Fanboy Round-Up: STAR WARS! STAR WARS! STAR WARS (and Marvel)!


Welcome one and all to Fanboy Round-Up – one of those lazy excuses for an article when you don’t have anything else to write about.

Have you been especially busy this week and haven’t had time to check out all the latest and greatest geek news? Well, that sucks, but fret not; it’s all here! We take a look at the biggest stories of the week (which mostly involves Star Wars), but there’s some Marvel and Doctor Who thrown in there too.

You can also read Fanboy Round-Up if you happen to be a fangirl, or a fan of any other sexual orientations. Y’know, we don’t want a total sausage fest up in here.

CONSTANTINE on ARROW

Constantine TV Series

Even though it got pretty good reviews, NBC decided to cancel Constantine after one season. In normal situations that would spell the end for a TV show, but in this day and age there’s a lot of ways for content to survive past its cancellation; fan films, Netflix, and the DC shared universe – the best of the lot, obviously. News broke earlier this week that Matt Ryan’s demon-hunter will be heading over to the CW for an episode of Arrow!!!

“We are thrilled to have Matt Ryan reprise the role of John Constantine on an upcoming episode of Arrow. Matt is an incredibly talented actor and his portrayal of this beloved character was always something we admired,” said Marc Guggenheim.“The introduction of magic and mysticism on the show this season has provided a truly organic opportunity for us to bring John Constantine to Arrow and the CW’s DC universe. It will be a well-deserved tip of the hat to all the Constantine fans who were so incredibly supportive of that series.”

Head up to the link to find out when and where he’ll be bumping fists with Oliver Queen.

A BLACK PANTHER Reveal

Official BLACK PANTHER concept art

No, that isn’t the reveal.

You’re probably aware that the King of Wakanda himself will be popping up in next year’s Captain America: Civil War, and it’s no surprise that our first official look at the guy is via a grainy set photo. The crew are currently in Berlin shooting something or other, including T’Challa and Bucky scaling a building. Why are they working together? What’s the building? Where’s my burrito?

Check ’em out below! Well, one. If you wanna see the rest then you’ll just have to click back at the link above!

On the set of Captain America, Chadwick Boseman plays the Black Panther

C-3PO’S Red Arm

Somewhere inbetween Return of the Jedi and The Force Awakens, C-3PO lost his arm and had to get it replaced with some red piece of scrap. Poor fella.

star wars the force awakens c-3po r2-d2

Aside from the arm, Threepio’s looking pretty good for his age. Usually people start to grey and wrinkle out at sixty-six, but this guy still looks just as mostly-gold and shiny as ever!

This comes from Entertainment Weekly’s huge exposé on the movie, covering everything from character names to the mysteries of Kylo Ren. It’s just one small cog in the massive hype train that is Star Wars – one which is gonna keep on chugging right up ’til December. Check out some more awesome photos at the link above!

DOCTOR WHO Trailer!!!

doctor who series 9

September 19th is creeping ever closer, and with said creeping comes a brand new Doctor Who trailer! It’s got everything: Daleks, emotion, character, epic cinematography and Chewbacca. There’s also a certain clip which appears to be of the Dalek planet Skaro, and we delve into what that could mean for the coming series as well. If you’re a Whovian and you’re looking for some new Series 9 speculation and rumours, then you should probably check it out.

CIVIL WAR Trailer!… at D23

Yup – another trailer. It was Disney’s D23 Expo at the weekend, and Marvel and Lucasfilm were out in full force. The former company brought Doctor Strange concept art with them to show off, but most importantly they screened the first footage for Captain America: Civil War, which we won’t get until around October or so. Nothing leaked online but there’s an absolute ton of descriptions et al at the link. These days you don’t even need to watch a trailer when you’ve got Twitter.

Captain America Civil War

From the sounds of it, the movie is shaping up to be another Marvel hit. Heroes fighting each other isn’t something audiences have seen before so 2016 is going to be a double-whammy, what with this and Batman v Superman. It’s just a shame that they won’t be able to pad out the story across multiple properties like the comics could, as if you want to get the true scope of something like Civil War then it needs a hell of a lot of time. It could be huge, and the film probably will, but the nature of Marvel Studios prohibits it from reaching its full potential.

Who’s Directing STAR WARS EPISODE IX?

Colin Trevorrow, that’s who.

colin trevorrow star wars

Even though Hollywood has become a business obsessed with scheduling and fighting for dates years in advance, it’s rare that a director is announced for a 2019 sequel to a sequel to a sequel that hasn’t come out yet. Except in a galaxy far, far away. Trevorrow rose to fame with the indie hit Safety Not Guaranteed (which is great) and was handpicked by Steven Spielberg himself to resurrect the dormant Jurassic Park franchise with Jurassic World, to the tune of $1.6B. I didn’t like the movie an awful lot, but it was certainly fun, and that’s an absolute necessity for these films.

The problem is the choice is so… bland. His first film demonstrated some true talent, but that seemingly got lost in Jurassic World, a film which had a incredible lack of character development and a poor female representation. J.J. Abrams was the safe choice for The Force Awakens but none of his movies could be called ‘safe’; they’re all very distinct and contain clear echoes of 80’s-era Spielberg. That’s a quality that is very, very rare with modern filmmakers, so he may have been a safe choice but he was the best man for the job. Gareth Edwards, Rian Johnson and Phil Lord and Chris Miller are all great and exciting directors. I know that Colin Trevorrow is capable of delivering a fantastic film but I still think there is a lot more choice. Michelle MacLaren, Alex Garland, Brad Bird, F. Gary Gray. Then again, none of us have any idea what kind of movie Episode IX is gonna be.

The Poster

To top off the week, Disney handed out a special variant poster for Star Wars: The Force Awakens at D23 – and it’s beautiful. The official one will be a little different and is coming (soon, I imagine), but for now we’ve got this, designed by classic Star Wars artist Drew Struzan. Check it out!!!

star wars the force awakens poster

Neat, huh?

We got pretty knee-deep into analysis of this poster and what hints it could contain, so make sure to head over to the link above!


Thus concludes another edition of Fanboy Round-Up. If you enjoyed it then do check out some of our other articles – there are some good’uns, especially all the news that wasn’t covered in this piece. Check back this time next week for another round-up of news; let’s hope this is as big a week as last, ‘ey?