WARNING: There won’t be spoilers per se as the facts here is taken from information officially distributed by LucasFilm and EA Games so it might not count, but those wanting to go into Episode VII completely blind may wanna give this a pass
I post this when I do because in the day afterwards is Chuck Wendig’s Star Wars: Aftermath and a few days later is the first issue of Marvel’s Star Wars: Shattered Empire #1. This is important as this starts the Journey to The Force Awakens and we start to see if I am right in anything at all or wrong wrong wrong wrong over the coming months as we find out what the hell the movie is about.
[NOTE 01/09: It seems the street date has been broken in the United States, where I currently am, for Aftermath but I am still posting this on Thursday because I won’t have managed to finish Lords of the Sith yet and it’s bad enough I have to skip Dark Disciple]
Someone Important Is Going To Die
Okay, one note here. Until it was stated that Lucasfilm would not be using George Lucas’ story for Episode VII I would bet hundreds of Pound Sterling that it would be Luke Skywalker that would be toast. If you go on or read Secret History of Star Wars (I don’t think the site exists anymore, it turns out to be owned by someone Japanese) you’d read a lot of times that George planned for Episode VII to involve Luke Skywalker passing the torch, which I assume either to be Nellith (the name of his sister in the original Empire Strikes Back draft by Leigh Brackett written well before the Leia retcon) or whatever character that ends up becoming Finn. And guess which Star Wars character was created with the sole purpose of ‘passing the torch’: Qui-Gon Jinn. The guy who had a blade through his stomach to match Obi-Wan’s death aboard the Death Star. So you’d have a hard time convincing me that Luke Skywalker was not going to die by the end of Episode VII…until the announcement that there was gonna be a new story for the project.
A lot of people assume it’s gonna be Han because of Harrison Ford’s history of wanting out of the franchise, but all I know is that it will be important. Maybe it will be Han, because at this point we still don’t know Luke’s role in the story at all, nor how much screentime Leia will get aside from maybe one sorta-confirmed scene with Poe Dameron.
Imagine if it was Chewie. After all the euporia of having his death in the New Jedi Order premiere, when he had a moon crash on top of him, be retconned only for that too happen. That would be Kathleen Kennedy/J.J. Abrams trolling the fanbase on a level that George Lucas himself could never even do
Something screwed over the New Republic and that caused or lead to the rise of the First Order
The first half of that sentence is not speculation so much as confirmed fact.
The fact that there was a New Republic after the Battle of Endor was confirmed in the Battlefront promotional materials for the Battle of Jakku DLC. Now note the lack of mentions for the New Republic in the promotional materials, just that of the ‘Resistance’ and the ‘First Order’ which is obvious the NuEU’s equivalent of the Imperial Remnant/Fel’s Empire. Now what happened? Well I guess just like the Legends Universe, something happened that damaged it beyond repair, and while the Yuuzhan Vong might not exist in the new continuity (though they were slated to appear in either The Clone Wars Season 7 or 8 had it not been cancelled).
Adding to that is the question of whether the New Republic got supplanted, whether it still exists in a crippled form, separate from the Resistence, or whether it got either supplanted by the First Order in some sort of coup d’etat. We will find out in the upcoming months but I am thinking the third one. Since the good guys (or what we think may be the ‘good guys’) go under the name of The Resistance, and it has been pointed out that unlike the name Rebellion, Resistance implies that this group considers itself to be the legitimate government, as opposed to the Rebellion which was outwardly implying that they were going against the legitimate government of Palpatine’s Empire. And Palpatine could easily claim to be the legitimate government, despite the fact that it was blatantly evil.
This, as opposed to Resistance, which states that the First Order somehow usurped what was the New Republic and drove back all the old Rebels to the fringes. So I assume that it is more of a coup d’etat caused by Snoke, old Imperial loyalists, and dissatisfied elements of the New Republic (Looking at you Borsk Fey’lya) but we’ll have to see.
