The Bearded Trio

Words you will not find in this initial recap of Andor :  "Adult." "Gritty." "Mature." "Slow Burn." Almost in lock-step, professional publications and Disney-chosen influencers have used identical verbiage to describe the first three episodes of Star Wars: Andor , which bowed on Disney Plus Wednesday, September 21.  You'll find many of those same influencers declaring this to be THE BEST STAR WARS SERIES EVER, based on 25 percent of the first of two seasons being revealed. After viewing the first three episodes, I was left with one question: "Where was the 'Star Wars' in this latest Star Wars show?" Don't get me wrong, from a technical standpoint, Andor appears outstanding on every level. The production design, acting, music, environment and characters are all compelling and draw in the viewer in no time. We feel immediately part of this world Cassian Andor (wonderfully played by Diego Luna) stalks around in.  The show...

On the opening weekend of The Phantom Menace, Rumours Were Already Happening for Episode II If there's one thing I like doing is reading a magazine from years ago just to see what wild rumours were doing the rounds back then.  Back in '99 the hype was of course for Star Wars: Episode 1 - The Phantom Menace.  But in July's edition of SFX the attention was already leaning towards the sequel!   The article on page 13 (shown above) was obviously written on the opening weekend of The Phantom Menace where it states the movie had toppled "The Lost World's" record of most successful opening day in screen history.  "While Steven Spielberg's dinofest took $26.1 million on the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend 1997, Episode 1 bagged a gross of $28,542,349 in its first 24 hours, a litle short of the $30 million confidently predicted by industry insiders.  One estimate puts its potential worldwide gross at $1.5 Billion." The Lucasfilm President of the time, Gord...

Indiana Jones found fortune and glory by searching for long-lost treasures. He also found some love along the way. Alex Arnold is also searching for treasures. Those treasures just happen to be Indiana Jones in nature, a search Alex does for the love of the franchise. Alex, 34, a registered nurse and a resident of Tampa, Florida, is an avid collector of Indiana Jones memorabilia, and is an active member of the Facebook group Indiana Jones and the Collector's Covenant. Like so many of us, he fell in love with the franchise as a youngster, and exhibits that love with an impressive Indy collection he displays in his home. He was generous enough to sit with me for a Q&A with me (Brad) to talk about his collection, what he enjoys most about the franchise, and - of course - what his Holy Grail of collecting would be. Enjoy!  Q: Describe your first experience with the Indiana Jones character and franchise. Did you see the films in the theater? A : My first experience with Indiana Jone...

Six-Part Docuseries Debuts Exclusively on Disney+ July 27 Today, Disney+ released the trailer and key art for Lucasfilm and Imagine Documentaries’ “Light & Magic,” an immersive series that chronicles the untold history of world-renowned Industrial Light & Magic (ILM), the special visual effects, animation and virtual production division of Lucasfilm. Granted unparalleled access, Academy Award®-nominated filmmaker Lawrence Kasdan takes viewers on an adventure behind the curtain of Industrial Light & Magic. Learn about the pioneers of modern filmmaking as we go on a journey to bring George Lucas' vision to life. These filmmakers would then go on to inspire the entire industry of visual effects. The series is directed by Lawrence Kasdan, and the executive producers are Ron Howard, Brian Grazer, Justin Wilkes, Lawrence Kasdan, Kathleen Kennedy and Michelle Rejwan. All six episodes of “Light & Magic” premiere on July 27, exclusively on Disney+. Twitter: @DisneyP...

Now that some time has passed since the finale, I feel like I can place the series Star Wars: Obi-Wan Kenobi into its proper context. As I have written in this space many times, I have anticipated this project like no other in recent years. For me, it delivered all I could have hoped for, and then some. It is easily my favorite Star Wars of the Disney era. Part VI of the series aired June 22, and we saw a refreshed and renewed Obi-Wan defeat Darth Vader in an epic lightsaber duel, we see Princess Leia safely returned to Alderaan and Reva, in a roundabout way, renouncing her evil ways in deciding at the last moment to not kill an unconscious Luke Skywalker on a Tatooine hillside. But this series spoke to me in other, much more profound ways than just the usual parts of Star Wars that endlessly fascinate me, like the story, visuals, music and characters. We are all unique individuals from one another, and so we all establish connections to outside material in our own way. Obi-Wan Kenobi...

Following quickly on the heels of Intrada's release of James Horner's Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, Intrada presents one of the most sought-after soundtrack expansions  – Horner's epic fantasy score to the 1988 film Willow. With the cooperation of Disney and Lucasfilm, Intrada has prepared a 2-CD set featuring a greatly expanded program of Horner's score. Up to that point, it was probably Horner's most complex work. The score features at least five themes, including a noble theme for Willow, a heroic theme filled with adventure and triumph, a beautiful love theme, a simple theme for the baby Elora and a serpentine motif for the evil Queen. It's a score that runs over 100 minutes, making it one of his longest works, featuring some of the longest and most cohesive cues of his career. It's no wonder such a massive, colorful and passionate work has been in demand for so long. While the original album featured a generous 73-minute program, Horner had chose...

My grandmother was fond of saying "the older you get, the faster time goes by." To her point, we are already just a few days away from the end of Star Wars: Obi-Wan Kenobi , the limited series currently streaming on Disney Plus.  Part V set the stage for the finale, with Obi-Wan, Leia and the small Rebel cell led by Roken (O'Shea Jackson, Jr.) escaping Darth Vader and the Inquisitors. There are a multitude of potential storylines playing out in potentially many different ways in next week's finale. And that's exactly one of the things I am enjoying most about this series. We know what we know - Obi-Wan, Darth Vader, Owen and Leia all survive, obviously. But it's the question of "how" that intrigues me. It was the same dynamic as the Prequel Trilogy. We pretty much know the who and the what. It was the how that was endlessly compelling to me. There has been a lot of loud discourse around this series. Which is not a surprise to anyone who has paid atte...

