Tuesday, April 29, 2014

Right about now, in a city not too far away…

It’s that time of year when every Star Wars fan gets little butterflies of nostalgic excitement in his or her stomach and cracks out the original trilogy discs (theatrical versions only, of course) in preparation for May the Fourth.  But we fans have a greater reason to be excited this year, because we’re all half-expecting some long-awaited announcements from Disney.

Details.  We want details.

J.J. Abrams, the master of keeping secrets every man and his tribble already knows (“Khan?  Who’s Khan?”), has actually managed to keep us in the dark this time.  The might of the Mouse.

So what do we know?  We know the new trilogy won’t follow the Thrawn/Heir to the Empire/Timothy Zahn novels.  That really was a given, although I’m certain that many a fanboy/girl has mournfully stopped and thought, every once in a while, how cool it would have been to see Mara Jade Skywalker on screen.  Can everyone who lives/works near Pinewood please keep an eye out for beautiful 40-to-50-something actresses with red hair?  Maybe she’ll pop up with Luke anyway.

We know that Harrison Ford, Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher (and presumably Peter Mayhew) are currently up in London, Hamill looking rather dashing in a mighty fine beard.  I’ve been trying not to get my hopes up, positive that they’ll all just have short cameos, but the latest rumour is that Han may have quite a chunk of screen time.  I wouldn’t complain – any additional Harrison Ford is a bonus, in my opinion, so long as there are no dodgy-looking fridges or monkeys involved.  (Aliens, in this case, are perfectly acceptable.)

We know that Zac Efron may or may not have been cast.  I’m thinking there’s got to be a role for a singing Jedi with great abs.

We know that Oscar Isaac has probably definitely maybe been cast.  He can grow a good Jedi beard.  He sings, too – I’m sensing a theme here.

Will the kidlets – Anakin, Ben and the twins – turn up?  NOBODY KNOWS.  We keep hearing that these films won’t be following the existing canon, but one assumes they’d still want to appease the loyal fans.

We know that J.J. has promised less CGI and more real sets.  Couldn’t be happier about that.  If the sets are as gorgeous as the Enterprise bridge, even better.  How cool would it be to see the Falcon again?  Well, she has been spotted in concept art on a wall at the back of a production meeting photo, so I’m crossing my fingers.

I’ve got to go and wash my Han Shot First t-shirt now.  See you all again on Sunday.

No comments:

Post a Comment