Star Wars Celebration 2017 Recap
There’s a lot to cover here, so let’s
not waste any time and get right into the latest and greatest news straight
from Star Wars Celebration in
Orlando!
Opening Ceremony
Considering we’re celebrating forty
years of Star Wars in May, this
Celebration was expected to pull out all the stops in rejoicing in the
continued success of our favourite movie franchise. And with this opening, the
show got off to an awesome start.
It didn’t take long for the surprises
to start as Warwick Davis and Kathleen Kennedy introduced the guest of honour:
none other than George Lucas himself. With how much hate Lucas has taken since
the end of the Prequels resulting in him selling Lucasfilm off to Disney, I’m
glad that he still isn’t scared to make public appearances. Despite what your
opinion may be of him, it never gets old to see the Maker himself talk about
his creation.
We then segued into a “This Is Your
Life” segment of sorts for Lucas, as several icons from the past arrived
onstage to talk about their relationship with Lucas and Star Wars as a whole. We started off with Dave Filoni, as he spoke
about his earliest days working on Clone
Wars under Lucas’s supervision, and how together they dedicated themselves
to creating an animated show with a television budget that could hold up both
visually and story-wise to the films.
Next was the always-welcome Ian
McDiarmid, accompanied by Hayden Christensen in his first official Star Wars appearance in years. Again,
similar to Lucas, I’m glad that despite the bad rap Hayden got from playing
Anakin Skywalker (let’s be honest with ourselves here, any issues you had with
Anakin were the fault of the writing, not Hayden) he was still able to come out
and celebrate the fortieth anniversary as the major player of the franchise
that he is. The two discussed their favourite scenes (such as the now internet
famous “Darth Plagueis the Wise” bit) as well as how Ian was able to return to
the role as Palpatine for the Prequels. It’s always fun to hear him talk about
his experiences with Star Wars, and
having Hayden along made it even better.
Finally, the Original Trilogy was
brought up, and Anthony Daniels, Billy Dee Williams and Peter Mayhew came out
onstage. They discussed what it was like joining the original films back in the
70’s as well as fun experiences onset and similarities with the characters they
play. Anthony Daniels had an especially funny story of George Lucas providing
R2’s beeps and boops so he’d have something to respond to while filming the
opening scene of Return of the Jedi.
They were later joined onstage by Mark
Hamill and – in yet another big surprise – none other than Harrison Ford
himself. It’s so nice to see Ford finally going to more fan conventions since Force Awakens arrived, and seeing him
here was a complete treat. Harrison talked about how he first got the part as
Han by doing carpentry work in the studio and Lucas remembering working with
him in American Graffiti, and it led
to a funny moment where the two of them disagreed onstage whether this really
happened or not.
But of course, everyone had to address
the elephant in the room: Carrie Fisher. Lucas and Kathleen Kennedy took to the
stage alone, each of them speaking about how delightful Carrie was to work with
and how she’ll not only be sorely missed but fondly remembered. Carrie’s
daughter Billie Lourd also gave a speech about her mother’s relationship with
Leia, but unfortunately at this point the livestream started having technical
difficulties and most of it was missed.
Once it finally stabilized, we were
given one last surprise: a performance by John Williams and Orlando’s Symphony
Orchestra to perform Star Wars classics
like Leia’s Theme, the Imperial March, and the Title Theme. It was a fantastic
way to not only cap off the Opening Ceremony and the memorial for Carrie, but
also kick off the weekend.
Battlefront II
EA’s first reimagining of the classic Star Wars Battlefront series was met
with…tepid response, to put it lightly. Overall the game suffered because it
felt way too slow and shallow, holding no surprises past the first fifteen
minutes of playtime. The power-ups were few and far between, the maps were way
too big considering the small amount of content sprinkled in, and the flying
was clunky and cumbersome. Needless to say the active playerbase vanished
before EA was able to release all their promised DLC.
So when it was announced EA was doing
a sequel, everyone more or less shrugged it off. I personally would love
nothing more than for the game to be awesome, but I haven’t exactly been given
a reason to hope.
The teaser shown off primarily focused
on the fact that this time around we’ll have an actual single-player campaign.
It’s actually a very interesting setting: you play as the commander of an elite
Imperial squadron known as Inferno Squad during the Battle of Endor, who’s left
without a purpose after watching the second Death Star explode and the Empire
crumble around her. She then spends the next thirty years swearing vengeance
against the Empire, encountering characters like Luke Skywalker along the way.
We saw some renders of Starkiller Base, meaning that this story goes all the
way from Return of the Jedi to Force Awakens, and according to the
game’s director, it fits in the existing canon, so that’s great news for a
timeline purist like myself.
