“And it’s all about the story and family. I mean that’s what J.J. is all about.” – Greg Grunberg talking about The Force Awakens.
So far The Force Awakens has given us two protagonists and one antagonist without a last name and it has set the speculation machine afire. We’re going to break down what we know about all of our characters and who their possible parents or children are.
Here we are. Another Monday, another time to take a moment and look back and recap what happened last week in Star Wars. Looking back and looking ahead I’m both amazed at how little we knew a year ago, and I’m also amazed at how little we know now given that we are less than 3 months away. Seems like some critical plot points are still clouded by mystery and confusion.
The question that convinced J.J. Abrams to direct The Force Awakens was none other than “Who is Luke Skywalker?”. It makes me wonder what answer he found. Based on prevailing rumors Luke is more McGuffin than character in The Force Awakens, so will we know who Luke Skywalker is at the end of this movie? Does anyone in the movie really know who he is? Is that maybe the real question that J.J. was wanting to answer? Let’s see if we can figure it out based on who he was when we last saw him and what we know so far.
Lets look at who he was when we last saw him. When we first met Luke he was nothing more than a whiny farm boy. From what we could tell he had only his Uncle and Aunt for company and maybe some “friends” in Toshi station. In short he was nothing special. Through ANH we saw him begin to trust the Force would guide him and accept it was his path. By the time we met him again in ESB he had grown in his abilities but is not in wisdom. He learned from master Yoda and increased his skills but took a step back in willingness to follow the Force and truly submit to it like he did during his trench run in ANH. He is cocky and reckless, then he is humbled by his father Darth Vader. Finally Luke completes his journey to becoming Jedi. In RotJ Luke is confident calm and in control of himself he has become Jedi his father should have been.
He was given a mandate by Yoda to pass on what he learned and so he did. He had a spot picked out on Devaron based on the book Weapon of a Jedi to open his Jedi Academy. Presumably, he did set up an Academy. If he did, where are the Jedi he trained? From the rumors and the footage we have seen there are no Jedi. In fact we can say there are only three force users not on side of the First Order, Leia, Maz and Rey. No rumors or leaks conclusively say Finn has the ability to use the force so even though he uses the Luke/Anakin lightsaber I am reluctant to add him. Now I suspect Maz was trained by Luke and it appears she not only knows Han but also Leia and possibly the Luke/Anakin lightsaber. But that is all we have information about so where are the others Luke trained?
We know there is a Force vision flashback scene that is lead by Maz. Here is where our first look at Luke Skywalker in the movie comes from. We have glimpsed a part of it in the trailer I believe that this is the aftermath of the attack on Luke’s Academy all of his apprentices are dead or presumed so as are the Jedi he had trained thus far. Based on reports from both StarWars7news.com and MSW we know this flashback takes place approximately 10 years before the start of TFA. The First Order or the Knights of Ren(or both!) are responsible for the death of the Jedi and based on differing translations of the lines from the Kylo Ren toy Kylo and Snoke believe Luke is the last of the Jedi alive (3 translation use singular Jedi the German translation uses plural).
This tells us after the destruction of the Jedi Luke went into hiding. The question is why would he do so, did he believe that by training Jedi he was forcing the Force to create darkside users? Or was it for his safety and/or others? I have a pet theory that the First Order has the ability to find someone using the force which is why they show up at Maz’s castle. Perhaps Luke figured this out and needed to hide or the Jedi would die. I suspect its a combination of needing to hide and guilt over the death of those he feels he could have or should have been able to save. Most importantly his Nephew(Kylo) and niece or daughter(Rey). I don’t see his hiding as far fetched as both his masters Yoda and Obi-wan hid when they had to.
