This one is going to be fun for me…

As many of our regular readers know, I’m more prone to interact with you guys in the Comments sections than most other writers in my community. Mainly because I have a true love for the topics I write about and getting to engage with fellow fans about them is fun for me. There are certain recurring themes that come up, and today I get to address one of them in an actual article instead of in a Comment(WEEEEE!!!).

There are perils writing for a site like LRM. See, we know you guys love scoops. We know you want the freshest, most inside information possible. We’re happy to go digging into monolithic film productions and try to find out everything we can for YOU. Sometimes it means making enemies (Marvel Studios famously began shutting us out after we successfully reported one scoop too many), sometimes it means we bring you a piece of news that’s so fresh that it might not even make it to the big screen! We caught it at the idea stage, or during a phase of pre-production, or even early post-production, and we reported it to you…only for it to get cut or altered before the final version of the film is released. When the latter happens, people love to point fingers and say, “LIARS! You made that up! We can’t trust you!“

Here’s the thing…

When that second option happens, it’s out of our control. Such was the case when our good friend Devin Faraci exclusively reported that STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS would open with a peculiar shot of Luke’s disembodied hand floating around space, clutching his old lightsaber. As anyone who’s seen the movie can attest, that didn’t happen. They went a different way. In the months since THE FORCE AWAKENS took over the world, there’ve been plenty of readers/posters who’ve mocked, derided, and called Devin untrustworthy because of this so-called “bogus” report. Hell, people have pointed that out when questioning his recent reports about the behind-the-scenes chaos currently going on over at Warner Bros with the DCEU.

Thing is: Devin was 100% right.

According to Luke Skywalker himself, Mark Hamill, that seemingly wacky opening was the original plan:

“One day I read the first 15 minutes of the film absolutely accurately. I can tell you now that in the original opening shot of [episode] seven, the first thing that came into frame was a hand with a lightsaber, a severed hand that enters the atmosphere, and then the hand and bone burns away and goes sticking into the surface of Jakku. And this alien hand comes in — don’t know if it was Maz — but it was an alien hand who takes the lightsaber away, and then the movie proceeds as you see it.”

The above quote came from an interview the actor gave to The Sun, and it was in response to all the secrecy that surrounds STAR WARS. Hamill was stunned by the fact that someone got through all of Disney/LucasFilm’s tight security and managed to get that scoop to the public.

Since Devin and Birth Movies Death are great allies of LRM, we here take special pride in congratulating them for this vindication. We’ve been through it before ourselves, and while it feels good for the truth to come out, the sad bit is that this part rarely gets as much press as the first part- The part where everyone rakes us over the coals. 

Here’s an example:

Last month, I happened upon a two year old video from another site. The title of the video was “Latino Review’s Exclusive Avengers 2 Scoop is BULLSHIT.” The site then gleefully “assaulted” LRM in a 12 minute diatribe, breaking down how we’re totally manufacturing a massive scoop we had about AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON. Needless to say, practically everything we reported turned out to be true. So I wrote to the guy, and here’s how it went:

See how easy that was? They devote a whole video- that’s still on YouTube!- to not just questioning us, but totally trying to tear us apart, and then when the truth comes out is there a video to say “Oh, LR was right. Sorry!” Nope. It didn’t happen here. It didn’t happen when we exclusively reported that Sony/Marvel were about to announce a special deal that would bring Spider-Man into the MCU- including specific details about him appearing in CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR, Andrew Garfield getting replaced, Peter going back to high school with a real teenage actor, and Iron Man appearing in the first solo Spidey movie. 

I’m bringing all this stuff up to say: Remember, boys and girls, sites like ours work to get you the freshest, hot-off-the-presses happenings from your favorite productions. Sometimes those things make it to the final product, sometimes they don’t. Keep that in mind next time you want to write “Bullshit!” Oh, and try to have a memory span that lasts longer than 15 minutes.

And those of you that know the deal, keep coming back. LR works for you. F*ck the studios.

Peace!

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SOURCE: The Wrap