What We Missed This Month Regarding Star Wars Movies/Books/Toys.
Sometimes, the months get so busy that we can’t report on everything… But today, I’m going to fix that by talking about three important stories that we didn’t talk about in May. This post will talk about a potential Star Wars seven-movie marathon that could occur at AMC, a film festival in China showing the previous six films, the latest iteration of the Star Wars Reads Day, and word on when we’ll first get a look at new Hasbro toys – ones that will most likely tie into The Force Awakens.
Firstly, according to a bit of hearsay from Star Wars Action News, an AMC manager confirmed to the that the theater chain is going to host a movie marathon that runs through both the Prequel Trilogy and the Original Trilogy before going straight into the midnight release of The Force Awakens. While this is admittedly just talk from someone in the middle of the chain-of-command and not an official announcement from AMC itself, keep in mind that AMC just ran a 27-hour Marvel Cinematic Universe marathon in time for Avengers: Age Of Ultron. At this point, Star Wars only makes up 13.5 hours of film, which is comparatively more manageable even with another 2+ hour movie thrown into the mix.
Speaking of movie marathons, China is about to get hit by all six Star Wars movies at the 18th Shanghai International Film Festival. While all six movies have been available to watch on home video formats in China, it will mark the first time that all three Original Trilogy movies will be screened theatrically in the country. The festival occurs in June, from the 13th to the 21st. (A bit of speculation on my part – on the off-chance there’s going to be a new teaser for The Force Awakens shown in front of Pixar’s Inside Out, which debuts in the United States around this time, this is probably the place where it will be shown first.)
Star Wars Reads Day is also back up and running:
On October 10, 2015, bookstores, libraries, and retailers will participate in the fourth annual installment of the global event, featuring signings, parties, and more. Last year, events took place all over the world, and this year Star Wars Reads Day is expected to grow even bigger as fans gear up for the theatrical release of Star Wars: The Force Awakens in December. Participants in the events and festivities include: Disney-Lucasfilm Press, Marvel, Abrams, Chronicle, Del Rey, DK, Quirk Books, Scholastic, Workman, Egmont, Studio Fun, Phoenix International Publishing, and many more. BB-8 is ready. Are you?
The official site also shows promotional images of BB-8 and Yoda reading.
On one last note, Hasbro is getting ready to unveil its new Star Wars toys at the San Diego Comic Con! Check out this announcement on their Twitter page:
Don’t miss the Hasbro Star Wars Panel @ #SDCC2015 – Friday July 10 @ 12:00pm in Room 7AB #HasbroSDCC
— Hasbro (@HasbroNews) May 19, 2015
While there is no specific announcement that they will unveil toys for The Force Awakens, their absences at the New York Toy Fair or Star Wars Celebration Anaheim suggest that they’re waiting for the right time to reveal them all – and given that the toys for the movie are set to launch two months later (in September), what better time to unveil them than then?
Stay tuned to this website for the latest updates on all kinds of Star Wars news.
Grant has been a fan of Star Wars for as long as he can remember, having seen every movie on the big screen. When he’s not hard at work with his college studies, he keeps himself busy by reporting on all kinds of Star Wars news for SWNN and general movie news on the sister site, Movie News Net. He served as a frequent commentator on SWNN’s The Resistance Broadcast.
I like Star Wars!
I would like to see a channel completely dedicated to star wars. TV shows, movies, anything else star wars related.
Well its your lucky day because Disney is already making exactly that channel.
Supposedly. It might just be a digital platform like HBO Go. Which, keep in mind, would still be a channel, but it would be more like “Star Wars On Demand” as opposed to “All Star Wars, All The Time”.
‘it would be more like “Star Wars On Demand” as opposed to “All Star Wars, All The Time”.’
Makes sense.
In 20 years, we’ll probably get 20+ BRAND NEW films and 15-20 or more animated and live-action TV seasons by then, not to mention what we already have! xD
We’ll get about twice the six-part saga in films by Star Wars’ 50th anniversary in 2027! Exciting times! >:D
When are they doing it? And what channel is it going to be on
Yay
I am the walrus
Here’s another clue for you all, The Walrus Was Paul!!!!
Just give me old man Luke swinging a lightsaber and kicking ass I dont care about anything else
I just want an ep 7 movie poster to be revealed already
Seriously I don’t why it’s taking so long. We got 6 months left and no poster?!!
Wasn’t there some sort of poster with Kylo Ren that came out of Celebration?
Danm those guys across the ocean. They get everything first.
Hey Pomojema,
How about my Original Trilogy, unaltered, on Blu-ray?
Because of the fact that Twentieth Century Fox owns the distribution rights to all but one of the movies until 2020, and they own the rights for the original film in perpetuity… You can’t officially get them on Blu-Ray anytime soon. Not until Disney works out a deal with them, anyway.
Furthermore, George Lucas’s personal belief is that the Blu-Ray Special Editions are the definitive versions of the movies. While they relented on this a while back and released the original versions of the movies on DVD, the visual and sound quality was lower than the regular edition. If they can sort the rights out with Fox, I’d say that they’d eventually make a box set for the Original Theatrical Trilogy.
But while it’s not happening officially anytime soon, you can look for the Despecialized Editions, Blu-Ray quality versions of Original Theatrical Trilogy. As far as I know, you can burn them onto your Blu-Ray disc your Special Edition Original Trilogy movies for free.
