Star Wars Weekly Buzz: Ron Howard on Star Wars and Han Solo; Rian Johnson Created New Rules for The Last Jedi and More
This week on our Star Wars Weekly Buzz: Adam Driver talks Rian Johnson and the new rules he created for The Last Jedi; Emilia Clarke thinks her character in Han Solo is awesome; Ron Howard on his new Han Solo gig and Star Wars in general; George Lucas caught by TMZ to comment on his friend’s new assignment; Kathleen Kennedy takes a few behind the scenes photos of the Vanity Fair The Last Jedi photo shoot; New Star Wars exclusives for SDCC revealed + full schedule for Disney’s D23 and more.
Adam Driver briefly spoke with Huffington Post about Star Wars: The Last Jedi and Rian Johnson:
You’ve said you think Episode VIII is “remarkable.” What do you think fans can expect?
I said what Rian had written was remarkable. He created new rules for the “Star Wars” universe and balanced the familiar and unfamiliar very adeptly while respecting that his audience can handle ambiguity. Which you can see in his previous films. Characters and story are his priority.
In another interview, Han Solo actress Emilia Clarke revealed to the Rolling Stone that her character in the movie will be really “awesome”.
All I can say is that she’s awesome. Like, legit, that’s all I can actually get away with saying. There’s a stormtrooper with a gun, and he’s going to come walking in any second.
Next we have a few comments from the new Han Solo director Ron Howard.
Howard appeared on the main Palais stage at Cannes Film Festival and briefly talked about his new gig and Star Wars in general (via Deadline).
He described his new job directing Han Solo as “A little opportunity that came my way.” He later tweeted the following:
I’m beyond grateful to add my voice to the Star Wars Universe after being a fan since 5/25/77.
— Ron Howard (@RealRonHoward) June 22, 2017
I hope to honor the great work already done & help deliver on the promise of a Han Solo film.
— Ron Howard (@RealRonHoward) June 22, 2017
Howard on Star Wars in general:
I’ve been around the Star Wars universe from the beginning. When I was being directed by George Lucas on American Graffiti in 1972, we were standing out in front of Mel’s Drive-In in San Francisco where we were shooting and I said, ‘Do you know what you think your next film might be?’ And he said, ‘Yeah, I want to do a science fiction movie, but a really fun one like Flash Gordon with the effects of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001.’ I thought, ‘That sounds like a kind of crazy idea.’”
He and his wife went to see it on the first day of release and were “so moved by the movie. It was all the things you dream you’re going to experience in the movies.” Although they had stood in line for two hours to see it, when Howard and Cheryl came out, they threw each other a look and decided to see it again immediately — standing in line for another 90 minutes.
“So many people involved with the Star Wars franchise are friends, so it’s gratifying to be able to lend my voice to the universe — coming in when it’s already been in production and there is a great amount of work done.”
Also check out how Ron Howard defended The Phantom Menace and Jake Loyd back in 1999 in this cool letter:
Great letter written by @RealRonHoward from 1999 where he defended Jake Lloyd & The Phantom Menace against an article published in Newsweek pic.twitter.com/nmuw0klCNP
— Thomas Storaï (@ThomasStorai) June 23, 2017
Ron Howard en route from Cannes to London for his new exciting project. 🙂
#Eurostar #Paris to #London pic.twitter.com/NTA3g6gbuh
— Ron Howard (@RealRonHoward) June 25, 2017
And now on the set!
Cool scene today but I’m afraid this is the most revealing image I dare share from my 1st day on the set of the Untitled Han Solo movie pic.twitter.com/RB15lG7FGE
— Ron Howard (@RealRonHoward) June 29, 2017
despite my NDA & a closed set here’s a carefully chosen behind the scenes look at the #UntitledHanSoloMovie pic.twitter.com/bd2x19TFGy
— Ron Howard (@RealRonHoward) June 30, 2017
George Lucas comments on Ron Howard’s new gig and has something to say to these fake autograph collectors.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9ZmHBi4qeM
Speaking of Han Solo, former director Chris Miller posted the following cryptic message on Twitter:
Situation normal
— Chris Miller (@chrizmillr) June 27, 2017
There could be two meanings to this. This line is a direct reference to the line delivered by Han Solo in A New Hope, trying to convince imperials on the Death Star that everything was under control, in an effort to mislead them into thinking there was no problem at all. Is that Miller’s idea behind this message? Was it a jab at Disney’s attempt to convince us that everything was under control? Or is he just being honest, that besides everything that happened, things are still okay?
