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Welcome to the second day of #SWCA bonus coverage on The Force Awakens, from sunny Anaheim, California and Star Wars Celebration VII!
First off, in Star Wars Battlefront news that bears on The Force Awakens, here’s the announcement on the Electronic Arts website about Jakku, the desert planet where Rey resides in #TheForceAwakens:
Pre-order Star Wars™ Battlefront™ and on December 1st, 2015, be among the first players to experience the Battle of Jakku*, the pivotal moment when the New Republic confronted key Imperial holdouts on a remote desert planet in the Outer Rim. Taking place in the aftermath of the Rebel victory in the Battle of Endor, players will experience the events that created the massive, battle-scarred landscape of Jakku shown in Star Wars™: The Force Awakens™. Players who pre-order Star Wars Battlefront can fight the battle one week early. All other players will get access to this content on December 8th, 2015.
So we’ll get to see more of Jakku before the movie!
Also: Note use of “New Republic” in there. This seems to indicate that we’re getting a good guy government in place at least in the early years after Return of the Jedi, which is of course what happened in Expanded Universe 1.0.
Knowing that they probably choose their words verrrrrrry carefully, I couldn’t help but notice the use of the word “aftermath” there, too. It put me in mind of the trilogy of novels starting in September with Star Wars: Aftermath by Chuck Wendig. Any connection there, I wonder?
Also, what’s with the lightsabers? If this is supposed to take place soon after Endor, there’s no way Luke could have trained someone else that quickly. Is there another Sith of some kind out there? Whose lightsabers are these? They don’t “perfectly” match up to any of the lightsaber guides out there. Nearest are Luke’s and Vader’s ROTJ sabers, but Vader lost his, and again, they don’t look quite right.
Meanwhile, as referenced in the broadcast, here’s the set of pics from Anthony Breznican, Senior Writer for Entertainment Weekly, who caught the BB-8 link in the model on display at The Force Awakens exhibit:
How does #BB8 get to Jakku? Maybe he crashed in (Poe Dameron's?) X-Wing … The Force Awakens #StarWarsCelebration pic.twitter.com/xSk49kDg2i
— Anthony Breznican (@Breznican) April 17, 2015
This looks like astromechs are being replaced for the BB-8 style of droid. And since BB-8 winds up on Jakku, it’s a good bet he arrived there on an X-wing, so the Poe Dameron thing is a solid theory.
There’s also the news that, allegedly, the new Empire is called “The First Order,” and the Rebellion is now the “Resistance.” This is based off of displays in The Force Awakens exhibit at Celebration, and I’ll be heading directly in there first thing Saturday morning to see for myself.
But contextually speaking, we can’t say for sure that this is the old Empire – it could be something entirely new, or co-opted by some other big ‘n powerful figure. And we can’t extrapolate the “Resistance” as being the Rebellion or the Alliance, either. It certainly seems logical that it would be, but it could also be a localized phenomenon.
So for me, the jury’s sill a bit out. What about you? Got any info to share? Have you say in the comments!