Why didn’t you do a report on the leaked clip? Here it is anyway: https://m.facebook.com/theforceawakensblog?refsrc=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.theforceawakensblog.com%2F&_rdr
Whoa, seriously! That’s major. Hadn’t heard of it until now. Certainly deserves a report on my favorite Star Wars website!
Guys, I already told you. Actually we were the first to report this clip from the set. But we were asked to take it down. It was up for a few hours.
Marathon NEEDS to happen, and if it concludes with TFA? Get out of here. Took the kiddies to the Indy marathon, and it was…AWESOME. Just a bit more than 20 minutes between films would be nice to grab meals, but this happens, we’re THERE.
@I Love OT – yeah, totally. Good news is I am firmly convinced that Disney either already has, or soon will rescan the negs. The SE additions are only in 1080p, so unsuitable for future releases, and there’s no way Disney is going to spring to re-do each SE shot in a modern format. That means a modern scan of the negs (the master used for both the DVD and BD releases was done something like 20 years ago) if Disney ever wants to be able to sell the films on home video again, and most likely a straightforward restoration and release.
Reliance media works did a 4k transfer of the OT (hopefully unspecialized editions)… in 16 bit color! (most tv displays today are only 8 bit). I suspect they are waiting to announce release until the unveiling of 4k Bluray debut this Xmas.
For any theater geeks that peruse EP VII news… high dynamic range laser projectors are starting to make their debut in locations across the country (IMAX laser or Dolby Cinema/aka AMC Prime theaters)… that bodes well for Star Wars. Disney is planning to release their big films with High dynamic range grading… which is the best visual fidelity/ deeper blacks/ brighter whites/ more contrast… so it looks like Star Wars will be High dynamic range mastered as well. It will look stunning if you can find a laser projector in your area.
Speaking of which… Tomorrowland (the first HDR film) made a huge Star Wars plug in the film. It wasn’t as subtle as the reece’s pieces in E.T… this was blatantly obvious (lol)
8 bit.. like 256 colors only? Brush up on your math a bit before you comment please!
https://youtu.be/8VdcMWWh3s0
I really like this video, as much as I dislike Hayden Christensen’s rendition of Anakin, this video really brings the whole story together well,
one note though.
The music isn’t really Star Wars music [I don’t mind as I thought having a new perspective was quite powerful] and it’s overdone.
At the very end of the video, the music swells over to the point to where the line “You already HAVE [saved me]” is muddled and unimpressive.
Sebastian Shaw’s delivery of that line SHOULD be the climax of the entire video, but instead it’s trampled by music that isn’t tailored, which is a shame because the beginning is so carefully mixed and arranged that it’s a bit of a let-down that the music-mixer dropped the ball at the tail end.
If the music came to a somber, tense silence, right as the line “You Already… Have” is given, that would have been the PREFECT ending.
That’s a small detail though, overall this vid does way more for me than that one official mash-up they did a year back.
^^ Worth a watch.
The thing I find interesting about the PT is that if you watch specific moments of it, you say “wow, that looks AWESOME”
But somehow when you watch the whole thing, it just doesn’t work, not for me at least.
I think this it’s possibly one of the best examples of Audience Imagination VS Director Execution. Seeing the trailers for PT, they really do spark your imagination for what could be.
Unfortunately, they just didn’t come to be in the finished result. This video kind of demonstrates my point, because based on what you see of Star Wars in this vid, Hayden really looks like he MIGHT possibly be a good Anakin,
I know he’s not, but this vid allows me to imagine the PT that could have been.
Call me a cry-baby or sentimental or whatever…
As for the Original Cut Remaster issue,
I think one thing that’s caused the fan-base a lot of grief is the fact that… George Lucas didn’t actually LIKE Star Wars, at least, not the same things we liked about it.
Case in point: George disliked the Cantina Scene because he thought it was too cheesy / been-there-done-that.
As it turns out, the cheesy charm of it is exactly what gave it staying-power.
George liked it for the philosophy of it, audiences like it for everything else.
I don’t mean to discredit Lucas, my point is that his motivation’s and actions were always different than the audience’s,
To him “A New Hope” is imperfect and out-dated, which to Lucas is a negative, but to audiences only makes it more charming and likable.
The issue is Lucas kind of asserted his right to control the film to a degree that wasn’t exactly necessary.
Luckily, Disney has a more “hey if you’re paying– what the hell? here yah go!” attitude with it’s distribution.
Reboot th Prequels!
I am getting married on October 10th so I will unfortunately be missing out on Star Wars read day.
Or will I?????
They are avoiding showing the Force Awakens toys as they have cut the articulation and have cheaped out on everything, just like every other toy line they have put out in the last 3 years. But the price keeps getting raised.
I’ve been wondering if AMC would do a Star Wars marathon. It’s exciting in a way and I don’t imagine it’s something I could miss but I also dread it a bit because I’ve done the six movies in a row marathon at Celebration before and it’s exhausting. I was starting to nod off on The Empire Strikes Back of all films and by Jedi, I could barely stay awake! So to see The Force Awakens for the first time after that sort of endurance test would be kind of unthinkable.
What would work really nicely would be if they sold one ticket but showed the Prequel Trilogy one day and then the Original Trilogy and The Force Awakens the next. Then you’d have all the excitement of seeing the whole thing without the exhaustion factor. A good night’s sleep in the middle does wonders!
In any case, I would still prefer individual releases between now and then. I want to show my 7 year old Star Wars on the big screen but not necessarily the whole thing in one shot that she couldn’t possibly handle. Give the films normal week long re-releases and then do the marathon as well! The best of all worlds!