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The Episode IX trailer for the latest Star Wars movie was just released. Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker will be the space series’ most diverse casting since the first movie premiered in 1977. People of color including leading man John Boyega, Kelly Marie Tran, Naomi Ackie, and the return of Billy Dee Williams in the iconic role of Lando Calrissian, are front and center in the latest episode.

And while there was controversy over the casting of John Boyega, a black British actor as a Stormtrooper in the Star Wars: The Force Awakens movie, there have been iconic black actors and characters throughout the Star Wars universe. Here are seven of the best known.

Black Characters Star Wars Characters

Mace Windu

Played by: Samuel L. Jackson

Film: Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace, 1999

(Image: Facebook)

2. Lando Calrissian

Played by: Billy Dee Williams

Films: The Empire Strikes Back; Return of the Jedi

(Image: Facebook)

3. Maz Kanata

Played by: Lupita Nyong’o

Film: The Force Awakens

(Image: Facebook)

4. Voice of Darth Vader

Played by: James Earl Jones

Films: Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back; Return of the Jedi

(Image: iStock/tihomir_todorov)

5. Jabba the Hutt’s Twi’lek slave dancer Oola

Played by:  Femi Taylor

Film: Return of the Jedi

(Image: Facebook)

6. Finn 

Played by: John Boyega

Film: The Force Awakens, The Last Jedi 

(Image: Wikimedia)

7. Rachel

Played by:  Crystal Clarke

Film: The Force Awakens

(Image: Instagram)

Check out the trailer to Star Wars: Rise of Skywalker:

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Editors’ Note: This article has been updated from its original publish date in 2017. 

The post ‘Rise of Skywalker’ Set to Be Most Diverse Star Wars Casting Ever. Here Is A Roster of Black Star Wars Characters appeared first on Black Enterprise.

It’s here! The final piece of the Skywalker saga arrives this December and on this day we are gifted with a teaser trailer for Episode IX!

There is always something special about Star Wars and its desert locales. So when the trailer jumps off in the midst of an endless desert, you just know some realness about to go down. Rey’s controlled breaths open the trailer. She rocking that all white Jedi outfit with the Wesley Snipes in the 90s collar. She’s looking like she been in the dojo just training. The camera pans slowly down to her waist; where she is holding the Han Solo-issued gat from Episode VIII on one hip and Anakin’s lightsaber on the other! The whole time this is happening we hear the familiar rising whine of Industrial Light & Magic’s vehicle sound effect roaring across the sands.

Rey eyeballs the approaching speeder, pops her lightsaber, shifts position facing away from it and starts booking it! Is she playing lightsaber chicken with a landspeeder?!? No, she’s playing lightsaber chicken with a TIE Interceptor! You know, just a space-ready craft, the ship that Vader used to whip through the cosmos like a Honda Accord! Yeah, that one. We see some familiar gloved hands accelerate the ship right before Rey hits the bullet time butterfly kick, like, is she really about to battle to whole ass space fighter with her bare hands?!? Yes.

Then we catch up with your boy Kylo Ren, catching bodies as per usual, but now he’s rolling through red-tinted woods with some Stormtroopers putting the two-handed lightsaber to everything in his way. Kylo is getting in touch with his inner Spartan, clearly. Meanwhile, his helmet is being restored to its former emo greatness, as if to recall his adoration for his grandfather, Anakin. I’m sensing a theme here.

We get the montage of fanfic’s finest Finn and Poe Dameron, looking fly and focused. BB8 and his new droid homie Dio giving the best digital side-eye money can buy. Chewie doing his best to co-pilot the Millenium Falcon through hyperspace alongside Billy Dee Williams as Lando Calrissian! Let that sink in, it works 60% of the time – every time. JJ Abrams is going for the nostalgic jugular.