Disney revealed the full schedule to their D23 Expo event. Of course the most interesting panel will be the live action one:
Saturday, July 15
Disney, Marvel Studios & Lucasfilm – Live Action at The Walt Disney Studios (10 a.m., Hall D23)–– At this exclusive Hall D23 presentation featuring never-before-seen footage, surprise star appearances, and more, you’ll get a behind-the-scenes glimpse at an exciting array of spectacular films on the horizon from these world-class studios. Cell phones, cameras, and all recording devices will be checked for this presentation.
For the full schedule click here.
Vanity Fair shared 4 new photos taken by Kathleen Kennedy and her daughter during Annie Leibovitz photo session for The Last Jedi.
Mark Hamill will be at New York Comic Con. His autographing session there will not be his last ever like the image below says.
Good that Hamill fixed NYCC’s mistake quickly:
TRUTH IN ADVERTISING: It’s my final convention appearance..THIS YEAR, not “like ever”(hopefully)! #JustSayinNYCC #NoFondFarewells #IllBeBack https://t.co/DQezRG9PF9
— Mark Hamill (@HamillHimself) June 27, 2017
StarWars.com revealed the SDCC exclusives for this year. The con takes place at the San Diego Convention Center from July 20-23. To get your hands on some of these cool items all you have to do is attend and pay for them. The most interesting item will likely be the new novel Star Wars Battlefront II: Inferno Squad, signed by the author.
For all the rest of the exclusives go to StarWars.com
Cool video of LEGO’s microfighters line:
They’re not small, they’re FUN size. 😜 #Microfighters #LEGOStarWars @starwars pic.twitter.com/NkmHZ8pmeo
— LEGO (@LEGO_Group) June 28, 2017
A new episode of the Star Wars Blips series is here:
An Artoo unit assembled from parts used during the original Star Wars trilogy was sold for $2.76 million at auction!
R2-D2 droid used in original @StarWars trilogy sells for $2.76 million at auction: https://t.co/tfUrkLJ10Q pic.twitter.com/d5jeDULltb
— Good Morning America (@GMA) June 29, 2017
StarWars.com’s coverage of the world premiere of Rogue One is nominated for an Emmy Award:
For your @TheEmmys consideration. #RogueOne: World Premiere Red Carpet Live Stream, Outstanding Informational Series or Special. pic.twitter.com/akcoCOcXBB
— Star Wars (@starwars) June 25, 2017
Happy birthday to the man who rebooted Star Wars successfully!
Have you felt it? It’s the man behind The Force Awakens’ birthday! Many happy returns to director J.J. Abrams pic.twitter.com/Eq7b5xl6lO
— Star Wars UK (@StarWarsUK) June 27, 2017
41 years later it’s finally hotter in London than it was during the filming of A New Hope.
FINALLY it’s hotter in London than the record breaking heat of 76 when we shot IV here.At least I’m not in full metal jacket this time. Cool
— Anthony Daniels (@ADaniels3PO) June 22, 2017
Fantastic Obi-Wan fan made poster!
The latest from Matt Martin and Pablo Hidalgo from the Lucasfilm Story Group:
She is Asian. (Cue dude on my timeline who just has to say, “But there is no Asia in Star Wars”)
— Pablo Hidalgo (@pablohidalgo) June 29, 2017
I would advocate for a movie wherein Warwick plays every role.
— Pablo Hidalgo (@pablohidalgo) June 29, 2017
We don’t know until a story tells us, and I can’t get into what is or isn’t in the next season.
— Pablo Hidalgo (@pablohidalgo) June 29, 2017
The biggest freakout to oh-never-mind SW fandom ratio currently belongs to Sana Solo, with Rogue One reshoots being a close second.
— Pablo Hidalgo (@pablohidalgo) June 28, 2017
Probably Lost Stars. The upcoming Leia: Princess of Alderaan book is amazing too. Apparently I like @claudiagray and YA.
