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Tag: George Lucas

  • Opening Of ABBA’s Virtual Level Display Brings Out Celebs And Royalty

    LONDON (AP) — “ABBA Voyage” is no doubt a shuttle.

    4 many years after the Swedish pop supergroup closing carried out stay, audiences can as soon as once more see ABBA onstage in an cutting edge virtual live performance the place previous and long term collide.

    The display opens to the general public in London on Friday, the day after a red-carpet premiere attended via superfans, celebrities and Sweden’s King Carl XVI Gustaf and Queen Silvia. The visitors of honor had been pop royalty — the 4 participants of ABBA, showing in public in combination for the primary time in years.

    They had been within the target market, although. Onstage on the specifically constructed 3,000-seat ABBA Area subsequent to east London’s Olympic Park had been a 10-piece stay backing band and a virtual ABBA, created the use of movement seize and different generation via Commercial Mild and Magic, the particular results company based via “Celebrity Wars” director George Lucas.

    The voices and actions are the actual Agnetha Faltskog, Björn Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson and Anni-Frid Lyngstad — choreographed via Britain’s Wayne McGregor — however the performers onstage are virtual avatars, inevitably dubbed “ABBA-tars.” In unsettlingly life like element, they depict the band participants as they regarded of their Nineteen Seventies heyday — beards at the males, flowing locks at the girls, velour pantsuits throughout.

    The result’s each prime tech and prime camp, a shiny supernova of stupefying generation, Nineteen Seventies nostalgia and dad tune genius.

    For plenty of within the target market, it was once nearly like being taken again in time to look at ABBA carry out classics together with “Mamma Mia,” “Realizing Me, Realizing You,” “SOS” and “Dancing Queen.” The peppy 90-minute set additionally contains tracks from “Voyage,” the reunion album the band launched closing 12 months.

    It’s a fusion of tribute act and three-D live performance film that transcends that description. Every now and then it was once imaginable to omit this wasn’t a stay efficiency, although when the backing singers stepped ahead to belt out “Does Your Mom Know,” a surge of live-music power shot in the course of the enviornment.

    The 4 band participants — two married {couples} right through ABBA’s heyday, although now lengthy divorced — were given a rapturous ovation once they took a bow on the finish of Thursday’s display, 50 years once they shaped ABBA, and 40 years once they stopped acting stay.

    Observing one’s more youthful self carry out will have to be a atypical sensation, however the band participants, now of their 70s, mentioned they had been thrilled via the display.

    “I by no means knew I had such wonderful strikes,” Ulvaeus mentioned.

    Lyngstad agreed: “I believed I used to be moderately excellent, however I’m even higher.”

    Ulvaeus mentioned the target market response was once essentially the most enjoyable a part of the enjoy.

    “There’s an emotional connection between the avatars and the target market,” he mentioned. “That’s the incredible factor.”

    Manufacturers invoice the display as “innovative.” Time will inform. Like the primary audiences to look at a speaking movement image a century in the past, attendees would possibly go away questioning whether or not they’re gazing a gimmick, or the longer term.

    The Occasions of London reviewer Will Hodgkinson judged the display “necessarily an ABBA singalong with added sound and light-weight display,” although he known as the impact “fascinating.” Writing in The Dad or mum, Alexis Petridis known as the live performance “jaw-dropping” and mentioned “it’s such a success that it’s laborious to not consider different artists following swimsuit.”

    Gimmick or genius, “ABBA Voyage” is reserving in London till Might 2023, with a global excursion deliberate after that.

    The enthusiasts who attended Thursday’s display are simply thrilled ABBA is again.

    “I’m so excited,” mentioned Kristina Hagman, a Swede who has been a fan because the Nineteen Seventies.

    “I used to be bullied such a lot as a result of you weren’t allowed to love ABBA at the moment, as it was once so business,” she mentioned. “However now we’re taking revenge.”

  • Obi-Wan Kenobi: A information to the brand new Celebrity Wars collection

     Obi-Wan Kenobi — now that’s a reputation informal Celebrity Wars lovers haven’t heard in a very long time. The Jedi grasp will get his personal second within the suns with a brand new six-part Disney Plus Hotstar collection starring Ewan McGregor.

    It’s set midway between George Lucas’ two trilogies: 10 years after Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, which marked McGregor’s final look as the nature, and 9 years ahead of the past due Alec Guinness made his hooded, howling front as Ben Kenobi in Episode IV: A New Hope.

    Ewan McGregor mentioned he at all times stored the commemorated Guinness in thoughts all through manufacturing. He listened to Guinness’ discussion on a legitimate record in his dressing room and took extra time after scenes had been filmed “simply to do some further Alec Guinness-y take – simply to verify.”

    “It’s were given to really feel like him. I studied him in that film,” the 51-year-old actor mentioned. “I’ve at all times were given to be someone who finally ends up changing into Alec Guinness on the finish of the day.”

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    A Kenobi challenge that includes McGregor has been in building for years, at first as a movie with Stephen Daldry connected to direct. That was once tossed within the scrap heap after the fairly meager field place of job returns of 2018′s Solo: A Celebrity Wars Tale. With the release of Disney Plus Hotstar the following yr, Lucasfilm pinned its hopes on a streaming collection. (Kenobi was once additionally featured within the animated collection The Clone Wars, which ran for seven seasons and is now on Disney Plus Hotstar.)

