Hello there one and all, and thanks for tuning in to another weekly roundup of news from a galaxy far, far away. As always, we’re happy to have you! This week’s news is meager in quantity, but epic in scale.

First: new Age of Resistance comics were officially announced this week and I cannot overstate how thrilled the folks here at Tosche Station are about them. Following the lead of the Age of Republic and Age of Rebellion miniseries, Age of Resistance will feature in-depth looks at some of our Star Wars favorites. Rose Tico, Kylo Ren, Snoke (I have questions!), and Rey are all to be featured in their own books. The Age of Resistance comics are written by Tom Taylor and are set to release this coming September. This is in addition to the previously announced comics that will feature Finn, Poe Dameron, Captain Phasma, and General Hux.

The rest of this week’s news is a celebration! Or, rather, it’s about a celebration– Star Wars Celebration, Anaheim that is. Tickets went on sale this week for Lucasfilm & ReedPop’s next big event, to be held August 27-30 at the Anaheim Convention Center in Anaheim, California. The Jedi Master VIP ticket tier sold out in a matter of moments, and adult 4-day passes weren’t far behind. Single-day Saturday tickets sold out just hours later. If you’re still hoping to join the celebration, never fear! Single-day tickets for Thursday, Friday, and Sunday are still available as of the writing of this post (kids tickets, too!) and Lyte will once again be the official reseller for the show.

That’s it for this week! As I mentioned: light on quantity, but the content is a doozy.

As always, send your Star Wars news tips to Tosche Station and send your Celebration Anaheim panel suggestions to @MandaTheGinger

MTFBWY!!!

The countdown to the nation’s most anticipated event of 2020 has begun. A time when famous public figures will be on stage debating the very essence of good and evil, freedom and security, war and resistance. A time to delve into the critical issues pertaining to the future of… Star Wars.

That’s right, it’s Star Wars Celebration Anaheim!

And that countdown will end on Thursday, August 27, 2020, as we found out this week! Celebration Anaheim will only run 4 days this time, through August 31, but will no doubt have just as many memorable moments packed into that shorter period of time. Can’t wait to start planning your queuing schedule? You won’t have to – tickets go on sale this Friday at 9am PT, with hotel reservations going live an hour after that.

What’s that? You need something else to do between now and 14 months from now? Jeez, talk about needy. Fine, maybe you can satisfy yourself reading the newly announced Marvel miniseries, Jedi: Fallen Order – Dark Temple, a prequel to the upcoming video game that will reportedly introduce us to a young Cere Junda, Cal’s mysterious mentor/probable plot explainer in the game. Issue #1 comes out in September, so clear your schedules.

Finally, a hearty congratulations to Michelle Rejwan, who was just named Lucasfilm’s Senior VP of Live Action Development and Production. The co-producer of a few small cult favorites you may have heard of like The Force Awakens and The Rise of Skywalker, Rejwan will oversee the development of future movies and episodic content, both on the big screen and for Disney+. Can’t wait for Star Wars Reddit to claim they knew her the whole time and she’s actually the one who forged George Lucas’s signature when Disney stole Star Wars away, duh. (Really, they have no problem with women being in charge, as long as it’s done right.)

So ends a slightly snarky Holonet Blast – now if you’ll excuse me, time to grab a new box of tissues and go back to reading Alphabet Squadron.

YES we have news this week! (The news last week was “idk there’s no news I think it’s just Galaxy’s Edge opening?????” which is plenty of news for my delicate heart.)

Folks got their first in-depth look of Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order this week at EA Play so—VIDEO GAAAMES!!!

First, we have the Official Release from Star Wars Dot Com: some stuff we already know–the main character is named Cal and he’s a Jedi in hiding after Order 66. In this “TOTALLY CANON” (emphasis mine, obviously) story, we see Cal on Kashyyyk to help the wookiee natives. We also know he’s got a buddy named BD-1 (VERY CUTE DROID), and we’re seeing Saw Gerrera again, voiced by Forest Whitaker (!!!).

