ZkinandBonez

joefavs said:

And here’s something really interesting. Empire Magazine gives us our first canonical map of the galaxy:

Tobar said:

UGH, they kept the Unknown Regions as a giant blot that reaches right next to the Galactic Core. So DUMB.

I’ve always maintained that the Unknown Regions should have been one of the spiral arms of the galaxy. At least that would have made some sense.

Hasn’t it always been like that in SW canon though?

Link:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/20535561/SW Galaxy map.jpg

I googled it and I really can’t find a map where the unknown regions aren’t like that. It seems more like they’ve just removed a bunch of planets from the old map and added a few new ones.
I could be wrong though, it’s hard to back-track the canon on Wookieepedia.

Does anyone know what the first map of the SW galaxy looked like?
EDIT: It’s from 1999 and looked like this; http://i1.wp.com/www.tor.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/star-wars-njo-map.jpg?fit=429%2C 9999&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C321px

(PS. why is Bespin and Hoth right next to each other in both maps? Didn’t Han refer to it as being “far away” when they were hiding in the asteroid field in the Hoth system?)

Looks like it.
(They kind of remind me of Vader’s helmet seen from behind.)

I was also somewhat surprised by the lax security. You would think Poe was a high priority prisoner considering the whole massacre that we’ve seen take place in the trailers in order to capture him during his meeting with Max von Sydov (forgot the character name). You’d think they’d give him more than a one-man-escort to his cell.

Nothing new really, but it’s a photo we have not seen before.

The background characters in Maz Kanata’s castle is apparently already getting they’re own Disney canon backstories.
http://www.starwarsnewsnet.com/2015/11/four-new-journey-to-the-force-awakens-promos-tease-alien-tales.html

This guy’s apparently called Captain Ithano according to the back of the book, and although they seem to go for a more OT kind of feel they’re not shying away from using the PT lore.

That woman we saw sitting on top of the large Thrandoshian looking guy is also going to get her own book and is called Bazine.
http://www.starwarspost.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/PerfectWeapon-Cover-673x1024.jpg

Constable Zuvio is already getting his own book;
http://www.starwarsnewsnet.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/JTTFA1.jpg
And these guys that we briefly saw in the B-roll footage from D23 is also getting a story (which looks really weird);
http://www.starwarsnewsnet.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/JTTFA4.jpg

It seems like the new Disney EU is going to give every single background character as much of a backstory as the old one did. Not that I really expected any less, but what I’m most curious about now is what they’ll do with the old background characters from the OT and PT. Will they eventually just re-write everything about Sy Snootles, Figrin D’an, etc, or will they just recycle the old stories.

TK428 said:
What, if anything, do we know about the alter-ego that was mentioned for Adam Driver known as “Darklighter”. Is he playing both sides or were those all flash backs or maybe just early production ruses?

Kylo have been described as a Darklighter?
Man, wouldn’t that be a twist ending; Kylo Ren being Biggs’ son. Heck, so far he’s been speculated to be the son of practically the entire main cast of the OT, so why not move over to the supporting cast.

Well I think we can safely assume that Palpatine was just plain “evil.” Vader was however corrupted by evil (the dark side, etc.) and Kylo seems to do evil in an attempt to do good.
Whereas the OT had a very Tolkien-eque approach towards evil, e.g. somewhat symbolic and straight forward, but still representing real-life fairly well but not to blatanly, TFA just seems to go straight for a more realistic depiction of fascism and ideology gone wrong.

I also found an recent interview with Domhnall Gleeson very interesting where he described Hux’s motivation as (and I’m paraphrasing) a need for control and as with all fascists a fear of “individuality.”
Although I appreciate the OT’s somewhat easy way to approach these subjects; such as imperialism, fascism, etc. I do kind of like how TFA seems to take it one step further, as well as making it more topical and relevant to modern day sensibilities. The OT’s somewhat straight-forward Nazi references have been updated somehat and the new focus has become more political and nuanced. We know seem to get more of a focus on what is going on inside the minds of the bad guys.
A lot of these things were implied in the OT, and somewhat explored in the EU, but TFA really seems to have run away with it.

http://www.empireonline.com/movies/news/star-wars-exclusive-new-look-adam-driver-kylo-ren/

From Empire magazine:
Driver says that he sees Ren as more of a religious fanatic than a villain in the traditional sense. “When they think of their actions as morally justified,” Driver told us, “it makes them dangerous and unpredictable. There’s no level they won’t go to to accomplish what they’re after. I never thought of the character as an evil person."

