Ahoy, squirts! Quint here. Us Star Wars fans have a wealth of riches today. Entertainment Weekly has revealed a ton of exclusive pictures (I know it's hard to tell if it's their exclusive or not just by looking at the images that are half giant letters that spell out Entertainment Weekly, but I'm a good guy and always give credit where credit is due) and they're so good!
You get more of Luke, Leia, Rey, Finn, Poe, Chewie, Rose and, yes, a new look at a Porg. Plus some as yet unseen creatures, locations and ships.
Let's take a look, shall we? How about we start on Ahch-To?
Rey and Luke on a rainy, grey, moody scenic overlook. Looks like the perfect atmosphere for grumpy Luke.
Yep, that's Rey again. I like that we've seen nothing but her on this planet. Does she spend the whole movie here? I doubt it, but the fact that we haven't seen anything of her off-island is pretty exciting, no? There's still some rabbits up their sleeves.
This is one of my favorite images from this batch of EW stills. They aren't named, but are described as caretakers of Ahch-To. Rian Johnson is quoted as saying they're sort of “alien nuns,” faithful to the force who attend to preserving the ancient Jedi structures on the island. I didn't know I needed frog-looking force nuns in my life until seeing this image, but I absolutely do.
Speaking of weird Ahch-To inhabitants, this is another look at a Porg, the cute penguin-like creature that stole geek hearts in the big BTS reel that dropped at D23. I think they look awesome and I dig that they seem to be mostly physical puppets, but it is funny to me that the community that shunned Ewoks for being cute toy-sellers are making fan art of this little dude. I guess we'll see how they're portrayed in the movie. All I know is I want one as a pet. Like a real one. As long as they don't eat cats. Do they eat cats? There's so much to learn about Porgs!
Finn and Rose, who we know pair off and have their own adventure while Rey's making rocks float on an island somewhere. I'm very curious to see how this relationship plays out. Mutual respect? Something deeper? They're both low level people thrown into prominence, they certainly have a lot in common.
We know that Rose and Finn journey to a crazy casino on a planet called Canto Bight. We've already seen many of the rich alien types that play here. It's a little dangerous to show places too clean and bright in today's Star Wars landscape after a little overstepping in that direction with the prequel trilogy, but this establishing shot of the Casino is really great-looking. It's moody and feel like Star Wars without having to be covered in grime and dust and rust.
So, Finn's piloting one of those red dust ship things from the trailer. Interesting. Guess he learns a few new skills in this movie since he was constantly needing someone else to pilot ships all throughout The Force Awakens. Good on you, Finn.
I feel like we know a lot about what Finn and Rey are up to in The Last Jedi, but no so much Poe. I think the assumption is that Poe and BB-8 are sticking with Leia. There's an EW story coming tomorrow that promises to focus on the bond between the General and her best pilot.
Also shrouded in mystery is Kylo Ren's journey. He's taken the step he needed to take toward the dark side, but even then he was conflicted about it. That conflict is the most interesting thing about Kylo Ren. EW says student and teacher will be face to face this time out, so does that mean we might be getting parallel training stories (Kylo/Snoke and Rey/Luke)? That'd be pretty awesome, especially if Luke's being a dick like all the creatives keep hinting at, which would likely put a little bit of conflict in Rey's heart as well.
Kylo gets a new starfighter this time out, too. It's modeled on the TIE Interceptors from Return of the Jedi and it looks like it sees some action.
Speaking of seeing some action, seems like Snoke has kept up the Palpatine tradition of keeping some Red Armored company. The Praetorian Guard are back and unlike the original trilogy where they just kinda stood around protecting elevators or something it seems like these guys are built to mess shit up. I remember reading about how the Emperor's Praetorian Guards were supposed to be the best fighters in the galaxy and was bummed out that I never got to actually see that in action in the movies. Perhaps The Last Jedi will finally give me that.
Here's a nifty BTS shot of Rian Johnson and his producers, Ram Bergman and Kathleen Kennedy.
Another BTS shot shows off Rian directing Carrie Fisher. Of all the unanswered questions surrounding The Last Jedi, the fate of Leia Organa is one of the tops for me. How do they roll with Fisher's untimely death without it feeling like a story or character compromise? No matter what, it's going to be bittersweet seeing her step into the role that made her an icon one final time.
EW has two covers for this first round of The Last Jedi reveals. Rey is one and...
Then there's grumpy Luke. I'm pretty excited for grumpy Luke, personally. This dude has seen some shit and that's fertile ground to play around with on a character level. That gives him the ability to find the redemption he brought to his father in the OT. I have no idea if that's the way they're going with it, but he once again finds himself in the role of the reluctant hero and that's really exciting for me.
There you have it. EW promises more to come over the next few days, so stay tuned for more Star Wars nerdery! We're only four months away from Episode 8!
-Eric Vespe
”Quint”
quint@aintitcool.com
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