DominicCobb said:

I feel like we should be past the “Lucas’s treatments got dumped” discussion at this point. We know many of his ideas were the starting point for things in TFA (and TLJ to a lesser extent). The fact that they didn’t follow his treatments to the letter shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone.

It was certainly a surprise to George Lucas. Here’s Robert Iger himself recounting their first story meeting with George:

Robert Iger said:

Early on, Kathy brought J.J. and Michael Arndt up to Northern California to meet with George at his ranch and talk about their ideas for the film. George immediately got upset as they began to describe the plot and it dawned on him that we weren’t using one of the stories he submitted during the negotiations.

The truth was, Kathy, J.J., Alan, and I had discussed the direction in which the saga should go, and we all agreed that it wasn’t what George had outlined. George knew we weren’t contractually bound to anything, but he thought that our buying the story treatments was a tacit promise that we’d follow them, and he was disappointed that his story was being discarded. I’d been so careful since our first conversation not to mislead him in any way, and I didn’t think I had now, but I could have handled it better. I should have prepared him for the meeting with J.J. and Michael and told him about our conversations, that we felt it was better to go in another direction. I could have talked through this with him and possibly avoided angering him by not surprising him. Now, in the first meeting with him about the future of Star Wars, George felt betrayed, and while this whole process would never have been easy for him, we’d gotten off to an unnecessarily rocky start.

Here’s a gallery with all of the known concept art for DOTF

Here are some highlights from the battle of Coruscant:

There are rumors that they’ll be updating the Falcon ride possibly some time later this year with a new mission based around The Mandalorian.

Here’s a higher res copy of the footage

Jedit: Looks like it was taken down.

Well…

Things have definitely taken an interesting turn. I’m still trying to process what I just watched.

It was good. It actually felt authentic which was a big worry of mine going in but so far so good.

I look forward to seeing where this is going.

Best surprise was that it looks like they invested in fixing up Data. He looks a lot better than he did in the trailer.

DominicCobb said:

Don’t really want to show everyone getting murdered on a kids show

Cough

You can always buy prints for your wall.

Hal 9000 said:

I think the ST titles are pretty good and fit their respective stories. Even other films reference these.

“Leading then to the last Jedi…”
“Something inside me has always been there, and now it’s awake.” Etc.

The Thrawn titles fit fine, too, but I really don’t feel the need to change titles.

There has been an awakening…

…leading them to the last Jedi. If Skywalker returns, the new Jedi
will rise.

One of the big inspirations for Star Wars and many others. This book is over a hundred years old and yet it still feels fresh and vibrant. An incredibly fun adventure. One of my favorites.

The first thing I thought of when I saw that alien was Debbie the Bloop from Lost in Space. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was supposed to be an homage:

The ‘huh’ could use some massaging. Would it be possible to stretch the audio a little so it sounds a little more drawn out?

Noah Hawley’s ‘Star Trek’ Movie Will be a Return to Traditional ‘Trek’

Noah Hawley said:

Star Trek is such a special story about exploration and empathy and diversity and humanity at its best and creative problem solving. It was never designed in its origins as an action series. It was always about humanity having to fit into the universe and solve problems through diplomacy and outsmarting their opponents. So I’m excited to get back to that.

I hope Paramount trusts his vision.

Yeah looks like the artist still does his penciling the traditional way. Here’s some of the original art:

And here’s what the artist had to say about it:

Mark Brooks said:

Got an e-mail last night from Lucasfilm saying that George Lucas would like to purchase every original page from Han Solo #1 and #2. Surreal is an understatement.

George gets first right of refusal on all Star Wars artwork. The artwork goes through Lucasfilm who then send it on your George for optioning. Guess it was in his contract when he sold the property.

It’s standard for any Star Wars artwork done in any official capacity for Lucasfilm, Disney and it’s subsidiaries. George Lucas gets first rights of refusal for all original artwork.

