ThaOGDreamWeaver

/em evillaugh

May they rest in light, as such heroes deserve. /em holdtorch

Gallifrey falls no more! (Sorry, couldn't resist.) I don't think that's a crossover the nerds are ready for yet, unless the Ahsoka logo is hinting at more timey-wimey malarkey than we thought. Then again, it also looks like The Map from Time Bandits. I don't recall this character from the show. The Comms Officer is played by fine journeywoman sci-fi actress Katy O'Brian (Z Nation, Black Lightning, Agents Of SHIELD and a few others). Not the biggest character by a mile, so getting a Filoni Hero Shot™ in the trailer is a big thing. Given that Liu Bordizzo is the canon Sabine, it's probably not her, but could be another undercover Mando or resistance fighter who's been quietly sabotaging Gideon the whole time. BTW, it's not often I do "realism" quibbles for a space wizard thread, but where the hell are the rest of Gideon's crew (complement ~200 + 200 troops for a Vigil-class) while all this is going on? Stuck in a lunch queue arguing if they need a tray?.

I do like the behind the scenes stuff on D+. In the very early days when content was a bit thinner on the ground found a couple of great bits. (I signed up specifically to get Onward when it came out, and then bastard Sky said nope... no metal fantasy journeys for you here, kids, not till we're done with it...) ..ahem. The Imagineering Story is about building the parks - and not saccharine. It's surprisingly frank about where the Mouse screwed up, especially their near-terminal 80s financial problems - and trying to understand non-American cultures (Japan, China... and The French.) Plus it's nice to see fellow nerds getting to build stuff and dealing with ludicrous practical challenges in a fantasy setting. The other one is Frank and Ollie - two of Disney's original Nine Old Men, inspirational animators, and grumpy old best mates who'd been taking the mickey out of each other since about 1936. (And yes, even they make it into a cape movie: they're the two old dudes on the bench in The Incredibles, "that's how you do it... old school." "Yup. No school like old school.") It's a lovely, funny, gentle watch with much animation nerdery going on.

...the huge zombie dinosaur shaped shadow, y'mean? But I'm not sure you can do any of them justice without a half-series or limited-series order per book, rather than a movie. There's a lot going on in something like Blood Rites - you've certainly got enough action and backstory for the first episode to kick off with, and a box-full of (large breed) puppies to boot. As for the Nic Cage produced series: I liked it in and of itself, like a series of shorts set in the Dresden world. The Walls episode in particular. (Hint: do not mess with magic you do not fully understand. Double that if it involves waving parts of dead people around.)

Well, here goes: All the Mandos in the battle scenes are helmeted. Bo appears without hers briefly when talking to Grogu. The VERY IMPORTANT HELMET is not Bo-Katan's, as she's shown wearing the owl helm later. It's much simpler, but elegantly painted: blue gradiented to cyan around the mouth area, with silver reinforcement along the cheeks. Reverse image searching doesn't give any specific matches, but did pull up a lot of references to Canderous Ordo. He'd be a bit old to be in this series, but an idea on that below. There are three Frik-type creatures working together on something. The unknown Imperial ship is big, very black and kinda chonky - thicker "sandwich" filling than usual between the diamond top and bottom structures. The final shot shows the Gauntlet (silver, not red) hovering over a planet. As the clouds part, a distinctive round cityscape in a desert becomes visible below. Chunks of ruined dome are visible on one side with smaller wall pieces around the rim: the remains of four graceful arcing structures can be seen, along with a small number of large buildings. Not quite like Boomtown, more ghost town. Three other notes: The Imperial comms officer who's been working alongside Doctor Pershing also gets a full-on hero shot, and is therefore Important. The Armourer now appears to be sporting a gold helmet. Not sure if they did before...? A number of the Mandos appear to have a blue-based helmet colour scheme in the early land battle scene. If I had to guess where all this was leading: Factional Mandalorian in-fighting - Bo & co vs the Armourer's more traditionalist factions, with Din caught in the middle. With their most precious artifact in hand. If someone's trying to reference one of the legends of Mandalore with their colours, there may be another faction as well. Eventually factions unite against some kind of Imperial and/or criminal threat... or don't and Mandalore falls again. The Comms Officer may well be a spy - possibly another member of the Wren clan.

