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Gilbert Flores/Billboard via Getty Images; Prince Williams/WireImage By Elizabeth Ayoola ·
The post Does Keyshia Cole Have A New Man? appeared first on Essence.
The annual Season of the Force event has been taking place at the Disneyland since 2015. Nine years in, this celebration of all things Star Wars continues going strong. This year Season of the Force at Disneyland will run from April 5, 2024, through June 2, 2024. Nerdist and others were invited to preview this year’s Season of the Force offerings at the Disneyland in Anaheim, California. Among them is a return of Hyperspace Mountain, the Star Wars overlay of Space Mountain, plus tons of Star Wars-themed food, beverages, and merchandise. Read on for all the details, young Padawan.
Welcome Star Wars: Ahsoka’s Sabine to Galaxy’s Edge
New characters are wandering around Black Spire Outpost in Galaxy’s Edge starting with Season of the Force, including Star Wars Rebels and Ahsoka hero, Sabine Wren. The Mandalorian-turned-Jedi apprentice will be seen for a limited time wandering the Outer Rim planet, looking for fellow rebels to join the fight. Joining her are a pair of truly adorable BDX droids, straight from the game Jedi: Fallen Order.
Star Tours: The Adventures Continue
The two main highlights of Season of the Force this year are the debut of a new destination for the classic Star Tours attraction. During Season of the Force, park guests will travel to the planet Seatos from Ahsoka. C-3PO will pilot the Starspeeder 1000 through a pack of purrgil, the space whales seen in Ahsoka. Star Tours riders will also now receive transmissions from Din Djarin and Grogu, Cassian Andor, and Ahsoka Tano herself. If you look carefully, you may even see a familiar droid with her.
Fire of the Rising Moons Galaxy’s Edge Fireworks Show
The other highlight is Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge’s new fireworks show, Fire of the Rising Moons, on select nights. It’s a display that finally showcases John Williams’ iconic music along with spectacular fireworks. Fans have long wanted to hear the classic themes from the Star Wars films in Galaxy’s Edge. Now, they’ll be able to experience them as if they were at the Endor celebration in Return of the Jedi.
Season of the Force Food and Beverage Offerings
At Docking Bay 7 at Galaxy’s Edge, folks from Walt Disney Imagineering and Lucasfilm shared details on the Season of the Force limited-time merchandise and food and beverage offerings. New this year is the Celto Slush, a nod to the infamous Star Wars Holiday Special. Also new are the Wookiee Parfait, the Watermelon Slush (with a Death Star glow cub), the Fried Chicken Baos, and the Bantha Burger. We can attest to the Wookiee Parfait being especially delicious.
At the Grand Californian Hotel, guests can see a showpiece called the Galactic Creation. It’s made with edible ingredients and shows the Millennium Falcon arriving in Black Spire Outpost. Created by the Disney culinary team, it’s made with 300 pounds of powdered sugar, 80 pounds of crisped rice cereal, 60 pounds of marshmallows, and 100 pounds of dark chocolate.
Season of the Force Merchandise 2024
This Season of the Force sees the introduction of the all-new Jabba the Hutt popcorn bucket, featuring a Salacious Crumb keychain. Other items include the return of the Millennium Falcon bucket and an abandoned stormtrooper helmet. Additionally, the park has several new Star Wars pins and apparel. These include a new Star Tours hoodie sporting the ride operator’s classic color scheme. You can get a Darth Vader Stainless Steel Tumbler at the Galactic Grill in Tomorrowland. Then at Oga’s Cantina, you can find the Acid Spitter/Orb Sipper.
As for the changes to Star Tours, we spoke to Tom Fitzgerald, Senior Creative Executive at Walt Disney Imagineering who was fielding questions about Star Tours – The Adventure Continues. Given that Ahsoka only premiered recently, we asked if bringing the purrgil from that series into Star Tours was planned from the start. Here’s what he had to say:
That’s the beauty of having a relationship with Lucasfilm that they can say, “Hey, we think there’s going to be something really exciting for you in this new series. Come have a look.” And so we have a look. We look at the scripts. We start to look at what’s in there. And from our perspective of what do we think would make a great star to our sequence, which might be different than what would be a great sequence in the film or a series. It’s like what would be good with [an] emotional base and our storyline put together. So that’s how we start.
