YOU GUYS IT FINALLY HAPPENED WE KNOW WHAT PROJECT LUMINOUS IS!!! (Don’t you love it when one of the hosts of the Book Wars Pod gets big lit news?! I DO.)

Straight from the horse’s (Star Wars Dot Com’s) mouth:

Later this year, Lucasfilm will launch an epic new era of Star Wars storytelling that will be explored through multiple voices in adult and young adult novels, children’s books, and comics from a variety of publishers including Disney Lucasfilm Press, Del Rey, IDW Publishing, and Marvel.

Hopefully you’re familiar with the great canon storytelling in Star Wars, and if you’re not this will be an amazing entry-point. Again, StarWars.com:

Star Wars: The High Republic, which has previously been referred to as “Project Luminous”, will be set in an era when the Galactic Republic and the Jedi Order are at their zenith, about 200 years before the events of Star Wars: The Phantom Menace. This period on the Star Wars timeline will not overlap any of the filmed features or series currently planned for production, giving creators and partners a vast amount of room to tell Star Wars stories with new adventures and original characters.

HOW AWESOME IS THIS GOING TO BE?! We think really, really awesome. We’re so excited to discuss some “new” in-universe stuff on BWP and especially to talk about The High Republic: Light of the Jedi, described as  “a massive interconnected story that’s told across various formats by various publishers,” which, if you’ve listened to the Pod before, is Extremely Our Jam. Click through for all the book-y goodness. There’s a lot of it!

More book news: E.K. Johnston has a new YA novel about everyone’s* favorite queen (*my), Padmé Amidala that will be released on June 2nd. Having read and absolutely loved Queen’s Shadow, I’m ready for more of Johnston masterfully writing Padmé. Check out an excerpt here  on The Hollywood Reporter.

In Non-Book News, we have to pass congratulations onto the teams who gave us Star Wars: Jedi: Fallen Order–they were nominated for Best Narrative and Audio Achievement at the BAFTA Games!

That’s it for news this week! Go read a Star Wars book–it’s good for you.

We’ve got a grab bag of news in this week’s Holonet Blast, from movies to TV to literature to toys!

This biggest news of the week is undoubtedly the return of The Clone Wars. The final season has begun streaming on Disney+ with “The Bad Batch”, and will be dropping one episode per week.

Clone Wars not your thing? No worries! At New York Toy Fair there was a slew of new product reveals, including items from TCW and also The Mandalorian. Will there be Baby Yoda–I mean, The Child–merchandise? You betcha, including an ADORABLE animatronic plush that I might need to buy for my son. Yes, my son. DEFINITELY not me.

In other toy news, earlier in the week Entertainment Weekly revealed a new wave of action figures marking the 40th anniversary of The Empire Strikes Back. Sadly, there was no Veers.

Finally, if you’re like me and impatiently waiting for the home release of The Rise of Skywalker, you’re in luck! The movie will be released on digital March 17 and on physical media March 31.

The digital release coincides with the release of the novelization by Rae Carson. Want to whet your appetite? The official site posted an excerpt featuring Kylo Ren on Mustafar.

Finally, Marvel is also getting in on the adaptation fun. The Rise of Skywalker comic will begin in June, and will be written by Jody Houser with art by Will Sliney. 

That’s it for the news this post! But the news for the week isn’t over. Stay tuned late this evening for the reveal of PROJECT LUMINOUS.

Welcome back to another edition of the Holonet Blast where we’ve got some news from opposite sides of the galaxy for you!

First up, Del Rey revealed the cover for Alphabet Squadron: Shadow Fall via io9. Just like the first cover feature Yrica Quell, this one puts Chass na Chadic in the blue and purple spotlight. Along with the cover, Del Rey also gave us an excerpt from the book which is due out in June.

If you’re a fan with some extra cash who really loves immersive Star Wars experiences, this next piece of news might be of interest to you. The Disney Parks blog revealed that Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser will start taking reservations later this year. The all-immersive two day, two night experience is set to open in 2021 and is attached to Galaxy’s Edge in Disney World in Orlando. It looks like it has the potential to be mind blowing.

And that’s it for this week! If anyone needs me, I’ll be swinging around my lightsaber and pretending to be a Jedi. Like one does.

News!