Overall, despite the trailer showing a
grand total of zero seconds of gameplay (meaning it’s officially cemented
itself as what I call a Dangling Carrot trailer) I thought it looked like a
pretty cool storyline overall. I like seeing an Imperial’s foot soldier’s
reaction to losing everything she ever fought for. It’s something we really haven’t
seen yet in the new canon.
They also announced a new book about
Inferno Squadron set four years before the Battle of Endor is coming July 25 to
be written by the fantastic Christie Golden, so there’s that to look forward to
as well.
They also teased that characters other
than the Inferno Squad leader will be playable in the campaign, including Luke
Skywalker and Kylo Ren. They mentioned that they did this because they didn’t
want the campaign to feel like the same thing over and over and over again,
which sounds just plain fantastic to me. The best level in Titanfall 2 was the one where you could time travel, and it was
amazing because there was nothing else in the game like it and it changed up
the formula in new and fantastic ways. Having more stuff like that in the
campaign will really help Battlefront II recover
from the original game’s mistakes.
The Multiplayer mode was then touched
upon, and they explained that it will cover all eras of Star Wars, including the Prequel, Original and Sequel Trilogies.
They didn’t explicitly state whether they can cross over or not (so I don’t
know if we can have Yoda facing off with Kylo Ren), but I imagine that that would
be the case, if only for the awesome factor alone.
They also announced stuff like space battles and tauntauns
that were staples of past Battlefront games
will be returning, so that’s really a good sign. One of the biggest problems
with the last game was it just felt like such a stale and boring first-person
shooter, so really embracing the sci-fi insanity that comes with the Star Wars license is really what I think
they need to do to create a great game.
Classes have also been introduced, which
will hopefully make the game way less pay to win than the insane pay-to-win
dominance the Han Solo blaster got back in the first game. You can improve your
specific Stormtrooper or Rebel or Battle Droid or whatever the more you play,
allowing you to build the characters you want to use. Whether the best
cosmetics, weapons and armor are part of microtransactions are yet to be seen
though.
Speaking of microtransactions, take a good
look at that image I used up there. Something seem off to you? Because something
sure seems off to me. Keep in mind that we have still seen absolutely no
gameplay footage from this game yet, and for all we know it might turn out
exactly like the last game again. Don’t blindly give EA your money just yet.
Wait for trailers, wait for gameplay footage, and wait for reviews.
It was nice that the crowd booed the
pre-order announcement though. Made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.
All in all, Battlefront II sounds like a good game in the making, and I hope
that when we inevitably see it again at E3 we’ll see some actual gameplay. The
singleplayer campaign’s storyline looks compelling to say the least. The game
launches November 17, so if you’re interested mark down your calendars.
Disney Parks
This panel wasn’t livestreamed, but I
was able to follow along with what was happening via a Twitter account that was
at the panel themselves and livetweeted for us to enjoy.
Disney has remained extremely quiet on
what’s going on behind those construction walls in both Orlando and Anaheim,
and today we got more of a peek as to what’s coming in the biggest expansion in
theme park history.
It started off talking about what’s
next for Star Tours, including a new detail we haven’t heard anywhere else. We
already knew a new scene from The Last
Jedi would be added to the ride before the end of the year, but we now know
where that scene would take place. You know that part in the trailer where the
rebel ships are flying through the desert towards some walkers, kicking up red
sand everywhere? That planet is called Crait, and it’s coming to Star Tours
towards the end of the year.
The panel then segued into talking
about what everyone’s been waiting on: what’s next for Star Wars Land. The creative team took to the stage and emphasized
that the most important part of the Land was the guest is supposed to feel like
the star of their own Star Wars
story, instead of just being a part of Luke or Rey’s adventures. This led to
the creation of an all-new (as of yet unnamed) planet, home to a run-down
trading post where all the scum and villainy of the galaxy come. Looking at
some of the new concept art, the shops definitely look like places you’d find
in something like Mos Eisley or Niima Outpost. The Imagineers said they
specifically went about designing Star
Wars Land with the idea of making it as realistic as possible, using the
classic Ralph McQuarrie artwork as inspiration. There’ll even be denizens of
the outpost wandering around, interacting with guests and even getting into
fights with one another. While the Disney folks remained quiet on the specific
characters you’ll interact with, they showed off some concept art for alien,
human and droid characters.
They also talked a bit more about the
two new rides. Speaking about the First Order vs. Resistance ride, they called
it “the most epic attraction we’ve ever undertaken”. As for the Millennium Falcon experience, they
explained that the choices riders make will have a major part in the ride
overall, saying “if you damage the ship, someone won’t be happy with you”.
