Firstly, before we get to this rumour itself, here’s a very important sidebar (that actually may just confirm some aspects of the rumour – more on that later): It was confirmed last night (via ComingSoon) that this coming Friday, select cinemas will unveil the first, 88-second long trailer for Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Hopefully this trailer also hits the internet shortly before/after this, as this will be our first real confirmation of just what the story is about.
But while we’ve seen enough leaks and heard enough rumbling to hazard a guess at The Force Awakens’ narrative, the same cannot be said of the planned Star Wars standalone movies. All we know about them at this point, is that the first will be directed by Gareth Edwards (Godzilla, Monsters) and written by Gary Whitta (Book of Eli), while Josh Trank (Chronicle, Fantastic Four) will be directing a second. Just what these movies will be about is a mystery, but now we may just have our first solid on what Edwards and Whitta is cooking up.
/Film are reporting that they’ve heard some news from a source – and they do say that while there is some evidence to support these claims, they were unable to get anything from anybody high enough up the food chain to verify anything, so take this with a grain of salt -that this first film will be set in the period just before A New Hope and will in fact be a heist film focusing on a group of bounty hunters. So what would these bounty hunters be stealing? Only one of the most important items in the entire Star Wars mythology: The plans for the Death Star.
Yes, these are the stolen plans stored in R2-D2 that actually cause Leia and Luke’s paths to cross and thus kicks off the entire original trilogy. As we’ve learned from the opening text crawl of A New Hope, when that movie opens the plans had been stolen by Rebel spies, who we all had always just assumed to mean spies who are also Rebels. But what if the Rebels had outsourced their spying and thieving to what is being described as “the Seven Samurai or Suicide Squad meets Ocean’s Eleven in the world of Star Wars”.
The source goes on to claim that the Millennium Falcon – just the Falcon, not it’s famous captain – is involved in the plot somehow. Seeing as Han Solo only got involved in the rebellion when approached by Obi Wan on Tattooine, I’m not quite sure how his well-known spaceship would get caught up in this without him.
The rumour also had one last nugget – and this where my previous mention of the The Force Awakens first trailer comes in – which is that one of the characters involved in this heist, will actually first be introduced in JJ Abrams’ upcoming Episode VII. Taking into consideration the timelines of both films, it really narrows the field of candidates down as they would have to be old enough to have been involved in the Rebellion 30 years previously. And the only principal cast member – outside of the original trilogy stars – is Max Von Sydow. There have been lots of rumours swirling around as to just who his character is, and one of the most prominent ones is that he plays Montross, a famous retired Mandalorian bounty hunter. That definitely fits with the profile, and if the trailer for The Force Awakens should confirm this, it would possibly set up a nice means of tying the films together even more.
And speaking of Mandalorian bounty hunters, even if there’s ZERO mention of him by /Film’s sources, it’s certainly not far outside of the realm of possibility that one of the members of this heist crew is none other than the famous bounty hunter of all in the Star Wars universe: Boba Fett. We’ve heard rumbling for ages that a Fett movie was on the way, so could it be that it’s not actually a solo movie, but rather seeing Fett lead a team of like-minded individuals on a daring raid?
Sure this hypothesis is complicated by the fact that Vader would hire Fett to hunt down the very Rebels he worked for earlier, if this turns out to be true., but hey, since when have bounty hunters not just worked for whomever was the highest bidder at the time?
All of it certainly sounds damn intriguing, and I’m really digging the whole heist angle, so I’m counting down the hours until we get some confirmation either way.
Last Updated: November 25, 2014
Brady miaau
November 25, 2014 at 16:21
Well, the falcon was Lando’s when he owned a used Space Ship dealership or something. So it could have come from anywhere and have anyone piloting her, including Luke and Leia’s grandmother or whatever other cheesy tie-in they find
Kervyn Cloete
November 25, 2014 at 16:40
Yeah, I know the history of the Falcon, but the if this is the Death Star plans being stolen, then it would be set mere days before the start of A New Hope, which means that Han would have already had the ship for years by then.
Brady miaau
November 25, 2014 at 17:17
Oh, I am sure you do