The Ronto Roundup: Star Wars Celebs Get Iced, New Rebels Clip, Filoni Interview and MORE!
By Daniel Berry
Good morning, Dork Siders! Here’s wishing none of you woke up with a case of the Monday’s.
Anydangways, it’s time for our weekly feature covering all of the weekend’s Star Wars news: The Ronto Roundup!!!
Let’s get into it…
This very evening, Disney XD will be premiering the latest in their exclusive looks into the characters of the upcoming animated series Star Wars Rebels! Tonight’s clip; featuring the brute alien Zeb Orrelios, will air at 9:29pm EST following Gravity Falls. For those of you who can’t wait that long or don’t have Disney XD, first call your cable provider! Next, you’re in luck. The official Star Wars channel at YouTube has you covered.
Enjoy the latest Rebels short from Lucasfilm Animation; titled Entanglement, in the video below:
Garazeb Orrelios; or just Zeb for short, is voiced by the incredibly talented voice acting journeyman Steve Blum. You can check out a little of behind the scenes action with Blum and the crew of Rebels with this video, right here. There’s also a pretty good interview with Blum from this year’s San Diego Comic Con, which HitFix has here.
Don’t forget to tune into Disney XD tonight, or just set your DVR’s for stun.
In case you missed the first two Rebels shorts, you can either pull a Doc Brown or read up on our two posts, here and here.
The ALS Association‘s Ice Bucket Challenge is still a thing that’s happening on the internet. Last week, we reported on how several celebs within the Star Wars community had gotten involved. Since then, a whole slew of other actors and such have had freezing cold water dumped on their heads. Let’s find out just who, shall we?
First, British actress and Star Wars: Episode VII newcomer Daisy Ridley challenged Luke Skywalker, in her video:
Here’s Mark Hamill calling out the entire cast of Star Wars: Episode VII, during his Ice Bucket Challenge video:
Episode VII‘s Oscar Isaac joined in the fun, alongside Harrison Ford and Adam Driver:
Finally, the 501st Legion responded to the challenge of Episode VII Director, J.J. Abrams:
In our opinion, no one has yet to top the video posted by Warwick Davis, which you can watch here.
If you haven’t yet done so, PLEASE visit the official site of the ALSA and make a donation! We did.
Yesterday, the folks at ComicBook.Com finally revealed an interview they had conducted with Dave Filoni during SDCC, all the way back in early July. Filoni, who acts as both Supervising Director and Executive Producer on Star Wars Rebels, had a many interesting things to say during the interview…
On whether or not the new show will appeal to kids as well as adults, Filoni responded:
"“When fans ask me, “Are you making it for kids?” I kind of chuckle and say, “Well, yeah, of course.” And when they ask why, I’m like, “Well, how old were you when you saw Star Wars for the first time?” They’re like, “Oh, I was six years old and I was at the Cornet Theater…” and I’m like, “Exactly.”The trick of Star Wars isn’t that you’re ever making it younger, ever. You would never dare dumb it down. It’s just that you make a story that relates to people, and everyone across a large spectrum. If the characters are good, I think that will succeed. If not, you don’t ever want to simplify things or make it silly. I want this to be visually stylized and not photorealistic but that doesn’t mean at all that it’s a simpler story or that we’ve dumbed things down.”"
Filoni would move into speaking on the visual style of the show, specifically how camera work would come into play:
"“An interesting detail that we studied in terms of how do we make new technology like lightsabers and stuff: something we did that’s more old-fashioned is Joel Aron, my CG supervisor, I had him go and get all of the recorded data on the lens sets they used to film A New Hope so when you’re filming in The Ghost, we shoot with the same lens that they shot in The Falcon. So you’re using a 50 or you’re using a 75 here. And we know exactly what they are for those, and for the special effects shots, so Rebels doesn’t have all the crazy, flying camerawork that Clone Wars did which is based more on a digital camera. We’ve taken this back and we’re shooting with more of an older type of camera and Joel has created a film grain. It is the final step that we actually put in front of everything we do on Rebels and it knocks a bit of the crispness off of the picture to make it look a little bit more like the classic series because that’s what we’re moving into.”"
He also spoke on how series composer Kevin Kiner would be utilizing musical themes from the original films:
"“If you watch A New Hope, though the music is powerfully remembered, there are lengthy sections of that movie where there is no music at all. And that’s why you remember the way everything sounds so much. If you’re in Aunt Beru’s house in the kitchen you remember the little whirring of the machine that goes by. You remember these little key sounds. Even when they’re in the Falcon, you know? A lot of times they’re just sitting there talking and there’s no music. So you watch the first movie we did, we pulled the music out and we let the environment be the music. We let it live — the knocking and the pinging of the Ghost, the way the ductwork sounds, the machinery…and it takes a very kind of more cartoon-style animated look and I think it brings in a little more of the documentary feel that definitely A New Hope has. A New Hope has the most documentary-shot feeling of the Star Wars films if you look at it and it’s because George directed it. So we’re trying to get a little bit of that into this show.”"
You can check out the entire interview by reading the post by Russ Burlingame, here.
Yesterday brought the 80th birthday of Star Wars veteran Kenny Baker. Beloved by diehard fans across the globe, Baker is perhaps best known as playing the spunky astromech droid R2-D2 in all six Star Wars films.
British actor Kenny Baker with his robot counterpart R2-D2, during the filming of Star Wars.
Baker is set to reprise his role as Artoo in the upcoming Episode VII. He spoke to BBC News on his excitement for all things Star Wars, during an interview in November 2012:
On Saturday, The Phantom Menace star Ray Park also celebrated a birthday. Who could ever forget Park‘s chilling and acrobatic performance as the villainous Darth Maul?
Ray Park thrilled audiences as Sith Lord Darth Maul in 1999’s Star Wars: Episode I.
Here’s a great interview with the always delightful Ray Park, from last year’s London Film & Comic Con:
DSOTF would like to wish a belated HAPPY BIRTHDAY to both of these fine gentlemen. May the Force be with you both!
More NEWS from the Dork Side:
We could very well be getting a home video release for the sixth and final season of Star Wars: The Clone Wars. Lillian Skye has more with her post at The Star Wars Underworld.
Episode VII star Harrison Ford is apparently all better now. He was photographed last week in Wyoming, riding down a slide with a 2,500 foot drop. Star Wars 7 News has more.
Toys “R” Us has been posting short videos to promote Star Wars Rebels and this week, they revealed an inside look at the fearsome AT-AT. Does this mean we’ll be seeing the infamous Imperial Walkers in the new show, or are we just getting a cool new toy? Either way, the video is pretty cool. You can check it out, here.
Matt Moore of Coffee With Kenobi has an excellent piece on the history of Star Wars in Dark Horse Comics, posted here.
Disney Insider has a very cool post up, looking at how Ralph McQuarrie‘s artwork is finding new life in Star Wars Rebels. You can find the piece, here.
If you’re looking for some great Star Wars news and commentary and are too lazy to read, we highly recommend tuning into this week’s episode of ForceCast! You can listen in on Eric Geller, Erik Blythe and Justin Bolger as they spin hilarious stories and discuss the latest developments in the world of Star Wars fandom.
As always, you should check out Johnamarie Macias‘ weekly Star Wars news recap, over at The Wookiee Gunner.
Thanks again for visiting DSOTF! Make sure and come back often, as we’ll have plenty of unique and entertaining Star Wars coverage posted everyday!
Have a great week, Dork Siders!