Disney’s annual event D23 thankfully won’t bring any new footage for Star Wars: The Force Awakens (the few seconds arriving this week will have to suffice), leaving more surprises on the table when it comes to this December’s release. However, a few more images have made their way online thanks to EW, featuring much more of this world and the new cast of characters that inhabit it, along with some familiar faces.
“I think we can’t explore in quite as much detail issues of compassion, the way [George Lucas] did in terms of the values of the Jedi,” Kathleen Kennedy tells the magazine, revealing the darker side of the film. “But we’re going to get there, let’s put it that way. In the arc of all three movies, that will increase.” As for whether or not Abrams will return after Rian Johnson helms Episode VIII, he says, “No, I’m not going to direct Episode IX, as much as I am deeply envious of anyone who gets to work with this group of people on the future movies.”
Check out the images below, along with some spare new details on where the film picks up:
The Empire has morphed into a junta known as The First Order, while X-Wing pilots like Oscar Isaac’s Poe Dameron now fly for a splinter group known as the Resistance. Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher) has come into possession of the lightsaber once possessed by her father, Darth Vader, and later lost by Luke (Mark Hamill) when Vader separated him from his arm during that “join me” duel in The Empire Strikes Back.
Harrison Ford’s Han Solo […] will be one of the leads, piloting the Millennium Falcon alongside his old pal Chewbacca (Peter Mayhew.) Among the newcomers, desert scavenger Rey (Daisy Ridley) and runaway stormtrooper Finn (John Boyega) will be running for their lives, with the rolling droid BB-8 trying to keep up. Eventually all five of them end up aboard that familiar starship.
Star Wars: The Force Awakens arrives on December 18th, but you already knew that.