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Will virtual actors take on bigger Star Wars role?

Carrie Fisher
Carrie Fisher as General Leia Organa gets a comforting hug from Harrison Ford as Han Solo in “Star Wars, Episode VII: The Force Awakens.” (Lucasfilm Photo)

Spoiler Alert! This article discusses characters from recent Star Wars movies and speculates about future movies. Don’t read further if you’re trying to stay totally in the dark about the Star Wars saga from “The Force Awakens” onward.

When Carrie Fisher died last week, it left a huge hole in the hearts of the actress’ admirers, including the fans of Princess Leia … that is, General Leia Organa Solo, the resilient rebel leader in four Star Wars movies.

Fisher had just finished filming scenes for her fifth movie, Episode VIII, which should hit theaters this coming December. For what it’s worth, rumor has it that Leia plays a key part in the plot. (Spoiler here.)

It’s impossible to predict how big a role Leia might have in the final film of Star Wars’ triple trilogy, Episode IX, which is due for release in mid-2019. There could also be spin-off stories, a la “Rogue One,” that will continue even after Episode IX’s release.

If filmmakers were contemplating a role for Fisher in any of those movies, they’re facing a huge hole in their scripts. And one option to fill it could be the strategy that was used in “Rogue One”: creating computer-generated, motion-capture characters.

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Starship science is built into ‘Passengers’ script

Starship Avalon
The starship Avalon approaches Arcturus in a scene from “Passengers.” (Sony Pictures via YouTube)

The science is under the hood in “Passengers,” a love story set on a giant starship – and screenwriter Jon Spaihts is the guy who put it there.

Chances are most movie fans are going to the movie to see Hollywood stars Jennifer Lawrence (“The Hunger Games,” etc.) and Chris Pratt (“Guardians of the Galaxy,” etc.) rather than to get a tutorial on the physics of the Coriolis effect on a rotating spacecraft. But just in case there are some space geeks in the audience, Spaihts made sure the math works out.

The one-time physics student and science writer has already made a name for himself as “Hollywood’s go-to science fiction screenwriter,” thanks to his work on “Prometheus,” “Doctor Strange” and the upcoming reboot of “The Mummy.”

For “Passengers,” Spaihts created a setting that is both expansive and claustrophobic. All of the action takes place on a starship traveling across light-years of emptiness to a colony world.

But what a starship! “The ship is a character unto itself,” the film’s director, Morten Tyldum, told GeekWire.

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Star Wars fans turn out in Force for ‘Rogue One’

Margaret Urfer as Jedi knight
Software engineer Margaret Urfer strikes a Jedi knight pose after a “Rogue One” showing at Lincoln Square Cinemas in Bellevue, Wash. (GeekWire Photo / Alan Boyle)

“Rogue One” may not have a Roman numeral in its name, but Dec. 15’s debut nevertheless brought out costumed Jedi knights and other Star Wars fans in droves.

Most of them went back into the night with smiles on their faces. And at least one of them, Makenna Hoffard, thought it was better than VII.

“I was expecting not to like it,” Hoffard, a recent graduate from the University of Washington, said after the 10:30 p.m. showing at Lincoln Square Cinemas in Bellevue, Wash.

She knows the ins and outs of the Star Wars canon, based on myriad spin-off books as well as the movies, and she said the latest film “upheld the story” even though it’s a stand-alone film and not officially part of the nine-episode big-screen masterwork.

“They made it modern and funny, like a Marvel movie kind of vibe,” she said.

Hoffard couldn’t say the same for last year’s Episode VII, “The Force Awakens,” which she faulted for taking too many liberties with the canon. “I cried after the seventh movie, and not in a good way,” she said.

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‘Rogue One’ and more: 10 movies to watch for

Felicity Jones in "Rogue One"
Felicity Jones stars in “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.” (Disney / Lucasfilm Photo)

Tonight’s the first chance most of us will have to see “Rogue One,” the latest addition to the big-screen Star Wars saga, but we already know it’s the best film of the batch. Or one of the worst.

That’s based on the reviews from fans and critics that have come out since the previews started rolling out over the past few days.

Unless you’ve been locked up in a slab of carbonite, Han Solo-style, you already know that “Rogue One” is a standalone story in the Star Wars oeuvre, The movie is about a band of rebels who take on the Galactic Empire in the stretch of time between Episode III (“Revenge of the Sith”) and Episode IV (“A New Hope”), when Darth Vader was digging the Dark Side.

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Star Wars fans jam ‘Rogue One’ ticket window

Jyn Erso
Jyn Erso, played by Felicity Jones, in “Rogue One.” (Disney / Lucasfilm via YouTube)

The past 24 hours have brought good news and bad news for throngs of Star Wars fans who are eagerly awaiting “Rogue One,” the next installment in the film saga.

Let’s start with the bad news: Many of those fans faced hours of frustration on the night of Nov. 27, scrambling for advance tickets. At 9:01 p.m. PT, theaters and websites started selling tickets for the show, including seats for opening night on Dec. 15.

