Disney's D23 Expo kicks off this weekend, and after the lack of new Star Wars: The Force Awakens footage shown at Comic-Con last month many expected they were holding it back until now. Well, not so much. J.J. Abrams confirmed to EW that there won't be any footage shown at D23, but he added that “In the fall, there’ll be a trailer", so there's that to look forward to. It may be that the best place to get more info on the film is online, as a bunch of new images have debuted along with a number of small details.
The latest crop of images reveal new looks at General Hux (Domhnall Gleeson), Kylo Ren (Adam Driver), and Captain Phasma (Gwendoline Christie), Finn (John Boyega) and Rey (Daisy Ridley). For a classic touch there's also a new image of everyone's favorite droid duo, R2-D2 and C3PO.
EW also offers up a slightly different description of the story that establishes how deeply the film will be going into Luke Skywalker's legacy....
The Empire has morphed into a junta known as The First Order, while X-Wing pilots like Oscar Isaac’s Poe Dameron now fly for a splinter group known as the Resistance. Princess Leia (Fisher) has come into possession of the lightsaber once possessed by her father, Darth Vader, and later lost by Luke (Hamill) when Vader separated him from his arm during that “join me” duel in The Empire Strikes Back.
That brief synopsis is similar to earlier rumors that Skywalker's severed hand, still gripping his lightsabre, would be discovered by Finn, who would then set off to return the weapon to its original owner. It's possible that may still be the case.
Looking ahead, Abrams reveals that he won't be coming back to direct Episode IX as was speculated some months back. He did have high praise for the work being done by writer/director Rian Johnson on Episode VIII...
“It’s a thrill to see [Johnson] take things and elevate them beyond what we had imagined at the time....No, I’m not going to direct Episode IX, as much as I am deeply envious of anyone who gets to work with this group of people on the future movies.”
Producer Kathleen Kennedy also gave Johnson's work high marks, adding that everything in Episode IX is based on his ideas alone...
“We know where we’re going, but only in the broadest sense. When Rian came in and started writing his script, he started from scratch, other than knowing what we had done in Episode VII and projecting out where it was going. He then sat down and put pen to paper, and it’s 100 percent him.”
Star Wars: The Force Awakens opens December 18th.
