The cast of Star Wars: Episode VII just keeps getting bigger.
LucasFilm announced this weekend (via ComingSoon) that newcomers Crystal Clarke and Pip Andersen will be joining the cast in as-yet unspecified roles. Crystal Clarke is slated to make her big screen debut in the upcoming mermaid movie The Moon and the Sun, and Pip Andersen – now credited as “Pip Anderson” in the official press release – is a parkour expert previously featured in “MTV’s Ultimate Parkour Challenge.” So it stands to reason that Star Wars: Episode VII is probably going to have at least a little parkour in it.
The Star Wars franchise is no stranger to pop culture zeitgeists, of course. George Lucas cast the flashy wushu martial artist Ray Park as the villain Darth Maul in 1999’s The Phantom Menace, right at the time when kung fu movies (and Park in particular) were starting to have an enormous surge in popularity in America. So it comes as no surprise that Star Wars: Episode VII appears to be doing the same thing with parkour, the acrobatic freerunning that took the world by storm in District B13 and later popped in films like Casino Royale, Live Free or Die Hard and Step Up 3D.
Related: Interview with Parkour Legend David Belle
Although if you think about it, using a lightsaber in parkour should probably count as cheating. Why would you run over or around something when you could just slice your way right through it?
This Week in Film News – Week Ending 04/11/14
William Bibbiani is the editor of CraveOnline’s Film Channel and the host of The B-Movies Podcast and The Blue Movies Podcast. Follow him on Twitter at @WilliamBibbiani.
This Week in Film News – Week Ending 07/11/14
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