Happy Monday, y’all. Not a huge news week, but definitely some stuff we’re looking forward to–like the return of (MY BELOVED) Star Wars: The Clone Wars (I would die for Fives, please don’t get it twisted). Check out the trailer in that tweet and look for it streaming on Disney+ beginning February 21st.

In unsurprising news most of us found out about via Twitter, John Williams has another Grammy, bringing his total up to 25! (But who’s counting?) This time it’s in the Best Instrumental Composition for Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge Symphonic Suite. It’s available to stream places, so if you’re like me and haven’t been able to actually make it to Galaxy’s Edge, you can still hear the award-winning suite and pretend you’re in Orlando… er, I mean on Batuu. (Either sounds great in the middle of winter, if you ask me.)

Over in Disneyland (where you can also hear the Symphonic Suite mentioned above), there are some exciting things going on in Galaxy’s Edge. Click through to see the recently opened Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance attraction, hear about building your own droids to take home, and read all about Star Wars Nite coming on the first night of Star Wars Celebration, August 27th. (Can’t imagine having any trouble getting my hands on those tickets…)

And to round things out, we have BOOK NEWS!

Star Wars: Poe Dameron: Free Fall, is officially slated for Aug. 4, 2020. Written by Alex Segura of the Peter Fernandez mystery series, and with cover art by Alice X. Zhang, the YA novel will wind back the clock to before Poe was a hot-headed pilot to a time when he was just a hot-headed teenager.

We’re excited to get this one on the list to read over at Book Wars Pod–especially given our issues with Poe’s checkered past (newly-introduced via The Rise of Skywalker) being painted with a bit of an overly-broad brush.

That’s it for this week. MTFBWY and all that jazz–happy February.

Hello friends! It’s time for your weekly Holonet Blast. It’s been a slow week, besides some unsubstantiated rumors about the Kenobi show, but we’ve got some awesome (and official) record-breaking news to report.

First, The Rise of Skywalker broke the $1 billion mark at the worldwide box office on its 28th day of release. It’s now the fifth Star Wars film to reach this milestone. So much for Star Wars being dead, huh?

Second, Jen Heddle reported on Twitter that Star Wars #1 was the top-selling comic book of the decade! What an amazing accomplishment. In addition, Princess Leia #1 was the number 37 selling book. John Jackson Miller provided some additional context in the replies, noting that Star Wars #1 also sold more than any comic in the 2000s.

That’s it for this week! Hopefully we’ll get some Project Luminous and Clone Wars news soon? Yes?

It’s January, and you know what that means – awards season!

And this year, two different Star Wars properties (so far) have a chance to take home some hardware. The Rise of Skywalker was nominated for three different BAFTAs (original score, sound, and special visual effects), while Star Wars: Doctor Aphra, the phenomenal ongoing comic whose run ended in December, scored a nomination for the GLAAD award for outstanding comic book. Not bad for our favorite disaster lesbian! Finally, the Oscar nominations were just announced this morning and The Rise of Skywalker was nominated for Original Score, Sound Editing, and Visual Effects.

And in potentially the biggest Star Wars news of 2020 so far, R2-D2 is coming to Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge! Probably not with a translator though, since we all know R2 can be a little foul-mouthed and there are a lot of kids around at Disney.

That’s another week in the books – now back to feverishly refreshing Twitter to see when they announce details around Project Luminous.

New year, new us! No wait… that last part’s a lie. Same us. We just changed our hair.

This early in the year, we don’t have tons of news for you but we do have a few things. First and mostly importantly, Baby Yoda will return this fall! Okay, fine: technically it’s called The Mandalorian but executive producers confirmed we’ll be getting Season 2 this fall.

Season 2 of #TheMandalorian coming Fall 2020 pic.twitter.com/8VQYLDMQ0V

— Jon Favreau (@Jon_Favreau) December 27, 2019

In completely different news, Batuu will be getting its own exclusive version of Myths & Fables by George Mann. Says the author,

“We’re going to be creating a special edition of the ‘Star Wars: Myths & Fables’ book that’s exclusive to Galaxy’s Edge. It’s going to be specially bound to look like an artifact from Batuu and it contains the nine original stories and six new stories.”

We really liked the initial version of the book so it’ll be neat to see what else ends up in this new one.

And that’s it for this week!