We did get a leaked photo of Luke during some sort of dress rehearsal, promotional photo or 3D scan for a toy (Most likey). We won’t post it here because there have been “cease-and-desist” orders sent to other sites to take it down. It isn’t hard to find it online with a google search. It’s interesting that his robe lacks sleeves and looks more like this old robe in RotJ, rather than the prequel era Jedi, but this makes sense given this comes right after. His robe is a lighter color. Usually in Star Wars the outfits have symbolic meaning. Characters like Darth Vader and the Emperor wore all black, and in general usually extreme colors signify evil. Whereas the Rebels wore earth tones such as greens, browns, tans, etc, the bad guys wore mostly gleaming white (Storm Troopers), jet black (Vader, Emperor), or blood red (Imperial guards). In RotJ, Luke was skating a little close to the edge, Force-choked Jabba’s guards, and wore this Emperor-like robe:
So it appears with the new costume, Luke is going more earth tones, and lighter, softer shades for his robes. I think that with the new Luke outfit, we are reassured that he is with the light side of the Force. The symbolic significance of character’s wardrobes in Star Wars was perhaps why this image was a pretty serious leak because of what it reveals about which side Luke is on in a sense, hence why they issued take-down orders to many of the sites. It’s crazy to think that a year ago, a lot of people thought Luke would be a cyborg villain. Amazing in hindsight how little we knew back then. So safe to say that Luke is still a good guy.
Star Wars has always been a story of the Skywalker family. It is a little bit hard to imagine a Star Wars that isn’t a story of the Skywalkers in a way. Maybe they can pull it off and expand the galaxy as it were. But the story at its core has been a story of family, in particular the Skywalker family. If there is a character in TFA that is an offspring of Skywalker, it would have to be Rey and/or Kylo Ren. Kylo Ren has been heavily hinted at being Han and Leia’s child in various rumors as has Rey. Technically both would be Skywalkers but named Solo… something tells me the last name is important. Why else would you hide Luke as a baby but let him keep the last name that was known across the galaxy.
I’d say if Rey isn’t Han and Leia’s daughter, they certainly are heavily implying it to fool us. But they wouldn’t do something like that would they? would the makers of the movie ever make elaborate attempts to save the ultimate twist for opening night of a movie? Of course they would. Because this is 2015, and information goes at the speed of light. With the internet today, it isn’t like the days of Empire Strikes Back, when a secret could be kept. The more you think about it, the more it makes sense that they would deliberately imply misinformation to save a few juicy twists. After all, Star Wars is known for having twists based on familial relationships, and maybe this is the only way to make it happen in 2015. So we have to think that if Luke is in hiding he’d have to have had a very compelling reason. I think the loss of his Daughter would be more than enough reason to shut himself off from the rest of Galaxy no matter what is going on. Therefore, regarding whether or not Luke has children, definitely don’t write this one off just yet in fact I lean towards counting on it.
According to the plot synopsis from MSW, we have only one scene with Luke during the TFA time frame, receiving the lightsaber from Rey at the end of the movie. R2, C3PO and BB-8 decode where Luke is and Chewie Rey and BB-8 go to find him. StarWars7news.com has reported there may be a third Luke scene most likely from a recording so the decoded message may be what they are referring to. So will the final scene be Rey handing Luke the lightsaber, doubtful however no matter what this is the only current Luke Skywalker scene we should expect unless SW7N was correct here
Here’s my interpretation of what we will see and hear in Luke and Rey’s final scene.
Rey climbs the outside of a ruined temple and then enters the massive door.
Luke: How did you find me, who are yo- (sharp intake of breathe) I thought you died.
Rey: I ran when we were attacked. Sarco found me and took me away to keep me safe, taught me how to survive and defend myself.
Luke: I didn’t know.
Rey: Its not your fault. This is yours I believe.
Rey hands him the lightsaber.
Luke looks it over and ignites it and smiles.
Rey: I’ve come to complete my training.
Luke: You will be Jedi. Like your father.
Luke hands the lightsaber back to Rey. Scene cuts away to two figures outside the temple fighting one with a blue lightsaber the other with green.
Credits
There you have it everything we know about Luke and how it fits. Let us know what you think in the comments below!
“Is it true, you’re just a scavenger?” -Kylo Ren, presumably to Rey
“Together we will destroy the Resistance and the last Jedi.” -Kylo Ren, presumably to Snoke.
