 Hints, Rumors and Clues About Episode Two
by Brad Cook Now, rumormongers can pass on bogus information to not just a handful of people, but all of them at once. Even reporters with the mainstream media aren't immune to this problem; witness the ridiculous "thirty percent of the footage is out of focus" rumor which started at Ain't It Cool News during the production of Episode One and spread everywhere. People who didn't care about Star Wars at all suddenly knew that there was not only a new film in the works, but it was also supposedly in trouble. Will fans learn from their mistakes and refrain from repeating them this time around? Well, no; they won't. All it takes is someone with enough cunning and the desire to stir up trouble and the rumor mill starts working overtime. Already we've seen what's supposed to be a scan of a script page float around the web, to say nothing of silly ideas like a clone of Darth Maul known as Darth Rage. To help you muddle through this mess, Mania has done the legwork and assessed most of the rumors out there. Let's take them in their most common categories: Casting Cast members who are locked down: Ewan McGregor, Natalie Portman, Samuel L. Jackson, Ian McDiarmid and Ahmed Best (Obi-Wan Kenobi, Queen Amidala, Mace Windu, Senator (now President) Palpatine and Jar Jar Binks, respectively) have all been confirmed officially by Lucas himself, producer Rick McCallum, and/or the official Star Wars site (www.starwars.com). One can only assume that Anthony Daniels (C3-PO), Kenny Baker (R2-D2) and Pernilla August (Shmi Skywalker) will return as well, unless this film's plot is a radical departure from what everyone expects. And if Mace Windu is back, we can also assume that the rest of the Jedi Council, including Yoda (controlled and voiced by Frank Oz) will make some sort of appearance. Perhaps this time we'll see more of the Jedi who inhabit the temple on Coruscant. Finally, rumors are rampant that Qui-Gon Jinn will return as a spirit a la Ben Kenobi in the original films, which makes sense, although that one will probably be impossible to confirm ahead of time since that part could be done quickly and secretly (Alec Guinness shot all his lines for The Empire Strikes Back in one day as production was winding down). In a recent Entertainment Weekly story, Liam Neeson didn't know whether or not he would come back, saying only "I'm going to make sure my passport's up to date." Anakin Skywalker This is the role which everyone is speculating on, much as everyone speculated on the actor who would play Obi-Wan in Episode One. Right now it looks like we have four frontrunners for the part: IGN Movies (movies.ign.com) is looking out for Eric Christian Olsen, who confirmed in an interview with them that he would be auditioning for the role soon. He's on the Fox TV show Get Real. Harry Knowles over at Ain't It Cool News (www.aint-it-cool-news.com) thinks it will be unknown guy Jeff Garner, who is a lot like Ray (Darth Maul) Park: a martial arts practitioner with very little acting experience. In fact, he fought Park in a tournament in 1999. TheForce.Net likes the chances of Paul Walker, who's been in the films Varsity Blues and She's All That. Finally, Coming Attractions (www.corona.bc.ca) has one scooper who's leaning heavily toward Leonardo DiCaprio and another who's talking about Ryan Phillippe (Cruel Intentions, I Know What You Did Last Summer). Unlike with the role of Obi-Wan, there's no clear frontrunner yet, even though production is slated to begin in the fall. Lucas is likely hedging his bets and is probably being more careful this time around with regard to information about the film; he probably doesn't want any actor's agent to learn something about other Anakin hopefuls which will give him or her leverage in negotiations. Boba Fett Lucas has confirmed that Fett will play a much larger role in this film, but who will play him? Jeremy Bulloch, who donned the suit for the original films, hasn't been contacted yet as far as anyone knows. Since two others played Fett in the retrofitted Special Editions footage, it could really be just about anyone. Depending on the needs of the role, there may be a requirement for certain physical skills and attributes over acting ability; his handful of lines in The Empire Strikes Back were dubbed anyway. New Roles Ain't It Cool News broke the possibility a few weeks ago that Gillian Anderson (from the X-Files) may play a Jedi Knight. One of Knowles' spies claims to have asked her point-blank about the part and was given a "No comment" answer. Supposedly Aurra Sing will appear as well. She's a bounty hunter with a long ponytail coming out of the top of her head; if you blinked at the wrong moment during The Phantom Menace you would have missed her. She was shown ever so briefly during the pod race. In Dark Horse's Star Wars comics, writer and artist Tim Truman has established that she hunts Jedi and keeps their lightsabers as trophies, which works in perfectly with what we know will happen in the next two films. Variety reported recently that Lucas would respond to the charges of racism leveled against him during Episode One's release by including "a Native American character, said to have a forceful, spiritual nature, an Indian or Hispanic character; and an Asian character, possibly trained in martial arts." This claim was denied by the official site. Storyline Lucas himself has acknowledged that Episode Two will feature