[Addendum: Then there’s the possibility that the Resistance operate in a small part of the galaxy occupied by the First Order, with the New Republic operating in the other parts of the Galaxy but can’t in that region for some reason.
This does have the benefit for not making all the effort in the Original Trilogy for naught which I am concerned about. And instead make the situation something like the Legacy series where the non-Imperial polity is too weak to fight, and so others must take their place.]
Luke Skywalker’s New Jedi Order somehow sparked off the Knights of Ren
So there is still no actual confirmation on what Luke Skywalker’s role in the movie even is, or even how much screen-time he will get but this has been one thing that has been speculated a lot. There has not been any sign of any Jedi outside of Luke in one shot of the trailer and Finn in promotional materials and you’d think the New Jedi Order would be a major part of the plot as the end of Return of the Jedi does put Luke in a position where he could rebuild the Order as he does end up doing in the Legends Universe.
So the question becomes once again, what happens. And where does Kylo Ren fit into all this. Where does Supreme Commander Snoke? Recent comments by J.J. Abrams imply that the First Order is much more of a blatant magocracy much like the cloned Palpatine’s Dark Empire. (Yes, there was a clone of Palpatine in the Legends Universe, there was actually several but that’s another story) So that could mean that there has been knowledge of the Force spread again to the galaxy after twenty years of Palpatine stamping out knowledge of the Jedi and their ways. But now it seems that the Knights of Ren are inspired by the old Empire, but they also seem to be a recent creation and might not be a direct successor to the Inquisitors as seen in Rebels.
Did Luke train Supreme Commander Snoke only for him to fall to the Dark Side and form the Knights of Ren? Or is Snoke something else? Someone else? Again, we do know that there was a New Republic that is not mentioned in the Force Awakens publicity materials so maybe whatever happened to that polity, also happened to the New Jedi Order, and that Snoke might be involved in both events, and that Luke might have retreated into exile out of shame with only a couple of followers such as whomever is being played by Max Von Sydow or something. We still do not know his role in the film is so maybe it’s linked. Maybe Snoke is just a Dark Side fanboy and it’s Syndow’s character in the new trilogy who ends up being the Master of the Dark Side.
And imagine if the person being cremated in the second teaser (or at least we assume there is someone being cremated) is Ezra Bridger. Ouch.
Actually what did happen to the crew of the Ghost?
We WON’T find out what happened to the Star Wars: Rebels protagonists in Episode VII, not that it will stop us guessing of course
Okay let’s talk about Star Wars: Rebels for a bit.
Star Wars: Rebels is a CG Animated Series currently set 5~4 years before A New Hope and it is basically the sort of series that fills the Firefly/Serenity shaped hole in many Sci-Fi fans’ hearts. Two of the main characters are Kanan, a former Padwan who is only just getting his life together after the events of Revenge of the Sith and Ezra, who eventually becomes his Padwan Leaner (and a third main character who turns up at the end of Season 1 whose name I won’t mention because that might still be considered a major spoiler for a few people)
There is a lot of speculation around the eventual fates of these characters (especially the third one for reasons that should be obvious to anyone who knows who it is) and some are wondering whether any of these three will be acknowledged in The Force Awakens, aaaaaaand no. They won’t.
Okay there could be like a couple throwaway lines as a shout-out to Rebels as Star Wars does have a tradition dating to the development of the prequels where elements of the EU (such as the name Coruscant) have been in included in the main continuity, which continued into the development of The Clone Wars series. Hell, since there is another tradition of using previously unused concepts I believed that the Knights Of Ren were going to be called the Leigons of Lettow (the name of the Sith Knights in the revised first draft of the first film) This could mean that there could be something like that but it cannot be guaranteed that there will, and I don’t know how much about the Expanded Universe J.J. Abrams knows about and/or follows so who knows.
However when it does come out expect a lot of guesswork by Clone Wars/Rebels fans, including me, to what their fates were due to what the eventual fate of the New Republic was and how it all ties in together. Though I am sure that Ahsoka and Kanan (but perhaps not Ezra) will likely be dead by the time of The Force Awakens. Be it old age or…otherwise
Kylo Ren’s mask might not be explicitly linked to Darth Revan in the (first) film but make no mistake: it’s there.
