William N. Law Blog: The Force Awakens Bits: Preview the Poe Dameron Comic Book, Learn How Your Sphero BB-8 Can Watch ‘The Force Awakens,’ and Watch John Boeyga and Daisy Ridley Rap

Tuesday, April 5, 2016

The Force Awakens Bits: Preview the Poe Dameron Comic Book, Learn How Your Sphero BB-8 Can Watch ‘The Force Awakens,’ and Watch John Boeyga and Daisy Ridley Rap

Star Wars: The Force Awakens is on Blu-ray and DVD right now, but that doesn’t stop the Force Awakens Bits train! In today’s edition:

Your Sphero BB-8 will now watch The Force Awakens with you.
Watch John Boyega step on board the Millennium Falcon for the first time.
Watch John Boyega and Daisy Ridley rap (adorably).
BB-8 visits NASA to mingle with other robots.
J.J. Abrams explains what Mark Hamill did at that famous table read.
Artist Phil Noto previews pages from the Poe Dameron comic book.
Take 360 degree tours of a few Star Wars locations.
A new interview with creature designer Neal Scanlon.
Concept artist Doug Chiang talks about Starkiller Base.
And more!

If you’re reading this, chances are strong that you’ve already picked up The Force Awakens on Blu-ray or DVD. Or you’re sitting at work, impatiently tapping your fingers because you know it’s sitting by your front door, waiting to be opened. But know this: you will never have to watch the movie alone. The Sphero BB-8 toy, you know, that expensive but admittedly awesome app-enabled little robot that everyone lost their minds over last year, has a new optional update. Once enabled, the “Watch With Me” feature will cause BB-8 to react to The Force Awakens as you watch it. It’s not quite magic (your phone is actually listening to movie and telling BB-8 how to react), but it’s close enough.

If you haven’t had a chance to crack open you copy of The Force Awakens quite yet, this should assuage your hunger. You can now watch footage of John Boyega stepping on the Millennium Falcon set for the first time and his child-like glee is infectious. After all, you know you’d react in a very similar way. Just with more tears. And a lot more blubbering. Anyway, I hope someone has a camera on Boyega throughout the entire production of Episode 8 because he just gives the same best reactions. He recognizes the enormity of this whole thing like no one else.

Speaking of people visiting places they never thought they’d go, the embed above teases a longer video where BB-8 visits NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, offering the fictional droid a chance to mingle with a bunch of real-life robots and scientists. It all sounds very fun and educational and what-not. You have to jump through a few hoops to watch the whole thing – visit DisneyMoviesAnywhere.com and enter the code “Droid.”

As everyone knows by now, Luke Skywalker is only in The Force Awakens for its final moments and doesn’t utter a single line of dialogue. So what was Mark Hamill doing at that famous table read of the screenplay? Well, in a new interview with Entertainment Weekly, J.J. Abrams revealed that Hamill read all of the narration:

“It was a way of having [him] be part of every scene, every moment, not just spiritually or thematically or narratively, but actually. Having his voice in it made the read through a better experience for everyone.”

And yes, it was also about trickery:

“It was partly trickery. We knew, obviously, that he didn’t speak in the film. And because we knew we were going to take pictures, and people knew he was in the movie, we needed to have him there.”