Wednesday morning saw the beginning of the second half of Star Wars: Obi-Wan Kenobi on Disney Plus, and Part IV advanced the plot significantly while providing a lot of fun look-backs at aspects of the saga as well as look-aheads for some of the characters in the show. There were so many neat callbacks, I decided to separate them into short lists. The Phantom Menace Obi-Wan swims underwater on the planet Nur to access the Fortress Inquisitorious. He uses the same kind of rebreather device we see him and Qui-Gon use to get to Otoh Gunga early on in Star Wars: The Phantom Menace (1999). Attack of the Clones I wonder if this bit will come up in one of the final two episodes. It also finds threads in two different Star Wars films. As Reva interrogates Leia on Nur, she covertly places a tracking device on Leia's droid Lola. Lola typically lights up with a blue light, but in the episode's final shot, her eye port lights up red, indicating it is in tracking mode for the Empire. In S...

I started to write a summary/recap of the first two episodes of Star Wars: Obi-Wan Kenobi last week after they aired on Disney Plus back to back. And it just wasn't working, because 900 words in, I had barely touched the recap portion of the first episode. Now, we are three episodes into my most-anticipated Star Wars show to date, and it feels like a good time to (briefly) assess where the show is at and how it fits in within the overall saga. As a word of caution, Part III spoilers are below. Some have characterized this show as Star Wars: Episode 3.5, and it appears to fit that label perfectly. I love everything George Lucas did with Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith (2005), and my love for the character of Obi-Wan made me anticipate this show unlike any other the past 17 years. Early in the first episode, Obi-Wan tells Bail Organa "I'm not the man I used to be" and we see those words supported by action throughout the first half of the season. From struggling to use...

One of my favorite "bumper sticker" sayings is that conflict in relationships almost always results from expectations not being met by one side or the other. I like that line of thinking because it can apply to almost any kind of relationship. As it pertains to this post, I am thinking about the relationship between fans of an Intellectual Property (IP) and the IP itself. I am thinking of this in relation to the premier of Star Wars: Obi-Wan Kenobi , which is just one week from today. The story of Obi-Wan Kenobi between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope is the one as-yet untold Star Wars story I most want to see told, and it's the one I most would want to take a crack at as a writer. The story of a Jedi who reached the greatest heights of his craft, only to suffer a failure of galactic consequences. And to make it worse, he has to live with the guilt of his failure for another 20 years. Ah, there it is. You see it? Me laying out my own expectations for this show, and t...

SpaceCamp Gets The Intrada Two Disc Treatment I will let you into a little secret.  I love a good training montage.  Most people when they think of such a thing will instantly go to the Rocky movies but for me its got to be SpaceCamp.  John Williams brings us a cracking two minutes training montage that never fails to bring a retro 1986 smile to my face.  Actually, I've always thought that the SpaceCamp soundtrack from John Williams often gets overlooked and it's a shame because it's a classic 1980's John Williams score.  Thankfully, the good folks over at Intrada are bringing out a two-disc special edition that will hopefully give it the love it fully deserves. For this release, producer Mike Matessino built the complete score program from Armin Steiner's original three-track film mixes, featuring a breathtaking and sweeping clarity to the score. This is featured on disc 1, along with three extras. Disc 2 presents the original RCA program as mixed for record by...

The show we were first teased about 14 months ago has finished its first season. As everyone was calming their emotions from seeing the return of Luke Skywalker in the season 2 finale of The Mandalorian , we got a post-credit teaser announcing the Disney Plus show The Book of Boba Fett . BOBF saw its first season come to an end Wednesday with the chapter In the Name of Honor. It was a fitting and satisfying end to a wonderful seven-episode run that saw Fett solidify his spot as the new boss of Tatooine while Din Djarin and Grogu sped off into space, awaiting that show's third season. What follows is a summary of the events and key character movements from The Book of Boba Fett's first season. Boba Fett: The Road Less Taken The show's structure gave us insights into not only Boba Fett in the present day, but picked up his story immediately after his plunge into the Sarlacc pit in Return of the Jedi. The flashback sequences filled in gaps I have wondered about for more than 3...

Jurassic World: Dominion Trailer A new trailer for Jurassic World: Dominion has dropped on the web and it's a cracker!  The full crew are back together and I'm not just talking about the Jurassic World characters but the Jurassic Park crew too.  It's going to be interesting to watch Alan Grant (Sam Neill,) Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum,) and of course Ellie Sattler (Laure Dern) running away from bigger (yes, they always go bigger) dinosaurs with Owen Grady (Chris Pratt) and Claire Dealing (Bryce Dallas Howard.) Expect dino carnage on 10th June 2022. The Bearded Trio - The Site For Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, John Williams and a whole lot more.

Top ten lists of an artist's work are never controversial. Nope. Never any discourse, disagreement or finger-pointing with these! But eh, I don't care. My top 10 list of John Williams Star Wars tracks is unique to me and needs neither validation nor dispute from anyone else Your list is 100 percent as legitimate as mine or anyone else's. That's the beauty of the art John Williams has created over his eight decade career of film music composition. You love what you love, and no one need love it like you do. So here is my list, with YouTube links for your listening pleasure. These tracks come from officially released John Williams tracks for the Star Wars films only. 1. City in the Clouds - Empire Strikes Back For me, the word "ethereal" was invented to describe this track.  We begin this track on Dagobah as Luke's Jedi powers are clearly growing. When used correctly, as it is here, the celeste might be my favorite musical instrument. It delicately plays as ...