Star Wars: Episode VII: The Nerd Rage Awakens

[cooleddie74]

It's kinda nice to get some Star Wars aliens that we've never seen before. Not a single species in that one series of images has been seen in a previous film unless they were tucked away into the background and I didn't notice them, with the possible exception of the second and tall alien from the left which might be an updated member of the Whiphid species (originally seen in Jabba's Palace) only with less fur and hair than the one seen in ROTJ (J'Quille).

Very cool.

 

[Hound of UIster]

It feels like 1977 all over again

Designs look bad.

So...

Spoiler: Kylo Ren

The rumors were true. Driver's Kylo Ren is indeed the bad guy, "command[ing] star troopers loyal to the evil First Order on the frozen plains of a secret base." The photo shows him dressed in all black, leading storm troopers across a tundra.

Nyong'o will play a CGI character, Maz Kanata. We don't yet know on which side of the Resistance she falls, but according to Vanity Fair, she's a pirate.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/05/04/adam-driver-star-wars-character_n_7203404.html

Spoiler: Kylo Ren

supposedly the brother of Ridley's character and Luke's first apprentice

 

[Flying Spaghetti Monster]

Gwendoline Christie is confirmed as Captain Phasma

 

[DarthTom]

OMG everyone, happy, "May the 4th be with you," today. I didn't realize the origins of this, but apparently we can thank Margaret Thatcher for this day:

Friday, May 4
“Margaret Thatcher has won the election and become Britain’s first woman prime minister. To celebrate their victory her party took a half page of advertising space in the London Evening News. This message, referring to the day of victory, was ‘May the Fourth Be With You, Maggie. Congratulations,’ further proof of the extent to which Star Wars has influenced us all.”

 

[davejames]

Really loving all these new pics, especially that cover shot with Han and Chewie in the cockpit again.

Although really, they're taking someone who looks like Nyong'o and turning them into a CG character?? That's the only real disappointment so far for me with this movie. And it's not like she wouldn't have made for a very cool and sexy pirate all on her own.

 

[cooleddie74]

Captain Phasma's casting will likely trigger a little sexist nerdrage in some fans. Black Stormtrooper? Now a female Stormtrooper and a ranking officer at that?

What vile nerd socialism is this?!

 

[Tom]

Captain Phasma's casting will likely trigger a little sexist nerdrage in some fans. Black Stormtrooper? Now a female Stormtrooper and a ranking officer at that?

What vile nerd socialism is this?!

... But she is chrome!! It's all good

 

[RoJoHen]

I hope there are some gay Stormtroopers just for good measure.

 

[DarthTom]

I hope there are some gay Stormtroopers just for good measure.

As much as I love that idea as a gay man ... as we saw in Star Trek First Contact, it's difficult to write secondary characters e.g. storm troopers as gay without getting it wrong IMO.

Lt Hawk was written as gay in the novel, but they removed that part of his character because there really is no way to do it on film when screen time is limited without IMO likely getting it terribly wrong and adding a bunch of stereotypes that would make the character cartoonish and borderline a joke or even worse, offensive.

 

[Tom]

Here is a short video that shows some more of what's in in the Vanity Fair pictures.

http://www.cinemablend.com/new/Watc...kens-Behind-Scenes-Star-Wars-Video-71251.html

 

[RoJoHen]

I hope there are some gay Stormtroopers just for good measure.

As much as I love that idea as a gay man ... as we saw in Star Trek First Contact, it's difficult to write secondary characters e.g. storm troopers as gay without getting it wrong IMO.

Lt Hawk was written as gay in the novel, but they removed that part of his character because there really is no way to do it on film when screen time is limited without IMO likely getting it terribly wrong and adding a bunch of stereotypes that would make the character cartoonish and borderline a joke or even worse, offensive.

Maybe the Stormtroopers have a dance party and we can see two dudes grinding on each other?

 

[JD]

Vanity Fair.com has a couple of articles up, one of them is where all of these new pics come from, that seem to basically be a preview for their May 7th Force Awakens cover story. I'll definitely be picking the magazine up.

 

[Amaris]

Yeah, I just saw those pictures and, combined with the trailer, I'm just trying to keep calm until the movie comes out.

 

[davejames]

Ha, gotta love Abrams telling Ford not to do his "growly" thing in this movie.

 

[JD]

At this point any doubts I had about the movie are gone, and December 18 can't come here soon enough.
So is the official title Star Wars: Episode VII: The Force Awakens or just Star Wars: The Force Awakens? I noticed a lot of the posters and stuff don't say Episode VII on them, just Star Wars: The Force Awakens, but a lot of websites and stuff still keep using the EVII part too.

 

[RoJoHen]

It would be weird for the VII not to be there. It'll probably be in the opening crawl, even if it's not in some of the promo material.

 

[Flying Spaghetti Monster]

Well the original films didn't use the episode numbers on the posters. The numbers were used to promote the prequels (accentuating that they are, indeed, prequels).

I guarantee that when you see the crawl, episode 7 will appear there.

Also Lucasfilm has basically dispensed with episode numbers in promoting now.. the digital copies didn't promote the numbers for ANY of the downloads.

 

[RoJoHen]

Well, now that there are going to be all these tie-in stories like "Rogue One," episode numbers might not make as much sense.

 

[DarthTom]

Vanity Fair.com has a couple of articles up, one of them is where all of these new pics come from, that seem to basically be a preview for their May 7th Force Awakens cover story. I'll definitely be picking the magazine up.

It's definitely one worth keeping - especially since more and more print publications are disappearing.

 

[Richard Baker]

The Star Wars saga has made some really ridiculous conversations explaining it to my kids-
"Well the movie called episode 4 was really the first one and the fourth film is called episode 1 now, of course when I first saw it there was the only one and we just called it Star Wars but it was renamed 'A New Hope' later. They made 4,5,6, then some years later they made 1,2,3- and now they are making #7"