New revelations were unveiled at Star Wars Celebration in Anaheim, USA and fans at the live simulcast in Singapore were among the first to know
Recently, an exclusive group of Star Wars fans in Singapore were fortunate to be able to watch a live streaming simulcast of the Star Wars Celebration event in Anaheim, USA and the Star Wars: The Force Awakens panel hosted by director JJ Abrams and Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy.
At Shaw Lido IMAX cinema, these fans joined those in Anaheim to be the first in the world to catch the new Star Wars: The Force Awakens trailer, as well as new secrets revealed. Weekender was among the few privileged guests.
Registration for the simulcast event opened on Apr 8 at 12.17pm online and tickets were snapped up within 20 minutes!
New Stars & Details Unveiled
The audience cheered when three of the new stars came on stage. If you find that Daisy Ridley bears a resemblance to Keira Knightley, you aren’t the only one. Ridley plays Rey, who lives on the dessert planet seen from the first trailer.
One of the big revelations was that the dessert planet is not Tattooine (with the twin moons, and seen in the original trilogy) as most had thought. This is a new planet, Jakku. It didn’t stop there.
In the first trailer, John Boyega (who acted in “24: Live Another Day”) is the first to pop up, literally. His panting face is visible while being in stormtrooper uniform.
When asked if his character, Finn, really is a stormtrooper, he shot Abrams a dramatic side glance, to see if he had permission to speak. Boyega said that he is a stormtrooper but both said that we would have to watch the film to understand the character and see what situations he gets into.
Boyega executed an amusing mimicry of Harrison Ford, of when he asked the veteran actor for an autograph in between filming. Putting on a perfect imitation of his voice, with a slight growl, he intoned, “This is weirrrd… but I’ll do it…”
Oscar Isaac also commented on his character, Poe Dameron, that he is “Only the best damn pilot in the galaxy!” Hmm… Han and Luke would have words with Poe, if they were a few decades younger.
Veteran and Favourites
Fans were stoked to see the original cast. Peter Mayhew (also known as Chewbacca), who carried a walking stick that looked like a green lightsaber, led the pack followed by Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker), Carrie Fisher (Princess Leia), Anthony Daniels (C-3PO) and even a fully-mobile R2-D2 (something that did not previously exist)!
What topped it all was a fully-functional BB-8 droid that rolled onto stage, spun around and beeped its own adorable language! Yup, it’s no CGI!
Star Wars Anthology: Rogue One Trailer!
On Apr 19, in Anaheim, more was revealed, this time for Star Wars Anthology: Rogue One. A very early teaser trailer was shown for the film that opens only in December 2016.
Rogue One takes place in between Episode III: Revenge of the Sith and Episode IV: A New Hope, and has been officially described as: “A band of resistance fighters unite for a daring mission to steal the Death Star plans…”
The narrator’s voice, sounding uncannily like the late Sir Alec Guinness (Obiwan Kenobi), says, “For more than a thousand generations… the Jedi Knights were the guardians of peace and justice in the Old Republic. Before the dark times. Before the Empire.”
The camera then tracks to show a spectral Death Star in the distance.
The teaser is so far not unavailable on any official site but can be found (in poor quality) on YouTube or social
media accounts.
May the Fourth Be With You
With May the 4th (a pun on “May the Force”) being Star Wars Day, there was also a “Celebrate the Force” event at Suntec City Mall last weekend. There were Star Wars goodie bags, appearances by the 501st Legion in costumes, X-Wing game demos, various exhibitions, merchandise and collectibles, and a FightSaber (a lightsaber fight choreography team) performance and workshop for kids.
For more on Star Wars and The Force Awakens, visit www.starwars.com/the-force-awakens/
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