The game looks beautiful. This is not surprising. Using the Force, though, and what that will look like is kind of a surprise: new abilities like running on walls, Force push/pull, lightsaber throws, and more. We also got our first in-game look at Purge troopers, which basically sound like specially trained Jedi-hunters. AT-ATs are back and we get to see Inquisitors–count me in.

Over at Game Informer, we get an exploration of what sets Jedi: Fallen Order apart from some of the Star Wars games that came before it. (Though, I’d argue, since Lucasfilm decided to move forward with an integrated story-telling approach, they’ve included the gaming properties and talked about continuing that approach moving forward.) Read the piece if you want more info on the choice to go with Respawn for this particular game, game play (lots of lightsaber talk), story (plus the author’s ideas about how this may tie into the larger canon), music, effects, and lots in between. Disappointingly, there isn’t anything about how the game/game play might translate to the accessibility controller(s) for various consoles. As people are having more and more discussions around accessibility and ableism, we would love to see this highlighted in future reviews!

Over in other media, my tardiness on the news today is your gain because we’ve got some bonus lit content! SyFy Wire got an exclusive excerpt (text and audiobook, woo!) from the upcoming Alphabet Squadron  “standalone prose novel and also a dynamic crossover title with Marvel’s Star Wars: TIE Fighter comic miniseries!” There’s also an exclusive interview with Alexander Freed (WHOM WE LOVE). Go read/listen. Right meow.

And that’s the news! Talk to y’all again soon.

Hello again and welcome to our weekly roundup of news from a Galaxy Far, Far Away!

This week’s news is particularly Disney-centric.

Star Wars cast and crew are among this year’s Disney Legend Award winners! The D23 expo is fast approaching and this year’s Disney Legends award recipients have just been announced. Among the honorees are Star Wars alum James Earl Jones (Darth Vader) and The Mandalorian showrunner John Favreau. D23 is Disney’s marquee fan event and the 2019 convention will be held in the Anaheim Convention Center August 23-25, 2019. Tickets are still available through the D23 website.

And with a mere 11 days until the opening of Galaxy’s Edge at the Disneyland Resort, Disney announced just today the Star Wars Datapad upgrade to the Play Disney Parks app. Launching in August (presumably in concert with the opening of the Galaxy’s Edge expansion in Walt Disney World, Orlando), the app will contain tools to help guests navigate not only Batuu and environs, but also to integrate their experience in a galaxy far, far away into their time in the rest of the Disney parks.

Reservations for Galaxy’s Edge at Disneyland are required through June 23, after which the land will open to all ticketed Disneyland guests.

That’s all I have for this week.

As always, send Star Wars news tips to Tosche Station, and send Galaxy’s Edge photos to @MandaTheGinger

MTFBWY!

Happy Mother’s Day to Leia and Padmé and Shmi–y’all the real MVPs.

Not a ton of news this week, but Entertainment Weekly gave us a great first look at Vader Immortal. On the off chance you haven’t heard the buzz around it, Vader Immortal from ILMxLAB will be coming to the Oculus Quest virtual reality wireless headset that releases May 21. Vader Immortal will be the first of a trilogy of VR experiences and will set you back $9.99. (The Quest headset itself is a much steeper $399, but I’m impressed with the price point of the first episode, given the playing experience described here–mind you, the creators would not love me referring to the volume as even having a “playing” experience–click through for more on that.)

All that to say, you’re thrown into MUSTAFAR which sounds WILD. Creators said they posed the question “what does Vader do on his off hours?” (my paraphrase) and this first volume is an exploration of that. The author of the EW piece compares the experience to a haunted house–the journey is the point, in a way. Timeline wise, this first “episode” slots in before Rogue One. The other two volumes will drop later this year.

We are all very grabby hands about this. Is anyone getting an Oculus I can just take from them forever so I don’t have to justify spending $400 on what would be (for me) a Star Wars toy? K thanks!!!

Oh, and Lucasfilm publicist Chris Argyropoulos tweeted the following on May 7:

No big deal. Right? RIGHT?! *shrieks into the night*

Until next time!