It’s interesting that they’ve decided to ditch the whole “Sith” thing if the Knights of Ren are religious fanatics. I mean if they’re not followers of the Sith order from either EU or PT, then what exactly are they followers of? Just the Dark Side in general? It’s obviously Vader related, but Vader was Sith in the OT as well, although back then it was somewhat of an empty title. Even so, I’m curious to see how Kasdan and Abrams have written their way around this issue without pissing off the PT fans.

Frank your Majesty said:

Or jedi are still not very common and/or famous, so lightsabers are just seen as some old antiquated weapons. Thus, the stormtrooper may not assume that the one wielding it has magical forces that makes him a superior combatant.

That would explain the confident stance.
Then again Kylo Ren, or the Knights of Ren in general, may have equipped them with those, whatever they are, weapons.
For all we know they might have killed several jedi before, or they may never have seen one before like you said.

towne32 said:

It’s difficult to tell how anything from that trailer will actually look in context. Much more so than the previous trailers, it was cut with extremely quick shots and looks more like most modern movie trailers.

True, however that’s still a stormtrooper fighting a guy with a lightsaber.

But yes, it could end up being like a 5 second fight that the trailer is blowing out of proportion.
It’s still such a weird image to me though. I guess Abrams might be paying homage to some of the old MacQuarrie artwork of stormtroopers with lighsabers.

I’m having a hard time deciding whether this is awesome, or cheesy as hell.

I don’t know, there’s just something really weird about a stormtrooper doing an action-pose and standing his ground against someone with a lightsaber. Had this been Phasma I wouldn’t have reacted at all, but this right here is one really brave, or perhaps just plain stupid, stormtrooper.

Another TV spot:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=29&v=i1QK_usL0Rs

(A bit more from Tokadana here, incl. Kylo showing off his lightsaber skills a bit.)

joefavs said:

Cell-phone-camera-pointed-at-TV video of a teaser that ran on Disney XD in the UK with a lot of new footage and our first lines from Hux and Poe, let’s hope a proper video shows up soon https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-J1a4J7xNc

American HD version:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSBxv0O9yc0

I realize that this picture is kind of old news by now, but while reading one of the recent Jar Jar fan theories just for fun and time wasting, I did however come across this picture of what seems like an unfinished Gungan head in the background in the D23 B-roll footage from ILM.

Any thoughts on this?

(PS, I personally don’t see the Gungan that’s supposed to be on the right side of the photo, but like I said I didn’t make this picture, I just borrowed it from reddit.)

Have we gotten any confirmation as to who’s going to be writing ep. IX?
I don’t really mind Trevorrow directing it, I’m more concerned about him writing it.

joefavs said:

luckydube56 said:

JCM said:

http://screenrant.com/star-wars-7-force-awakens-simon-pegg-genuinely-magical/

Was listening to the Far, Far, Away Podcast this morning and Simon is taking a hit for his comments about the Prequels but the man speaks the truth.

I mean, I accept the Prequels on their own terms. They exist, I don’t want them written out of history. But they are not good movies. TPM was maybe one of the worst movie-going experiences I have ever had in my nearly 40 years. I wonder if this is maybe a generational thing. Gen X loved the OT because it spoke to them and Millennials (not all of them, but a lot) are more apt to like the PT.

What I cannot abide by is the fact that the OT that we are forced to live with in the public domain now is not recognizable to what I grew up with. If I can be forgiving to the PT and say “let 'em live” then we should at least have the OT available to us as they were originally released and not retroactively changed to fit the PT (or other whims). Even if it makes for an uneven viewing experience, that’s fine. They don’t all have to fit together and make sense. They can exist together in the same family without all having to agree with each other as long as they agree with each other among themselves, PT, OT and now ST, respectively.

Yeah. In my mind the PT exists as history with just the facts.

Obi Wan and Liam Neeson find Anakin as a child
Raise him up to be jedi
He is extremely adept in Force powers
He is generally a good guy
Falls in love with Padme
Then tragedy befalls him and he goes ape shit
Emperor gets hold of him and seals his fate.

All the details in between are irrelevant in my galaxy view. The nuances dont matter as that stuff exists in the movies and sucks.

I had the thought the other day that the prequels would be a lot more palatable as a comic. Same stuff happens, it’s still canon, but no one has to act, characters don’t need to blend into CGI sets, and you never hear anyone say “Dooku” out loud. It’s all just this weird Adventures of Young Obi-Wan Kenobi serial that technically counts but no one cares much to talk about. That’s sort of how I’ve chosen to remember it.

So, more or less the Tartakovsky’s Clone Wars cartoon?
(Same plots, characters, designs, but none Lucas’ writing, no CGI sets, no choppy acting, or whiny Anakin. They do say “Dooku” out loud though.)