At least that was the plan.

Seattle’s Cinerama struggled with its overloaded online reservation system for hours: Users encountered repeated error messages when they tried to connect – and even if they were able to get through to the website, many couldn’t get all the way through the payment process. “Could Not Get Seat Data” was a frequent response.

For the Cinerama’s harried staff, and for hard-core fans who had a hard time getting opening-night tickets to “Star Wars, Episode VII: The Force Awakens,” it was deja vu all over again.

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The inside story behind Jeff Bezos’ Star Trek cameo

Lydia Wilson and Jeff Bezos
Amazon’s Jeff Bezos plays a Starfleet official (at right) who assists a rescued spacefarer (played by Lydia Wilson, at left). Credit: Justin Lin via Twitter

When “Star Trek Beyond” comes out on DVD next week, you can freeze-frame on the big-name cameo appearance that zipped past so quickly in the theaters: Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos’ moment as an alien Starfleet official.

If you missed recognizing him, don’t feel bad. Even Bezos acknowledges that it was a quickie, and the fact that he’s loaded up with face prosthetics doesn’t help.

“You will have to watch very carefully. Do not blink. You will miss me,” he said during Oct. 22’s Pathfinder Awards banquet at Seattle’s Museum of Flight. Bezos was one of the honorees, along with airplane restorer Addison Pemberton.

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‘Voyage of Time’ puts scientific genesis on screen

Europa and Jupiter
“Voyage of Time” makes use of cosmic imagery like this view of Europa with Jupiter’s Great Red Spot as a backdrop. (Credit: Broad Green Pictures)

Is it possible to create a visual gospel, to be seen on a movie screen rather than read from a parchment? If so, that’s what filmmaker Terrence Malick has created in “Voyage of Time.”

The 40-minute IMAX documentary is in its first week of release at theaters across the country, including the Boeing IMAX Theater at Seattle’s Pacific Science Center. There’s also a 90-minute, 35mm version that’s coming soon.

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Contest could make your Dreamliner come true

Image: Kung Fu Panda jet
Hainan Airlines is letting contestants design livery for one of its Boeing 787 Dreamliner jets with a Kung Fu Panda theme. (Credit: Hainan Airlines / Dreamworks Animation)

How can you top a Boeing 787 Dreamliner jet painted to look like Star Wars’ R2-D2 robot? How about a Kung Fu Panda Dreamliner? Hainan Airlines is teaming up with the Boeing Co. and DreamWorks Animation to make it so, and give away some sweet trips to China in the process.

The contest, which runs through Sept. 30, makes it easy to design the livery for Hainan’s jet: All you have to do is go to Hainan’s website, arrange a set of online stamps, symbols and paint patterns to fill out the livery on a 3-D plane template. Click a button to submit your design, and you could be a winner.

The design elements have to include the usual corporate branding, but you can also choose from the characters in DreamWorks’ Kung Fu Panda movies, including roly-poly Po (the panda, of course) plus Tigress, Ox, Rhino, Wolf and so on.

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IBM’s Watson makes AI trailer about AI movie

Image: Morgan
IBM’s Watson AI software selected creepy moments for a trailer touting the AI thriller “Morgan,” including this close-up of the Morgan AI. How meta! (Credit: 20th Century Fox / IBM)

Experts may reassure us that artificial intelligence won’t take over the world anytime soon – but they just might invade the multiplex.

At least that’s the plot developing at IBM, where the Watson artificial-intelligence team programmed a computer to come up with a scary trailer for “Morgan,” a thriller about a genetically modified, AI-enhanced super-human.

GeekWire’s crack team of movie critics gave “Morgan” an average grade of C – but I have to say Watson’s trailer gave me the creeps. Maybe it’s the way short cuts are spliced together to create a sense of ominousness without revealing what the heck is going on. Maybe it’s the eerie music. Or maybe it’s just knowing that a faceless piece of software helped create it.

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5 tech tidbits from ‘Star Trek Beyond’

Image: Star Trek starship
A starship takes on a swarm of foes in “Star Trek Beyond.” (Credit: Paramount Pictures via YouTube)

Spoiler Alert! This post doesn’t reveal any major plot twists, but it does explore some new twists seen in “Star Trek Beyond.” Stop reading now if you want it to be completely surprised.

The latest big-screen saga about the voyages of the Starship Enterprise, “Star Trek Beyond,” pays tribute to all the Trek technologies we’ve come to know and love over the past 50 years. In fact, the crew members go old-style when it comes to the communicators they use to stay in touch, the transporters that beam people back and forth, and the tricorder that Bones uses to check Spock’s medical condition.

One slight upgrade is that the tablets they use on the bridge look more like an iPad Air and less like an Etch-a-Sketch.

There are a few new twists to the science and technology on view in “Star Trek Beyond,” blending the totally fictional with the somewhat factual. To find out how the movie universe resonates with the real world, read on. But if you’re super-spoiler-phobic, stop right now and wait until you’ve seen the movie.

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