We also asked Tom Fitzgerald about how Imagineering incorporated Cassian Andor as one of the holographic messages in Star Tours—especially given how much more serious his story is than the likes of baby Grogu.
We treated it as a darker moment. So when you do get to see it, you’ll see that he comes out of the shadows and you don’t see the face. And there’s a moment where with the music and everything together, you’re like, “Ooh, is this a friend or a foe?” And then when he takes it down, it’s like, oh, it’s Andor. The music shifts. And so we got to have fun with that. And then Ahsoka, because she knows Artoo, we treated that as friends reuniting. Each one is a slightly different tone just to mix it up and also to keep each one unique. So you feel like when you see each one, oh, they’re all different.
With so many offerings for fans, Season of the Force remains a can’t-miss event for the Star Wars aficionado. If you find yourself in California from April through early June, then be ready to ignite your lightsaber, because you can’t pass up a trip to Disneyland to celebrate the Season of the Force.
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In the opening moments of Monkey Man, our protagonists takes a beating and spits out a mouthful of blood before he speaks his first words on screen. It is a bold statement that the story is going to be told mostly through brutality and hallmark visuals than it will be through exposition. Sometimes, this is very effective and compelling. But sometimes, the action and style compensate for the thinness of the story or to bridge gaps in logic it would rather you skip past. However, Dev Patel’s vision is always on display, always slick with environment and care, no matter how bloody it gets.
Though we first truly meet Kid, Dev Patel’s character who I believe never gets a more personal name, in a ring being paid to take a beating, early flashbacks begin to spell out the events that led Kid here. The pacing is well constructed, giving us just enough pieces without the whole bag to show us Kid once had a mother who cared very deeply for him. As more story is revealed as to what happened to Kid when they were, yeah, a kid, his mother and their village, the absolute rage that grown up Kid operates with becomes more and more justified. And, there be rage here.
Fueled by the story told to him by his mother, Kid remembers Hanuman. The monkey who had ambitions to eat the sun but was punished by the gods for it. There isn’t a lot of standout acting, quite honestly, the camera doesn’t really linger on anyone else for too long outside of Kid to make an impact. But Patel is so dialed in as a man consumed with a singular goal, that whether he is hustling drinks to corrupted high rollers taking down legions of bodyguards trying to reach his target, you scarcely want the camera on someone else. Having said that, it does shine a light on how narrow the film can be, from the world it portrays to the characters to themselves. It is one of those films that often deploys character descriptions as names to articulate archetypes in the world.
The fight promoter is named Tiger. The warrior that takes Kid in late in the film is Alpha. The operator of the corrupt establishment that Kid infiltrates is named Queenie. Not all the characters in the film or named this way, but honestly there are probably less than ten characters with more than one line of dialogue in the film anyway, so the point of the archetypes is made. Even if it doesn’t always serve this film in beneficial ways. They are there to add either an obstacle or an aid Kid on their quest for vengeance, and that is often the extent of their usefulness to the film. There is some allusions to bigger things happening outside of Kid’s goal in the movie but the even these are less about the world and more about showing how evil the antagonists are or how righteous and wronged Kid’s community is. There is no real sense that the world is happening outside of this story and things flow in such a way, that you might be justified in thinking the world in the film comes to a complete stop when the credits roll, even though the story is driven by one individual fighting his way up a large singular building.
What cannot be denied is how great Monkey Man looks and flows visually. The city is very alive, articulated by a pickpocket sequence that happens early in the film, where the snatched purse changes hands no less than twelve times through various kids, businesses, and couriers before it reaches its target location. It’s a very immersive way for us to be introduced to the city, the people in it, what their lives look like, and how this particular community operates while getting a whirlwind tour of how the city looks. An immediate stark contrast to when Kid begins serving in the previously mentioned “den of luxury and corruption.” On the street, among the impoverished folks, the sun is shining. It is vibrant and bustling. In the tower, there are dark strobe light aided rooms, techno music blasting and a lot more stagnant people behaving badly. The difference between the two environments is not subtle and the lack of subtly works really well here. That framing doesn’t always show up with more depth as the story progresses, but visually it tells a great story where Kid must navigate both worlds.
