There’s still a year-and-a-half to go until Star Wars: Episode VIII arrives in theaters, which means fans are left with ample time to speculate on what lies ahead in the famed film franchise. Director Rian Johnson provided a fresh hint to obsess over on Thursday when he posted a new set photo on Tumblr. The image doesn’t give away much — it’s just a robe in a cave — but it nonetheless set off a flurry of fan activity.
At this point, principal photography is thought to be nearly complete, according to Cnet. Johnson certainly seemed to indicate as much in his caption, which reads, “in the home stretch.” Although he let the picture do all the talking, fans were more than happy to use words to discuss the significance of the cloak after Johnson also posted it on Twitter.
Many assumed the robe was Luke Skywalker’s, given that he was last seen in The Force Awakens wearing something similar — if not the same exact robe. From there, others made the leap that it spelled bad news for the Jedi. “RIP Luke,” wrote user Dave Donovan.
User Jenny Wilson was similarly concerned for Mark Hamill’s beloved character, urging the director in a hashtag not to be like The Force Awakens director J.J. Abrams.
@rianjohnson @HamillHimself Very mixed feelings about this. If you kill off Luke, I will never speak to you again! #DontBeLikeJJ
— Jenny Wilson (@JennyWilson64) June 9, 2016
Meanwhile, still other fans are convinced that the robe belongs to Rey (Daisy Ridley), and that Luke is either training her and/or is her father.
As much as Star Wars die-hards were happy to discuss their theories, there were also plenty of people who turned it all into a joke, as you might have expected. The photo inspired quips about laundry detergent, what Johnson wears to work, a nude Jedi, and the robe itself being Rey’s father.
Star Wars: Episode VIII is due out on December 15, 2017.
China just gave Hollywood a cautionary tale about AI filmmaking. Sanxingdui: Future Past, billed as the country's first fully AI-generated movie, hit theaters on October 23 and bombed at the box office.
According to Futurism, the film's reported $1.5 million production budget landed on more than 10,000 screens. Yet it pulled in only about $181,000, averaging roughly $20 per screen, making the budget difficult to recover.
Some of the best shots in Grok Imagine’s AI-made Odyssey don’t contain actors. Ancient landscapes stretch into the distance. Close-ups of grimy hands suggest people who have touched something rougher than a keyboard. For a few seconds, the illusion holds.
https://twitter.com/imagine/status/2113712964419063911
YouTube videos could soon look better without eating quite so much data, right? Thankfully, the platform plans to introduce a new video format called AV2 on its web player in early 2027, promising more efficient streaming and potentially fewer playback hiccups on slower internet connections. The big headline is a roughly 30% improvement in compression efficiency over AV1, YouTube's existing video format. That doesn't guarantee every video will use 30% less data, but it could make streaming a little easier on both internet connections and data allowances.
What is AV2, and why should viewers care?