RUMOR General Star Wars: The Last Jedi News & Rumors Thread

See the Peter Mayhew tweet below. I wonder if his big announcement will be related to Episode 8?

 

My gut feeling is that Peter Mayhew will announce that he will no longer be Chewbacca...His was not among the names announced for the VIII cast and so I suspect the big announcement is that he is retiring from playing Chewie...Probably the new guy (Joonas Suotamo) will be Chewie from now on, and for some reason I think that Chewie will die/leave the story either in VIII or IX...
Posting the script of the first movie Chewie appeared in is kind of a send off...
We will soon see if I'm right.

 

The production announcement video lends strong evidence to the idea that Episode VIII will break with tradition and pick up exactly where TFA left off.
After the scroll, we pan to Starkiller Base and see it explode again, only this time, we don't see the Resistance ships escaping. We see a lone First Order ship speeding away. Inside are Hux, Phasma and Kylo Ren. We catch up with them quickly, establish that they escaped and are on their way to Snoke's location.
From there, we cut to Ahch-to, and see Rey extend the saber toward Luke again, but now the scene continues and we hear what Luke says to her.
Since seeing the end of TFA, I have felt like we would have to pick up right there. From a storytelling perspective, it'd be really weird not to show what these two characters, who may be father and daughter, say to one-another when they first meet.

 

I suspect you're right. Maybe Chewie has a much larger role in Episode 8 and Peter's going to decide to call it a day. The guy's obviously been struggling to walk for a good many years. I'm not sure how practical it is for him to be on movie sets all day if he can barely get around.

 

To quote a certain scoundrel... "It's true. All of it."

 

It is true that anyone tall enough can suit up, but out of respect to Peter Mayhew I don't think they will opt to do it...
Indication about this reverence is that even though he could not stand and most of the scenes in TFA I think we can assume must have to had been played by Joonas Suotamo they still chose to have and credit Mayhew as playing Chewie. Dressing up another person (a former basketball player at that) without Mayhew's further involvement would be disrespectful to someone so actively involved and recognizable as Chewbacca for decades...I disagree that anyone can play C-3PO either...Without Anthony Daniels' voice which really is the key to that character, C-3PO is not possible...(The same with Darth Vader really. Anyone can put on the costume as is the case, but the voice is crucial).
For Chewbacca, anyone tall enough can be in the costume and there isn't so much acting as the roars are not really performed by the actor, but out of respect to Mayhew who has been very active and involved throughout the years and basically very prominently identifies as Chewbacca, giving his role to just anybody else will be simply disrespectful...That's why I think the probability of Chewie going are very high...

EDIT: Unless the big announcement is Mayhew saying that he is fully confident in Joonas Suotamo being a good Chewie and saying he is gladly passing the torch to him, which is as I said earlier very possible...But then again, I still think that will be temporary...

 

Truer words never spoken.

 

Well to be fair, R2-D2 can simply be replaced by CGI...but would they really replace Peter Mayhew completely with Joonas? I thought that Joonas was pretty much a glorified stuntman by doing things that PM couldn't do. As you said, they can't replace Mark, Carrie, and Harrison so why PM ?

 

Has anyone seen this?

Episode VIII Production To Use Drones to Keep Fans' Drones Off the Set

Begun the drone wars has...
http://www.starwarsunderworld.com/2016/02/report-episode-viii-production-to-use.html?m=1

 

http://www.starwarsnewsnet.com/2016...ctor-teases-big-announcement-coming-soon.html

 

Yeah that's what I was responding to when the debate was about he potential for the announcement being about PM maybe retiring .

 

all that will happen is that the spoiler race will amp up. So if someone is willing to risk a drone for pictures, then i'd imagine they might now hire pro-drone racers for a day so they can out maneuver the production drones.

to be honest, i actually think you would see a drastic reduction in spoiler-seeking attempts if studios actually planned incremental releases of official production info through sources like Rian's twitter or through the star wars youtube. I think most folks would be happy with that. If it felt more like we were all there with Rian compared to JJ, i think we'd see a difference in the spoiler community.

 

Lucky dog.

 

This right here.

They worked really hard getting Joonas Suotamo ready, studying Peter's movements etc.. PM himself gave him many pointers. The role will probably demand a much more physical presence and at 71 yrs old Peter Mayhew (who moves around with a cane) does not have it anymore.

 

A long time ago....in a galaxy far, far away....During a Galactic Civil War....In a city on the clouds, there was a guy named Han Solo who was FROZEN in carbonite...

--- Double Post Merged, Feb 20, 2016, Original Post Date: Feb 20, 2016 ---

It is mentioned in "The Force Awakens Incredible Cross-Sections" book

--- Double Post Merged, Feb 20, 2016 ---

Yep. It is stated in "The Force Awakens Incredible Cross-Sections" book

View attachment 22486 View attachment 22487

 

Thanks I never got round to reading that, nice avatar BTW.