— Matt Martin (@missingwords) June 30, 2017
@missingwords Just because a novel is still being published without the Legends banner, doesn’t mean it’s canon? Like TPM novelization?
— Indigo Strata (@IndigoStrata) June 29, 2017
Yeah. We recently went through the junior novelizations and made them fit with current continuity so the newest versions of those are canon.
— Matt Martin (@missingwords) June 29, 2017
Stay tuned for more next week.
Founder of SWNN, MNN and The Cantina forums.
Born on April 24, 1980.
“because it isn’t a compelling story for the good guys to out number the bad guys.”
I highly disagree with that tweet. That was part of what made the thrawn trilogy so great. Thrawn built up the empire from nothing and took the bigger new republic to the brink. Constantly seeing the good guys as the underdog is more than a little cliché at this point.
I mean, hell, isn’t that what the prequels were? A small, insidious force of ‘bad guys’ operating within, and ultimately completely corrupting an enormous body of what we think of as ‘the good guys’? There’s compelling story stuff there. It would have required some more imagination than ‘oh, hell, let’s just reset everything back to the way it was at the end of Empire and call it a day’, but that’s a lazy, lazy solution, and a weak answer.
While I’m not one of those people, I get the impression that most see the Prequels as an example of what not to do. Maybe they thought the big good vs. small evil might have been one of the reasons why the response was so negative, and didn’t want to risk it.
The issues with the prequels lay more in execution than the overall plot. It would be a shame if they restricted the scope of storytelling for future films because of a mixed reception to the prequels generally.
The thing about the prequels was that it showed the republic transition into the Empire we know, having Snoke, The Knights of Ren, and the First Order be a sort of terrorist group causing havoc would have been different and more interesting. HECK throw Luke’s established Jedi Temple in the mix! Have The Knights of Ren infiltrate and kill some Jedi to demonstrate to the people of the Republic that no one is safe and not even the Jedi can protect them, make the people doubt the protection offered by the “keepers of the peace.” They could have just brought elements of the old republic story line and incorporate it in the ST. But I digress, let’s wait and see what Episode VIII is about. I hope the Knights of Ren aren’t a joke and get wiped out by Luke in one blow, cause TKOR are a really REALLY cool concept.
Yup..having the New Republic be another super power, while having Kylo and Snoke weave through and cause chaos and destruction to the very thing the Rebellion worked so hard to build would have been compelling. BUUUUT Hosnian Prime got destroyed so there’s that.
Yup. And people wonder why fans of Legends, like myself, were left disappointed with the ST. For granted, legends is overlionized to a degree, but my hope is that LF could have borrowed that ambition and creative spirit of Legends to create something cool, yet working within the SWs mythos. And while TLJ could do that(I do like RJ), I still find ti baffling how we were given such little context about the galaxy.
I mean even if we ignore the PT(which is dumb. Yeah, they suck but they are a part of the universe), there is still a 30 year gap. And given the title, episode seven, you’d think we have some background. But I have hope Hope, that Rian Johnson to quote San Tekka, “Will set things right” when it comes to this movie. Because, I will be honest; RO is the only disney era film I liked. NC, mostly decent with some good and bad.
Re: “I think any Force sensitive being has the *potential* to do most any ‘power'”
Concerns me where they’re going with Force sensitive/wielders.
From hearing from Pablo (I think) that Han’s ability to fly the Falcon as his tuned into the Force (/being sensitive), making him one of the best pilots, to what now sounds like these Force sensitives (Han, Chirrut, etc?) just lacked training?
I can imagine – SW universe just needed a Force power teacher like Oprah – “You get a Force power, You get a Force power, YOU ALL get a Force power!” during one of their Force wielder Holonet shows. 😉
I love that Kenobi poster. Movie plz!!!
That poster is better than any I seen for the Disney films so far but aside from Ewan, I don’t see the draw of a an Obi-Wan film considering he has to be confined to Tatooine for the entire film and we already know how popular desert planets are with most fans at this point.
I’d have to say you’re only partially correct on the desert planet part. Yes, there are groans when yet another desert planet ***which totally isn’t Tatooine of course*** is announced it’s met with groans, but for two reasons: people want to see more diversity, yes, and if they do decide to do a desert planet we want something on Tatooine and not some new place.