This holds once the action kicks up and it is relentless. Patel has commented how difficult the filming of the action scenes was, especially after he suffered some serious injuries on set that altered how many scenes were shot. But he is absolutely up to the task as an action protagonist, which as a black belt in taekwondo, feels appropriate. The action is helped by some bold directorial choices. Most of the time the camera is fixed on Patel in the middle of the shot, but often we are given a first-person perspective, other times the camera zooms and arcs behind Patel. But it never becomes a Shonen anime where you can’t tell exactly what action is happening, even while maintaining how frenetic it is intended to be. The movie also holds one of my favorite training montages to date, that invokes a unique community and environmental involvement as Kid prepares for his third act showdown. It is satisfying, and I would argue one of the more rewatchable parts of the film, up there with some of the big action sequences.
Monkey Man isn’t all action though, and this flexes the strengths and weaknesses of the movie in tandem. As stated in so many mediums, revenge is never a straight line, and Kid’s best laid plans take a massive detour. We get some of the film’s best moments, where Kid is taken in by an outcast community (who somewhat tie into the larger world of the movie, but definitely into its politics). We eventually get the flashback that shows Kid’s full backstory and crystalizes his motivation. The problem is, none of this is surprising or original from the one-man army action movie tropes. There’s a grave wound to the hero. They’re saved by an unlikely community. There’s a big big wrong committed in the backstory where the hero centers themselves. And then the hero lays wasted to everything in the third act. It is a tried and true formula with a unique setting but nothing to improve upon the familiar path.
I would talk about the antagonists, but they are just villains in this movie. Their motivations are either 100% selfish with no nuance or non-existent. They are just bad, bad people that we want Kid to punch into submission. I did appreciate some of the progression of Kid themselves. While vengeance is his only care, he is not immediately a killer. The hesitancy and lack of outright brutality maintains the somewhat insight characterization of Kid. That vanishes…so quickly, however. And once he takes one life, then no lives will be spared.
You can see every bit of passion in the close shots, the fight scenes, and the contemplative moments that Patel puts together. And it is Patel, a passion project worthy of the long production time we’ve heard about. The storytelling is easy to follow without much complexity, and while I’m happy to have movies that aren’t always 150-minute plus epics, it does feel like the movie needed a little more time to flesh out characters with their own stories and not just accessories to Kid’s plight. It isn’t completely an action movie where its best if you turn your brain off, that would be unfair. But it is a movie better enjoyed without trying to put much stock in the non-action aspects because it does the action, so, so well.
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After many false starts and canceled projects, Star Wars is finally ready to return to theaters. Lucasfilm announced three new upcoming standalone movies during the opening of Star Wars Celebration 2023. These new Star Wars movies include a story about the founding of the Jedi, a movie that will serve as the finale to this era of interconnected Disney+ shows, and the return of Daisy Ridley’s Rey. Additionally, in January 2024, LucasFilm also announced a fourth new movie was heading to theaters, The Mandalorian & Grogu, a big-screen adventure starring our favorite Disney+ duo. Finally, the once cancelled Rogue Squadron may rise to join the line-up (but nothing official has been reported.)
And with that, the galaxy far, far away is finally going back to the big screen. Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy revealed James Mangold (Logan, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny), Dave Filoni (The Mandalorian, Ahsoka), Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy (Ms. Marvel, Saving Face) have all been tapped to direct these new Star Wars movies. Meanwhile, Jon Favreau will take on the Mando movie. Lastly, if what Patty Jenkins says is true, she will direct an upcoming Star Wars movie as well.
While Lucasfilm shared few official details about the films, the little they tell us says a lot. Here’s what we know about these new Star Wars movies so far.
