A handful of people really hate what Disney has been doing with Star Wars, partially for racist and sexist reasons, but only the most dedicated hater of all things good and pure could think that George Lucas’ original vision for post-Return Of The Jedi sequels would’ve been better. We’ve heard bits and pieces of what…
One of the perks of watching films set in a lived-in universe, like that of the Star Wars movies, is that every frame is filled with unnamed objects and characters that hint at a larger world just outside the scope of the story you’re being told. Recently, The Star Wars Show invited viewers to take a behind-the-scenes…
True to its name, Star Wars is known for getting its fans into heated battles. While many fights are started over small series details—Did the Kessel Run timing metrics make sense? (No.) Did Han shoot first? (Sure.) Was Luke drinking alien milk or alien semen in that last movie? (Depends on that day’s nipple.)—others…
Yesterday, we reported that some motherfuckers hiding behind the banner of “Star Wars fans” had driven The Last Jedi’s Kelly Marie Tran off of Instagram with a months-long harassment campaign built on the traditional internet values of sexism and racism. (New Star Wars star Daisy Ridley was also driven off of…
There’s been plenty of advancements in CGI, but, unless you’re Luc Besson—Valerian And The City Of A Thousand Planets is underrated!—all that digital trickery will eventually guide audiences into the uncanny valley. As such, there’s no shortage of film buffs who, sometimes very loudly, yearn for the days of puppets…
Certain Star Wars fans (if that’s the word we’re going to use) were already on edge after The Force Awakens dared to introduce a female hero with Jedi abilities, but Rian Johnson’s The Last Jedi seems to have unlocked a particularly disgusting and pathetic vein of hatred in the minds of some people who really hate to…
[Warning: Spoilers for Solo: A Star Wars Story follow.]
By the h’bhor of Vaksis, fantasy languages can be a great way to bring a sense of believable mystery to fictional worlds. Whether Game of Thrones’ guttural Dothraki, The Lord of the Rings’ lilting Elvish, or the garbled throat-clearing of Star Wars’ Wookie-talk, hearing characters speak in made-up tongues helps…
Let’s just get this out of the way: The following list in no way represents which Star Wars movie is objectively the best or which one is your favorite. It is simply a list of all theatrically released Star Wars movies (with the exception of Solo), ranked by how much screen time the female characters in each film get.…
Filmmaker Lawrence Kasdan isn’t responsible for creating the Star Wars saga so much as bringing it to life. A New York Times profile of the writer and his son, Jonathan, Kasdan details his early involvement, after being hired on The Empire Strikes Back. “I’ll tell you what we’re doing—you write it,” Lucas told him at…
It’s a ton of work to write a sci-fi or fantasy novel. If you’re trying to create a fictional universe where civilizations span galaxies or different, mythical species interact, you have to create a universe. In a wonderful new essay on Literary Hub, writer A.D. Jameson opines that it’s more or less expected from…
After a brief hiatus, A.V. Club film editor A.A. Dowd and staff critic Ignatiy Vishnevetsky are back with a new edition of Film Club, discussing Disney’s latest trip to the galaxy far, far away, Solo: A Star Wars Story. Wherein the last entry in the Star Wars saga broke from convention (to the chagrin of some die-hard…
Note: As suggested by the headline, this article will disclose a major plot point in Solo.
Long before every tertiary character in the franchise was guaranteed their own origin story movie, there were these things called books that some Star Wars fans would seek out in order to spend more time with their favorite heroes from a galaxy far, far away. Some of the most successful installments in this literary…
Fulfilling the dreams of upper-tier Star Wars dorks everywhere (plus, presumably, nerdcore rapper MC Chris), THR reports today that Logan’s James Mangold has signed on to direct a standalone Star Wars story focused on bounty hunter Boba Fett.
Welcome back to Pop Lexicon, The A.V. Club’s series with Kory Stamper, Merriam-Webster lexicographer and editor, where she reveals the origins of America’s favorite colloquialisms. Today, Kory explains not only how science can inform science fiction, but how science fiction can influence scientific discovery, starting…
Even though it was arguably a better match for the visual tone of the film’s trailer, it’s unlikely we’re going to hear the song “I’m Han Solo” pop up anywhere in Solo: A Star Wars Story. That’s mainly because it’s notoriously terrible. The infamous track—a parody of Jason Derulo’s “Ridin’ Solo” with ham-fisted Star…
Han Solo is based on a familiar archetype: Star Wars’ lovable scoundrel can trace his roots back to our earliest myths, while there are progenitors of his world-weary cynicism in Humphrey Bogart’s movies, his charming roguishness in Douglas Fairbanks’, and his reluctantly outlaw heroics throughout the samurai films…
In the episodes leading up to January 1983, co-host Scott Weinberg lamented that he was dreading 1983, calling it one of the worst cinematic years he experienced in his lifetime. June certainly is a mixed bag of films for the summer season, featuring teen sex comedies, Gérard Depardieu, and a 4-hour-long Ingmar…
There’s a new Star Wars movie in theaters this month, as Solo: A Star Wars Story arrives on May 25, powered by a starring performance from Alden Ehrenreich and the great and terrible power of the Disney marketing machine. (For what it’s worth it, we liked it quite a bit; Donald Glover’s apparently as good as iconic…
