Force Awakens Merchandising Release Date!

 

Happy Star Wars Day everyone!

This weekend a post on StarWars.com let us know that The Force Awakens merchandise will start releasing on what they’ve named Force Friday, September 4th 2015. The article says that stores around the world will open at 12:01 AM to start selling all the figures, lightsabers, LEGO sets and more from Episode VII.

I’m excited to get my hands on Kylo Ren’s lightsaber and some LEGO mini-figs of all the new characters! Waiting in line at midnight to buy toys, this is why being a grown up is awesome!

-Derek1138

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Vanity Fair Star Wars Shots Reveal 2 Characters!

Vanity Fair released some shots and a behind the scenes video from their June issue that has a large feature on Star Wars Episode VII.

I’ll admit, these pictures are pretty awesome especially this one!

Just as everybody was suspecting, Adam Driver is indeed Kylo Ren!

Here we see Lupita Nyong’o doing motion cap for her character who is apparently all CG.

Here is several shots of the “rogues gallery” that Lupita’s character appears to be the leader of.

This is a full body shot of Captain Phasma, and the caption confirms that Gwendolyn Christie is indeed inside that armor.

Next we have Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac) posing on his X-wing.

Here’s a shot of Rey, and some other folks on Jakku, getting direction from J.J.

Lastly we have a shot Director J.J. Abrams, President of LucasFilm Kathleen Kennedy, Composer John Williams, and Co-writer Lawrence Kasdan.

Big news with confirmation of which two characters Adam Driver and Gwendolyn Christie are playing. Also, Vanity Fair says they have another reveal of a character tomorrow at 4pm (time zone not specified).

Pretty exciting stuff for our May the 4th!

-Derek1138

AMC to Host Star Wars Marathon before Episode VII Release!

According to the folks at Star Wars Action News, AMC theaters will be hosting a Star Wars marathon of all 6 movies at some of their theaters prior to the release of Episode VII: The Force Awakens in December.

Sounds awesome to me, now I just need the date so I can plan the day off!

-Derek1138

Author and Date for Episode VII Tie-in Revealed!

More news from Anaheim and the guys at SWU. (jeez it’s like there’s a Star Wars convention there or something).

The author for the novelization of The Force Awakens was revealed to be Alan Dean Foster. Many may not remember, but he was the author for the original novelization of Episode IV in addition to writing a prequel trilogy book that sort of tied-in to the beginning of Attack of the Clones (the border dispute on Ansion that Mace mentions).

The novelization will be released digitally the same day as the movie and available in paperback a few days later.

-Derek1138

The Force Awakens Promo Posters!

Hello fellow fanatics,

Star Wars Celebration is starting this morning and we can only assume that’s where these wonderful promo art posters for the Force Awakens are coming from.

 

 

These have been bouncing around social media this morning and I wasn’t able to find an original source, so they are not “official” right now. But judging by the details of the art I think they are legit, so I’m posting them. They are really awesome and are all going in to my wallpaper rotation.

Star Wars Celebration starts in less than 2 hours from the time of this post. So you should see my link to the new trailer here… SOON!

-Derek1138

Star Wars: Aftermath News and Cover!

Happy St. Patrick’s Day all!

Besides all the people wearing green and perpetuating racial stereotypes, there was some more news about the new Star Wars:Aftermath novel. News such as… the cover:

Besides this very nice cover art, StarWars.com also announced that the book will be the first in a trilogy starting in September and will be filling us in about some of the events between Return of the Jedi and The Force Awakens. The article mentions specifically “What I can reveal is that you will be introduced to a sweeping new cast of characters, along with a fan favorite from the films“. So it seems there will be exactly one of the main characters in Aftermath, with a host of new characters filling out the roster. Also, they hint that some of the locations we’ll see in the book could be relevant to Episode VII.

For a lot of other people this news might not be so big. I am always excited to hear about the next Star Wars novels though, as they are my second favorite way of experiencing the Galaxy Far, Far Away. If you’re excited too, Amazon has a listing up for pre-order already!

-Derek1138

Star Wars: Aftermath Author Revealed!

Happy Sunday friends!

Star Wars: Aftermath was announced last week as part of the Journey to the Force Awakens campaign but we were not told who would be writing it. However, the Random House online database was updated for this entry recently and it listed it’s author: Chuck Wendig.

Honestly, I have never heard of Mr. Wendig or his works prior to this and he is entirely new to the Star Wars EU. A quick search for him on Amazon showed me that he is the author of many novels and some instructional writing books. Judging by his bio, description of his works,  and art for his previous titles he seems to be a very modern writer.

So we are gonna have a completely new name in the Galaxy Far, Far Away lead us into Episode VII. I guess it’s appropriate since we have new talent attached to all the upcoming movies and Disney is focusing on more and more new characters. Some people may be concerned (and I won’t say I’m not one of them) about the fundamental rebirth of the Star Wars universe but I’m open, willing, and hoping for the best.

-Derek1138