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LucasFilm has confirmed that the Star Wars: Episode VII release date will be 18 December 2015.
Still in pre-production, and with much of the cast not even decided yet, little is known about the first of the new trilogy of Star Wars films. But today LucasFilm has put a clear marker in the sand and will aim to have the first film finished in time for Christmas 2015.
This would make for a fairly quick turn around for such a large production, which is still at such an early stage. For instance pre-production for The Hobbit began in 2008, some four years before the first film arrived.
This would also mark the first time a Star Wars film has been released at Christmas time, with all previous films arriving in May.
Alan Horn, chairman of The Walt Disney Studios, while responding to rumours that there were worries about meeting the 2015 deadline, said “We’re very excited to share the official 2015 release date for Star Wars: Episode VII, where it will not only anchor the popular holiday filmgoing season but also ensure our extraordinary filmmaking team has the time needed to deliver a sensational picture.”
Just a few days ago the production put out a casting call for what are expected to be the lead roles in the film, with it also speculated that relatively unknown actors and actresses will be chosen.
J. J. Abrams has been chosen as the director of the new film, with many citing the success of his reboot of the Star Trek films as the reason for being picked. He is also co-writer, and will be working alongside Lawrence Kasdan, who co-wrote The Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi, and Raiders of the Lost Ark for Lucasfilm.
George Lucas, after selling his LucasFilm company to Disney, is not expected to play a major role in the film’s production.
Where to start? That must be the big question facing DICE right now as they try and wrangle Battlefield 4 into a stable state. Players have been reporting disconnection errors, freezes, crashes and a smattering of bugs. DICE have tabled a list of fixes they’re working on on the Battlefield 4 forums, which includes a bug that stops server queues from working and various client instability problems.
Players have also been finding some odd errors, YouTubers TeamTooHeavy have posted a video that apparently shows the silencer on the QBU88 muting sound on a server. More worryingly, many players have been reporting netcode issues, which cause a discrepancy between the game logic that denotes where shots are going and when they hit, and what you’re actually seeing on-screen. If netcode’s laggy the game might tell you that you’ve just git a soldier seven times in the chest and been suddenly killed, while from your killer’s perspective he’s rounded the corner and shot you fair and square. Redditor Hickery123 has rounded up some pretty blatant video examples of this happening here.
DICE are patching speedily, thankfully, which marks a change from Battlefield 3 when every patch had to go through Microsoft and Sony bureaucracy. A lot of Battlefield 4’s multiplayer component operates server-side, so they no longer have to deploy updates and downloads to every player’s PC to deal with issues. Battlefield 3 also had some major problems on release, and ended up okay, but it’s a particularly frustrating situation when a big open beta event happened just weeks ago.
The connection issues seem to be affecting 64 player servers more frequently, so you might want to steer clear of those for a while. If the server runs into an error, all of the levelling progress you made during the match will be lost, but reportedly this will suck up XP boost time regardless, so it’s best to save those until the server issues are fixed.
After a week of teasers, the first official trailer has arrived for The Lego Movie, and it’s every bit as ace as were were hoping!
Having had our whistles officially whetted by yesterday’s Batman and Superman snippet, the full version has finally arrived, and it more than lives up to the hype.
Directed by Phil Lord, Chris Miller and Chris McKay, and featuring the vocal talents of Will Ferrell, Chris Pratt and Will Arnett, The Lego Movie will open in the UK on 14 February 2014.
Check out the new trailer below!
What do you think of the new trailer? Tell us, below!
Faced with an enemy that even Odin and Asgard cannot withstand, Thor must embark on his most perilous and personal journey yet, one that will reunite him with Jane Foster and force him to sacrifice everything to save us all.
Spoilers Ahead!!! so if you don’t want the story ruined, beware!
