Caffeinated Clint
While news of the this week’s trailer premiere takes the cake, there’s another “Star Wars” nugget shining from the bottom of the Tattooine news canal.
Word from /Film is that the next “Star Wars” film to get unstuck from the Dagobah swamp will be a spin-off teaming some of the galaxy’s best Bounty Hunters. Said film will be set around the time of 1977’s “Star Wars : A New Hope”, but it doesn’t sound like it’ll feature any of the main characters from it – well, maybe the Stormtrooper that knocks his head on the door at the start of the film. There is talk of a Millennium Falcon appearance, but Han Solo isn’t involved, so I don’t quite know how that’s supposed to work. The stratgem would seem to be some sort of mesh of “Monuments Men” and “Suicide Squad” with a horde of green-eyed Bounty Hunters assigned to nab the plans to the Death Star pre-“Episode IV : A New Hope”. With so much talk of a Boba Fett movie over the years, one can only imagine he’ll be a part of the film.
Here’s the guts of /Film’s report on the movie, to be directed by “Godzilla” helmer Gareth Edwards :
As rumor has it, the story follows a group of bounty hunters who were hired for the job — think the Seven Samurai or Suicide Squad meets Ocean’s Eleven in the world of Star Wars.
As mentioned, no one at Disney or Lucasfilm would comment on this. Several sources with inside information on the Star Wars universe acknowledged this was possible and others suggest it has a few strings of truth, but might not be the whole truth.
Here’s what does make sense.
This story is one of the most important in the history of Star Wars.
It’s literally the event that sets in motion the path of Luke Skywalker.
The crawl of A New Hope says the following: “It is a period of civil war. Rebel spaceships, striking from a hidden base, have won their first victory against the evil Galactic Empire. During the battle, Rebel spies managed to steal secret plans to the Empire’s ultimate weapon, the DEATH STAR, an armored space station with enough power to destroy an entire planet.” It makes it sound like they’re Rebels, but they could have been working for the Rebels.
We also know there’ve been rumors about a Boba Fett spin-off movie. Fett was never mentioned in any of the conversations we had about this film, but if this is a movie about bounty hunters, you could easily include him. I repeat: we do not know if Boba Fett is in this film. We just think the idea of the Rebels hiring a bunch of bounty hunters, who don’t have a real allegiance, is a logical and cool plot.
Think about it. The Rebels are a wealthy but small organization. It’s very plausible they don’t have the military skill to pull off a mission of this size and could pay people familiar with the Empire to steal the plans. People who have no morals. Then again, if bounty hunters stole the plans, would Darth Vader employ them looking for the Millennium Falcon come The Empire Strikes Back? Speaking of which…
Here’s one thing that doesn’t make sense. We also heard the Millennium Falcon is somehow involved. Now, as far as we know, Han Solo would own the Falcon in this time period, which would logically culminate mere days before the events of A New Hope. However, we also heard Solo is not a character in this film, so do the bounty hunters steal his ship? Is this just another ship that looks like the Falcon? Are we incorrect and does Lando still have the ship? We don’t know. But if the Falcon is in the movie, you have to assume it’s THE Falcon, not a Falcon, otherwise it’s just confusing.
Another piece of the rumor we heard is the main character of this film would be introduced in The Force Awakens. If that’s the case, they would have to be much older in that the new film. Maybe in their 60s to 80s.
That’s certainly possible. Max Von Sydow‘s character could fit the bill. There’s a rumor he plays a character who introduces Daisy Ridley to Han Solo, which would be a link. He may even be a retired bounty hunter named Montross, which could place him in this story. But those are just rumors.
Whether its Von Sydow’s character or not, it seems like a long time for a person so integral for Star Wars lore to take a back seat. Unless, of course, they have to pull a Michael Corleone and lay low for a few years. Either way if we meet an older man or woman in The Force Awakens and the next year, a film is released that shows them as an intricate part of the destruction of the Death Star, that would really give both The Force Awakens and the Star Wars saga some fascinating new layers.
Aging isn’t an absolute isn’t the Star Wars universe either. We know from Darth Vader, Yoda and others that someone who is powerful with the Force ages slower than normal. Plus, aliens and droids are different/don’t age. If the main character is any of those things, he/she/they could be younger. But I doubt a new, CG character is the center of a spin off. Or that a bounty hunter would have Jedi traits.
Still, if the film does star a character from The Force Awakens, it would explain why Lucasfilm hasn’t revealed the plot of this movie yet. They haven’t officially revealed who any of the new actors are playing and wouldn’t want to jump the gun with a new character name or information about their past. At least until we know a little more about the new film.
The “Star Wars” spin-off is due in 2016.