In this spoiler-fueled speculation piece we consider the mounting evidence that suggests that Rey is in fact more than just a scavenger and is in fact a Jedi (or at least was once a youngling or a padawan). Hopefully, by connecting the dots, we can reveal a little something about Rey’s motivation as a character. For starters, let’s consider a recent German Translation from the Official Facebook page of StarWars.de (the official German site) of the second quote from Kylo Ren above (props to Trooper31 from the banthaskull forums for pointing this out):
In particular those last three words. “die letzten Jedi”. Now, I don’t speak German, but according to this map from this page from Wikipedia, we see that the definite article “die”, when used in the nominative case, means either feminine, or plural:
Since we know that at least Luke is a Jedi and is in TFA, this can’t be feminine. Therefore it must mean plural Jedi. This is potentially a major revelation, as it suggests there are more than just Luke.
Second, there is new evidence further supports the idea that Rey is already a Jedi at the start of TFA. We’ve already reported that there is at least some reason to think that Maz Kanata is a Jedi, but I also think Rey is too. This could either be obvious or controversial, but now the biggest piece of evidence comes from a set of trading cards that list character affiliations. MSW reported about this finding, and here is a shot of the relevant characters and all affiliations:
Latino Review also covered this point and posted the same image as did others. So Rey has the symbol that refers to Jedi and Finn does not. The way I see it, there are two possibilities. One, Rey was already a Jedi before the events of The Force Awakens. Two, she becomes a Jedi before the end of the film. However, I think this second possibility seems a bit unlikely. How could the events of TFA that we know of constitute her becoming a Jedi? We have to go back to the instagram teaser showing Finn with a lightsaber, so many have speculated that Finn becomes a Jedi. I would think that using the lightsaber as a weapon would start him on that path. So why does he not have the Jedi affiliation? Do we have to start considering the possibility that Finn doesn’t have Force powers? Up until this point, I would have assumed that Rey and Finn would at least be on the same Jedi path to the same degree, hence both get the affiliation. But the more I think about it…because of these cards I’m starting to realize that we don’t really have confirmation or strong evidence that Finn has Force powers (other than maybe the implication at the start of the first teaser trailer). He is certainly attracted to the lightsaber and uses it at some point in the film and carries it on his jacket. But this doesn’t necessarily make him a Jedi. We get this quote from the plot synopsis from MSW here:
Maz Kanata presents the blue lightsaber to them again. Rey is revolted by it, while Finn is attracted to it.
To me the fact that Rey is revolted by it suggests that Rey has a history with lightsabers, and makes me think a traumatic event related to lightsabers makes her revolted by them. Could be the same traumatic events that led her to end up as a scavenger on Jakku.
The tantalizing theory in all this is that Rey was in fact a Jedi in Luke’s Jedi Academy, which was destroyed many years before the events of TFA, and left and went in hiding after the demise of the Academy. There is a definite possibility this the Academy and all the padawan were killed by the Knights of Ren or Snoke (who else is powerful enough to do it?). Kylo was taken by the Knights of Ren to join their order while she escaped to Jakku. This sheds some light to what Kylo says in the quote at the top, because he remembers her from their days as padawan.
We also know from the MSW plot synopsis that in a couple of places, Rey uses Force powers, like mind-tricks. Now, it’s certainly possible that she just was “a natural”, and just figured out how to do mind-tricks on her own, but somehow this seems like a stretch and would end up looking like a stretch to the audience. I think this is one of many “clues” that the audience will see in TFA that build up the the crescendo revelation at the end that she is a Jedi.
And then we have the bo-staff skills. From the plot synopsis:
A fight ensues between the heroes and the gangs. Rey almost single-handedly takes on the gangs using her skills with a staff.
These aren’t the skills of someone that just figured out how to use a staff while running around Jakku scavenging. How good are they?
