Tag Archives: News

Episode VII Roundup: J.J. Abrams says things and stuff

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JJ AbramsLet’s start out with the actual news-y things, because there hasn’t been enough of that pertaining to Episode VII of late. According to USA Today, J.J. Abrams has confirmed that the script is finished and that filming is slated to begin in May. But what’s the script about? Well…

“We can’t talk about story yet,” said the director, who plans to travel to England soon to begin work on the seventh film in the long-running saga. As far as casting, he had no details but said they will come “soon, and I look forward to that so that we can get past it and we can get on with it.”

No surprise they can’t talk about it yet. At least we’re starting to get some rumblings that casting will be coming soon. We’d like to get past it as well, J.J.

Meanwhile in a separate report from The Wrap, Abrams says that there have indeed been talks with Jesse Plemons, despite the latter denying there was anything there.

Over in the rumor mill side of things, the popular weekend rumbling was that Lucasfilm has approached Judi Dench to play Mon Mothma. Again, this one is a rumor. For my take, if you can get Judi Dench, go for it, but it would be cool to see her play something other than the obvious aged up Mon Mothma. How about a female Jedi Master with more than two lines of actual dialog?

And finally, Carrie Fisher told TV Guide that she, Mark Hamill, and Harrison Ford will be starting work on Episode VII in March or April.

Artoo to be in Episode VII, fan-built

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It’s not the Big Three, but have some delicious Episode VII confirmation news for your afternoon. R2-D2 is in Episode VII, and this time the droid is a fan-made unit.

“It all started when Kathleen Kennedy toured the R2-D2 Builders area at Celebration Europe this past summer in Germany,” says Steeples, who finished his first R2-D2 in 2007, after 10 years of collecting parts and researching. “She posed for pictures with us, looked at all the droids we’d built and was very complimentary. I mentioned that the R2-D2 Builders in the UK were available if required, as a semi-joke. When I was contacted to work on the film by [executive producer] Jason McGatlin, it was on her recommendation.”

Now that’s just cool.

A.C. Crispin bids farewell to her fans.

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150px-TheparadisesnareA.C. Crispin, author of the Star Wars Han Solo Trilogy, posted a farewell to her fans yesterday on StarTrek.com.  Ann, who has written for a variety of franchises, including Star Wars, Star Trek, Pirates of the Caribbean, as well as her own original Starbridge universe, made the announcement that her battle with cancer is nearing its end.

Crispin thanked her fans for their support and assured them that she was receiving excellent care, let them know that her husband was collecting messages sent to her, but warned them that she may not have the strength to post to her Facebook or website again.

In addition to being a prolific science-fiction writer, Crispin has also served as the Vice President of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, and with colleague Victoria Strauss, founded Writer Beware, a offshoot of SFWA that helps writers avoid publishing scams and assists law enforcement in shutting down criminal activity in the publishing world.  She has also been a leader in ensuring female voices and representation among the science-fiction community.

Ann’s Star Wars resume includes the Han Solo trilogy and two short stories, one for both Tales of the Mos Eisley Cantina and Tales from Jabba’s Palace.

Harrison Ford joins “The Expendables 3”

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Harrison FordIn what will be the newest addition to a franchise in which no one understands a word anyone says, Harrison Ford will likely come as a breath of fresh air and an unexpected blast of actual enunciation, as Sylvester Stallone tweeted this afternoon that Han Solo would be joining the cast in lieu of Bruce Willis, who has bowed out in some sort of fractious encounter.  The Wrap has independently confirmed Ford’s involvement with Ford’s reps, since Stallone has been posting possibilities for the movie on Twitter for months without confirmation one way or another.

Ford will be playing a new character in the film, rather than stepping into Bruce Willis’ vacated role as Church.

The Expendables 3 is due to hit theatres 15 August 2014.

Tosche Station Radio #60: What We Did On Our Summer Vacation

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It’s a summer vacation kickoff on this episode of Tosche Station Radio!

Kicking off the show, the hosts highlight what’s New on the Blog. There’s not much this week since much of the staff were busy traveling, but Nanci took a look at nostalgia and Star Wars.

This week’s Fixer’s Flash starts with an announcement from the hosts. They got engaged! Outside of that, Nanci and Brian both finished off Crucible and have gotten into Kenobi by John Jackson Miller. While on a trip to Seattle, they visited the Science Fiction/EMP Museum and strolled through some of the geeky exhibits on display. Somewhere in there, they also find some time to watch some Stargate. Nanci got her Geek Trivia on and Brian went and saw Man of Steel.

Deak’s Dirt starts with news out of E3 in Anaheim. Battlefront III is finally happening and it got an official preview. In television news, According to Kevin Kiner, The Clone Wars bonus content could be up to 10 episodes. Speaking of the Clone Wars, the show nabbed two Emmy wins over the weekend. In the Episode VII corner, George Lucas is upbeat about an Abrams-led Star Wars. An Episode VII cast breakdown also leaked to the web. A few weeks ago, Nanci talked about taking a survey about Star Wars and Disney World during Star Wars Weekends. Now we have two reports about the inevitable expansion of Hollywood Studios.Theme Park Insider is reporting on two different ideas for a Star Wars Land. Meanwhile, Comic Book Movie says that the Star Wars additions are few.

