WookieeLeaks: Notes on Marvel’s New ‘Princess Leia’ Comic

ScreenCrush’s WookieeLeaks is a weekly roundup of everything Star Wars! From Star Wars: Episode 7, to the upcoming spinoffs and the TV shows, if it pertains to that long ago, far away galaxy, we’re covering it here, bringing you our expert analysis. This week, we take a look at Marvel’s latest Star Wars comic, delve into the latest movie spoilers, and gaze into the future of Star Wars Rebels.

Notes on Marvel’s New Princess Leia Comic

This week saw the release of Princess Leia #1, the debut issue of the third new Star Wars comic book series published by Marvel this year. We have sung the praises of the main Star Wars book and the Darth Vader series before and this one continues the trend of respected talent from the Marvel stable bringing genuine quality to what could have been an easy licensing cash-in.

Written by Mark Waid and pencilled by Terry Dodson, Princess Leia #1 picks up right where 1977’s Star Wars ended. Literally. The first page finds Leia giving Luke Skywalker and Han Solo their commendations for destroying the Death Star at that massive Rebel ceremony at Yavin IV. The second page finds her addressing the entire crowd about how they move forward. It’s a genuinely fun way to begin a story, attaching itself to a scene that we all know so well an telling us exactly what happens next.

Since Princess Leia is a five-issue miniseries and not an ongoing series like Star Wars and Darth Vader, it gets down to business as quickly as possible. Leia is still quietly reeling from the destruction of Alderaan, which saw her entire culture wiped out in the blink of an eye. Determined to be of use to the Rebel Alliance (whose leadership sees her as royalty that needs to be protected and little more), she teams up with an Alderaanian pilot, steals a ship, and goes in search of other survivors from her home world.

And it’s a lot of fun. Waid, who is justifiably one of the most respected comic book writers in the business, perfectly captures the steely toughness of Leia while giving us glimpses of a woman who is choosing to mourn by taking control of her own destiny. Especially interesting is her new relationship with her pilot, Evaan, who disapproves of Leia’s lack of external grief but respects her people’s royal family too much to not assist her. It’s a great dynamic between two complicated women and a nice change of pace for a series where the focus generally lies on a handful of men.

Between Waid’s track record for telling great stories and Dodson’s dynamic art, this is the third winner in a row for the Marvel/Disney partnership. Keep ‘em coming, guys.

More Star Wars Spoilers That You Can Choose to Believe (or Not)

Before we stray too far from the subject of Leia Organa, the folks over at Making Star Wars revealed a whole bunch of potential spoilers about the role of Carrie Fisher’s royal Rebel in Star Wars: The Force Awakens. As usual, we cannot vouch for the truth of this, but enough of it does line up with other rumors for it to be worth reading. Also as usual, just scroll past this entire section if you don’t want to potentially know too much about the film. You know if you want this stuff or not. Don’t blame us!

Anyway, some of the items in this list will read as total nonsense to people who haven’t been following other rumors. Here’s a helpful key: Rose is supposedly the alien character played by Lupita Nyong’o, the Catapult is the codename for the Imperial superweapon that drives much of the plot, and the Sledgehammer is the superweapon developed by the Rebel Alliance. With that in mind:

• Leia sends an emissary to Rose’s planet who is killed by the “Catapult” weapon of the Empire.
• The sequence in which Han Solo and Princess meet for the first time in the film is described as “awkward.”
• She is described as a Queen on the main cast list.
• At one point she tells Rebel pilot Poe Dameron his squadron is all that survived. He reluctantly obeys her orders.
• She appears to still be a prominent leader of the Rebel Alliance.
• Leia wants to know what Finn knows (presumably about the Empire).
• Towards the middle of the film, in the Map Room of the Rebel Base, Leia has a secret “up her sleeve,” involving her own weapon called “The Sledgehammer” by the production.
• Without storyboards, “The Sledgehammer” is difficult to understand but appears to be a kamikaze-like craft capable of taking down Star Destroyer sized spacecrafts.
• Leia is proud of this weapon.
• Rose tells Leia she thinks the sword found inside BB-8 should be with Finn so Leia hands the lightsaber over to him.
• Leia and Han still argue.
• The last thing Han says to Leia before he leaves for the final mission is “I’ll hurry back.”
• When Kylo and Han meet again, it cuts to Leia who feels “a disturbance in the Force” so to speak.
• There is no indication she is a Jedi or started upon that path with her brother.
• Leia is elated when it appears Luke has been found.
• At the end of the film, Leia and Rey have a special goodbye in which she bids Rey “a fond farewell.”

A big dump of information like that, while interesting, is ultimately impossible to judge or properly parse. Even if every item on that list is true, these are moments that may operate differently within the context of the film than they do on paper. Still, if we were to jump to conclusions based on what we see here, it would seem that Leia has spent the time between Return of the Jedi and The Force Awakens growing into a tough leader capable of making huge decisions that send Rebel soldiers to their deaths. These bullet points also heavily lean on the rumors that Rey and Kylo Ren are siblings, the children of Leia and Han. If that ends up being true, these bits suddenly carry a lot more weight.

