Everything We Learned About The New Star Wars Movies This Week ~ Cinenus

force-awakens-spoilers

It’s been a busy week for Star Wars fans. With D23 opening up today and a big spread in Entertainment Weekly hitting shelves this week, a bunch of details about The Force Awakens and the rapidly expanding Star Wars cinematic universe have come to light. With Friday upon us and a bunch more news to come out of Disney’s annual celebration of itself this weekend, we thought it might be nice to get organized.

Here is what we’ve learned so far. Beware, some of the details outlined below could be considered spoilers, if you’re sensitive about that kind of thing. Otherwise they are just fun facts.

Luke Skywalker got his fashion sense from Obi-Wan

There was an image of Mark Hamill in full Jedi Grandmaster robes that was circulating, but it’s long since been scrubbed by Disney’s legal department. This is fine, as it infers two things: (1) it was absolutely real and (2) an official reveal won’t be far off now. What matters is that we know that Luke is looking very much like he’s still on the right side of The Force and that he’s dressed to impress upon some gifted youths that the power of The Force is within them.

Kylo Ren is a Darth Vader fanboy

In the EW spread, J.J. Abrams talked about Adam Driver’s character Kylo Ren. “[Ren] is well aware of what’s come before, and that’s very much a part of the story of the film,” Abrams said. He’s a fanatic who is obsessed with Darth Vader. He’s also not actually named Kylo Ren. “He is a character who came to the name Kylo Ren when he joined a group called the Knights of Ren,” Abrams explained. He didn’t go into any further detail about the Knights of Ren, but writer Lawrence Kasdan said he’s something very unique to behold. “I’ve written four Star Wars movies now, and there’s never been a character quite like the one that Adam plays. I think you’re going to see something that’s brand new to the saga,” Kasdan said. “He’s full of emotion. No matter how we express ourselves in the world, whether we hide it and act very calm or whether we’re very out there and demonstrative, everybody’s roiling with emotion. And you want your characters to be that way, too. Then they have to deal with their emotions as best they can, with what they are.”

Ren built that crazy lightsaber himself

“The lightsaber is something that he built himself, and is as dangerous and as fierce and as ragged as the character,” Abrams says. This is part of the Kylo Ren character, this notion of being unfinished. When we meet him in The Force Awakens, he won’t quite be as polished and dominant as Vader was in the original trilogy. But he’s trying. Even his mask is a nod to his Vader fandom.

There’s a character named Constable Zuvio

Many of the news bits and leaks came from the barrage of toy information hitting the web. Ethan at /Film has the details on a character named Constable Zuvio, who appears as part of The Force Awakens toy line. This is a character that has not been talked about by the film’s creative team, nor has he appeared in any trailers. The problem is that other than looking like Raiden from Mortal Kombat, we don’t know much about Zuvio. He looks mean and wields a badass staff. I like Ethan’s theory that this could be the role for The Raid‘s Iko Uwais, whose character is yet to be revealed. Though it appears as if it’s going to be a motion capture performance, which brings us no closer to Iko Uwais the mega action star. At this point, we’ll take what we can get.

You’re going to buy a lot of new Star Wars toys

Speaking of toy leaks, here’s a great round-up from io9 of all the various toy leaks. There was one story about a Wal-Mart in Ohio putting a bunch of Force Awakens toys out onto shelves very early. It’s good to see that my home state is keeping the spirit of the Rebel Alliance. Would that make Disney the Empire? Yes it would.

The Force Awakens trailer (Screengrab)

That was Luke Skywalker’s lightsaber

Remember the shot from the trailer that’s clearly Princess Leia being handed a Lightsaber? Many theorized that it was Luke’s Lightsaber being returned to her. The EW spread confirms that yes, that’s exactly what it is. The same lightsaber that Obi-wan gifted to Luke that was later detached from Luke by Darth Vader in The Empire Strikes Back. Who found it and where it will end up are still a very juicy mystery.