Aaand now I'm sniffling. Good on ya, Lumi, from me, H and our two adopted middle-aged morons Molly and Sparks.

FYI: Bothan spies have leaked a chunk of Mando S3 trailer online, which can be found readily on the Twitters. I'll update here when there's an official drop, because we don't need any Imperial entanglements - plus there's a chunk of it missing at the start, and they might change something before release. Stuff we can see: There are many, many Mandos in this one. Clearly, not that many got wiped out last time. There's a closeup/framing shot of a delicately curved blue/silver helmet (ie: BEHOLD THIS HELMET: IT IS DRAMATICALLY FRAMED AND LIT AND THEREFORE DRAMATICALLY IMPORTANT) which may or may not be significant to Clone Wars or Rebels fans - I'm not that deep a nerd to know immediately. Buncha buncha Babu Friks. Big, black, extra-meanie-looking Imperial ship in a dockyard (Thrawn?) Space battle set around an asteroid base. Video is too blurry to see opponent ships but they don't look like TIEs - might be A-Wings. Bo-Katan is back and playing mommy to Grogu... ...whereas Dad makes sure he holds him tightly down while doing a barrel roll - so that's a Star Wars/Starfox crossover confirmed then? Also, Grogu's on his lap because there's a droid in the mech port of the Wizard Fighter - guess he's getting over that particular hangup. Final shot looks maybe like the ruins of Sundari. The nerds in the room seemed to know it pretty well. Added intel from Reddit: the final shot might also feature a Mandalorian Gauntlet-class fighter/transport, which is used by quite a few bad guys as well as Bo-Katan. Let the wild, unfounded speculation begin... again?

Rezzing this thread briefly: I have to admit, I did not see this coming. But Nic gonna Nic... ...hopefully Eoin has learned enough from the disastrous Artemis Fowl that this gets a better ride. I really, really hope so, because there is not one word of this pitch that's not relevant to my interests.

The Brat - Chalk Dust (The Umpire Strikes Back)🎾

The Cult - Love

Simple Minds - Sanctify Yourself

˙˙˙ʍoןǝq sɹǝןıodS

If Skeleton Crew winds up as Star Trek:Prodigy but in the SW universe, that might fly with me. If it's Jude Law as Hondo babysitting a load of brats, I could go a lot of parsecs in that too. And, well... it could be worse.

John Carpenter - Night (Lost Themes) By the way - if you've been enjoying tonight's selection, you may also enjoy this Hypertellurians-inspired playlist...

The Lions & The Cucumber - Vampire Sound Inc.

Thylacine - From Space

Yackety Axe - Bolton Studios

Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band - Born In The USA* *Live In Mexico

🎂 Bill Withers - Use Me

The Replacements - Portland

I'm liking the ADR upgrades for a start...

According to the Backstage directory site, they are one and the same. But having asked an online mate who's still in Whollyodd (via Georgia) and does casting, amongst other things... ...it seems in film and TV, they're now more commonly referred to as background actors / featured background actors - i.e. you take a scheduled action or speak (even if it's not a scheduled line, for example background babble that has to be on a convincing theme), which is also what they're referred to as by SAG-AFTRA's collective contracts. Extra is now more a stage and musicals thing. Though, in practice, he uses the term interchangeably.

Quick thing that popped up on the SW twitter: as mentioned earlier, Krystina Arielle (The High Republic Show) got snuck in as a background actor (are they not called extras these days? ah well), and made a lovely, very illustrative little EPK on how being on set works for actors. And geeked out. A lot. Which is adorable. Don't deny you would too.

Kate Bush - Wuthering Heights (Please feel free to join in at home, especially on July 30th)