We had an old piece here about her stunt double, and another post from StarWars7News, reported here that we got this statement from Kathy Kennedy about Daisy Ridley’s bo-staff skills:
Kennedy: She learned the bōjutsu fighting style. Rey uses the staff she has in the trailer to fight. Daisy’s gotten to be so good at bōjutsu that even grown men on the set fear it. [Laughs]
This is pretty intense. Check out this video of her stunt double if you haven’t already (jump to about 1:35 for the bo-staff):
As if that wasn’t enough, we have the halloween costume found here and reported here, that says she will kick some serious butt (implied with a staff).
Rey will not just be good with a bo-staff, she will be mind-blowingly bad ass with a bo-staff. If these scenes with the staff are as intense as her stunt double can do, it will be one of those moments that people will the talking about when leaving the movie, like the way Maul vs Obi Wan was what everyone talked about after TPM. Now why the heck would they get such a skilled stunt double and not use it? Now, given that, and what MSW calls “special skills”. It certainly sounds like she was a well trained Jedi, but after the traumatic events before TFA, she could never use a lightsaber again, and switched to the staff. While training with a staff has always been part of the early Jedi training (recall Anakin teaching the Felucians staff fighting in the Clone Wars), it is certainly possible that she was once well trained with a lightsaber, although I definitely don’t think she has a lightsaber staff. I think all signs point to her not wanting such a weapon and wouldn’t carry one because she is revolted by lightsabers due to her history.
What about electrostaffs? We have this image of Sarco Plank from the back of “The Weapon of a Jedi” book:
Note this weapon looks like the same kind of lightsaber-proof weapon “electrostaffs” wielded by the Magnaguard Droids from Revenge of the Sith (and similar to Zeb’s weapon):
And we also know that Sarco Plank is on Jakku (next to Rey!?) from this photo from Abu Dhabi from the Vanity Fair shoot (second from the right):
Look at the guy’s staff in the middle. It looks highly similar the Magnaguard Droid electrostaffs!
Now one has to wonder why is Rey leaving directly from Sarco’s location? Is there a deeper connection there? Although it is of course possible that Vanity Fair had them arrange characters in arrangements not seen in the film. Nevertheless, there is a suggestion that there is a deeper connection between Rey and Sarco (and maybe electrostaffs). That, and the fact that the Star Wars Databank for Sarco says he’s also a scavenger (then again, isn’t everyone on Jakku a scavenger?). All this makes me wonder if Rey, like Sarco, chose the only weapon that can defend against a lightsaber due to her traumatic history with them. Is her staff is also equipped with this protective lightsaber-repelling couplings? Just imagine how cool that would be if she fought Kylo with that thing!
In addition to all of this we have the suggestion from Weapon of a Jedi that Sarco meets Luke on Devaron, the same planet where it also sounds like he started the Jedi Academy. So this connects everything strongly. Could it be that Sarco was who brought Rey from the Jedi Academy on Devaron to Jakku after the attack on the Jedi Academy?
Finally, we have the scene at the end (again from MSW’s synopsis) where:
Finn is on the ground, preparing to die. Rey arrives, and Finn tosses her the Skywalker lightsaber, which she has been reluctant to accept up until this point. To save her friend and avenge Han Solo’s death, she takes the weapon and attacks Kylo.
We will get to see Rey use a lightsaber at the end, only because she is forced to, so we’ll know then for sure if she is a Jedi. Did I mention that her stunt double is also highly proficient with a sword? (kicks in after 35seconds):
Everything certainly points to her being be very skilled with a lightsaber, as Jedi typically are, and this final scene will remove any doubt to the audience that this is the case. Everything will build up to this final scene, suggesting that she is more than just a scavenger. At that moment, we will know Rey is a Jedi.
Follow me on twitter for more updates: @davestrrr
Hi everyone, it’s Monday again, so here’s your weekly recap of Movie related news and spoilers.
Episode VII
1. First off on The Force Awakens, there is news from MSW and others that there will be 7pm shows on December 17th.
With the release of multiple “speaking” toys we have our first glimpse into TFA dialog and that leads us to multiple questions. First is will the dialog actually be in the movie as there precedence of that happening(Star Lord toy comes to mind) second where are these in the movie and third who are they talking to? As to the first I believe most if not all of these will be in the movie, though some might end up with a different intonation or slightly different phrasing. As to the second and third question well that’s the point of this article! Note this almost PURE speculation however it is informed speculation. more “We have dialog, what does it mean?”