James Mangold’s New Star Wars Movie Tells the Story of the Force
James Mangold’s “will go back to the dawn of the Jedi,” a time set tens of thousands of years earlier than anything we’ve ever seen on screen before. That might mean we’ll meet the figure known as Prime Jedi. That’s the person who founded the Order on Ahch-To sometime around 25,000 years before the events of A New Hope. Fans already know Ahch-To well. They first saw it in The Last Jedi when it served as Luke Skywalker’s hideaway. A release additionally shares, “James Mangold will take audiences deep into the past, telling the tale of the first Jedi to wield the Force and harness it as a liberating power in an era of chaos and oppression.”
Mangold further noted to Empire that his new Star Wars movie “takes place 25,000 years before Episode IV, and it’s about the discovery of the Force.” He further shares, “I told Kathy [Kennedy, head of Lucasfilm] I wanted to make a kind of Bible movie, a kind of Ten Commandments of Star Wars – kind of a Cecil B DeMille film about the arrival of the Force, and that’s what I’ve been pecking away at between press events. That’s the idea.”
According to The Hollywood Reporter, playwright and screenwriter Beau Willimon will co-write the script with Mangold. In addition to his playwriting career and his Emmy-nominated scripts for House of Cards, Willimon also wrote the prison three-parter in season one of Andor. Writing the best episodes of the best Star Wars show is some real bonafides.
James Mangold’s New Star Wars Movie Connects with Rey’s Next Appearance
Kennedy also recently shared that this movie will help inform the new Star Wars movie featuring the return of Rey. She noted to Total Film, “I think it’s a really nice compliment to what we’re doing with moving into the future with Rey, and then understanding a bit more of where this all came from,” she explains. “Because it will be at the heart of creating the new Jedi Order, so to get a real sense of where that might have began with the dawn of the Jedi could be pretty cool.”
According to a new official Star Wars eras list revealed by LucasFilm, this movie will most likely take place in the “Dawn of the Jedi” era, but could even take place earlier than that.
Dave Filoni’s Film Will Bring Together Many Current Disney+ Series
The next new Star Wars movie will come from franchise veteran Dave Filoni. His film “will focus on the New Republic and close out the interconnected stories told in The Mandalorian, The Book of Boba Fett, Ahsoka, and other Disney+ series.” That’s huge news for both the television and movie side of Lucasfilm. When we get a release date for Filoni’s film, we’ll know just how many more seasons of The Mandalorian we might see. Clearly, there’s already an end in sight to Din Djarin and Grogu’s story. Although, we suppose they could continue on beyond a culminating movie. A release further shares, “Dave Filoni will orchestrate the escalating war between the Imperial Remnant and the fledgling New Republic.”
Rey Will Return in Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy’s Star Wars Movie
The third and final new Star Wars movie announced will focus on the future. Obaid-Chinoy’s movie will take place after The Rise of Skywalker. It will mark the return of Daisy Ridley as Rey. Set 15 years after the ultimate defeat of the Sith, she will be trying to build a new Jedi Order. Hopefully, that goes a lot better than her mentor Luke Skywalker’s attempts. According to the new list of Star Wars eras, it seems like this movie will take place in the “New Jedi Order” era.
Kathleen Kennedy shared more about the movie with Variety. She noted:
Well, we’re 15 years out from ‘Rise of Skywalker,’ so we’re post-war, post-First Order, and the Jedi are in disarray. There’s a lot of discussion around, ‘Who are the Jedi? What are they doing? What’s the state of the galaxy?’ She’s attempting to rebuild the Jedi Order, based on the books, based on what she promised Luke, so that’s where we’re going.”
Speaking to Empire, Kennedy added, “The First Order has fallen, the Jedi are in chaos – there’s even a question of how many exist anymore – and Rey’s building the New Jedi Order, based on the text that she was given and that Luke imparted on her.” She also offers, “Rey has made a promise to Luke, and that’s really the core of where we’re going and what this story will be. And I think it offers just tremendous opportunity to introduce new characters and start with something fresh, because we culminated with what George [Lucas] was creating, and now we take all of that and move it to the next chapter.”
On the topic of a possible Luke Skywalker presence in the new Star Wars movie, Kennedy said: “I don’t know if we’ll spend a lot of time in flashbacks or [on] Force ghosts or things like that, but certainly, the spirit of what he represents to her is going to be significant.”