Han Solo’s anthology movie will be about his roaring 20s

“He’ll definitely be probably in the high teens, low 20s. We’re not introducing you to a 10-year-old Han Solo,” explains Kathleen Kennedy. The anthology film set to be directed by Phil Lord and Chris Miller (The Lego Movie) is still being conceived, but as Kennedy explains further, they want to ensure that there’s a good reason why Han Solo’s early years should be explored: “There’s got to be a reason for [the stand-alone film] to be. And obviously the thing that Star Wars has always done so well is it doesn’t spend a lot of time [explaining] the stories that have come before. We don’t want to do that either. We don’t want to spend time going back and answering a lot of questions that, quite frankly, I don’t think people want answered…. I think the key here is that we are identifying an event or events in Han Solo’s life that gives you some idea of who he is and why he is the character we have all known to love.”

But what about that Boba Fett movie that Josh Tank was allegedly making?

Kennedy also gave an update on the other anthology movie, the one Josh Trank recently exited just before Fantastic Four exploded in the faces of everyone involved. This is the one that is rumored to be about Boba Fett. Said Kennedy, “It’s still one of the stories that we absolutely want to tell. There is a lot of innovative technology in and around what it is we’re doing with that story, so for a lot of reasons, we were comfortable postponing that. But we’re definitely still developing it.”

Han, Luke and Leia may have varying degrees of importance

While all three of them are back for The Force Awakens, Harrison Ford’s Solo is being touted as a lead character, while the other two may exist a little more in the background. This gives a little credence to that crazy, super-spoilery Han Solo rumor we heard in February. It also lends some weight to some of the fan theories around the origins of a number of characters…

There’s a reason why Rey and Finn don’t have last names

“I will only say about that that it is completely intentional that their last names aren’t public record,” said J.J. Abrams on the subject of Rey (Daisy Ridley) and Finn (John Boyega) having no publicly available last names. This, combined with the fact that Kylo Ren’s name isn’t actually Kylo Ren, is going to fuel all kinds of fan theories. The most interesting, which is discussed by Roth and Donna at HitFix in their latest She Said/She Said, is that at least two of these characters might be children of some of the original trilogy players. My favorite theory is that Kylo Ren and Rey are brother and sister, children of Han and Leia. I know that Jacen and Jaina Solo are not canon anymore, but these characters and arcs are starting to sound familiar. It’s hard not to try to connect the dots a little bit.

J.J. Abrams will not direct Episode IX

Abrams is closing in on the finish line for The Force Awakens and Rian Johnson is getting Episode VIII off the ground, but we don’t yet know who will make the third film in the new trilogy. There is that rumor that Colin Trevorrow has been in talks, but that is yet to be confirmed. There have also been little rumblings about Joss Whedon possibly getting involved, but again, that’s a combo platter of rumors and speculation. At this point, all we know is who isn’t directing it. And that’s Abrams.

The full trilogy story isn’t fully fleshed out yet

“We know where we’re going, but only in the broadest sense,” explained Lucasfilm chief Kathleen Kennedy. “When Rian came in and started writing his script, he started from scratch, other than knowing what we had done in Episode VII and projecting out where it was going. He then sat down and put pen to paper, and it’s 100% him.” It would stand to reason that the Episode IX writer/director team will be in a similar situation — slightly beholden to what has come before, but with the freedom of being able to put their fingerprints on the franchise.

Poe Dameron and Captain Phasma have interesting name origins

According to Abrams, Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac) is named after a combination of his daughter’s stuffed polar bear (“Poe”) and his assistant, whose last name is Dameron. As for Captain Phasma, played by Game of Thrones star Gwendoline Christie, she’s got some roots in a classic horror movie. “Phasma I named because of the amazing chrome design that came from Michael Kaplan’s wardrobe team,” J.J. Abrams said. “It reminded me of the ball in Phantasm, and I just thought, Phasma sounds really cool.”

We agree. Plasma does sound really cool.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens opens December 18.

The source of these interviews can be found via the following links to Entertainment Weekly: One, Two, Three, Four and Five.