Through six star wars movies there have been a few consistencies, Lightsabers, Jedi, Star ships and Droids. Often ignored by their human counter parts, the droids have been the supporting cast saving the day as often as our “Heroes”. Yet the two most famous droids in the Galaxy seem conspicuously absent from many of the rumors and advertising with the new kid on the block BB-8 all over the place (with exceptions…recall that R2 was the first character to be confirmed for TFA in the image below). What does this tell about the movie and what has happened to C3PO and R2-D2?
Only four characters made it through the first six movies and three of them went through serious changes: Obi-wan became a force ghost, Anakin became Vader to become Anakin again (force ghost) and C3PO had his memory wiped. This means only R2-D2 has been through it all and remains unchanged. For most of the major story arcs through all six previous films either R2-D2 and/or C3PO was present and for the few they weren’t present it is certain they were around when the main characters discussed what happened and they no doubt discussed what they saw and heard between themselves. For this reasons it has seemed that we are being told these stories by R2-D2 and C3PO (translating R2 for the prequels) and before the introduction of BB-8 I assumed they’d be telling the sequels too. However our droid duo has become a trio or possibly even a quatro.
It appears that for the first half of this movie BB-8 is our “story teller” as he is around most of the action. He is Poe’s droid that escapes when Poe can’t and is found by Rey. From there the two hook up with Finn and then Han, Maz etc. Throughout every rumor of the first half of the movie BB-8 is there or will no doubt over hear what happened (Finn and Poe’s escape).
With that, we have a parallel to ANH. In ANH we had Leia entrust the Death Star plans with R2, and in TFA we’ll likely see Poe entrust BB-8 with the lightsaber, assuming he’s found it at this point, and the story will follow BB-8 for a bit like it did the droids.
R2 and C3PO are with Leia at the Resistance base as is another new droid character PZ-4CO(the possible fourth), who we were introduced to in Moving Target. In fact, StarWars.com updated its databanks with an entry for “peazy-fourseeo”. Based on the rumors it appears that after Luke’s Jedi academy is attacked and destroyed, R2, who was with Luke, is sent to Leia. C3PO was already with her in a role much like his in ESB and PZ-4CO is acting as Leia personal droid.
From the plot synopsis posted at MakingStarWars.net, we know that one critical role the droids will play is decoding some kind of puzzle hidden in Luke’s lightsaber. Perhaps, Luke put it there so that they would find him eventually when the events before the film were set in motion. R2 has shown himself to be a natural code-breaker, plugging into computer terminal and interpreting the Imperial network in the earlier films. It’s possible that the old duo of R2 and C3P0 aren’t in the film a lot, but nevertheless play this critical role in moving the plot forward. Indeed, it could be the scene from the above canister where this happens.
One big question that may mean absolutely nothing is C3P0’s red arm. Could be nothing could be something. Probably nothing and probably won’t even be mentioned in the films….still. Some people around the web have pointed out that the red accent is on his left side, just like the red accents seen on the TIE fighers:
So if we were to go out on a limb and get crazy-speculative here you might wonder is this red accent a First Order thing? Makes you wonder if before the events of the film, C3P0 was trying to infiltrate the First Order at some point and had to change out his arm to fit in with the other First Order droids who are also adorned with this red accent. Part of why this is pure speculation is to my knowledge we haven’t seen any First Order droids yet. Interesting hypothesis nonetheless. We will get an answer soon though as there is a one shot C3PO comic on the way in December that tells us why he has his red arm.
Here are some of the most interesting bits of news from the past week. As usual, we focus pretty much only on news that has direct implications for the movies. First, did you see the set of hi-res images that hit the web, like this one here that shows Kylo Ren and Storm Troopers behind him. The detail is stunning:
Poe Dameron is one of the new big three, but to a certain extent, a lot about him remains mysterious. I hesitate to say we know less about him than Finn or Rey, because something tells me we have a lot to learn about both of those characters…Nevertheless, let’s dig up the latest info on Poe and see if we can piece together news and spoilers to figure out anything about him.