    Filming happened final yr totally on Business Gentle & Magic’s technologically leading edge Los Angeles-area soundstages, the place large LED monitors create digital worlds that encompass performers.

    As with the hit The Mandalorian, additionally filmed there, manufacturers have stored maximum main points cloaked in secrecy. However right here’s what to search for as the primary two episodes premiere on Friday.

    WHAT’S KENOBI UP TO?

    “I can take the kid and watch over him.” That was once Kenobi’s plan for Luke Skywalker on the conclusion of 2005′s Revenge of the Sith. Luke and Leia’s mom died simply after their delivery, and Jimmy Smits’ regal Bail Organa followed Leia. Kenobi introduced Luke to reside with circle of relatives on Tatooine, and that’s the place the brand new collection starts. Trailers display Kenobi at the desolate tract planet with binoculars, 10-year-old Skywalker in sight. The child turns out alright — for now. However be in a position to close up that starfighter. The collection introduces a brand new planet to the galaxy: Daiyu, with a sparkling city Hong Kong-like surroundings very best for rooftop blaster shootouts.

    Joel Edgerton, left, and Moses Ingram in a scene from the collection Obi-Wan Kenobi, premiering Might 27. (Disney+ by means of AP)

    WHICH VERSION OF KENOBI IS THIS?

    “You had been my brother, Anakin! I liked you!” Kenobi ended Episode III failing to sway his padawan clear of the darkish aspect — then reducing off Anakin’s limbs and leaving him in flames. He’s torn with anguish and be apologetic about, even ahead of he is aware of Anakin changed into Darth Vader. However Episode IV unearths Kenobi relax, in regulate, Zen. That mindset shift is essential to Kenobi, mentioned director Deborah Chow: “How did he cross from the banks of Mustafar to the calm of Sir Alec Guinness? One thing clearly came about there, between the ones twenty years. So for us, largely, that was once why we felt we in truth had a tale to inform.”

    WHO IS ON THE DARK SIDE?

    Trailers identify Jedi-hunting Inquisitors, performed by means of Rupert Buddy, Sung Kang and Moses Ingram, as the important thing antagonists. However don’t fail to remember Vader. Chow sought after to incorporate the black-suited villain to up the stakes for Kenobi. “Emotionally, such a lot of the load that he’s sporting is coming essentially from what came about with Anakin. So the whole lot roughly stored main us again to that,” she mentioned.

    WHITHER VADER?

    A lightsaber duel rematch turns out fated. It’s unclear whose voice audiences will listen, however Hayden Christensen once more dons the black helmet for the position. “That dress comes with this kind of presence,” he mentioned. “You set it on and it simply informs such a lot the best way you’re feeling. And for me, it was once very kind of cathartic in some way too simply because this can be a personality that has supposed so much to me and has kind of stayed with me over time — and getting to come back again and proceed with it was once an emotional enjoy.”

    WHO ELSE IS AROUND?

    Joel Edgerton and Bonnie Piesse reprise their roles from the prequels as Owen and Beru Lars, Luke’s aunt and uncle. Be expecting different established characters to make as-yet-unannounced appearances in both the principle tale or thru flashbacks, used closely within the different reside motion Celebrity Wars collection. Rosario Dawson’s Ahsoka Tano, starring in her personal upcoming collection, will nearly indubitably drop in. May we see a “Drive ghost” model of Kenobi’s instructor Qui-Gon Jinn, performed by means of Liam Neeson? A tender Leia with Smits’ Organa? Chewbacca or Darth Maul? They’ll quickly disclose themselves to audience.

  • Manufacturers Guild to honour George Lucas, Kathleen Kennedy

    Via IANS

    LOS ANGELES: Two residing legends of Hollywood, George Lucas and Kathleen Kennedy might be honoured by means of the Manufacturers Guild of The usa with its 2022 Milestone Award at its annual awards evening on March 19, experiences ‘Selection’.

    Lucas and Kennedy are being recognised each as people and for his or her collective management of Lucasfilm, the crucible of the ‘Famous person Wars’ franchise that Lucas created in 1971.

    Likening it to a “rebellion base” out of doors Hollywood, Lucas led the Bay House-based manufacturing banner from its inception till October 2012, when he offered the studio and what ‘Selection’ calls the banner’s golden vault of ‘Famous person Wars’ IP to Disney for $4 billion.

    A veteran who began her occupation as Steven Spielberg’s affiliate in ‘Raiders of the Misplaced Ark’ (1981), Kennedy used to be a spouse in Kennedy/Marshall Co. with manufacturer (and her husband) Frank Marshall for twenty years sooner than she changed into president of Lucasfilm. Sooner than that, Kennedy and Marshall co-founded the Amblin manufacturing banner with Steven Spielberg.

    “I’m very honoured to percentage this award with George Lucas who has impressed a era of filmmakers who have been coming of age, now not best via his storytelling however via technological innovation that unlocked our creativeness,” Kennedy mentioned.

    The Manufacturers Guild Awards, in line with ‘Selection’, have been postponed previous this month from their authentic date of February 26 out of issues concerning the surge in Covid-19 an infection charges in Los Angeles County.