On this week’s Camie’s Concerns, the hosts celebrate the first day of summer by investigating some geeky vacation ideas. Specifically, the fandom-y things you can do at theme parks. Nturally, there’s discussion of what kind of Star Wras-themed attractions Disney should consider putting into their parks. But for those looking for a geeky vacation to take this summer, the hosts offer their advice on where to go and what to see.

Wrapping up the show, the hosts field questions from listeners in Ask Us Anything. 

Tosche Station Radio is the official podcast of Tosche-Station.net and a part of Majestic Giraffe Productions. If you like what you hear, please leave a review on the iTunes Music Store. We can also be found on Facebook and Twitter.

Nanci and Brian are the co-founders and writers of Tosche-Station.net. You can find Nanci on Twitter with the handle @Nancipants and you can find Brian with @LaneWinree.

This podcast has been brought to you in part by Her Universe and Audible.com.

Her Universe - Flaunt Your World - www.heruniverseshop.com Listen to a bestseller for $7.49 at audible.com!

Uh-oh: Amazon announces Kindle Worlds

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bad feelingClub Jade clued us in this morning to Amazon’s new plan to pay fanfic authors to publish their works via Kindle.  Introducing Kindle Worlds, which is getting around the fuzzy legal grey area of fanfiction by officially licensing these Worlds, and the first to sign on has been Warner Brothers’ affiliated Alloy Entertainment, who owns the license for Pretty Little Liars, Vampire Diaries, and Gossip Girl.

On the surface, this looks great.  Star Trek has been doing this for a long time–anyone who has ever submitted a story to one of the Strange New Worlds anthologies has certainly been aware of what has been, in the past, a relatively willing openness to fan work, and many fan writers have broken into professional publishing through writing for these anthologies.  It also seems like a way for fans to get generally professionally curated (?) writing for their favorite universes at a reasonable price.

But there is, I fear, a dark side to all the bright, shiny, happy togetherness Amazon is toting. Continue reading →

Think Geek wins at listening to customers

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jayne-hatIt made the rounds this week that Fox started sending cease and desist orders to Etsy sellers who were producing their own version of the iconic ‘Jayne hat’ from Joss Whedon’s cult TV show Firefly. Both Ripple Junction, who now owns the license to make the hats and ThinkGeek, who sells them, denied any involvement in sending the C&D orders. ThinkGeek posted a blog entry attesting to as much.

While there’s not much that can be done for intrepid Firefly fans who want to sell their own versions of Jayne’s hat, ThinkGeek just announced that they have heard the outcry from fans and therefore will donate all proceeds from the sale of the official Jayne hat on sale at their website to Can’t Stop the Serenity, an organization that hosts charity screenings of Serenity in order to help support Equality Now, a worldwide charity that works to further the cause of human rights and end violence and discrimination against women around the world.

Four for you, ThinkGeek. You go, ThinkGeek.

DVR watch: Mark Hamill will guest-star on Criminal Minds

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TV Guide at Yahoo! is reporting that Mark Hamill will be guest-starring in the two-part season 8 finale of CBS’ procedural drama Criminal Minds. While there’s no word yet on exactly who Hamill will play, TV Guide speculates that he may be following more in the footsteps of the Joker than Luke Skywalker:

Details about Hamill’s role are being kept under wraps, but could he be the BAU’s season-long unsub/stalker The Replicator? In the two-hour episode, the team’s pursuit of The Replicator will come to a head when one of them becomes a victim. Executive producer Erica Messer also previously told TVGuide.com that the BAU won’t come face-to-face with The Replicator until the season’s final two episodes.

The Criminal Minds two-part season finale airs May 22nd, 9e/8c.

Lucasarts Shuttered, Employees Laid Off

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LucasartsKotaku is reporting that Disney has officially shut down Lucasarts and laid off all employees.

Given the lingering hard feelings over Lucasfilm Animation and the cancellation of The Clone Wars, it’s easy to get upset at Disney. I would caution against it, however. Lucasarts was a development studio that was in trouble years before Disney even came into the picture. The number of titles they released plummeted around 2006-2007 and the marquee titles they did release were not well received critically. The Force Unleashed and its sequel were regarded as middling titles and The Old Republic was a huge expenditure that failed to put a dent in the MMO market.

There’s also this to consider:

Lucasarts has been a development studio in trouble for years. This studio getting shut down doesn’t mean the end of Star Wars games. If anything, I view it as a hopeful thing. For whatever reason, they have been unable to produce quality products internally for a number of years and they probably could have and should have been closed down sooner to redistribute that valuable IP.

If Disney is licensing the Star Wars IP now to other studios, that could be great news for fans.

Edit: Official statement from Lucasfilm

GameInformer received a statement from Lucasfilm discussing the closure of the studio.

“After evaluating our position in the games market, we’ve decided to shift LucasArts from an internal development to a licensing model, minimizing the company’s risk while achieving a broader portfolio of quality Star Wars games. As a result of this change, we’ve had layoffs across the organization. We are incredibly appreciative and proud of the talented teams who have been developing our new titles.”

In addition, Kotaku is now reporting that Star Wars 1313 and First Assault have been canceled

Staff were informed of the shutdown this morning, according to a reliable Kotaku source. Some 150 people were laid off, and both of the studio’s current projects—Star Wars: First Assault and Star Wars 1313—were cancelled. Disney will still use the LucasArts name to license games, but the studio is no more.