Star Wars Celebration 2017: the latest news from Orlando – The Verge

Carrie Fisher was the real star of Star Wars Celebration

2017-04-17T11:11:46-04:00

The focal point of this year's Star Wars Celebration was ostensibly the future of the franchise, but one name stood out above all the trailers, video game reveals, and theme-park news: Carrie Fisher. The event was the first Star Wars convention since she died last year at age 60, and day after day, collaborators and castmates took the opportunity to pay tribute to her. And somehow, somewhere in the process, an event dedicated to promoting one of the most valuable entertainment properties in the world became something different - an opportunity for fans to say goodbye.

I recognize that's a suspect statement. Emotion is a tricky thing at even …

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The 13 things we learned from this year’s Star Wars Celebration

2017-04-16T21:25:25-04:00

Star Wars Celebration has wrapped up in Orlando, Florida, and it's been a fun four days immersed in everything Star Wars. We've learned a lot about the next couple of years of the franchise: we got our first looks at The Last Jedi and Battlefront II, learned the fate of Star Wars Rebels, and heard a bit about Disney's ambitious plans for its Star Wars-themed parks.

Here are some of the biggest things that happened.

The Last Jedi

The biggest story of the convention was the first trailer for The Last Jedi, and we learned quite a bit from it. While the trailer was just a couple of minutes of footage, it gave us plenty to speculate over. But d …

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Watch the creation of Disney’s ambitious and immersive Star Wars land

2017-04-15T21:19:58-04:00

Two years ago Disney announced that it was planning on adding massive Star Wars-themed expansions to its parks in California and Florida, and today at Star Wars Celebration it revealed some new details - including a behind-the-scenes look at the design and construction of the parks.

The panel itself kicked off with a brief bit of news: that Disney's Star Tours attraction was going to be receiving a Last Jedi-themed update later this year. The new addition will give visitors the chance to visit the mineral world of Crait, with Anthony Daniels getting ready to record new material for the sequence in the months ahead. (In case the name Crait d …

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The Battlefront II tie-in novel is Lucasfilm’s incredible creative strategy in action

2017-04-15T15:34:04-04:00

While we got the first trailer for Battlefront II today at Star Wars Celebration, EA Games dropped another bit of news: Christie Golden's previously announced novel Inferno Squad is a tie-in for the game.

In the trailer, we see the Imperial special forces unit Inferno Squadron in action, taking on the Rebellion after the destruction of the second Death Star in Return of the Jedi, but Golden's novel will take place years before the game.

Set in the aftermath of Rogue One and A New Hope, Battlefront: Inferno Squad will explore the backstory of the unit and its commander, Iden Versio. According to the original announcement, the unit will be t …

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Star Wars: Battlefront II makes the Imperials the good guys

2017-04-15T15:00:01-04:00

When Star Wars: Battlefront was released two years ago, it received a lot of praise for the way in which it faithfully re-created props, vehicles, and worlds from the original film trilogy, but it took a hit when it came to the lack of a single-player campaign. With the sequel, EA hopes to change that, and this morning it offered a glimpse at what players can expect when Battlefront II arrives on November 17th. The single-player mode certainly looks like it will be heavy on narrative and world-building, but more importantly, it's embracing a perspective that's never really been tackled in the film series before: the point of view of the Empi …

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Star Wars: Battlefront II’s official trailer is all about the single-player campaign

2017-04-15T14:42:01-04:00

Earlier this week a teaser trailer for the upcoming Star Wars: Battlefront II leaked online, but here at Star Wars Celebration EA has revealed the real thing - and it includes quite a bit more than the leaked version. The centerpiece of the trailer is the single-player campaign, which focuses on an elite TIE Fighter pilot who is spurred to vengeance against the Rebellion after she sees the second Death Star blown to smithereens while on the forest moon of Endor.

It appears to be a darker take on the Star Wars mythos, putting the Empire in the heroic role most traditionally occupied by the Jedi or characters like Han Solo and Princess Leia. …

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Star Wars Rebels is ending with its fourth season

2017-04-15T12:30:54-04:00

During the Star Wars Rebels panel at Star Wars Celebration in Orlando Florida, show creator Dave Filoni announced that the show would be coming to an end at the end of the upcoming fourth season.

During the panel, Filoni revealed that the show would come to an end at the end of the coming season. "Seeing the evolution of this family, [and] these kids, and watching them get older, as a creator of a story I think of these things. I think about where we are going, and what the characters need to go through," he said. "This is where I have to tell you that Season 4 is the final season of Star Wars Rebels."

He went on to note that the decision …

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Contrary to reports, Carrie Fisher will not appear in Star Wars: Episode IX

2017-04-14T18:58:07-04:00

After widespread reports last weekend that Carrie Fisher's family gave Lucasfilm the go-ahead for the late actress to appear in 2019's Episode IX, Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy has told ABC News that Fisher will not be part of the film.

"Sadly, Carrie will not be in [Episode 9],'" Kennedy said, "But we will see a lot of Carrie in [The Last Jedi].'" She said Fisher's brother, Todd, likely mixed up the films when he spoke last weekend. "We finished everything in [The Last Jedi]," Kennedy explained, "and Carrie is absolutely phenomenal in the movie."

EXCLUSIVE: Lucasfilm President Kathy Kennedy says Carrie Fisher will NOT be in @StarWa …

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One of fantasy’s biggest authors comes to Star Wars

2017-04-14T18:02:41-04:00

Before The Force Awakens hit theaters, Lucasfilm prepared fans with a steady drip of books and comics under the Journey to Star Wars: The Force Awakens banner, telling some of the stories of events between Episodes VI and VII. During Star Wars Celebration Del Rey announced that it would be running a similar campaign to lead up to The Last Jedi with a series of "Journey to Star Wars: The Last Jedi" titles.

An impressive group of authors will be writing the books. Most notably, Ken Liu, a Hugo, Nebula, and World Fantasy Award-winning author who's considered one of the biggest up and coming names in genre fiction, will write The Legends of Luk …

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The best part of The Last Jedi trailer is that we have no idea what’s going on

2017-04-14T14:47:03-04:00

The first long-awaited teaser for Star Wars: The Last Jedi is here. But while this tantalizing two minutes of footage has finally given fans the first glimpse of the upcoming sequel, it's as deliberately vague as the various teasers for The Force Awakens were. Yes, the cinematography is beautiful. The flashes of Rey's training are intriguing, and the few brief seconds of space battles are thrilling, but there's almost no context for anything that happens in it.

The Star Wars franchise as a whole seems to have undergone a dramatic shift in its most recent incarnation. It's become one of the film industry's most secretive franchises, a move t …

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