these two in the film. Certainly plausible if not likley.
So to recap, here’s what we got:
It’s definitely easy to see some parallels with ANH here. Leia entrusts R2D2 with the plans to the Death Star, and similarly, Leia entrusts Poe with a mission on Jakku. So there is a possible parallel with Poe and BB8 mirroring R2D2 and C3P0. It seems like BB8 ultimately carries away the lightsaber similar to the way that R2 continues with the plans to the Death Star. So the parallel kind of crumbles after that, but it is clear that they are playing some of the same notes, just re-imagined. Ultimately, in the rest of the sequel trilogy, it seems that Poe will take the place of Han as the key pilot character (or at least one of them if Rey pilots the Falcon). If Han and Leia are married, one would expect that Poe also knows Han, but that is definitely not for sure as many suggest that Han and Leia have been separated for a while.
Beyond this info, I gotta say I’m grasping for more. If I’m missing something, hit me up on twitter and let me know.
davestrrr
In this spoiler-fueled speculation piece we ask the question: Were the Knights of Ren founded by an ancient Sith Lord named “Darth Ren”? What can we learn from combining the latest spoilers and confirmed info with the old Mizzlewump post?
It’s remarkable how many of the original Mizzlewump rumors have held up. If we recall, “Mizzlewump” claimed to have read the second draft from Abrams/Kasdan. Let’s take another look at this old post in light of what we now know. Looking back at the original list most of the points seem highly plausible. Here is the list:
What a week for Star Wars!
It all started when Empire Magazine began trickling out stories on Star Wars: The Force Awakens. The first article, gave us some key info. Namely that Kylo Ren was not a Sith, and that Snoke was a powerful figure in the Dark Side of the Force. We also got the concept that the First Order was in many ways modeled after the Nazis, and the concept that what if the Nazis went to Argentina and regrouped. The crazy thing is, the Nazis actually did go to Argentina! So this analogy isn’t too far off. The full Empire magazine also came out, and you can find scans of the article here.
Mazlow01: This was very cool and fits well with the OT. Its obvious the original Empire was modeled after the Nazis and not surprising that JJ and LK would look to history to inform how they would set up the threat to our heroes after RotJ. We were already working on an article about the First Order and this actually confirmed some of our suspicions. Look for that later this week. I’m also glad they said Kylo wasn’t a Sith though I wish they had said the same with Snoke so that damned Plaguies rumor would die.
davestrrr: Has it already been a week since this news? Man, time flies. This explanation of the first order probably isn’t too far off from what people had predicted. Expect an editorial on the TFO coming soon from this site. I always felt that Kylo couldn’t be a Sith because of the whole rule of two thing and that the point of the end of RotJ was to end the Sith because both of them died. This does beg the question of where did the Knights of Ren come from? Where does the name come from?
We also got some news from the official site about BB8 and how he was created. We got further confirmation that he is in fact a practical effect. We also learned that there were many different puppets and robots created, each for different types of shots.
Mazlow01: I think what a lot of people missed was on set BB-8 wasn’t as fully functioning as we thought… or at least there want one prop/droid that did it all. They used a combination to get it right, which honestly I like. It shows dedication to doing it the best way possible no matter what.
davestrrr: I really like BB8 and he is shaping up to be really cool. This article gives a sense of how expressive he will be, and the fact that there are so many puppets made, one for each occasion, should mean that he will be able to do a lot of things and convey a lot more emotion than one might expect.
Next we got a mini trailer with new shots of Rey with BB-8 which appears to match the shot description from MakingStarWars.com of Rey watching the First Order attack Maz’s place. And the shot de Triumph of Finn igniting his lightsaber in the same snowy setting we first saw Kylo Ren ignite his in the very first trailer.
Mazlow01: Ok so this made may day. I must have watched it 50 times and I’ve come to two conclusions. One MSW has got most of the plot and scenes correct. Two I don’t think the sequence of Kylo lighting his lightsaber and Finn igniting his are as close as it seems in the trailer. I believe Kylo ignites his then tracks them for a minute. Threatens and taunts Finn and Rey and Finn decides he has to fight after what Kylo says.
davestrrr: This was pretty cool and will hold me over until the trailer hits, I think. Maybe we’ll need another 15 second one in mid September to get us through? Credit where due, the fine folks over at MSW predicted these two shots for the last trailer. Of course, a lot of people noticed that they didn’t make that trailer, but here they are exactly as predicted. They must have gotten pulled from that trailer so that they could be saved for this one.
In other news, we got a slew of news from toys coming out and hitting the shelves in anticipation for Force Friday. Among them are Asty, the bullhead X-wing fighter pilot, and the mysterious Sarco. Take a look at the toys here, and the images from a coloring book here.
davestrrr: These are really cool. These background characters are shaping up to be very true to the original star wars and unique at the same time. We know Asty is a X-wing pilot, but Sarco is a mystery. Maybe he will be in the little market place on Jakku and comes into contact with the main characters? Not that I know, but somehow Sarco reminds me of sort of a Garindan type character, that may play a small role, but a key one.
Mazlow01: I’m loving Asty. Hopefully he’ll be in multiple films because he’s such a great design. Sarco to me looks like a Jakku resident, my guess is he lets the First Order know where to find Rey. Either way both designs are really cool looking and just put me in that Star Wars state of mind.
What exactly is the Force? If we take a look just at the movies, we were all introduced to the concept of the Force by Obi Wan in ANH. Here is what he said:
“Well, the Force is what gives a Jedi his power. It’s an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us and penetrates us; it binds the galaxy together” -Obi Wan in ANH