Some new pieces of news emerged in the Shattered Empire comic book. Because sof this, we learned more about Poe’s motivations as a character. There is a strong suggestion that Poe’s parents fought in the battle of Endor. Although it isn’t explicitly stated in the book, other readers around the web share this feeling. At least, we have two characters introduced that are married and could plausibly be Poe’s parents:
There is also suggestion that Leia knew Poe going way back. This kind of gives a little frame of reference to the idea that Leia entrusts Poe with a very important mission. If we recall from Celebration, Oscar Isaac’s claims that “He’s been sent on a mission by a certain princess. He comes across John Boyega’s character and their fates are forever intertwined.”. It could be that Leia’s long-time connection to Poe and his family plays a big part in her entrusting this kind of a mission. That is, if we need more of a reason than him being the “best friggin’ pilot in the galaxy”!
We haven’t read the Leia young adult novel “Moving Target” either, but others that have read it suggest that when Leia asks about Jakku in this book, she is possibly asking about the pilot to whom she entrusted that mission, given that we know he is there at the start of TFA. This indeed suggests a strong connection and friendship between Leia and Poe. Some have even gone as far as to speculate that Leia is a type of mother-figure for Poe, maybe due to him losing his parents many years before TFA.
For me, the fact that Poe’s parents fought in the Rebellion sheds some more light on Isaac’s comments at SDCC that he could have been watching a video of the battle of Yavin (actually he says Yarvin) and looking up to the likes of Luke Skywalker. The dates would be off for him to see it live, but he may have watched videos of it because of his parents. Certainly his parents would make sure that he learned of the Rebellion and the Empire from a young age, and instilled a sense of loyalty from an early age. In fact, we have an early suggestion from Oscar Isaac (although I can’t seem to find the original source) that his character is in fact from Yavin IV. If this is true, given the timing of everything and his age, this would suggest that his parents moved back to Yavin IV after the battle of Endor. There is some speculation out there that the shot of X-wings flying over the rivers surrounded by mountains from the trailer is in fact on Yavin IV.
What else have we recently learned about Poe? Because of a recent update to the StarWars.com databank, we know that Poe was the “Black Leader”, a leader of a squad of Resistance X-wing fighters. We know that at least Poe flies a dark hulled X-wing in this role, shown in this toy and the image below to have red accents. It isn’t clear to me whether the rest of the X-wings in the squadron that Poe leads are also pained black. For example the photo above from StarWars.com shows nothing but the blue and gray X-wings. Makes me think that the “Black Leader” is the only pilot to have a black X-wing.
There was a claim earlier on MakingStarWars.com that Poe would be part of the “Black Squadron”, but it seems that it has recently been confirmed that the “Black Squadron” is in fact a First Order squadron of TIE fighters. Therefore, this strongly suggests that Poe’s squadron of X-wings is not called the Black Squadron. If that is the case, the idea that the “Black Leader” is the only resistance X-wing fighter with a black hull seems more plausible.
All I know is, black TIE fighers fighting a black X-wing in space is going to look pretty sick.
That last linked article also shows us that Poe’s helmet changes from blue to the black one we see in the trailer. That could mean that Poe starts associated with another (blue?) squadron, and at some point in the movie, Poe is promoted to black leader.
We also have that quote from MSW “The black TIE makes all the difference”. This quote is getting more and more confusing. It sounded like that Poe wanted to paint a TIE that he stole from the First Order black, so that people would know that it’s him, the “black leader”. However, given that we know that the black squadron was a TIE squardon, and we also know that Poe and Finn steal a TIE that certainly looks black (see image below) and crash it on Jakku, then this seems a big confusing. What could it mean?
Going back to X-wings, have you seen the Lego commercials? Check out the X-wing commercial here because that server isn’t getting hammered enough as of late. Who is that bearded X-wing pilot that greets Poe? Might be Greg Grunberg’s character. Maybe we will see a lot of interaction between these two in the film. Certainly plausible if not likley.
