Star Wars Weekly: Big Mandalorian news and some stunning Star Wars hotel updates

Time again for STAR WARS WEEKLY, the SYFY WIRE series that rounds up the most important news of the week from a galaxy far, far away. Think of us as your own personal Star Wars Holocron.

JON FAVREAU SPEAKS

Jon Favreau, the mastermind behind Lucasfilm's upcoming Disney+ show The Mandalorian, took some time to talk to The Hollywood Reporter, and he dropped a lot of fascinating tidbits. For one, he's definitely working on the second season of The Mandalorian, which is usually good news about a series. When it's greenlit for a second season before the first even premieres, it's a great sign that Disney and Lucasfilm higher-ups are confident in the show, which bodes well for fans.

Perhaps the most interesting part of the interview came when THR's reporter tried to get him to complain about the prequels, but Favreau deflected.

"Well, I would argue that the prequels are — and [George] Lucas in general is — the bedrock that all of this is built on. He is the first person that had digital photography, he was the first person to do completely CG characters," Favreau said. "The whole notion of not having even a print [version of the film], of having everything be 0's and 1's, was all George. Not to mention EditDroid, which turned into Avid, Pixar was spawned out of their laboratories at Lucasfilm, so he is arguably the center of the Big Bang for everything that I'm doing. It's building on the shoulders of what he was able to innovate."

Favreau has previously knocked the prequels, but in recent conversations, interviews, and at this year's Celebration, he began to change his tune. He credits Dave Filoni with showing him the way of the prequels. To see him divert the question to this sort of answer is good news for Star Wars fans who want the minds behind the future of the lore to be respectful of all aspects of it.

Add to that the enthusiasm Favreau had for the project in the first place, admitting in this interview that he'd started writing The Mandalorian before he even knew if it was going to be a possibility, and it feels like this chapter of Star Wars is in a safe place.

GALAXY'S EDGE HOTEL NEWS

At the preview of D23, people got a look at the new Galaxy's Edge hotel. It's called Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser, and the ship itself will be called the Halcyon, a part of the Chandrila Star Liner fleet. Chandrila is the home planet of Mon Mothma and the first new capital of the Republic after the fall of the Empire. What that means for the story of the hotel is anyone's guess.

In another bit of news, Walt Disney World News Today got a look at what may well be the preliminary pricing for the Star Wars resort/hotel situation that is currently being built in Florida. And it's not cheap.

The sources that supplied WDWNT with the information explain that the pricing seems to be based around a full experience (two nights and three days), rather than longer or shorter experiences. For one person, it's just over a thousand dollars a day: $3,300. You can cut that cost down by getting a cabin for five for $7,200, which brings the price down to about $480 per day per person. It's not going to be a cheap experience, but we can hope the high price means the attraction is going to be, literally, out of this world.

RIAN JOHNSON SPEAKS

Rian Johnson spoke with Joseph Gordon-Levitt on the first episode of Gordon-Levitt's podcast Creative Processing. During the conversation, Johnson talked about how he needs to be pushing the boundaries of Star Wars in order to stay true to the original artistic intent of George Lucas and the minds behind Star Wars.

Star Wars: The Last Jedi pushed boundaries in the same way that Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back pushed against the norms established in Star Wars: A New Hope. It's what makes Star Wars incredible and rich.

"With every movie, they were stepping outside those bounds and pushing the characters into new, emotionally honest, but surprising places," Johnson said. "That's why those movies are great. That's why they're alive. And if they had then been looking at something that came before it and saying, 'Oh, we better not do this because that is outside of this or that,' it would've been different."

We covered more on this interview on SYFY WIRE, so be sure to check it out.

DISNEY+ GETS CLOSER

As Disney gets closer to launching its new streaming service, it continues offering glimpses into the sorts of things we'll be getting. It's been hitting social media hard and offering new glimpses like this.

November 12 can't come soon enough.

MILLENNIUM FALCON: SMUGGLER'S RUN

To end this week, there's another interview from Galaxy's Edge. This one is with an Imagineer who was partially responsible for the premiere ride experience at Disney's new Star Wars park.

 

Until next week: May the Force be with you!