Now that Disney is at the helm, we’ll be getting annual doses of Star Wars for eternity, but it wasn’t all that long ago that the series’ future was far more unclear. Before The Force Awakens finally came to fruition and ushered in our bountiful new age of Star Wars, there were plenty other versions of Episode VII…
Last week, the Star Wars brain trust revealed the first trailer for their upcoming eighth episode, The Last Jedi. It was moody stuff, building on the visual touchstones of The Force Awakens but seemingly upping the operatic scale, complete with a moody intonation from the elderly Skywalker that it was time for the…
Despite the complete and utter lack of a Millennium Falcon flyby to reawaken your childhood sense of wonder, James Foley’s erotic drama Fifty Shades Darker has set a new record for most views online by a trailer in its first 24 hours. Variety reports that the 2-minute clip has been viewed 114 million times across…
Hasbro’s talking Chewbacca mask (or, in corporate parlance, Star Wars: The Force Awakens Chewbacca Electronic Mask Roleplay Toy) became an unexpected sales sensation back in May when Texas mother Candace Payne shared a video of herself donning the Wookiee disguise and laughing hysterically at the noises it produced.…
They Might Be Giants tried something unusual with their 1992 album Apollo 18. The penultimate song, “Fingertips,” consisted of 21 brief musical fragments, some lasting only a few seconds and each given its own separate track number. As explained in the liner notes (remember liner notes?), the idea was that fans could…
The cuteness is strong with this one. Each year, the Oregon Humane Society holds an annual fundraiser it calls a Pug Crawl. Dog owners bring their four-legged friends with them to a local bar, where there is live music, food and drink, and an extravagant ritual called The Parade Of Pugs. This year, the Society opted…
When a 59-year-old Carrie Fisher reprised her role as Leia in 2015’s Star Wars: The Force Awakens, there was an inordinate amount of discussion online of her appearance and whether or not she had “aged well.” Numerous unkind comments were made, especially about her weight. It was all pretty ridiculous, not to mention…
This week’s question is from Senior Editor Marah Eakin:
It’s the May The Fourth, a day dedicated to a franchise that already earns billions of dollars every year in merchandising, theme parks, and other assorted revenues. But even if it’s easy to be cynical and dissuaded by the annoying spread of such pop culture whims (and it is), the fake holiday can still pay off in…
Haven’t seen Star Wars: The Force Awakens yet, even though it’s been out for almost five months and is now available in every current home-viewing format? Don’t even have time to read a plot summary and deal with all those bothersome words? Not a problem at all. On its official YouTube account, Disney has posted an…
This question comes from A.V. Club staffers Alex McCown and Gwen Ihnat:
Auralnauts, the humorists behind the musical score-less version of the Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope’s throne room scene, a now prophetic-looking “paradox edition” of Terminator Genisys , and an entire series devoted to an alternate retelling of the Star Wars saga, have trained their sights on the latest…
It’s been an interesting few years for James Robinson. While Robinson’s Starman was a decade-defining series in the 1990s, Robinson languished for much of the ’00s. Between writing the script for the ill-fated League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen film and Justice League: Cry For Justice, it’s fair to say that Robinson…
In the Mom On Pop podcast, Bonney Teti—mother of A.V. Club editor-in-chief John Teti—shares her unfiltered thoughts on the pop culture of the day.
J.J. Abrams seems to be getting a little giddy and loose-lipped, now that the weight of the world’s biggest movie franchise has been taken off his back. The Force Awakens director recently told reporters that he wasn’t going to share any of the details he knows about the upcoming Star Wars: Episode VIII, out of a…
Now that J.J. Abrams’ Star Wars: The Force Awakens is finally available for home viewing, fans can do what they hopefully didn’t do in the theaters—for example, enjoy the film while gnawing on a big, fragrant hunk of garlic bread. While garlic bread is the perfect accompaniment to the film’s mixture of deep space…
Erik Bauersfeld, the voice behind Star Wars’ striking crustacean commander, Admiral Ackbar, and speaker of one of the most famous lines in the franchise’s history, died last week at 93. But shortly before his death, BBC radio presenter Jamie Stangroom sat down with Bauersfeld, sharing with The A.V. Club what he…
Those in the know are probably aware that Ben Schwartz—an actor perhaps best known as Parks And Recreation’s Jean-Ralphio Saperstein—provided some vocal inspiration for Star Wars’ BB-8. Schwartz has admitted that he’s not sure if any of his vocal work made it into the movie, but that hasn’t stopped fans of both…
Haven’t had time to sit through all two hours and 36 minutes of The Revenant? Don’t worry about it. Spoil Me, a highly specific movie database created by the French firm Buddyweb, is here to spill the beans about what happens at the end of that recent Oscar winner and lots of other movies as well. In this particular…
Making strong moves to fill in her “Massively Successful Genre Series” bingo card ahead of anybody else—looking at you, Maisie Williams—Game Of Thrones and Star Wars actress Jessica Henwick has joined the cast of Marvel and Netflix’s Iron Fist series. Henwick—who plays fierce Dornish noble Nymeria Sand on the HBO…
