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, Joss Whedon is the latest name tied to Star Wars, a new Boba Fett movie raises all kinds of canonical questions, and those The Force Awakens images prove and disprove several story rumors.

Could Joss Whedon be the Man For Star Wars: Episode 9?

Earlier this week, a very peculiar rumor started making its way around the internet. The source of this rumor was the contributor section of Movie Pilot, an area where every single syllable must be read with a a few handfuls of salt. Even Movie Pilot editorial added a special note to the article in question, saying that they could not verify this report. But here we go anyway:

We are only giving this report the time of day because the far more reliable people over at Making Star Wars (who have been about, oh, 75% accurate with their reports in the past year or so) looked into it and were told the following from their anonymous sources:

It is extremely possible.

So take this for what it is: a rumor and nothing more. For now. Honestly, we have a hard time seeing this come to pass. We have no doubt in our minds that Disney wants to keep Whedon in their extended family, but the filmmaker has not been shy about how much working with Marvel Studios exhausted him both physically and creatively. We imagine that he’d sooner take a few years to recharge his batteries, work on personal projects and see his children again before he signs his life away to another massive franchise. Does Whedon even want to make another huge, massive tentpole where he’ll only have so much control? At this point, it seems unlikely.

And yet Star Wars: Episode 9 is at least four years away. It is entirely possible that Whedon can get some sleep, make a smaller movie and then decide he wants back in the blockbuster game. Star Wars would be lucky to have a writer and director as strong as Whedon and if he does sign up for this, we’d be looking at a trilogy directed by three of the great geek directors of the modern age. That would be very cool.

But don’t believe any of this until Whedon himself says anything ... and he’s busy sleeping right now.

Boba Fett and the New Canon

Last week (less than a day after the last edition of WookieeLeaks, in fact), director Josh Trank announced that he was departing the second Star Wars anthology film. Although his official reasons were vague, various reports from numerous sources have already dug into exactly what went wrong behind the scenes. Because we’re not into personal gossip here, we’ll leave the poor guy along and wish him in luck in the future. Personal matters aside, he’s undeniably talented.

In the aftermath of his departure, we finally learned exactly what the second anthology film is going to be about: the feared bounty hunter Boba Fett.

Of course Lucasfilm is making a movie centered around one of the most inexplicably popular characters in the Star Wars saga. If people like him so much just because his armor is cool, imagine how much they’ll like him once he has an actual character!

This is where we have to start considering just how seriously the new Star Wars creative regime are going to take the canon. It has been established that the prequel trilogy is canon, but the prequel trilogy revealed that Boba Fett is a clone of his father, Jango Fett which is ... Well, let’s face it: kinda terrible. Would a solo Boba Fett movie acknowledge his bizarre origins or would it simply ignore his childhood and focus on him as a hardened adult, racing around the galaxy getting into all kinds of violent business?

Last year, we heard rumors that a Boba Fett movie was in the works (although we thought it was going to be Gareth Edwards’ film) and that it would radically rewrite canon. Those rumors claimed that the original Boba Fett died long ago and that his armor and his name had been passed on to a new guy, who used his new identity to create the actual legend seen in the original trilogy. This rumor also claimed that Disney wanted Michael Fassbender for the role, so grab the salt.

The mere existence of a Boba Fett anthology movie is going to kick up all kinds of dust. Just how seriously will Disney treat the canon and what will they choose to ignore or retcon? This is truly a very odd and exciting time to be a Star Wars fan.

Comparing Those The Force Awakens Photos to Spoilers

By now, you’ve surely seen those amazing Vanity Fair photos showing off the new Star Wars: The Force Awakens characters. So rather than just re-post them and move on, we’re going to match what they show against the spoilers floating around the wilds of the internet to see if they prove or disprove anything. Naturally, potential spoilers lurk ahead, so if that bothers you, go ahead and scroll to the next section.

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Here we are: our first look at an unmasked Kylo Ren. The fact that Adam Driver was playing this character was one of the worst kept secrets in modern film history, but it’s still exciting to finally get that squared away. Here’s what we know now: Kylo Ren’s face is not hideously scarred, so that early concept art showing off a creepy cyborg was not Driver, as many of us thought. Could that actually be Andy Serkis’ still mysterious character? Maybe? Possibly? Anyway, we now know that Kylo Ren wears that mask to hide his perfectly unharmed and totally human face, which leads us to believe that his identity is going to be some kind of surprise or plot twist. If anything, this only lends credence to the rumors that he’s the son of Han Solo and Leia Organa who has decided to follow in the path of his grandfather.

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For as long as we’ve been covering Star Wars rumors, we’ve known that Lupita Nyong’o was playing a motion capture alien named Rose who runs a bustling cantina. It turns out that we were only partially right. She is playing a motion capture alien, but her character is Maz Kanata, a space pirate. Other rumors have suggested that she’s actually a diminutive alien, which leads us to believe that Maz is that tiny alien arm handing off the lightsaber in the newest trailer.

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We already knew that Oscar Isaac’s Poe Dameron was a dashing X-Wing pilot, but how could we not share this awesome picture? That’s some real sci-fi James Dean stuff.

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This line-up of aliens are apparently members of Maz Kanata’s pirate entourage and they represent our first real look at just how many practical costumes and puppets J.J. Abrams had built for this movie. The variety is amazing and we can only cross our fingers and hope that this crew will give us the 21st century version of the famous cantina sequence.

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And that brings us to the second most poorly kept secret outside of Adam Driver playing Kylo Ren: this photo officially confirms that Gwendoline Christie is playing the Chrome Trooper Captain Phasma. This is easily one of the coolest outfits we’ve seen in any Star Wars movie and we’ve already prepared for it to show up en masse at every fan convention ever. One thing that is not confirmed is whether or not she wields a lightsaber, which has been rumored for some time. We certainly don’t see anything on her belt...

Star Wars Video Game Updates

Electronic Arts has announced that Star Wars: Battlefront will have 12 multiplayer maps at launch, letting players shoot each other with blasters on old favorites like Endor, Hoth and Tatooine as well as new planets like Jakku. Interestingly, one of the maps will be Sullust, a plane that was only mentioned in passing in Return of the Jedi.

Disney Infinity 3.0, the third iteration of the video game series that feels like a license to print money, will center around characters from the Star Wars universe. So yes, the likes of the Skywalkers and Solos will soon be able to mingle with a cast that includes old school Disney stalwarts, Pixar characters, and Marvel heroes. That’s wild.

Finally, Visceral Games may have finally tipped their hand about the story of their top secret Star Wars project. Creative director Amy Hennig and co-writer Todd Stashwick shared the picture below, which heavily implies that the rumors about their project following a young Han Solo are true. The game is expected to be officially revealed at E3, so we should know more soon enough.

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