As we start in with this week’s Holonet Blast, of course the biggest news out of Star Wars this week was the passing of Peter Mayhew, who portrayed the mighty Chewbacca in 5 films, at age 74. There are no words that can do justice to the life, joy, and wonder that Mr. Mayhew brought to the Star Wars universe, so all I will say is that all of our lives were better for him being in them, and, if it fits with your chosen belief system, he’s with Carrie Fisher again now.

Photo from StarWars.com

—

There’s no possible way to segue gracefully, so: on to book news. As fans around the galaxy celebrated May the 4th, the big reveal this weekend was the full lineup for Lucasfilm Publishing’s Journey to Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker series of tie-ins to the final installment of the Skywalker saga. And a big reveal it was, including:

• Resistance Reborn, a novel by Rebecca Roanhorse (author of Trail of Lightning, a big hit among our Tosche Station writers) that will detail how Poe, Rey, Finn, Leia, and more rebuilt the Resistance after the events of The Last Jedi.
• Force Collector, a YA novel by Kevin Shinick exploring the life of a young Force sensitive teen just before The Force Awakens – might he be a future member of whatever future order Rey seems destined to start?
• Spark of the Resistance, a middle-grade book by Justina Ireland of Lando’s Luck and Project Luminous fame
• Comics, reference books, children’s books, art books, and much, much more!

And if that wasn’t enough books for you, we also got a first look at the beautiful cover of Galaxy’s Edge: A Crash of Fate, a YA novel by Zoraida Córdova coming in August.

https://twitter.com/zlikeinzorro/status/1123233694221627392?s=19

Finally, if you really just hate reading (which, interesting choice of activity for you to be doing right now, then), we got a treat for the ears this week, as well, with the release of the entire symphonic suite written by the maestro John Williams for Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge at Disney Land and Walt Disney World.

That’s it folks – hope you had a wonderful May the 4th. Live your lives well enough to deserve a hug from Chewie.

This news post was definitely not written at the last minute, no sirree bob. It definitely wasn’t overlooked due to Avengers Endgame hangover and feeling sick all weekend. (I don’t even watch Game of Thrones so I have no excuse there.) ANYWAY. On with the show!

Speaking of Endgame, yes this is a Star Wars centric blog but it would be remiss not to mention Endgame‘s humongous box office take this weekend. $1.2 billion worldwide, to be specific. Aka the biggest worldwide opening weekend ever. The previous record? Infinity War, with $640 million. That’s a HUGE difference. Domestically, Endgame also broke records, taking in $350 million to Infinity War‘s $258 million. Something tells me that Disney is going to have a very good year at the box office.

Back to Star Wars, we have an excerpt for Dooku: Jedi Lost, by Cavan Scott. The audio original releases tomorrow, April 30, from Del Rey.

In news very relevant to my interests, reservations for Galaxy’s Edge in Disneyland open on May 2. Yes, you will need a reservation to enter Galaxy’s Edge when the land first opens. Reservations will be handed out in four-hour chunks on a first-come, first-serve basis. Guests with Disneyland hotel reservations can already book their guaranteed time slots. Learn more about the reservation system at this link. (I am very glad this system will not be in place at Disney World. That we know of, at least.)

Finally, a big congrats to the Star Wars team for their five 2019 Webby awards! The Star Wars Show won both the Webby Award and the People’s Voice Award in Social: Television & Film as well as the Webby Award for Video: Variety. The Live From the Red Carpet of Solo: A Star Wars Story! coverage was voted the People’s Voice Winner in Video: Events & Live streams. Starwars.com won the award for People’s Voice Award for Website in the Movie & Film category (for the third year in a row) and was selected as an honoree in the category of Websites: Best User Experience.

HELLO THERE. We’re all back from Star Wars Celebration and boy howdy was there some news. So much news. We have an Episode IX title! The Rise of Skywalker! Can you believe? No but actually… Whaaaaaaat?! *insert Palpatine cackle here* Listen, I’m going to be honest with you: I’m going to try and get everything in here but I still need at least three more naps before I’m recovered from the con. Effort’s being made here though. Okay, let’s do this!

