Some Pretty Major 'Star Wars 7' Spoilers Just Arrived

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, the ‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens’ trailer inspires a bunch of rumors, a few huge spoilers appear online, and details about this year’s ‘Star Wars’ Celebration are revealed.

The Great ‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens’ Trailer News Section

Last weekend, the legendary John Williams recorded the music for the ‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens’ trailer. Not long after that, a description of the trailer itself arrived online and anyone hoping for grand revelations or tons of story information better keep their expectations in check. This thing sounds like a teaser through and through:

According to [the] report, the trailer is only about one minute long. It slowly introduces the audience to all the characters of the film (“flashing images of the main leads, each fading to black”) with no narration, only the woodwind sounds of the ‘Star Wars’ theme. Then we hear, offscreen, a woman’s voice saying, “Wake up,” as the logo appears and the orchestra swells. Then, the money shot: The Millennium Falcon races toward the camera, firing its blasters.

But that extremely vague description was not enough for the hungry, gaping maw of a Sarlacc Pit that is the internet! Making Star Wars chimed in shortly thereafter with a post of their own, claiming to know the specific details of what we’ll get to see in the teaser. This could be a load of bunk or it could be entirely accurate. We don’t know! However, the images described do sound simple yet evocative. You know, the exact kind of shots you’d want to include in a teaser trailer for a film that’s still a year out. If you want to go into the trailer completely fresh, you may want to skip this next part:

Fade in from black, shots of the dunes, Boyega pops in to the shot from below. He’s wearing white Stormtrooper armor but he doesn’t have a helmet on.
In the teaser we only see Boyega and Ridley really.
Ridley boards a speeder.
She has a helmet on like Endor Leia, a design with pop-down goggles.
A shot of Ridley’s speeder approaching the station (the TMZ set we saw).
We see the new Stormtroopers on a transport. The flight is turbulent.
New X-wings.
TIE Fighters.
The new ball droid that’s a gyroscope and belongs to “Kira.”
The new “Sith” is also revealed. He has a cross-beam lightsaber and the beam is a bit wilder and more super-charged than your normal lightsaber.
The Falcon.

If that is all true, it’s interesting that the teaser doesn’t include any of the old cast, instead focusing on newcomers John Boyega and Daisy Ridley. Then again the final reveal of the Millennium Falcon will say just as much as a shot of Harrison Ford or Mark Hamill.

But when are we going to get to see this thing? We made some educated guesses this week, but a report from a few days back announced that the trailer would be attached to ‘The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies,’ which seems like a reasonable plan since both films share many fans. The original post cites the word of a theater manager (not that credible) and ‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens’ first assistant director Tommy Gormley (far more credible) as sources. It seems pretty safe to say that Peter Jackson’s final Middle-Earth film will offer audiences a look at the trailer.

But then Slashfilm chimed in, saying that Disney has “bigger plans” to premiere their trailer. That doesn’t mean the trailer won’t be attached to ‘The Hobbit,’ but it does mean that we will probably get to see the thing for the first time before ‘The Hobbit’s’ December 17 release date. Knowing Disney, they’ll stick the trailer on ABC and force everyone in the world to tune in for a TV show they don’t watch in order to check it out … right before it ends up on YouTube.

Here Are Some Supposed ‘Star Wars’ Rumors You Shouldn’t Read

It’s a slow news week for credible ‘Star Wars’ story rumors, so let’s take a few seconds to wallow in the muck that is incredibly un-credible ‘Star Wars’ story rumors. This week’s big spoilers come from some anonymous posters on fan forums, which means you shouldn’t actually believe a word of this until you see the finished films with your own eyes. However, plenty of sites found these details accurate enough to post, so we’re going to share them with you, just in case. True or not, we’re going to move forward assuming these details are true and that they’re huge spoilers for the end of the film and you shouldn’t read them.

The spoilers involve the climax of the film, the fate of a fan-favorite, the deal with Adam Driver’s mysterious character, and the villain for the next several films being set up. This is your last chance to turn back…

According to these details, the film ends with Harrison Ford’s Han Solo using his dying words to ask Luke to not kill Adam Driver’s character. This turns out to be a huge mistake, as Driver ends up becoming the main antagonist of the next two films. And yes, there are even more details (including who kills Han) in the section below. Don’t read it. Seriously:

There is a fight at the end. Luke wants to kill Driver and Han steps in. Luke then kills Han which brings Luke back to his sanity. Han with his dying words begs Luke to let Driver live, to trust him that everything will be alright and the he won’t succumb to the Dark Side.
Luke trust Han and does not kill Driver – which will be a big mistake as we will see in Episodes VIII and IX.
The artwork with the cyborg holding Vaders helmet in his hands is pretty accurate. This is the end of the movie. Luke beats Driver up pretty good in the fight. He has a scar in his face and his right hand will be cut off by Luke. After the funeral of Han, Driver will be in Lukes quarters, wearing a mask and a robe and he holds Vaders helmet in his cyborg hand, eyes blazing…

You didn’t read it, right? Because if true, that’s huge and you don’t want that spoiled for you.