After that, we get the secondary montage of some of the last footage we get of Carrie Fisher’s Leia hugging it out with Rey (with the one thug tear) and then the close up of the medal that the Rebels gave Han, Luke, and Chewie in Episode IV. I’m not crying, you’re crying!

Then we see the next-gen squad surveying a vista from a cliff into a dark sea. In the far distance, past the towering waves, are the giant broken pieces of The Death Star! Now I’m all in a glass case of emotions, I’m hyped, but I’m afraid, I’m hyped that I’m afraid. In the milliseconds that the screen goes dark, my mind is blown and overwhelmed. Then. Then?!? I hear Carrie Fisher solemnly say, “No one’s ever really gone.” Again, I’m not crying, you are! Then?!? I hear that laugh, filled to the brim with unlimited power. The cackle of Palpatine!

I’m a mess at this point, just mop me and my emotions up off the floor of the Tatooine Cantina. But wait, there’s more; the title reads Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. I’m like, wait, are we calling force users ‘Skywalkers’ now? Is Rey a Skywalker like Kylo is? Are they related? Am I crying? Maybe! Either way, this teaser trailer is one for the community to mull over for months to come.

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The post Them Force Ghosts Flexin’ in the Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker Teaser Trailer appeared first on Black Nerd Problems.

Ever see a reaction to something and laugh for the next three days? That’s definitely going to be me with Sebastian Stan’s “Ok.” response to his new Disney+ show. In case you don’t believe me that this was his only response—posted alongside the new logo for the Falcon/Winter Soldier show, officially announced yesterday—here you go! Please use this as a reaction image for anything and everything.

The stars of the three big Marvel shows announced last night all had wonderful reactions to their new projects—except for Sebastian Stan’s “Ok.” and Anthony Mackie not posting a thing, which, I argue, is the most on-brand either of them have ever been.

Tom Hiddleston’s reaction came back in November when they first announced that a Loki series was being developed for Disney+. It was short, sweet, and shared all the mischief that we’ve come to know out of Loki.

pic.twitter.com/4jl3dAVLqv

— Tom Hiddleston (@twhiddleston) November 9, 2018

Last night, both Elizabeth Olsen and Paul Bettany shared their excitement about working together once more on WandaVision, a show documenting more of Wanda Maximoff and that floppy disk that Tony Stark and Bruce Banner created.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

Soooooooooo… Turns out this is gonna happen with me and my ol Chum @elizabetholsenofficial AND IT IS GONNA BE AMAZING!

A post shared by Paul Bettany (@paulbettany) on Apr 11, 2019 at 5:03pm PDT

 

View this post on Instagram

 

What he said. Cannot wait to be back at it with @paulbettany

A post shared by Elizabeth Olsen (@elizabetholsenofficial) on Apr 11, 2019 at 6:10pm PDT

But still, the one that takes the cake has to be Sebastian Stan. Now, I know I’m biased because he’s my favorite, but also … his reaction is all of us, really, when we’ve known about this stuff for months and were just starving for confirmation. It is perfect.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

Ok.

A post shared by Sebastian Stan (@imsebastianstan) on Apr 11, 2019 at 5:55pm PDT

To say I’m excited about all of these shows is putting it mildly. I love the idea of Marvel expanding their characters with series so we can see more of our favorites in a new context and not be limited to their few lines in a movie (Bucky Barnes, for example, has not even had 1 hour of combined screen time in the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe, so … this will be fun).

Disney+’s platform launch on November 12th cannot come soon enough! I’m ready to hear Bucky Barnes speak! Ok? Ok.

(image: Marvel Entertainment)

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—The Mary Sue has a strict comment policy that forbids, but is not limited to, personal insults toward anyone, hate speech, and trolling.—

Source: Lifetime / lifetime

Season 8 of Married At First Sight was a cycle like none other. It was an emotional roller coaster that saw four couples take the leap into matrimony. As with every season, some couples made it and others didn’t. While every minute was entertaining to watch, we also noticed a few observable love lessons that viewers can take to heart.