The panel concluded with the crew
saying that we can expect more in D23 in July, and that they look forward to
showing off the mysterious story behind the Land.
The Last Jedi
And now the moment you’ve all been
waiting for. Let’s talk about the main attraction itself.
Hosted by the always delightful Josh
Gad, this panel saw Kathleen Kennedy and director Rian Johnson take to the
stage to finally answer a few of the questions we’ve had since Christmas 2015.
What’s going on with Luke? Does Rey have a good relationship with him? And what
about Finn? Is he going to be all right?
While this panel raised twice as many
questions as it did give answers, we did get more of a peek as to what we’ll be
seeing on the big screen come December.
Firstly, they talked about what it was
like filming scenes set on Ahch-To on that island in Scotland, as well as
paying homage once again to Carrie Fisher and her fantastic role in the film.
The cast then began to trickle out,
starting with Daisy Ridley who had some interesting things to say. Bizarrely
enough she didn’t answer Josh’s questions as to whether she’s related to Luke
by blood or if her last name is either Skywalker or Kenobi. I can’t imagine
why.
She did mention that Last Jedi goes much further into Rey’s
story, as well as dropping a hint that upon meeting Luke Rey goes into a sort
of a “never meet your idols” moment. This resulted in a hilarious “ooh”
reaction from the crowd.
Next to join the cast was none other
than BB-8 himself, who answered Josh’s more spoilery questions with arguing
about NDA agreements before being ushered off the stage. Following him was John
Boyega, who didn’t tell much about where Finn’s story will be going next aside
from that he will be waking up from his coma and play a major part in his
story.
After that we learned about our first
all-new character joining the cast, that being a girl named Rose played by
newcomer Kelly Marie Tran. According to Rian she has the biggest role of all
the brand new characters in the movie, and she is a maintenance worker for the
Resistance. He compared her similarly to Luke in A New Hope, saying that she is like how Luke was a farmboy who
ended up having a huge part in saving the galaxy.
Last but not least Mark Hamill joined
the crew, and he spoke about some of the anxiety he had about reprising his
role as Luke for the first time in years. He also thanked all the Star Wars fans for their support over
the years and allowed him to use his fame as Luke Skywalker to bring joy to
others. He also made an interesting mention that when he read the Force Awakens script he came across a
line that said “The sword of Skywalker is dangerous”. He said this in setup to
a joke, so it might be nothing, but keep it in mind.
Finally, the time was come to reveal
what we’d all been waiting for…the poster! It was hilarious hearing the fans
who were all expecting a trailer’s screams of excitement drop off. But
honestly, this might be the coolest Star
Wars poster ever, rivalled only by the teaser posters for Phantom Menace and Revenge of the Sith. If you haven’t seen it yet, here it is.
So a few things to note. First off:
Rey’s blue lightsaber turns red the higher it goes. Could this be a hint that
Rey will be tempted by the Dark Side this time around? Or maybe this plays into
Mark’s “sword of Skywalker” hint? Or maybe it just does that because the
background is red? Or maybe it’s to throw us all off? Who knows at this point.
It’s also interesting to note that the only other characters featured on the poster
are Luke and Kylo, so I guess that they’ll be the most prominent supporting
characters this time around.
Of course, they promised a trailer
before the panel even began, and the whole thing ended with them showing the
first look at Last Jedi not once, but
twice. And what a trailer it was. In just two minutes we got a look at all the
returning characters as well as some new vehicles, locales and mysterious Jedi
relics. Interestingly, clips of Original Trilogy dialogue from characters like
Leia, Obi-Wan and Yoda are faintly sprinkled in among the background music.
What could that mean?
I’m not going to go over all the details right now though,
because next Saturday I’ll be back with a frame-by-frame analysis of the
trailer. But I really want to talk about the last thing you hear before the
end. Luke says “I only know one truth. It’s time for the Jedi to end”. I think
this plays into what Daisy mentioned about how Luke isn’t exactly what Rey
expects him to be. I think Luke will be more of a reluctant master to Rey, sort
of like Yoda was to him.
And that was the end of that. Of course we’re still over half
a year away from seeing the movie (sob!) and that leaves plenty more time to
learn more about what’s going down next in that galaxy far, far away. There’s
also a Closing Ceremony tomorrow, so you never know what might be unveiled
there (and if there’s anything important announced I’ll be sure to update this
post). But for now, this Celebration packed in just enough new information to
start up the Hype Train in preparation for Last
Jedi’s arrival in December, and I can’t wait.
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