We really don’t have much for you this week because the itty bitty little space movie came out last week and… yeah. That’s basically it.

Related to that space movie, apparently the same sex kiss in Episode IX was cut from the movie when it was shown in the Middle East. Interestingly enough, it was kept in for screenings in China. It wasn’t exactly representation to write home about though.

In much happier news, Looking for Leia, a documentary series about female and non-binary Star Wars fans was acquired by SYFY Wire. All seven episodes are now available to watch online. It’s a project that many of us around here are fond of so me sure to go check it out!

And that’s it! Actually, that’s it for us/this particular column for the year. We’ll be taking the next week off to nap and to spend some time with family and friends for the holidays. Thank you to everyone who’s either read our posts or listened to one of the network’s podcasts over the year. We’ll see you all in 2020!

It’s been a slow week for Star Wars. The calm before the storm. The deep breath before the plunge. The moment of emo silence before Kylo Ren emo screams.

But in fact, while we were all on high alert for the latest clips of new footage from The Rise of Skywalker, there were a couple of bits of information this week about the comics. Speaking of emo screams, StarWars.com gave us our first look at Charles Soule’s upcoming The Rise of Kylo Ren #1, featuring a very destroyed Jedi temple and a very grumpy Ben Solo. You can look forward to reading the whole issue this week when it hits stores on Wednesday, the day before Episode IX changes all our lives.

And, for those of you who were terrified you’d seen the last of Beilert Valance with the end of the Target Vader comic miniseries, fear not (I’m sure there were one or two of you who were worried)! Marvel announced the launch of a fourth ongoing Star Wars comic series, Bounty Hunters, to be written by Ethan Sacks and illustrated by Paolo Villanelli. The series will launch in March 2020 and presumably feature bounty hunters, though that’s just a shot in the dark.

Three more days, people. See you on the other side of the Star War.

As we move through December, Lucasfilm continues to give us more to get excited about before The Rise of Skywalker. Let’s see what’s going on in the news this week!

EA has some news about Battlefront II–on the 5th, they put out the Celebration Edition of the game, which will give folks an easy way to get all of the updates from the last two years in one place:

The short version is this: The Celebration Edition will deliver instant access to every Hero Appearance, Trooper Appearance, Emote, Voice Line and Victory Pose available in Star Wars Battlefront II that can be unlocked with Credits or Crystals, including new content coming in December with our The Rise of Skywalker Update. Simply head on over to the collection menu and they’ll be ready and waiting.

Want to play as Anakin in his General Skywalker Attire? Go ahead. Feel like playing as Boushh Leia? The choice is yours.

What you get

• Base game with all past and future free updates

• 150+ Appearances, including 6 Legendary Appearances

• 100+ Emotes

• 90+ Victory Poses

• Make sure to click through to see the rest of the news around this release (including what’s not included in this edition). Speaking of updates, the Rise of Skywalker update is coming December 17th, with the “new [tropical] planet” that debuted in the latest trailer for TRoS dropping into the planetary rotation December 20th (when we find out what the planet’s actually called after we see TRoS). Again, click through for the full story, but they’re also already looking into 2020, where we’ll see additional sequel trilogy content, including BB-8 and BB-9E being added as heroes.

Moving onto a different type of game–we’ve got a game show coming to Disney+ in 2020! Star Wars: Jedi Temple Challenge “will test young contestants’ abilities in the core Jedi principles of strength, knowledge, and bravery as they face thrilling and fun obstacles in an attempt to achieve the rank of Jedi Knight” and be hosted by none other than Ahmed Best. Star Wars is for kids, and we’re excited to see a new generation of fans continue to fall in love with this franchise through different media.

Another way to tell the story–Disney hasn’t forgotten about their original bread and butter–resorts. Walt Disney World just announced its 2021 “immersive vacation” Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser. Think of a cruise-style itinerary, but you’re the hero of your own adventure. There will even be immersive transport to bring you between Galactic Starcruiser and Galaxy’s Edge. We can’t wait to hear more.

To round out this week, head over to Vanity Fair and check out their Star Wars: Episode IX  Week. Check here for Chapter 1 on Finn’s backstory and how it will play into Episode IX, and continue through for stories on the Rey-Kylo connection, Lando, and much more.

11 more days till TROS!!!