Category: Star Wars

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Deaths Matters of Life & Death Movies Star Wars

Gary Kurtz, Star Wars producer, dies

  • September 23, 2018

Gary KurtzGary Kurtz, producer of Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back and George Lucas’ right-hand man during the making of both movies, dies at the age of 78 after a year-long battle with cancer. Kurtz was instrumental in the deal-making behind both Star Wars and its predecessor, Lucas’ American Graffiti, initially pitching both to Universal Studios. While Universal was eager to make American Graffiti, they passed on Star Wars, which was then pitched to 20th Century Fox. Kurtz was literally in the Death Star trenches helping Lucas complete the first film, directing many second-unit shots (including many of the X-Wing cockpit scenes from the movie’s climactic battle) and riding herd on the somewhat overburdened Industrial Light & Magic. Fundamental differences over the storytelling choices Lucas was making for Return Of The Jedi led Kurtz to distance himself from Lucasfilm, and he would go on to produce such films as The Dark Crystal, Return To Oz, and Slipstream.

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Deaths Matters of Life & Death Movies Star Wars

Peter Mayhew, actor, dies

  • April 30, 2019

Peter MayhewActor Peter Mayhew, who went from a job as a hospital orderly to co-starring in the Star Wars films as Chewbacca, dies at the age of 74. Following filming on Star Wars, with no way to anticipate the movie’s upcoming blockbuster success, Mayhew returned to his orderly job, continuing that line of work after the filming of both 1980‘s The Empire Strikes Back and 1983‘s Return Of The Jedi, before becoming a full-time fixture at Star Wars and science fiction conventions (and, later, the internet, regaling fans with behind-the-scenes stories both in person and online). He had some prior monster-suit-acting experience before George Lucas hired him for Star Wars, but not enough to amount to a steady stream of work. He reprised the role of Chewie in 2005‘s Revenge Of The Sith and 2015‘s The Force Awakens before handing the Wookiee suit off to former basketball player Joonas Suotamo, but still received a consulting credit for 2017‘s The Last Jedi, coaching Suotamo during filming. He had also put on the Wookiee suit for any number of promotional appearances, playing the character on The Muppet Show and Donny & Marie, as well as the infamous 1978 Star Wars Holiday Special, which afforded Chewie a larger role than some of the movies did.

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Star Wars Television

The Mandalorian: Chapter 1

  • November 12, 2019

The MandalorianStreaming service Disney+ opens for business with the first episode of Jon Favreau’s The Mandalorian, the first live-action TV series set in the Star Wars universe, starring Pedro Pascal, Carl Weathers, and Nick Nolte. Returning to the saga’s roots as a space western, this marks Disney’s entrance into the increasingly crowded premium streaming service race.

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Star Wars Television

The Mandalorian: Chapter 6

  • December 13, 2019

The MandalorianStreaming service Disney+ premieres the the sixth episode of Jon Favreau’s The Mandalorian, the first live-action TV series set in the Star Wars universe, starring Pedro Pascal. Mark Boone Jr. (Sons Of Anarchy), Bill Burr (Breaking Bad), Clancy Brown (Highlander, Earth 2), Natalia Tena (the Harry Potter films, Game Of Thrones), and Richard Ayoade (The IT Crowd, Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace) guest star.

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Franchises Movies Star Wars

Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker

  • December 20, 2019

Star WarsThe eleventh Star Wars movie, Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker, premieres, starring Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, Adam Driver and Oscar Isaac, alongside original trilogy stars Mark Hamill, Billy Dee Williams, Ian McDiarmid, and Harrison Ford (Carrie Fisher appears pothumously in scenes originally filmed for, but cut from, The Force Awakens in 2015). Perhaps inevitably, given the late 2010s’ tendency to politicize popular culture and its followers, and with the weight of fan expectations of a satisfying conclusion to the saga on it, the film proves somewhat controversial. Shortly after its release, work on future Star Wars feature films at Disney-owned Lucasfilm comes to a halt, and the franchise becomes a mainstay of Disney’s streaming video service.

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Doctor Who Franchises Star Trek Star Wars Television

The year sci-fi took over the Emmys

  • July 28, 2020

Emmy nominationsThe nominees for the 72nd annual Emmy Awards are announced, and genre shows are unusually well represented. HBO’s comics adaptation Watchmen raKes in 26 nominations, including Outstanding Limited Series and the best actor, actress, writing, directing, music, costuming, and design awards in the Limited Series category. The Mandalorian is nominated in 15 categories, including Best Drama Series, music, guest actor, voice-over performance, and visual effects; Westworld is nominated in 11 categories, The Handmaid’s Tale is nominated in ten (including Best Drama Series), Stranger Things nets eight nominations (including Best Drama Series), Star Trek: Picard is nominated in five categories, and Space Force is nominated in four. One nomination each goes to Star Trek: Short Treks, Star Wars: Resistance, Cosmos: Possible Worlds, Lost In Space, Dark Crystal: Age Of Resistance, Chasing The Moon, The Boys, Black Mirror, and the interactive feature Doctor Who: The Runaway. CNN’s Apollo 11 documentary is nominated in five categories.

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Deaths Franchises Matters of Life & Death Star Wars

David Prowse, actor, dies

  • November 29, 2020

David ProwseBritish-born actor and bodybuilder David Prowse, a towering figure who gained fame primarily as the physical embodiment of Darth Vader in the first three Star Wars films, dies after a brief illness at the age of 85. Sought after for movie roles – often non-speaking, and frequently in monster suits of one kind or another – Prowse had also played a Minotaur in Doctor Who (The Time Monster, 1972), a space creature in Space: 1999 (The Beta Cloud, 1976), and even after his sudden rise to fame via Star Wars, appeared in such roles as Hotblack Desiato’s bodyguard in the fifth episode of the BBC’s TV adaptation of The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy in 1981, which offered him a rare speaking part. A favorite on the convention and autograph circuit, Prowse had only retired from a busy schedule of convention appearances a couple of years prior to his death. He was sought by George Lucas to play either Vader or Chewbacca after Lucas saw his brief appearance as a muscular bodyguard in Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange. Prowse had also appeared as a superhero in a series of public safety announcements and films in the UK, which won him much acclaim over the years.

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Deaths Franchises Matters of Life & Death Star Wars

Jeremy Bulloch, actor, dies

  • December 17, 2020

Jeremy BullochBritish actor Jeremy Bulloch, best known internationally for playing the role of Boba Fett in The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and Return Of The Jedi (1983), dies at the age of 75. A child actor who went professional at a young age, Bulloch made two Doctor Who appearances (The Space Museum, 1965 and The Time Warrior, 1973), and made guest appearances in Strange Report, Chocky, and Robin of Sherwood. His initial appearance as Boba Fett was considered a very minor role for him as he was, at the time, starring in the popular UK sitcom Agony, broadcast on London Weekend Television, and his combined appearances in both Star Wars films added up to less than two minutes of screen time. After making a fleeting appearance as an unrelated character in 2005‘s Star Wars Episode III, Bulloch became a regular in the 2009 sci-fi comedy Starhyke, co-starring as the ship’s doctor. Like many of his other masked Star Wars castmates, his helmet afforded him little anonymity and he was a favorite on the sci-fi convention circuit.