There have been scores of “Star Wars: Episode VII” rumors coming out of the woodwork in the last week and it’s hard to even know where to start. I’ll run through this below in text form, but if you’d like to listen to the analysis we did on the Full of Sith podcast, I’ve embedded it above for the purpose.
But I think it’s safe to start with Stormtroopers.
Tom Hodges, a friend from my “Why We Love the Prequels” panels at Star Wars Celebration, posted a sketch on his instagram. He said that it was based on a design he’d seen that was legitimate.
This seemed to force sites like Indie Revolver to go all in and post photos and concept art they had. This sort of caused an avalanche and we then got these photos:
They seem legitimate, but if there’s one thing fans are good at fabricating, it’s Stormtrooper buckets.
Then, Indie Revolver upped the ante with some blurry shots of what Han Solo may or may not be wearing in Episode VII. (Here is the link to those costume drawings.) They look exactly like you’d expect. One is basically old Harrison Ford dressed from “Empire” with a slight update, and the other is old Harrison Ford dressed from “Jedi” with a slight update. Neither are hard to believe, but neither would they be hard to fake.
After these rumors and scoops broke, Latino Review got in on the action, coming out with a report that the bad guys in Episode VII would be Inquisitors, the likes of which we’ll be seeing soon enough in “Star Wars: Rebels.” Inquisitors aren’t as new a concept as I’d thought, as they are referenced in the original “A New Hope” radio drama produced by NPR and written by Brian Daley. They also posit that Luke has been held captive for a long time and no one has seen or heard from him. This is, supposedly, the driving mystery of the film.
Not to be outdone, Indie Revolver doubled down on Latino Review’s villains report with an alleged bit of concept art:
Again, if there’s a thing that’s easy to fake, it’s concept art. “Star Wars” has been around for so long, we all can guess at what sort of design motifs we might get, and then mocking things up wouldn’t be hard.
It’s important to remember that absolutely none of this could be true. Could these be real leaks? Absolutely. Is this anything we should be concerned about? No. Here’s the thing: leaks are not the best place to learn the plot of a movie. The movie theatre is the best place for that. Ideas that might sound outright stupid (especially through the game of telephone that rumors and scoops are) could very well play out beautifully on film.
If you’re worried about any of this stuff, you’re wasting your energy. Think happy thoughts. If any or all of this is true, it could all end up awesome on screen.
We’ll only know for sure what was real and what was fake after December 18, 2015, when “Episode VII” is unleashed on the world.