star wars

Fans of iconic "Star Wars" star Carrie Fisher are gathering to pay tribute to her — New Orleans style.

It’s undeniable that Carrie Fisher was a rare talent — and she’d have to be, to charm the notoriously picky George Lucas with her Star Wars audition. In a recently resurfaced video, originally posted on YouTube in 2006, Fisher sits down to read a scene opposite Harrison Ford (whom Lucas initially didn’t want to cast, but he was so good in the screen tests that Ford became his Han Solo).

Terrible news to confirm today, as a beloved icon and Star Wars star’s condition has taken a turn for the worse. Carrie Fisher, actress behind both Princess and General Leia, has passed away at age 60. The revered actress and comedic presence had earlier suffered a heart attack en-route from London to Los Angeles.

Lucasfilm is building a great roster of talent for its untitled Han Solo project, with Phil Lord and Chris Miller directing, Alden Ehrenreich and Donald Glover starring (as Han and Lando, respectively) and cinematographer Bradford Young — whose resumé includes stunning work on another recent sci-fi film: Denis Villeneuve’s Arrival. Those are some very bold names involved with the upcoming Star Wars spinoff, but just how subversive can we expect this movie to be when it’s tied to such a prominent franchise? According to Young, he’s been “pleasantly surprised” by the amount of creative freedom they have at Lucasfilm.

The video, released Wednesday on YouTube, shows various cast members and celebrities in "screen tests" for the film. A similar sketch aired during a November episode of the late-night program.

Way back in 2012 (or at least it feels way back), Netflix and Disney struck a deal for all of Disney’s movies — including Marvel, Pixar and Lucasfilm — to stream exclusively on Netflix Instant. According to the terms of their agreement, the deal wouldn’t kick in until 2016, which just so happens to be the year in which we are currently living. As announced today, Netflix will officially begin streaming Disney films in September, but that doesn’t mean the studio’s entire library will magically appear in your Instant browser.

I'm glad Disney took over. Still love Lucas and what he gave us but common....if it were still in his hands, in my opinion, we'd be left with the awful prequels and his awful writing.

You may not immediately recognize the name Erik Bauersfeld, but you are undoubtedly familiar with his most famous line. The actor was the voice of Admiral Ackbar in Return of the Jedi, helping to popularize the alien’s signature phrase, “It’s a trap!” Bauersfeld has passed away at the age of 93, and though he’ll be remembered most for his role in Star Wars, the actor also worked with great directors like Guillermo del Toro and Steven Spielberg.

One way to look at it... it punishes fans for flocking out in droves to see The Force Awakens by pushing the release date of Episode VIII back. Another way to look at it is this gives them a little more time to make Episode VIII better. I see it both ways.

With Star Wars: The Force Awakens star Adam Driver hosting 2016’s first episode of SNL, a Kylo Ren sketch of some kind was inevitable. After all, you don't get the actor who plays the villain in one of the biggest movies of all time to appear on your comedy variety show and not have him reprise that character. And we'll give the show this much: we never would have predicted a faux episode of Undercover Boss set on Starkiller Base, with the angry, murderous Kylo Ren going undercover amongst his troops as a radar technician named Matt.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens may or may not win the weekend box office in its fourth frame of release. But for one night it’s the second place film, which says more about the over-performance of Leonardo DiCaprio’s The Revenant than anything to do with Star Wars.

For the record... Force Awakens did jump ahead of Titanic and Jurassic World to become the second highest-grossing film of all time in the U.S., behind Avatar. It has earned $1.5 billion total in worldwide sales. But why is there a recent disturbance in the Force?