Frankly for an Obi-Wan movie we’d expect it to be Tatooine and to take place mostly on Tatooine, so I doubt there’d be groans there. People get excited for an Obi-Wan movie because they like the character and further than that pretty much everyone agreed Ewan McGregor was definitely a highlight of the prequels.
Well at least with an “Obi Wan” anthology film, you can have Ewan McGregor in it and being a badass and not some younger version of him; as in the Han Solo project.
Jesus, leave George alone. He so clearly doesn’t care about new Star Wars and I feel awful whenever there’s a video of him getting cornered and harassed on the street.
Yes, totally agreed. I like how he called them out; that they were not genuine fans, etc.
Love the Star Wars Blips. More please! 🙂
“Ambiguity” from Ryan Johnson — Wow just what I want in a Star Wars Movie. Great.
you forgot the /s
“Han Solo in A New Hope, trying to convince imperials on the Death Star that everything was under control, in a SERIES OF CONTRADICTORY, FEEBLE AND ULTIMATELY UNSUCCESSFUL efforts to mislead them into thinking there was no problem at all.”
.
A sly ‘up yours’ to LFL, at the same time demonstrating that, contradicting the narrative LFL is currently trying to sell, they know Han Solo just fine, thank you? God, I would LOVE that to be exactly what Miller was doing there.
https://youtu.be/4yhnF_4n5VI
Looking cool, but still needs more banthas
I got to say whoever did that Fan-poster for Obi-wan looks AMAZING! Seriously, the old Western feel to it and the image work blows so many of the newer SWs posters out of the water. If I could, I’d buy that poster and frame it on my wall. And I tend to be picky about that. Overall, LF; whoever did this poster HIRE THEM. Seriously, some of these fans should be the ones in charge of this stuff.
New rules for Star Wars ? Ambiguity ? Someone should have told RJ that Star Wars was not his to change, or is it ?
I would think giving him the job of writing and directing the next saga movie, with Lucasfilm’s support and blessing, means exactly that he can and should write new rules if they serve the story. Of course, any new rules are going to be agreed by KK and the Story Group so there’s nothing to fear in terms of breaking anything. It means growth for the narrative universe so that’s good, overall. Unless you’re insinuating that only GL can change Star Wars…? In which case, they should just stop making it, no?
As for ambiguity, there’s plenty in all of the other Star Wars movies – part of the power of myth is the mystery behind prophecies or forces or charismatic characters, ‘I am your father…’ ‘the chosen one…’ ‘balance of the force…’, who is the Great Warrior, Yoda? Boba Fett? Will Han come back and save the day? Rey’s parents?
All purposefully ambiguous. Over time, they get explored – that’s the fun of it.
All in all, I wouldn’t worry.
It isn’t changing. You just think it is
I just hope that further down the line Star Wars goes to directors like Tarantino, Woody Allen, Paul Thomas Anderson etc. Maybe not those actual directors, but their type of filmmaker, and they’re allowed to do their thing and make something a little less mainstream and a little more adult. Could be another spin-off type thing, whilst they still release the bigger, crowd friendly releases too.
I’d love to see Star Wars in the hands of great Directors.
No thanks on Tarrantino or Woody Allen
Just examples. I’d like to see some spin-off films that mix genres. Maybe they should ask David Lynch again, see what he’d come up with.
All I’m saying is, I want it to evolve. Star Wars Horror, Star Wars comedy, Violent R-rated SW. Always keep the saga films traditional, but experiment now and again with the other films.
Too much experimental can leads to such problems like Han Solo stuggles 😉
i would prefer christopher nolan or rideley scott
That Obi-Wan fan poster is the coolest I’ve seen! Can I buy one from the guy?
Great poster! But I still think an Obi-Wan film is a bad idea. The only real reason it seems that folks want this movie, is that McGregor would likely reprise his role. Other than that, ideas sort of fall flat. We have Obi-Wan’s story already: three movies and an animated series. In fact, we have more of Obi-Wan’s story than most other Star Wars characters. I’m fine with Obi-Wan’s 20-year period in hiding being just that: hiding, meditating, and watching over Luke from a distance. And a movie bound to Tatooine where he’s dealing with Jabba and his goons and such (as some have suggested) just seems like a waste of a movie. It might make for a great episode of a future Star Wars live-action show or some comic book, but not a feature film.