Elsewhere on the internet, Star Wars 7 News revealed some potential details about Gareth Edwards’ upcoming spin-off film. And while you should always have some salt on hand whenever you read Star Wars rumors, you should grab great, heaping fistfuls of it for this next batch. Because if this is true, Disney is about to forcibly retcon Boba Fett’s origin to undo all of that awful Attack of the Clones stuff. Read for yourself:

• Boba Fett and his whole back story is set to be completely reloaded in the first spinoff movie. Disney is not happy with how George handled the character and they want to give him more of a good guy twist.
• Shooting starts around summer time. Production offices open in April and it will shoot along side Episode 8.
• Like it or not but Boba Fett will be reloaded as fans know him, they are working from a plot outline (not script) from Kasdan and he wants Boba Fett to be killed when he is a kid and taken over by another person who assumes his identity. Temuera Morrison is not a box office actor and they will get someone who can lead fans back to the theaters.
• I heard the Fett we see in Empire is Max von Sydow. What I am told is MVS kills Fett at a younger age and takes his persona.
• I’m 99% sure that Max von Sydow is Boba Fett in TFA and ironically a role model to Kira. Still, on everything I have seen first hand Fett is not even mentioned at least by name in the movie.

We had previously heard that Disney wanted a big name actor to play Boba Fett and this gives us a little more context. If Fett was a clone of Jango Fett, he would have to be played by Temuera Morrison and, with all due respect to him, no one wants anything from the prequels in this movie. Sure, having Fett get killed off and replaced by someone else at a young age is clunky, but it’s also proof that Disney and the new heads of Lucasfilm aren’t going to build the new movies on a flawed foundation. We imagine that we will be seeing a lot of this in the coming years, Between the spin-off films and the new extended universe, the prequels will be slowly pushed into the background as much as possible.

Star Wars Rebels Season Two is Probably Going to Have a Fight to Remember

The first season of Star Wars Rebels ended with a bang, setting up a more threatening status quo for upcoming episodes and bringing Ahsoka, Anakin Skywalker’s Star Wars: The Clone Wars apprentice, back into the fold. Of course, her mere presence and the promise of more Darth Vader in season two has already lit the internet’s imagination on fire. Surely these two are going to meet again after all of these years. And surely former mentor and pupil are going to cross lightsabers, right?

In a new interview, executive producer Dave Filoni played coy with the whole idea:

This is not a spoiler but there were several things that I wanted to go over with George before he was out completely. One of the things that he and I sat down and had fairly lengthy discussions about was Ahsoka and Darth Vader. We forged a plan that basically was what she would know, what she didn’t know, what ways she would react, what he would think. So all these things that we may or may not cover, I know I’m basing them, deeply rooted, in all the things that we had kind of planned. So I was glad to have gotten this kind of backstory detail, so if a confrontation happens, it’ll be legitimate.

In other words, he probably already knows these two are doing to throw down, but while spoil anything too early? The internet will spoil that soon enough on its own! Anyway, he also spoke about Ahsoka’s role in the show moving forward. And don’t get too excited, everybody. While she will certainly be around, Ahsoka will pop in and out of the narrative as she sees fit and will not be a new member of the core cast:

To that end, I would say that I would caution people, and I said this already — Ahsoka is not going to bunk up on the Ghost. That’s not her style. You have to think of her more as a figure that comes in and out of the story, a figure that has a lot of knowledge and advice, kind of a mentor, definitely a warrior, but one that’s very cautious about when to draw her sabers and actually fight. It’s an extremely dangerous time, especially for someone like her that has a personal connection to someone like Darth Vader, whether she knows that or not. We’ll have to wait and see. That’s one of the big questions, I would imagine.

But hey, at least Sara Michelle Gellar is joining the cast. Anyone who has a problem with Buffy getting in on this Star Wars thing is a person who doesn’t like good things.

Updates on the Expanded Universe

Everyone knows that a new Star Wars: The Force Awakens trailer is set to premiere at this year’s Star Wars Celebration, but that’s not all! Everyone also knows that the convention will most likely introduce the first footage from Star Wars: Battlefront, the wildly anticipated reboot of the justifiably popular video game franchise. We have waxed poetic about it here before. Countless times. We love us some Star Wars: Battlefront.

But could the first official footage from the game premiere before that? According to a new rumor, our first official glimpse at the game may arrive in some other form before it’s unveiled to Celebration attendees:

Outside of some scant concept images and the expected developer spiel about reenacting the most iconic battles from theStar Wars universe, what we know about Star Wars: Battlefront is largely limited to what we would expect from a sequel to previous games in the series. However, that might be about the change.

According to a report from StarWarsHQ, footage from the new game was shown to retail representatives at a closed-door event held this week. With gameplay seemingly ready to be seen by eyes outside of the studio, could this mean that we’re close toBattlefront being shown off to the general public?

We know that DICE has been given access to sets being used forThe Force Awakens to take scans to use in the game. MightBattlefront be tied more closely to the movie than we know, leaving DICE restricted in terms of what they can reveal beyond the one trailer for the film we’ve seen thus far? We’ll just have to wait and see — but, hopefully, we won’t have to wait for much longer.

Meanwhile, the titles for three Star Wars books intended for 8-12 year-olds have been revealed and they fit the pattern of what we’ve been seeing from a lot of a upcoming merch. The Weapon Of A Jedi: A Luke Skywalker Adventure,  Moving Target: A Princess Leia Adventure, and Smuggler’s Run: A Han Solo Adventure will all arrive in September, where they will help remind younger fans who grew up on the prequels just who these old farts in the new movie are and why they should care about them.