Daisy Ridley further added that she presently doesn’t know “what is what or who is who [in the new movie].” But she also didn’t rule out anyone’s return. When asked about the popular idea of John Boyega’s Finn returning as a Jedi in the new Star Wars movie, Ridley responded, “That is above my pay grade. [Laughs] I would love to see that, but that is not a decision for me.”
Daisy Ridley and Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy Give Updates on the New Film
Recently, Daisy Ridley herself gave her first comments on her new Star Wars movie. While her sentiments remain vague, she noted to Collider, “I’m very excited. The story is really cool. I’m waiting to read a script because, obviously, I don’t have any other updates. It’s not what I expected, but I’m very excited.” And additionally told The Hollywood Reporter, “I’m genuinely really excited about the next one [Star Wars movie]. I haven’t read anything, but I know the story. It’s really worth telling, worth exploring, and I think people will be excited.”
The actress also offered a bit of a further tease about the film to AlloCiné. She said of the upcoming Rey Star Wars movie, “Once I knew what the story was and everything, I knew that it was something I really wanted to do. I think it’s a really fantastic exploration of the Star Wars world. It’s a really cool way of taking the story on in a bit of a different direction.” In conclusion, as Ridley noted to Variety, the story of this Star Wars movie is “cool as sh*t.”
Meanwhile, Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy noted to CNN, “I’m very thrilled about the project because I feel what we’re about to create is something very special… We’re in 2024 now, and it’s about time that we had a woman come forward to shape a story in a galaxy far, far away.”
We couldn’t agree more. But something tells us it won’t be smooth sailing for Rey. The dark side of the Force has a way of always creating shadows over the galaxy far, far away, especially in theaters.
Rey’s Future in the New Star Wars Movie
But will Rey’s upcoming Star Wars movie continue the common franchise trend of introducing new characters that are somehow related to other characters in the world? Daisy Ridley doesn’t really think so. Speaking to Deadline, Ridley noted it seemed unlikely that Rey would have kids in the new Star Wars film. She shared, “I would say she probably doesn’t have children seeing she’s a Jedi.” Of course, we know hypothetically Rey still could have children, like Anakin before her, but it sounds like this won’t be the path of the movie. Ridley additionally added, “I know bits and bobs… I know there’s an introduction of new characters… I don’t know about previous characters.”
Daisy Ridley also notes that Rey will take a different approach to teaching the next generation of Jedi than Luke Skywalker did. Speaking to Den of Geek, she says about Rey’s tactics diverging from Luke’s, “I would say, from what I understand, yes. Short answer.”
A Release Date for Rey’s New Star Wars Movie
There is now a reported filming date in play for Rey’s upcoming Star Wars fim. According to Productionlist.com, which tracks production updates for the Film & Television Industry Alliance, the Rey movie will start shooting on April 7, 2024 in London. Hopefully, that means we will get casting news soon.
Recent rumors speculated that the Rey movie might have been delayed indefinitely due to creative differences between Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy and writer Steven Knight. However, according to Gizmodo, Lucasfilm has confirmed the movie is still moving forward without issue. According to the publication, a source at Lucasfilm noted, “Knight continues to write and be a part of the process. In fact, the company is waiting on his latest draft as you read this.”
Jon Favreau Takes Our Favorite Duo to the Big Screen in The Mandalorian & Grogu
In addition to joining Dave Filoni’s big group Star Wars movie, the Mandalorian and Grogu will also star in a new Star Wars movie of their own (aptly titled, The Mandalorian & Grogu). Few details are known about it for now, but it will go into production in 2024.
As previously noted, this movie is expected to start shooting in April 2024.
Patty Jenkins Returns to Direct the Once Canceled Star Wars Movie Rogue Squadron
In 2020, Lucasfilm announced Patty Jenkins would direct a new Star Wars movie, Rogue Squadron. But the movie was removed from the company’s lineup in 2022. Now, Jenkins has revealed she’s back to work on the film, and she’ll take on the roles of writer and director. You can see what she had to say in full, here.
Originally published on April 7, 2023.
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