(Personally though, when I hear Ben Kenobi mention the Clone Wars I prefer to imagine some kind of colourful blend of the Tartakovsky cartoon, the Silent Drifting comic from 1979 and Kenner’s ‘The Epic Continues’ pitch. Which may sound kind of weird, and it is, but until someone can give me a better alternative it works well enough for me.)

This one kind of surprised me.
The trailers kind of implied that Rey was captured by Kylo on the forest planet where Maz Kanta lives.

There isn’t really anything new to gain from this image, but I just really liked it.
(I also recognize the background from the D23 B-roll footage.)

EDIT:
This quote accompanying the image below was kind of interesting. Not only does it say that Rey was abandoned at age five, but it also suggests that she might be Force sensitive.

"It’s a lonely existence scrounging for sustenance on a junkyard planet. Rey was ditched on Jakku by her family when she was a child and has no idea why — or why they never returned. “She’s been alone for a long time,” Ridley says. “When something occurs when you’re 5, you know what went on but you don’t understand the reasoning. She’s hopeful for what lies ahead, whether that involves the past or not.” So why hasn’t abandonment made her bitter, angry, and… prone to the Dark Side? “Hope makes people good, a lot of the time,” Ridley says. “You hope for a brighter future, and resentment is outweighed.”"

And here’s some confirmation of what we’ve been guessing so far about Imperial, or rather First Order, propaganda;
"… Boyega says soldiers raised from childhood to serve this remnant of the scattered Imperial forces are fed propaganda about the heroes of the Rebellion. Unlike Rey, he has learned a lot about Luke Skywalker — but he has been taught he was a villain who destroyed the benevolent Empire."

timdiggerm said:

ZkinandBonez said:

zaknaberrnon said:

joefavs said:

The Max von Sydow thing confuses me. All signs point to his character being killed in the raid pretty much right off the bat, but if that’s the case, why cast such a legendary actor for two scenes? Maybe the raid takes place a little later than we think and there’s some stuff between him and Rey before Poe shows up. That way his death could echo Owen’s and Beru’s.

Also, this makes me think that perhaps Poe is captured during the raid, and then escapes later? Or maybe several rebels resistance decide to rescue him, like Luke & Co rescued Leia in the original Star Wars?

Poe is definitively captured early in the film, and most likely set free by Finn as he desert the First Order, only to be shot down on Jakku. The real question is how he ends up on the Resistance base later in the film as we’ve seen in the trailers.

I have no problem with thinking that’s Poe inside the Star Destroyer?

I’m not saying that. I was just using the picture to illustrate him being captured as well as being with Finn before he eventually decides to escape and get’s shot down.
And we’ve previously seen short lips of Poe looking somewhat desperate to reach his X-Wing in the same environment that the flamethrower storm troopers are burning down alongside Phasma and Kylo. We’ve also seen John Boyega dressed as a Storm trooper on this location/set.

zaknaberrnon said:

joefavs said:

The Max von Sydow thing confuses me. All signs point to his character being killed in the raid pretty much right off the bat, but if that’s the case, why cast such a legendary actor for two scenes? Maybe the raid takes place a little later than we think and there’s some stuff between him and Rey before Poe shows up. That way his death could echo Owen’s and Beru’s.

Also, this makes me think that perhaps Poe is captured during the raid, and then escapes later? Or maybe several rebels resistance decide to rescue him, like Luke & Co rescued Leia in the original Star Wars?

Poe is definitively captured early in the film, and most likely set free by Finn as he desert the First Order, only to be shot down on Jakku. The real question is how he ends up on the Resistance base later in the film as we’ve seen in the trailers.

joefavs said:

The Max von Sydow thing confuses me. All signs point to his character being killed in the raid pretty much right off the bat, but if that’s the case, why cast such a legendary actor for two scenes? Maybe the raid takes place a little later than we think and there’s some stuff between him and Rey before Poe shows up. That way his death could echo Owen’s and Beru’s.

Well, the film is going to have Simon Pegg, now a very famous actor, completely unrecognizable as an alien at some point in the film. Sydow’s character will at least be seen, heard, and is probably going to play a pretty important part in the events of the story despite a relatively short appearance.
And of course we have no idea how the scene itself if going to play out. TFA, like ANH will probably wait a fair amount of time before showing us the lead characters. It wouldn’t surprise me if the first 10-ish minutes of the film is entirely focused on Poe and Sydow’s character. And eventually BB-8 as he leads us to Rey and later Finn.