a love story, most likely a romance between Anakin and Amidala. Rumors that Obi-Wan will also have feelings for Amidala and create a triangle have swirled for a long time. While this sounds a lot like the Han-Leia-Luke triangle in the original films, one of the reasons why it worked then was the basic fact that love triangles have lots of inherent drama. Of course, Han and Luke's differences lent some intrigue to that drama while Obi-Wan and Anakin are likely to have more similar temperaments, but it's still an intriguing possibility. Lucas is also quoted in The Making of The Phantom Menace as saying "that's what Episode II is: a love story, with the Sith's relentless drive to take over the universe in the background. The challenge was to balance those two things." Will the long-rumored fight between Anakin and Obi-Wan on the edge of a volcano take place? Rumors say that the production will film such a battle near Mount Vesuvius in Italy when they return there this summer. According to McCallum in an interview in the most recent Star Wars Insider, though, "That's nonsense! We are definitely returning to Caserta [where the Naboo palace scenes were shot] and there may be a few other locations in Italy, but we don't know yet because we haven't done all the location scouting." The bottom line is that we know Anakin and Obi-Wan will have a violent confrontation of some sort, but where and when it happens is anyone's guess, at least until filming starts and more reliable information gets out. In an interview with the Japanese magazine CUT last year, Lucas acknowledged that the droid battle armies in Episode One were too easy to beat and that we'll learn in Episode Two why they evolved into human armies. This sounds a lot like the genesis of cloning, but, as always, the official word stops just short of confirming that. McCallum has been quoted in the past, however, as saying that the Clone Wars do indeed take place in the next movie. What the war is over, though, is still a mystery. As for locales, McCallum also said in the most recent Insider that he had recently been scouting locations in Tunisia, Italy, Spain and Australia. Sounds like Tatooine and Naboo will return, but it's anyone's guess which other planets will show up. Coruscant is a likely bet, and don't be surprised if Alderaan (Princess Leia's home planet) makes an appearance. Rumors abounded during pre-production for TPM that ILM was working on a large water battle. While it didn't happen in that film, it could happen in this one. One likely location for such a fight is Mon Calamari, the home planet of Admiral Ackbar (the fish-eyed guy who led the battle around the Death Star in Return of the Jedi). Production According to McCallum, the film will start shooting in June. Lucasfilm has abandoned England and opted for Australia for indoor shooting; cheaper costs and more distance between the film and potential spies probably had a hand in that decision. The target release date is still May 2002; most fans who wonder how that could be will remember that principal photography for TPM happened during the summer of 1997 even though the film came out last year. It took ILM that long to finish the enormous amount of effects work required, and it's likely that the same post-production schedule will be in place for this film. Everyone thinks they know how many drafts of the screenplay Lucas has written. His own deadline for completing it was last Christmas, according to a press conference in France which he and McCallum appeared at last year. As for the number of drafts he's written and how the storyline has changed over time, we probably won't know that for a number of years. The full scoop on the evolution of the original films wasn't revealed until the 1997 publication of Star Wars: The Annotated Screenplays, which exhaustively explained all the differences in all the drafts using interviews with the participants as well as the drafts themselves and even meeting notes. We can probably expect a similar time frame for learning everything about the new movies. Secrets And Rumors As with the last film, rumors are currently few and far between out there on the web, but the information flow should pick up once production starts and more people become involved in the movie. The last film was plagued by leaks, including someone who went around snapping photos on the sets; by the time the movie came out, everyone who wanted to know the story had found it out; even the soundtrack song title listing gave away a major plot point by titling one cut "Qui-Gonn's Death". Lucas kept past surprises well-hidden for The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. While filming the climactic duel between Luke and Darth Vader in Empire, for example, he had minimal crew on the set and even fed David Prowse a fake line (he said "Obi-Wan is your father"). Despite the fact that people such as Archie Goodwin and Al Williamson (the writer and penciller of the comic book adaptation) and Donald F. Glut (the writer of the novelization) and their respective editors knew the truth, it still didn't leak out. Of course, one could argue that there were no surprises of that magnitude in TPM. Perhaps the big shocks are waiting in the wings for the next movie, and Lucas will throw all the spies and all the fan sites for a loop with a scene or two which are never revealed until opening day. Let's hope so.
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