Disney and Lucasfilm announced today some official tidbits of information about “Episode VII,” which comes out on December 18, 2015.
For one, the seventh installment of the “Star Wars” saga will be shooting in a mere two months. May 2014 is when it goes before cameras at Pinewood Studios in England.
The other bit comes from the official website:
It has also been confirmed that Star Wars: Episode VII is set about 30 years after the events of Star Wars: Episode VI Return of the Jedi, and will star a trio of new young leads along with some very familiar faces. No further details on casting or plot are available at this time.
Which of the actors whose names have been all over the trades (including Jesse Plemons and Lupita Nyong’o) or will we be entirely surprised?
And of the familiar faces, we only know of one for sure, and that’s everyone’s favorite Astromech droid, R2-D2. We’re fairly certain Han Solo, and the Skywalker twins will be back (or at least we hope.)
Some on the Internet have wondered if the age gap means more than the progression of time since the filming of “Return of the Jedi” or if it’s to just skip past many of the events of the Expanded Universe. My guess is that it’s the former.
How the EU will be handled is still a question hanging in the air. And we might not know how it’s going to be dealt with until the first real moving pictures of the film come out and we have an actual sense of the story.