The Fangirly Diary of a Geek Girl: Time for the Jedi to end

THURSDAY

In box office news, Beauty and the Beast officially crossed $1 billion at the worldwide box office. Yep, not only had the film become 2017’s first film to cross $1 billion and is now the highest grossing film of the year, it’s also the highest-grossing live-action musical of all time. I’m sure this year will have more films, specially Disney’s, reaching that milestone. But it’s still impressive.

OMG! Dolph Lundgren will be in Aquaman as a villain! Obviously! Never change, you dumb adorable giant Swede! He will play King Nereus, ruler of the kingdom of Xebel, and the dude who was supposed to get married to Mera. But girl’s sent on a mission to assassinate Arthur Curry (a.k.a. Aquaman)… and they end up falling in love. As you can expect, Nereus is royally pissed. Will it be the same in the film as with the comics? We will find out for sure on December 21st, 2018, when the film premieres. If they don’t spoil it in the news or trailers before.

Here’s our first not-so-clear look at Pinhead from Hellraiser: Judgement. I can’t see his face clearly, but it already looks better than the dude from 2011’s Hellraiser: Revelations. And as much as I love original Pinhead Doug Bradley, dude was getting old for the job. Anyway, new Pinhead is Paul T. Taylor and I can see him as a decent Pinhead. Director Gary Tunnicluffe said the film was ready to go, and he seems hopeful for a sequel, and I hope so. I like the first films even if I saw them out-of-order, and I would love a new breath for this franchise.

It is a new chapter. It’s an unexplored part of Hell, I would say, introducing some new characters and some new mechanisms behind where Pinhead and all of that comes from. It’s also a jumping off point for a sequel following this one that could continue the story that it tells because it’s a true Hellraiser script with a beginning, a middle, and a sort of ambiguous end. And these new characters they introduced could be in future Hellraiser films.

FRIDAY

Star Wars Celebration brought us an incredible first teaser trailer, which I managed to watch live (TWICE!), because I am a nerd. We also got a great theatrical poster that made me think of He-Man, Tron and the original movie poster~

Anyway, besides all the things we noticed from the trailer, like poor Luke all sad in front of a burning Jedi Academy, what looks like Imperial walkers of some sort, the Jedi Order symbol, some important (possibly) Jedi books… but the most important thing for me was The Mystery of Kylo Ren’s scar. I mean, look at what we were shown on the trailer (left), and what Kylo Ren looked like after Rey hit him in his Han-Solo-murdering face (right). The scar sure healed nicely… but it’s in the wrong position! The wound was from the middle of his forehead, passing the bridge of his nose, and down to side of his face and possibly down his neck and clavicle. But what we can see on the trailer is the scar going over his right eye! WTF! Is that a new scar? Did Kylo fashioned himself a better scar so he could have more in common with dear grandpa Vader? What!

Some behind-the-scenes pictures were also shared during Star Wars: The Last Jedi panel. And I just like the candid pictures of Poe drinking coffee, General Organa completely disregarding what they taught her as a Princess and putting her feet up on a table, and Captain Phasma taking a rest after walking around with that admittedly great looking but possibly uncomfortable armor.

Damn, China! They sure love the Fast & Furious franchise! The Fate of the Furious smashed their single-day record! Previous holder? Furious 7! Talking about that film, its haul in China eventually climbed to RMB 2.43 billion ($390 million, or about $352.5 million at today’s rates), which remains Hollywood’s biggest performance in the country. With such a great start, it wouldn’t be impossible for The Fate of the Furious to reach or surpass those numbers!

Rumor has it that Gina Rodriguez (Jane the Virgin) could play Carmen Sandiego in a new Netflix 20-episode animated series! According to the reports, the show “aims to be as educational as it is entertaining, given the title character’s globetrotting adventures”.

We began the start with Carrie Fisher and we end with Carrie Fisher. Despite what Todd Fisher said, about him and Carrie’s daughter, Billie Lourd, giving Disney the go-ahead to use recent footage of Carrie Fisher in Star Wars: Episode IX, Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy stated that Fisher will not appear in that film. “But we will see a lot of her in VIII“, she added. But Carrie won’t only play a significant role in Star Wars: The Last Jedi, we’ll also get to see her work in the script. During the Star Wars: The Last Jedi panel at Star Wars Celebration, director Rian Johnson revealed that Carrie served as a script doctor for the film.

–

And that’s it for the week. Before I go, I want to wish Happy Birthday to Elle Fanning, Charlie Hunnam, Daisy Ridley, Saoirse Ronan, Ron Perlman, Abigail Breslin, Robert Carlyle and Peter Capaldi.