Max Von Sydow's Role in The Force Awakens

Warning: this post and all links are ***POTENTIAL SPOILER ALERT***


****THAT MEANS CLOSE THIS WINDOW NOW***


According to The Nerdist, who according to MoviePilot, the role of Max Von Sydow has been rumored to be revealed: None other than our favorite Bounty Hunter, Boba Fett. An aged and scarred Fett escaped from the Sarlacc (Hello? Armor and bad freaking weapons? Like the Sarlacc had a chance) and got himself some cybernetics to repair the damage that he did take. The rumor continues, that the reveal will be in the third act of The Force Awakens, and will tie into the events following the Battle of Jakku...which brings me to my own supposition of this....

My theories: After getting back into shape after his brush with death, Fett has one thing on his mind: Take out the guys who took almost everything from him. So either he is still on retainer to the remnants of the Empire, or he does it out of personal pique - but Boba Fett ends up tracking Luke and Han to Jakku just as a major battle starts.

During the battle, Boba Fett manages to kill one of Luke's good friends. Obviously, not Han - but maybe someone else we haven't heard about for TFA? Maybe a certain fellow fighter pilot that was with Luke through thick and thin in the original trilogy? Maybe a certain Wedge Antilles? Regardless of who it actually is, it is conceivable that this is what sets Luke off and loses his cool. This is based on the plot theory that at some point, Luke did something horrible with the Force and destroyed a LOT of stuff and killed a LOT of people. This is why he went into hiding, to protect the Galaxy from himself.

So my theory is that the Battle of Jakku ended with Luke bringing down not only the Imperial Fleet, but also the Republic/Rebel fleet that was engaging it. This is why there are wrecks of Star Destroyers (at least 1 Imperial Star Destroyer and potentially a Super Star Destroyer) and also an X-Wing. (Was the X-Wing a hint that Wedge did in fact meet George Lucas, er, his Creator at Jakku?) And this was triggered by Boba Fett in some way. So is Max Von Sydow approached at some point in The Force Awakens to try tracking down Luke, due to his close interactions with him back then? Is he going to be reformed from all this and be like "Yeah, I saw a lot of stuff go down at Jakku. I don't play that game anymore." Or is going to be like, "Yeah, let's go get this guy and put him out of the Galaxy's misery once and for all!" Only time will tell on that...

And to wrap up, The Force Awakens takes place between 25-30 years after the Battle of Jakku. Daisy Ridley, portraying Rey, is 23 years old in real life this year. Is it possible that Luke in some way infused her with the Force when he went all crazy? And that she is his legacy, but not his blood daughter - or the daughter of any of the other major characters, as has been surmised?

No Planet For Old Jedi

An homage to the movie No Country For Old Men.

This is an original artwork creation by the author of this blog. Please credit back here or to my deviantArt page. Thanks!

Star Wars 7 Teaser Trailer 2

Yeah, so it's out. The 2nd trailer for Star Wars 7: The Force Awakens. I told myself I'd wait until it came out on the Avengers 2, but, I've already watched it about 15 times. And will continue to watch it for a couple of days, I'm sure. I grew up, like most of the other people putting out volumes of writing on the new Star Wars movie, with the original trilogy. I spent my youth playing with action figures and wishing I was in an X-Wing fighter battling the Empire.

When Disney bought Star Wars, I had many a conversation with people praising the move. Defending it, mostly. I had only to point to two facts: Star Wars at Disney World, and The Avengers. Star Wars has been at the theme park for a couple of years (I've never been, myself) and they did a great job incorporating the characters and representing them. And the Avengers - holy hannah! How many great Marvel movies has Disney given us since they started? Too many for one hand to count.

So I've been really happy with the information I've found as far as potential spoilers and leaks. And the 2 trailers - man oh man, are they giving us what we want! Below I'm going to give my own theories on what's going on in the trailer, based on what I've read and seen online since this whole hubbub started. A lot of what I am going to talk about is potential "too much" spoiler, so stop reading now if you're trying to steer clear of any hints of the plot.

POTENTIAL SPOILERS BELOW

There will be enough scene-by-scene analysis of the 2nd trailer, so I'm going to focus on a couple of points that are interesting to me. I'll start out with what many are already calling the greatest single scene in a Star Wars movie: The opening shot of the crashed Star Destroyer. And continuing with the other shot of a Star Destroyer, which SlashFilm points out is a Super Star Destroyer - not the Imperial Star Destroyer from the first shot.

Add into this a crashed X-Wing fighter, and it ties into a specific rumor about Luke Skywalker. Luke apparently went into hiding years ago to protect the galaxy from himself, after a horrific event where he did something really really bad with the Force. Seeing not one, but two Star Destroyers crashed on apparently the same planet, and also taking into account the wrecked AT-AT picture that was leaked around the internet a couple of months back makes me wonder if the "Bad Thing" that Luke did was on this very planet. Perhaps he finally got sick of the Empire trying to resurge, and took out an entire Imperial fleet from orbit - crashing multiple Star Destroyers and also Republic ships into the surface of the planet, killing thousands of people in a single anger filled Force moment.

The 2nd scene with the Millenium Falcon also brings up a question: In Return of the Jedi, Han says "I got a funny feeling, like I'm not going to see her again." This was originally supposed to foreshadow the destruction of the Falcon and the death of his "friend" Lando. That scene was changed, and Lando ends up speeding away from the Death Star unscathed (The Falcon only losing its radar dish, but why quibble over a little dent like that?). There are rumors that Han is going to die in Episode 7. Could they be setting us up for a repeat of the Death Star superstructure chase scene, only ending it the "right" way - in the destruction (gasp!) of the Falcon and the death of the most beloved Scoundrel with a Heart of Gold?

So the last thing to theorize about is Kylo Ren, in his Darth Revan style mask and his very cool lightsaber. Just to note: I love the lightsaber. There's a great video here of a guy showing that the crossguard is not a silly idea, and will probably help Darth Ren be a much deadlier foe than someone without the guard.



Anyway - back to the theory. Which is probably not too novel, but I haven't done a lot of reading about this particular character so forgive me if it's been done to death already. Revan lived 4,000 years before the Star Wars movies, and was by turns a warrior for both the Light side and the Dark side - as a Jedi and as a Sith. He was eventually defeated and became one with the Force - which was a rare phenomenon in the later years of the Jedi Order. His mask, robes and lightsaber were left behind when he finally became one with the Force. And where did this happen? None other than Yavin - the site of an ancient temple, a Rebel base, a destroyed first Death Star, and by all accounts a prominent locale in the new Star Wars movies. With the Force Awakening, will this include either rebirth of old Jedi that became one with the Force, or possibly guidance from these spirits?

Is Kylo Ren the apprentice of a Force Ghost Darth Revan? Did he delve too deeply into the Temple on Yavin and stumble upon the mask and robes, and keep them for himself? I don't know how far back the lightsaber technology goes, but apparently older lightsabers did not have the same type of force field holding them together, so bled out more power - which would explain the different style of lightsaber blade that Kylo Ren is using. Possible a four millenia old lightsaber.

  

That's about it for my theories. I've drawn on movie rumors, as well as materials from the Expanded Universe (which is officially Non-Cannon now, but they have said that some aspects may still be drawn into play in the new movies). Hope you like them, and feel free to rebut or share your own!