John Boyega, Daisy Ridley, Adam Driver, Oscar Isaac, Andy Serkis, Domhnall Gleeson, and Max von Sydow. This list of new cast members for Episode VII should excite me because it means we’re getting closer to actually having a new movie. John Boyega, Daisy Ridley, Adam Driver, Oscar Isaac, Andy Serkis, Domhnall Gleeson, and Max von Sydow. This list should put me on the edge of my seat because it means Star Wars is going to move on. No more waiting on information for the EU or the not-EU. We have a set story with real people ready to step into those roles to bring life to characters on the screen. John Boyega, Daisy Ridley, Adam Driver, Oscar Isaac, Andy Serkis, Domhnall Gleeson, and Max von Sydow. Instead, I feel disappointed. Disappointed that out of seven names released we have one female character. One. I don’t like being disappointed with Star Wars. I am part of this specific site because we don’t whine for the sake of hearing ourselves whine. We aren’t negative about every new detail released. We like our Star Wars and we’re striving to accept what is being given to us: a new start. We’re excited about the future of the franchise and hoping to help people move on with our opinions and discussions. Read More
A New Dawn, Indeed: Our “Official Statement” on the Reboot
So, there’ve been a lot of questions raised in the week since R-Day; what’s canon, what’s not, how old is everybody, what’s still being printed, even what we’re supposed to call everything now. Also being asked: what happens to Eleven-ThirtyEight, now that the subject of the overwhelming majority of our content no longer “counts”?
As such, I just wanted to take a moment to state for the record that aside from the half-ironic (and temporary) “Legends” banner up top, pretty much nothing about ETE is going to change.
Our mission statement from the beginning was “to help ease the transition into the Sequel Trilogy era”, and while I’m sure all of us had our moments of wild hope, from my point of view, some degree of reboot was part of the plan all along. Read More
Checking in with Jason Fry, Part One: A Certain Point of View
When Eleven-ThirtyEight was starting out last summer, Jason Fry quickly became one of the first Star Wars VIPs to agree to talk to us. We were already familiar with Jason from his frequent visits to TheForce.net’s Literature forum, and I’m happy to say that his frank, easy-going and accessible manner carried over into our new relationship with him as—and picture air quotes as I say this—journalists.
So when the reboot hit the fan on Friday, I knew immediately that if there was one person whose reaction I wanted to hear, and who would actually be kind enough to offer it, it would be Jason. Also, he’s got a little thing called the Expanded LEGO Star Wars Visual Dictionary coming out today (and a new Jupiter Pirates book on the horizon), which I’m sure didn’t hurt. He had so much to say, in fact, that I’ll be saving the second half of our talk for next week. Enjoy! Read More
A Case for Starting Over, Part VI: Happily Ever After
Over the course of this series, we’ve examined many aspects of the Expanded Universe and how they might be improved by a potential (hard or soft) reset of the franchise’s accumulated continuity: the rebellion’s struggles to establish its legitimacy in the aftermath of Return of the Jedi, the long-term prospects of the New Republic and the Imperial Remnant, the recent dysfunctional nature of the New Jedi Order and its failure to reach the (rather low) bar set by its predecessor, and the universe’s persistent inability to let go of the torch and let it conclusively pass to a new generation of heroes.
Most of these topics have been fairly broad, dealing with overarching plots and themes that involve entire arrays of characters and span dozens of books and several decades – both in- and out-of-universe. For our final act, however, we’ll be coming down from our bird’s-eye view and taking a more personal approach at evaluating the paths our heroes’ lives have taken since they last appeared on-screen in 1983.
Das Reboot – The First 48 Hours
So that happened.
If you don’t know what I’m talking about you probably wouldn’t be reading this site, but so as not to confuse the aliens who exhume the internet a million years from now: Star Wars continuity has done the unthinkable and performed a hard reboot.
Going forward, the only “canon” Star Wars material is the six films and the Clone Wars TV series; everything else is out unless drawn directly from said material—even novelizations are currently a question mark. New novels, comics, etc. will be written with the oversight of Lucasfilm’s Story Group, and for the first time ever, be considered equal to the films—as, naturally, will the new TV series Star Wars Rebels.
All the old stuff, however, is pretty much staying in print, and being rebranded under the shiny new “Legends” banner, an example of which you can now see at the top of this site. I stuck it there partly as a lark and partly to commemorate the wonderful (and wonderfully exhaustive) universe we here at Eleven-ThirtyEight have been mired in for most of our lives, but I should add that we aren’t going out of print, either. What exactly this means for the site going forward is something I’ll get into later this week, but first I wanted to share our immediate reactions—and in some cases, our second thoughts as the weekend went on.
Serendipitously, the finale of Alexander’s A Case For Starting Over series was already scheduled to run tomorrow, so stay tuned for that, and much more over the coming weeks. Read More