So to recap, here’s what we got:
It’s definitely easy to see some parallels with ANH here. Leia entrusts R2D2 with the plans to the Death Star, and similarly, Leia entrusts Poe with a mission on Jakku. So there is a possible parallel with Poe and BB8 mirroring R2D2 and C3P0. It seems like BB8 ultimately carries away the lightsaber similar to the way that R2 continues with the plans to the Death Star. So the parallel kind of crumbles after that, but it is clear that they are playing some of the same notes, just re-imagined. Ultimately, in the rest of the sequel trilogy, it seems that Poe will take the place of Han as the key pilot character (or at least one of them if Rey pilots the Falcon). If Han and Leia are married, one would expect that Poe also knows Han, but that is definitely not for sure as many suggest that Han and Leia have been separated for a while.
Beyond this info, I gotta say I’m grasping for more. If I’m missing something, hit me up on twitter and let me know.
davestrrr
Mazlow01: This is just awesome stuff and I think I’m going to do a post tomorrow about filling in the dialog and where it fits in the sequence of the movie. Nothing too spoiler-ish but the line “destroy the last Jedi” tells us Luke is all that is left and to me implies that Leia never learned to use the force. I’m not sure I like that.
davestrrr: I think Phasma sounds great. You can definitely tell she is a woman by her voice. I’m only pointing that out because in a way that is a departure from other aspects of this character’s design. As for Finn, I think he sounds pretty cool. I think his normal accent would have worked and I’m a little disappointed they didn’t use it, but I think his American accent rocks too.
Mazlow01: I’m a little surprised by the description of the super-weapon. I think they left out its most important feature, it can do so through hyperspace. Unlike the Death Star, the Starkiller weapon doesn’t have to be close to kill. The rest of these seem like the entries on the back of one of the toys.
davestrrr: Some new characters here too. At this point, between the toys and the coloring books, the new characters are coming in so fast, it isn’t clear if any of these are new, or just hit the web yesterday. I’m a little intrigued by Sarco Plank now that I know that he has a history with Luke Skywalker due to “Weapon of a Jedi”.
Mazlow01: I’m hoping this means either a Knight of Ren or he’s an a-hole but on the side of the resistance.
davestrrr: No surprise here. Good to get some confirmation of what a lot of people suspected, though. I think the fact that we are getting a new villain is a little concerning. Hopefully he is not replacing one of the bad guys that I want to see more of…I certainly hope that Kylo Ren and Snoke make it past this film and are developed further. There were some reports that Hux doesn’t make it out of TFA alive, so maybe Del Toro’s role will be similar to Hux.
Mazlow01: I doubt its Galen Marek, its probably just a throw in name to give people a feeling of familiarity. I doubt he will have force powers, I hope he doesn’t.
davestrrr: I also doubt that it is Galen Marek, but hey, when I heard this rumor my first thought was that if it was Galen Marek, what if they develop this character throughout all the anthology films, almost as if we have a trilogy of Anthology films connected by a common villian. If something like that is in the works, then it might be cool to introduce a character as potentially big as Vader’s apprentice. Nevertheless, it seems very unlikely because his age doesn’t really work out with Rogue One unless they change the character for the new canon.
In this spoiler-fueled speculation piece we ask the question: Were the Knights of Ren founded by an ancient Sith Lord named “Darth Ren”? What can we learn from combining the latest spoilers and confirmed info with the old Mizzlewump post?
It’s remarkable how many of the original Mizzlewump rumors have held up. If we recall, “Mizzlewump” claimed to have read the second draft from Abrams/Kasdan. Let’s take another look at this old post in light of what we now know. Looking back at the original list most of the points seem highly plausible. Here is the list:
When the first teaser for The Force Awakens was released back in November it had Storm Troopers, TIE fighters and a bad guy in black with a red lightsaber, it is so very familiar and yet different. Was the Empire still around? What happened to them after Return of the Jedi? Then we were told these new Storm Troopers we members of The First Order, so who exactly are the First Order?