It seems that another ‘Look and Find’ children’s book have possibly confirmed some speculation about Max von Sydows character.
http://www.starwarsnewsnet.com/2015/11/new-image-with-finn-and-an-illustration-with-max-von-sydows-character-from-the-force-awakens-revealed-by-books.html

It seems that Poe will meet with him at the beginning of the film during the First Order raid that we’ve seen so much of in the trailers so far. And it does seem like he’ll have a pretty small part in the film; that is unless he survives and shows up later

This is also kind of interesting;
http://www.starwarsnewsnet.com/2015/11/a-special-first-look-at-star-wars-the-force-awakens-this-thursday-night-on-abc.html

timdiggerm said:

ZkinandBonez said:

I though it was a bit strange since the Knights of Ren (apart from Kylo that is) from the trailer doesn’t seem to have lightsabers.

They may have all had lightsabers at one point during development

ZkinandBonez said:

timdiggerm said:

Could that shot go with the space shots of the red light on a planet? Perhaps this is all part of firing the Starkiller?

That was more or less what I assumed, but isn’t Starkiller base the winter-planet iself? If so it can’t exactly shoot itself, so maybe there’s two snow-planets; one with the forest that we see Finn and Kylo duel on and the more barren one that we’ve seen actually split open to reveal the super-weapon. Either that, or this is a shot of the planet blowing up at the end of the film and the Falcon escaping the explosion (like in ROTJ).

My thought is that firing the weapon for the first time clears a significant chunk of the land with the first blast. Like if someone had built a forest inside the Death Star’s “dish” and it all got fried the first time they turned the thing on.

That’s possible, but then the Falcon would have to have landed somewhere on the dish. There might be a scene during the part (which we’ve seen in the trailer) where the planet starts opening up where they (Finn, Han, Chewie) realize that they have essentially landed the Falcon on the Starkiller’s canon and have to get away before they get blown up.

As for the Knights of Ren, I’m looking forward to seeing those specialized weapons in action. That guy in the background has a sword that looks like something out of an anime, and the guy on the left looks like he has some sort of mechanical arm weapon.

joefavs said:

ZkinandBonez said:

EDIT:
Has anyone seen this before?
IS THIS REAL?

The watermark makes me doubt it. I suppose it could be for VIII, but I think it’s more likely fan-made.

I found it while working on the Knight of Ren picture from Wired.
I though it was a bit strange since the Knights of Ren (apart from Kylo that is) from the trailer doesn’t seem to have lightsabers.

timdiggerm said:

ZkinandBonez said:

AntcuFaalb said:

Here’s most of what we’ve seen so far in chronological order: http://imgur.com/a/cKpEP

That seems pretty accurate based on the rumours and plot points we’ve gotten so far, although the last act is still somewhat hard to predict just based on a few short clips.

However this shot is not of Finn’s Tie Fighter crashing, it’s definitively a tree-line, most likely the same as we saw in the TV spot (see second image).

Could that shot go with the space shots of the red light on a planet? Perhaps this is all part of firing the Starkiller?

That was more or less what I assumed, but isn’t Starkiller base the winter-planet iself? If so it can’t exactly shoot itself, so maybe there’s two snow-planets; one with the forest that we see Finn and Kylo duel on and the more barren one that we’ve seen actually split open to reveal the super-weapon. Either that, or this is a shot of the planet blowing up at the end of the film and the Falcon escaping the explosion (like in ROTJ).

joefavs said:

There’s a new interview with J.J. in Wired: http://www.wired.com/2015/11/star-wars-force-awakens-jj-abrams-interview

Pretty good read so far. A lot of stuff in there about the way the OT is structured and how VII fits into the continuum.

EDIT: Whoa dang, there’s also a high quality still of the Knights of Ren shot from the trailer.

Yeah I that noticed too, and now I’m even more curious as to who these guys actually are. In this picture you can make out their weapons a lot better than in the trailer, and it seems that Kylo is the only one with a lightsaber. All the other Knights of Ren seem to have their own weird self-made weapons as well.

It’s possible that Kylo might even be the only one with Force powers.
Either way, he’s definitively the top-dog in the gang, since he’s the only one sporting a proper lightsaber.

(The guy with the Axe, as well as the guy with the giant sword-thingy, reminds me of the early MacQuarrie concept drawings of Darth Vader.)

EDIT:
Has anyone seen this before?
IS THIS REAL?

AntcuFaalb said:

Here’s most of what we’ve seen so far in chronological order: http://imgur.com/a/cKpEP

That seems pretty accurate based on the rumours and plot points we’ve gotten so far, although the last act is still somewhat hard to predict just based on a few short clips.

However this shot is not of Finn’s Tie Fighter crashing, it’s definitively a tree-line, most likely the same as we saw in the TV spot (see second image).