There is now less than 60 days until Star Wars: The Force Awakens arrives in UK cinemas and the hype train is really starting to gather pace. Over the weekend, the official theatrical poster was released online and we were teased for the third full-length trailer with four short clips on Sunday night. Yes, TFA is that big that it warrants teaser for its own trailers.
As we approach perhaps the biggest opening weekend for a film of all time, every single bit of news and marketing is being scrupulously analysed and dissected and pitted against long-standing rumours and speculation.
With that in mind, it was unsurprising that several eagle-eyed fans put their rather unique observational skills to use when the poster was dropped. One guy over at Screen Rant seems to have a cracked a pretty huge spoiler for the film which, if true, will go down as one of the greatest feats of pre-movie theorising of all time.
So, yeah, MAJOR SPOILERS AHOY!
Have a good look at the poster. It doesn’t take forensics to notice a distinct lack of Luke Skywalker. I mean, come on, Han and Leia are both featured quite prominently in a central position and the right of Leia looks like a perfect place for Luke to be placed. But no, there’s an empty space and then we have Finn’s hand clutching his blue lightsaber.
What’s the other blindingly obvious thing screaming from the top-right of the poster, too? Oh yeah, it’s only another Death Star.
The Official Star Wars website updated its Databank during the “Force Friday” merchandise marketing campaign and described the Starkiller Base (the base loaded with Stormtroopers seen in the trailers) with the following text:
An ice planet converted into a stronghold of the First Order and armed with a fiercely destructive new weapon capable of destroying entire star systems.
Here is what Rob Keyes – who wrote the Screen Rant piece – makes of it…
“Some of the earliest rumors about the story and characters (a lot of which has since been proven true) revealed that Domnhall Gleeson’s character (later revealed to be General Hux) was actually someone who defected from the Resistance to The First Order because the new-age rebels constructed their own super weapon. According to those reports there are some not-so-good guys in the high ranks of the Resistance so it’s not a case of clear good vs. evil like there was before. Hux might be the son of someone important in the saga and he might not really be as “evil” as Gleeson described him as this summer at San Diego Comic-Con.
It’s therefore possible that since The First Order’s super weapon is on or attached to the Starkiller ice planet base that it has nothing to do with what’s in the poster. This new Death Star could actually belong to the Resistance. Wouldn’t that be neat? That would explain its positioning in the top right of the poster, enjoying a blue-tinted light side glow alongside lightsaber-wielding Finn.”
Essentially, Keyes is arguing that the good guys have built themselves a Death Star to battle The First Order for supremacy. Would JJ Abrams actually have the gall to build a new Death Star, or is it simply the ice planet we have seen in the trailers transformed into some other Death Star-esque weapon?
Now, if we take this all to the natural conclusion – afterall there’s been numerous rumours and details talked about: Finn was a stormtrooper, Phasma will be a good guy at the end. What if Hux IS who we originally thought he was… Luke Skywalker’s son? What if Rey is Han and Leia’s daughter? Where does that leave Finn? We know Lucasfilm/Disney have been very careful NOT to reveal any surnames.
And what about the rumour that Kylo Ren really is… Luke? Could Luke be in the poster afterall? We know we’ve been told that Adam Driver is Kylo Ren, but what if he’s a follower of Rens? One of the Knights of Ren, perhaps? Would this explain Ren’s apparent passion for Jedi artifacts and Darth Vader?
Oh my…
Who’s flying the Millennium Falcon?
Now we move on to the next theory, and this one’s a real doozy! Surely nobody can fly the Millennium Falcon other than Han Solo and his trusted lieutenant Chewbacca!? Well, according to an image released as part of the marketing campaign, it looks as though he won’t be manning the cockpit – well, the only one manning it anyway.
As you can see from the above image, alongside Chewie is Daisey Ridley’s Rey! This image raises more questions than answers, to be honest, but CinemaBlend have constructed a convincing backstory for her character.
“There’s a new rumor going around about the true nature of Rey’s character, but it’s pretty suspect and without much solid corroboration, so make of it what you will. Since the beginning, people have speculated that she is somehow a blood relative of Luke Skywalker, perhaps even the daughter of Han and Leia. Another card that came out indicated that she has aptitude with the Force, which would make sense with such familial connections. The new rumor, however, says that, instead of a relative, Rey is in fact Luke’s chosen apprentice, an orphan selected for training at a young age.”
These are interesting theories indeed, but they are just that – theories. When the film is released on December 17, there is every chance they will be emphatically disproved, but it’s always fun to speculate.
And there’s more…
Ok, look at the new poster at the top of the page… notice anything? Well, doesn’t it sort of look like Rey is holding a red lightsaber? Well, remember the poster from SDCC (below)
Well, doesn’t it look like Rey is caught between the light and dark side? Well, if the posters are telling a story, could this mean that Rey will turn to the darkside? That could certainly be a lot of fun if we see a complete about face by the end of movie? It’s just a theory… but we like it.
We could speculate all day, but we’ll only know for sure come December 17th. but it’s so much fun to guess and have banter, isn’t it?
In related news, a new trailer for Battlefront has landed and it’s literally every Star Wars fan’s dream come through:
However, what seems to be quite the opposite is the price of the Season Pass for the season pass. Unilad have reported that fans aren’t impressed: “the planned DLC will cost an unfathomable £39.99 on top of the game’s base price of £43.99. This means the full experience is going to clear a lot of people’s wallets out at around £83.98. All this while having no single-player, no campaign mode and no space battles.
“So what do you get for that money? A day out with Boba Fett? 15 minutes alone with Jar Jar Binks and a steel bat? George Lucas’ soul? No. Four DLC packs that will apparently be “filled with new content that will take you to new locations across a galaxy far, far away” and a vague release date of “soon.”
“All we do know, is that season pass owners will get two weeks early access to whatever the packs include, as opposed to those who buy them separately. If EA and DICE follow suit with the Battlefield 4 DLC, these will likely be announced at around £12.”
That is a very steep price for the new content. Will you be partaking?
Source: Squareeyed
Irwin Fletcher
I'm an LA journalist who really lives for his profession. I have also published work as Jane Doe in various mags and newspapers across the globe. I normally write articles that can cause trouble but now I write for FTN because Nerds are never angry, so I feel safe.
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