Ok, first I have to say thanks to Cineworld for showing this as a Double Bill with Thor 1 (the Extended Cut) aswell, so a good catch up on the story and actually seeing Thor 1 on the big screen again actulaly made the first one STRONGER for me, is it was generally considered the weakest of the Avengers Phase 1 movie line up. The other big thing about Thor 1, was that it was considered the Star Wars style space opera of the Avengers film line up and Thor: The Dark World lives up to that comment immensely, and shows some of the Star Wars talent that has joined the Marvel/Disney line up now
The biggest thing you first notice (if you recognise the cast at all, which some didn’t), is that the cast list is majority bumped up in Thor: The Dark World with some big name actors and actresses returning from the first and getting a LOT more screen time aswell, but also some good cast changes
The setting is the strongest point here, it’s not set in America at all, but in our very own leafy London and also Asgard, but London has a solid half of the film time and Marvel, through some really clever and beautiful shots (and probably copious amounts of CGI) actually make the English capital City look pretty nice (I don’t like London to be honest, I actually don’t like cities at all, but London just makes me sad) and the main bad guy tearing up London is amusing on a geek level, considering Malekith is played by 9th (or is that 10th now?) Doctor Christopher Eccleston. He is genuinely creepy in his portrayal of Malekith, a Dark Elf that lost the war against Odins Father, Thor’s Grandfather, Bor (Tony Curran)
The biggest thing you notice between the two Thor movies is just how much Thor (Chris Hemsworth) has grown up and matured. The first film was about him changing from being a brat of a warrior, into a King and leader of men (and then becoming part of a team in Avengers), however in Thor: The Dark World, he is learning to love and be a symbol and a peace keeper in the 9 realms. Plus, for the ladies, more gratuitous naked chest shots (lots of gasps in the cinema last night).
On the other side of that character growth by Thor is his fathers, Odin (Anthony Hopkins) is getting older, he wants to pass the mantle of king to Thor, but Thor won’t accept it, he has a job to do and peace to keep. But Odin is getting old, he’s getting weaker and there was a level of desperation to the character this time. Anthony Hopkins plays Odin amazingly, he looks fantastic in the costumes (I actually preferred his armour to Thor’s) and he gets to kick some ass in this film aswell, leading his army against the dark Elves, but looking like it takes him an effort. Anthony Hopkins has made this role his own, especially with his relationship on screen with wife Frigga (Rene Russo), which is nearly heart breaking, but Rene Russo is amazing, looks stunning and kicks ass aswell.
Now, the biggest, yet smallest cast change I noticed was in the Warriors Three, who play a much bigger part in the film this time, Ray Stevenson is back as Volstagg, kicking ass this time rather than lounging around mostly eating, Jaimie Alexander reprises the role of Sif, again pining after Thor, Tadanobu Asano is only in the film as Hogun for about 5 minutes, staying on his home realm to help rebuild after an attack, BUT Zachary Levi (Chuck) takes over the role of Fandral from Josh Dallas this time and it shows.
The Earth based support cast is unchanged (Actor wise) but are in very different places in life, Erik Selvig (Stellan Skarsgård) is rather unhinged after his possession by Loki in Avengers, and arrested by the police for streaking naked around Stone Henge, Stellan does an amazing job playing this role again, he brings incredibly humour, but also a level to the character that makes you believe he is a scientist that knows what he’s doing. Darcy (Kat Dennings) is still helping the group, but this time has her OWN intern/minion/lackey and makes the most of it. But of course Thor’s love interest, Jane Foster (Natalie Portman), is the main billing here and after two years of searching for Thor and ways to connect to Asgard to find him, has finally started meeting other men and we first see her on a date with comedian Chris O’Dowd‘s character, Richard. SeaBass… SeaBass, SeaBass, SeaBass…
Yet again though, Loki (Tom Hiddleston) steals the show. From initially being placed in Asgardian jail (which looks pretty swanky to be fair), to helping Thor and Jane Foster later in the film, to his obvious double crossing (didn’t see that coming…)But I am worried about the over arching use of Loki in the Avengers movies. He is brilliant for fan service, but he stands the chance of over shadowing the storylines of other villains, as we know that the big baddie for Avengers 2 will be Ultron and Avengers 3 will be Thanos, I wonder how Loki will get involved with this and pull the strings of the storyline over Avengers Phase 2 and 3.I love Tom Hiddlestons Loki, I would actually happily go and see a Loki film, as he has made the character strong enough to not only hold his own on screen, but actually totally over shadow Thor, who’s film it actually is.
As I said before, the Star Wars influences are totally seeping through in Thor 2, and it benefits from it a lot. Thor 2 is a far stronger movie than Thor 1 and I would actually say that it is stronger than IronMan 3 (which I gave an 8/10 for back in April), which was a little weak in the story department, but was about character and story development, especially with the building of “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” and the Extremis storyline that is being pushed in the tv show.
Thor: The Dark World is a special effects tour de force, it looks and sounds great, although I wasn’t bothered by the 3D, which seemed underused, as it did in IronMan 3 aswell. I would actually happily go and watch it again at the cinema, but this time in 2D
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