On the television front, we got a cool new poster for Season 2 of Star Wars Resistance and also people at the panel got to see the first episode and I am dying because I wasn’t there but apparently it was good. We also got a trailer for the final season of The Clone Wars and you’d best hold on to your butts because whoa those last few seconds. Even cooler though was our first look at The Mandalorian. I was lucky enough to see some of the footage and November cannot be here fast enough. (That music. THAT MUSIC!) Also, Alan Tudyk is officially returning to the part of K-2SO for the Cassian Andor series.

In publishing news, IDW announced more Jaxxon and a return to Vader’s Castle this fall. On the Marvel side of things, we mostly got art and cover reveals but we also learned of a forthcoming series (Target: Vader) and that Greg Pak and Phil Noto will be taking over the main Star Wars comic series this summer once Kieron Gillen concludes his run. We had some reveals at the Lucasfilm Publishing panel. Also wtf is Project Luminous?!? We don’t know and Del Rey is being a massive tease about it but with Claudia Gray, Daniel José Older, Charles Soule, Justina Ireland, and Cavan Scott all involved, I’m 100% onboard no matter what it is.

EA unveiled more about their new game Jedi: Fallen Order and the trailer looks pretty darn cool. Of note, Second Sister and the Purge Troopers from Soule’s Darth Vader comic will be in the game. You can also look forward to an The Art of Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order book later this year.

What else, what else? Galaxy’s Edge is going to be next level cool. (I still can’t get over the Coke bottles.) We got our first look at Vader Immortal and judging by the demo they had on the floor, it’s going to be really freaking neat. (Maya Rudolph is in Star Wars!) Hasbro is putting out new things because Hasbro and I did not try and steal the display Black Series Aphra so you should all be proud of me. Finally, Star Wars Pinball is coming to Nintendo Switch.

Whew. I think that’s everything. I hope it’s everything. Celebration is always a lot. I also recommend heading over to StarWars.com as they have some great features on plenty of panels that didn’t have news and are definitely worth taking a look at. Now if you’ll excuse me… I have a Star Wars Resistance poster to stare at some more. (Tam! Just look at Tam!)

Hello there everyone and welcome to this centennial roundup of news from a Galaxy Far Far Away. With Celebration Chicago beginning in just a few short days, I have to admit I was surprised to learn there was any news at all this week. But here we are with some cool stuff to share– not all of which is Celebration-centric (if you’d believe it!?!).

Beginning with that which is relevant to us all, Webby Award nominations were announced this week and the Star Wars team has been nominated in several categories. Voting is open to the public via vote.webbyawards.com and you can vote for your favorites through April 18th.

Continuing with non-Celebration news (sort of) Del Rey this week released an excerpt (scroll to the end of the page for an audio clip) from Claudia Gray’s upcoming novel, Master & Apprentice.  In the excerpt, we get to spend a few minutes with Padawan Qui-Gon Jinn as he and his master trail a dangerous bounty hunter. The book will be available to attendees of Star Wars Celebration Chicago in a limited edition convention-exclusive trim and releases widely on April 16th. Master & Apprentice is available for pre-order through Penguin Random House or your favorite local bookseller.

Onward to Celebration!

With Star Wars Celebration Chicago only days away, it’s no surprise that a big chunk of the news this week revolves around the convention. The Celebration App is now live and available for download wherever you get your apps. The mobile app, presented by Topps, allows fans at the show to explore its offerings and personalize a schedule including panels, autographs, and photo ops.

Another feature of the app is the ability to pre-order merchandise from the Celebration Store for pickup during the show. I know I’m itching to get my hands on some of the exclusives announced this week. Whether you’re into t-shirts, plush toys, housewares, or even flannel, there’s likely to be something in the Celebration store to tickle your fancy.

In a departure from previous Star Wars Celebrations, geek fashion brand Her Universe will have a presence outside the main Celebration store. The show will see the debut of the new Sisters of The Force line of merchandise celebrating the women of the galaxy far, far away with jackets, sweatshirts, dresses (with pockets!) and more.

That’s all the news for this week! Wishing everyone safe travels, We’ll see you in Chicago! Look for the Tosche Station team on the show floor and on panels about community and creativity.