In this week’s edition of The Week in Star Wars, we recover from the bumper edition coming off D23 with some smaller nuggets of news for The Force Awakens and more…
Kicking things off with Star Wars: The Force Awakens, and J.J. Abrams has revealed the runtime for the highly-anticipated movie. It’s shorter than any of the prequel movies (thank God) and is actually the exact same runtime as The Empire Strikes Back. A good sign of things to come?..
…Having come out of retirement to debut his new poster for The Force Awakens, Drew Struzan has also gone on record to hype the movie like you wouldn’t believe. “I’ve never worked with J.J before and so we started working on it and he showed me like half the movie and it was just… a wonderful film and I know it’s going to be grand,” the legendary artist said. “I got to read the script and subsequently I’ve seen half of it and I can tell you and the fans this, Honest to god, it is far and away probably going to be THE BEST Star Wars you’ve ever seen…”
…Sticking with The Force Awakens for a moment as we’ve caught a glimpse at some concept art for Lupita Nyong’o’s character in the movie…
…British movie magazine Empire have unveiled two Star Wars: The Force Awakens-themed covers for their latest issue, splitting the Force right down the middle. One’s themed Dark, the other is Light. In LucasLand, there’s no room for mood lighting. You can see the ‘goodies’ cover down below, with Daisy Ridley in Gandalf cosplay…
…We’ve also had our first look at the ever-loveable Pop! Vinyl figures based around the movie. The first wave includes Kylo Ren, Rey, Finn, Poe Dameron, Captain Phasma, BB-8, C-3PO, Chewbacca and a few First Order Stormtroopers…
…Speaking of Finn and Rey, the figures for their inclusion in Disney Infinity have also been released which you can check out here, while we’ve also got a trailer for Disney Infinity 3.0 Star Wars Twilight of the Republic…
…Sticking with video games for a moment as we gear up for the release of Star Wars Battlefront, Sony have released the first images of their limited edition Darth Vader PlayStation 4 console. The bundles come with Star Wars: Battlefront Deluxe Edition or Disney Infinity 3.0 Edition as well as digital voucher for four remastered titles in Super Star Wars, Star Wars: Racer Revenge, Star Wars: Jedi Starfighter and Star Wars: Bounty Hunter. Pretty cool…
…All this merch, it’s enough to drive you bankrupt! To speed up your financial ruin, Hasbro have kindly released their Ultimate Guide to the Galaxy to promote Force Friday (September 4th), providing a look at all their action figures, vehicles and playsets that’ll be aggressively invading toy shelves everywhere in the coming weeks…
And lastly, we have just the two comic book previews for you this week: 1) Star Wars: Kanan – The Last Padawan #5: Caleb has been captured by Clone Troopers Grey & Styles! Can he turn his back on his Jedi training completely? The final chapter of the secret origin of Star Wars Rebels’ Kanan Jarrus! Star Wars: Kanan – The Last Padawan #5 is out now; and 2) Marvel’s Star Wars: Lando #3, which hits shelves this coming Wednesday. Click that for the comic’s first few pages…
…And finally, if you’re struggling to keep on top of Disney’s new Star Wars canon, we’ve got a handy infographic that will help bring you up to speed ahead of The Force Awakens, which covers all of the movies, TV shows, books, comics and video games that make up the House of Mouse’s Star Wars universe; check it out here.
That’s all for this week – may the Force be with you.
Luke Owen is the Deputy Editor of Flickering Myth and the host of the Flickering Myth Podcast. You can follow him on Twitter @LukeWritesStuff.
Originally published August 23, 2015. Updated November 29, 2022.