TCW fits well with the microseries for the most part but it does contradict it in a few places. George was not afraid to completely negate anything in the EU he didn’t care for. Which is why incidents like Karen Traviss’ loud and sudden departure from the franchise happened. And why suddenly there was the weird continuity issue they had to try and smooth over when he decided to rename the Sith planet Korriban to Moraband.

What I’ve personally always been fascinated by is George’s love of the comics. He pulled Ayla Secura right out of the comics and adapted her to live action in AOTC. Her Master from the comics Quinlan Vos also almost made a live action appearance in ROTS but ended up instead as a vocal reference. Asajj Ventress, was another comics character he used quite heavily in the animated series.

He also heavily borrowed from Ki-Adi Mundi’s backstory from the comics for Anakin in ROTS. Married and being the “only” knight to be given a seat on the council without being granted the rank of Master.

And then there’s Darth Talon. Another comic character that George became enamored with. He first tried to use her in the long cancelled Darth Maul game and then later was planning on using her as the antagonist in his version of VII.

And his love of the comics continues. He’s been spotted heading into comic shops every now and then to buy the latest issues and even bought all of the original art for a Marvel Han Solo comic.

ZkinandBonez said:

So it just occurred to me that CW season 7 could technically qualify as both Legends and Canon at the same time. Granted the canonicity of CW pre-Disney was kind of weird and inconsistent, but it is the only non-live-action material to be canonized after Disney bought SW, and season 7 is based on unfinished episodes from the pre-Disney days, so shouldn’t the new season technically be part of both continuities? Not that this really matters overall, but I find these kinds of things fascinating.

The series was created by George Lucas himself. It’s always been considered G-Level canon, even after he left following the third season.

darkshadowspike said:

yes, is sad that important plot points or explanations have to be watched in theme parks or video game events.

There’s nothing important about what he says in the ride. Ever since TFA, whenever there’s a new movie they grab some of the cast to film original inserts to add new segments to Star Tours.

I’d like it to be true just because I really want to see everything. The film in theaters right now has clearly been cut down significantly. The article was linked by someone with connections to LFL but they don’t know anything about the veracity of the claims and I personally have never heard of the site before today.

Ah, good call.

Rumors are starting to circulate about an extended cut being released to theaters toward the end of the month:
THE 192 MINUTE J.J. ABRAMS RISE OF SKYWALKER CUT IS COMING SOONER THAN YOU THINK

It breaks down to this:

• An extended version of The Rise of Skywalker will be announced in the coming week, releasing near the end of January, and including 3-5 additional sequences fit into the narrative. This should bring the cut up from 142 minutes to about 165 minutes.
• Rumored sequences to be included in this cut involve an extended Endor sequence that occurs before the final shot in the current film, Lobot and Lando in a sequence that predates the chase in the desert, and a slew of ghost Jedis returning alongside Luke and Leia and participating in the final sequence to unseat the Emperor.
• This new cut will be simply treated as an Extended Cut, and will include a post-credits sequence highlighting additional sequences that will be released with the official Blu Ray release of The Rise of Skywalker which will have a special J.J. Abrams Director’s Cut version of the film at 185 minutes.
• When The Rise of Skywalker enters the streaming window exclusively on Disney Plus it will include an additional 7 minutes of extra footage that didn’t get finished in post production as a part of its exclusive run on the streaming upstart.

Oof, losing the holochess would really hurt me. I’ve always been a huge stop motion fan and it’s such a delight to see it used again in a major motion picture.

In regards to that. Here’s a wild idea I just had about creating those kinds of reaction shots whole cloth. Using the DeepFake algorithm.

Say you need a surprised reaction shot from Kylo but there isn’t one to use. But you do have a shot that would work but it’s the wrong expression on his face. What if you were to take this shot, film yourself or someone else making the expression you want for Kylo. While making sure to match the angle of your/their face to that of Kylo in the shot you want to use. Use the DeepFake algorithm to generate Kylo making that expression and then compositing that back over his face in the original shot.

It would be pretty labor intensive but I think it could be done if someone really wanted a shot that badly.

Remember Luke had never heard of the Force in the original film. And Old Ben has to explain to him and the audience who and what the Jedi were.

The galaxy is a big place.