When it could be explicitly linked is another matter. The reason I say that is because the Force Awakens has a lot of setup to do about the Knights of Ren among other things that I’m not sure you can throw in Knights of the Old Republic stuff out . Oh there could be hints in the novelisation but I’m not sure there’ll be an explicit mention of Revan immediately. The second film on the other hand would be perfect for expanding the backstory to the Knights of Ren and there we could see an explicit link to Revan.
But why suggest there be an in-universe link to Revan and it was not a homage to Knights of the Old Republic? Good question which I have an answer for. In George Lucas’ backstory for the Sith, they only go back 2000 years before the Battle of Yavin, which was started by a fallen Jedi known in the Legends Universe as Darth Ruin. This was long after the time that KoTOR is meant to take place. But note that in the new canon novel Tarkin they don’t go with the 2000BBY starting date but around 6000 years before the Original Trilogy, and while there was not clarification on whether or not they originated as a rival order or a red-skinned species on Korriban Moraband, it does leave room for a certain Revanchist to enter the scene.
There is a MacGuffin to be sought after which is why the First Order is at Jakku. Maybe a Kyber Crystal. Maybe.
Assuming Luke is not the person that needs to be found, there should be something else. Someone, I think Lawrence Kasadan, said that they are starting fresh. And Star Wars has lacked a proper MacGuffin plot, though it did have that in the early drafts for the first film. The Kyber Crystal, a crystal that massively amplifies the Force in anyone whom possess it, and while it has turned up in an altered depiction in The Clone Wars, some of you may be more familiar with it being called Kaiburr Crystal from the original Expanded Universe novel Splinter of the Mind’s Eye from 1978. And with the Force ‘awakening’, well what happens to artifacts that is imbued with the Force, how would they be affected? Good question; and one, even if it won’t be answered in the sequel trilogy, will be a good area to explore in the new Expanded Universe.
There will be at least one joke at the expense of the Phantom Menace
I don’t think it will involve the Gungans or Jar-Jar Binks. But there will be one. Trust me.
Finn’s last name, or mother’s maiden name is Sloane, as in Captain Rae Sloane in A New Dawn
You know whom was built up as a character in the first of the NuEU novels but hasn’t been seen since (though I think we haven’t seen the last of her as she might turn up in Aftermath) and it seems that Finn’s last name is deliberately hidden from the audience. Now some people think it might be relevant but I’m not so sure. And it is clear that he starts Episode VII as a Stormtrooper so maybe it’s a family thing.
Actually this is really grasping at straws. I’m not sure I believe this as well to be honest but the fact is that I just want to see more of Sloane as I don’t think we got enough of her actually taking on the burgeoning Rebellion in A New Dawn and I just feel there is a lot more stories we could tell. I still think it could be a family thing, some think he could be related to Zare Leonis, the black Stormtrooper recruit from Rebels, and others think he’s related to Sana from the new Marvel series but it could just be something else entirely.
There will be a huge fight between the New (or New New) Jedi Order and the Knights of Ren in Episode VIII or IX
You know what we haven’t seen in any of these movies, a scene with everyone fighting with lightsabres. There are some examples in the Expanded Universe but we still haven’t seen any mass lightsabre action outside of the Geonosis Arena in Attack of the Clones, and they got beaten by the B-1s, THE B-1’S!!!1! So yeah, this is something that needs to happen and if the Force is awakening then why shouldn’t there be more people with lightsabres over the Galaxy. And I really want that scene to happen because awesome.
Boba Fett will appear in the movie…or he won’t
So there has been reports in the past stating that Lucas now saying that Boba Fett did get out of the Sarlacc. Now that still might be the case and I could see J.J Abrams pushing for it. But we might end up not seeing him in the film. However I am convinced that Boba Fett will return in the new canon one day, and since in the previous two trilogies the Fetts show up in the middle film…
The One True Overlord. 