You Can’t Force Love
A lot of lonely people turn to Married At First Sight when they simply don’t know how else to find “the one.” The selected contestants quickly find out that marriage is one thing and love is another.

It takes the matched (or mismatched) couples weeks to get to know one another. In that time, hopefully, they can at least grow to like each other. Many of them, though, go into their marriages expecting to fall in love with their spouses as soon as they say “I do.” Some contestants pull out every move they know to inspire love; sometimes it works, but most efforts fall flat. The couples that seem to do the best are the ones who let love unfold naturally in their marriage.

Gaslighting Is Abusive
Every season has one major jerk. Sometimes it’s a bride; sometimes it’s a groom. Sometimes they redeem themselves. This season, Luke Cuccurullo was that jerk, and he was trash until the very end.

No one would blame him for not wanting to kiss a stranger on first meeting–even on this show. However, it was his behavior with his wife, Kate Sisk, after the wedding that was hard to watch. While he certainly didn’t owe her love and affection, he at least owed her kindness and general decency as her husband. He failed to show that throughout the season.

Luke never seemed that interested in Kate, despite her best efforts to make a connection. He made it pretty clear on the honeymoon that he was “repulsed” by her. Once they got home, he didn’t seem to enjoy her company. It was clear that although he wasn’t into Kate, he loved all the attention she gave him. When they would argue, though, he made it seem like she was the problem in the relationship. He would also constantly call out her drinking. He heaped a lot of blame for their friction onto her, refusing to accept that he also had some responsibility for the sad state of their union. It was obvious that she internalized a lot of that blame, and it was hard to see how that really wore her down from week to week.

Intimacy Takes Time
Six weeks is not a lot of time to spend with someone. In the past, some couples didn’t wait to have sex. They got to it on the wedding night or the honeymoon. Others have taken longer to get there. Will Guess and Jasmine McGriff, however, never made that move. Not for lack of trying, of course, but they could never seem to get the vibe right.

After a while, some of us questioned whether Will was even attracted to Jasmine. They had oodles of chemistry on their wedding day, so it didn’t make sense. Although he may have been physically attracted to her, something was clearly off between them. Will might be one of those people for whom sexual attraction is closely tied to emotional intimacy and compatibility. They couldn’t stimulate each other intellectually and there was a disconnect on each of their expectations within a marriage. Of course, it probably didn’t help that he didn’t allow himself to be fully invested in the relationship. That type of intimacy is something you can only cultivate with time. Six weeks isn’t long enough.

You Want A Spouse Not A Maid
One of the things that astonished me about this season of Married at First Sight is how much of Keith Dewar’s excitement to get married centered on the idea that his wife would be his caretaker. He was excited to get with someone who would keep the house for him and cook for him. He didn’t focus much on what he would be bringing to the table. Seeing that explained a lot about why he was still single.

Although his wife, Kristine Killingsworth, was more than happy to play chef for him, he was shook when she made it clear that she didn’t get married to be a maid. That caused some seemingly insurmountable problems at first, but he eventually got with the program and started doing his fair share around the house. His idea of marriage was based on an outdated model of responsibilities, and he had to update his thinking to make it work. In a society where both members in a partnership have to work, it’s unrealistic (and somewhat selfish) to expect that only one person will take care of all the domestic responsibilities.

Marriage Requires Maturity
Marriage can be a lot of fun, but it’s also an enormous responsibility. A lot of the couples went into this experiment with an idealized vision of married life. When the reality of daily life as a married couple showed up, though, they were faced with the fact that marriage is a challenge which requires maturity and selflessness to work.

Marriage requires more than just love and passion; it also requires patience, kindness, and understanding. It requires a heart to serve and support your partner. These are things that only really come with maturity and a deeper understanding of what marriage is supposed to be. If you don’t come into marriage with at least that level of maturity, you better find a way to level up ASAP if you want a relationship that will last a lifetime.