Reality Check: No One is Making a Mace Windu Movie

In the middle of a Reddit AMA, ‘The Better Angels’ director A.J. Edwards was asked to respond to the rumors that he was being courted to make a ‘Star Wars’ spin-off like Gareth Edwards and Josh Trank. Here’s how he responded:

Talking about it, not able to say a lot yet.
It will focus on Mace Windu.

Naturally, a bunch of “A.J. Edwards is making a Mace Windu movie!” headlines started to appear all over the place, but let’s think about this for longer than five seconds. Because doing that will only lead to you realizing how silly that really is.

First, there are the practical reasons. Samuel L. Jackson is aging and there’s no way he could play the long-dead Mace Windu again, especially since it would have to be a prequel. And speaking of prequels, no one cares about the prequel trilogy characters, especially Disney. We’re looking at a future of ‘Star Wars’ films where the prequels are treated as distant history. No one is going to deliberately dredge those things up again.

Secondly, Edwards is obviously joking, but humor sometimes gets lost on the internet. Sure, he could be making a ‘Star Wars’ movie, but he decided to deflect rumors by coming up with the least likely spin-off idea this side of a Jar Jar Binks solo adventure. No one is ever going to make a Mace Windu movie. Ever. Ever, ever, ever. Ever.

‘Star Wars’ Celebration News (and Other Fan Service)

The annual ‘Star Wars’ Celebration event is returning to southern California for the first time since 2007 and it looks like attendance records have already been broken through advance tickets alone. For the first time in awhile, it feels okay to be a fan of this series again. With the prequels nearly a decade behind us (what a dark period that was!) and a lot of promising films on the horizon, it must feel okay to spend your hard-earned time and money attending a fan convention. For the first time in years, fans can go to something like this without moaning about the current state of the saga. Let the good times roll and so on and so forth.

The first details of this year’s Celebration have been revealed in an article over at the LA Times and it sounds like a solid line-up of events. In fact, everything shy of footage from ‘The Force Awakens’ has been confirmed:

It’s going to be really interesting, because we are way ahead with ticket sales from where we usually are this far out,” said Mary Franklin, senior events and fan relations lead for Lucasfilm. “I feel safe saying this is going to be the biggest one yet.”
…
Programming will include interactive events — such as diorama building, Jedi training and “Star Wars” tattooing. A new session of “Star Wars University,” a classroom style presentation that in the past has featured a lesson in storyboarding with “Star Wars Rebels” executive producer Dave Filoni, also is set to take place.
As for major announcements about — or possibly early footage from — “The Force Awakens,” no details have yet been confirmed.

They also revealed this very cool new poster, which, thankfully, leans heavily on original trilogy iconography. Like we said above, these are the good times.

LucasFilm

Finally, there’s this “trailer” for this year’s Celebration, which is made up entirely of memorable highlights from previous conventions. It looks fun! Nerdy and exhausting, but fun!

Meanwhile, the exact shape of the ‘Star Wars’ media blitzkrieg that will begin in 2015 is finally starting to show itself. Awhile back, we learned that a line of children’s books that are all about introducing younger fans to the original trilogy characters are in the works. Now, we’ve learned that a series of “Journey to Episode VII” young adult books are also set for release next year, with the goal being to bridge the original trilogy to the new film.

One of these books will be written by sci-fi/fantasy writer Claudia Gray and the official synopsis sounds like it will attempt to tell the entire saga (from ‘The Phantom Menace’ through ‘The Force Awakens’) from the POV of two soldiers on different sides of a war. Here’s the official description:

Star Wars meets Romeo and Juliet in this epic YA novel that follows two best friends who find themselves on opposite sides of the war between the Empire and the Rebellion.
This thrilling YA novel gives readers a macro view of some of the most important events in the tar Wars universe: from the purge of the Jedi in Episode III, to the beginnings of the rebellion in Star Wars Rebels, and through the fall of the Empire in Episodes IV-VI. Readers will experience these major moments through the eyes of two best friends who grow up in these troubling times and find themselves on opposite sides of the war.
As with other Journey to Episode VII titles, hints about the upcoming film will be included in the narrative, as well as original, post-Episode VI content that sets up the new film.

Note how the synopsis makes sure readers know that this book will contain canon details from the new movie. How sneaky. Every hardcore fan in the world is going to want to read this thing now … unless they’re all too angry about the death of the original Expanded Universe. Then again, there are surely a bunch of young, newer fans who have no knowledge of the old EU who will want to stay up to date on everything going on in the refreshed saga.

Ah, so that’s who this book is for.

Everything Else

Someone cut a trailer for ‘The Empire Strikes Back’ in a modern style and the results are surprisingly good:

Although the plans to re-release every ‘Star Wars’ movie in 3D fell apart when returns for ‘Episode I’ fell below expectations, a special screening of ‘Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones’ is being held for the first (and possibly last) time ever.

Just because you can’t make it to a special gallery show of photographs, script pages and other items of interest from the genesis of the first ‘Star Wars’ movie doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy a video from the location:

Someone found a bunch of crushed film cans abandoned in the streets of London. These film cans bear the name “Avco,” which is one of the code names being used for ‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens.’ There was no film in them, but here they are:

Finally, LucasFilm is hiring. Go get a job and let us know what you’ve learned. We can pay you in anonymous internet praise.