Fanboys Anonymous

Amid all the justified excitement over the Star Wars, Episode VII : The Force Awakens teaser, there's another pretty neat piece of Star Wars news flying slightly under the radar. Remember, in addition to a whole new trilogy of Star Wars movies, Disney wants to maximize their Lucasfilm investment by producing a whole expanded universe of Star Wars films, copying the Marvel model.

We've heard rumors these films might focus on characters like Boba Fett, Han Solo, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and Yoda, but Slashfilm and others are reporting on a possible premise leaked about the plot of the first Star Wars spinoff, directed by Godzilla's Gareth Edwards.


The first Star Wars spinoff is said to revolve around stealing the plans for the first Death Star. As mentioned by other reporting sites, this is a hugely important moment in the Star Wars canon. It's a turning point for the Rebellion and for Luke Skywalker's journey and becomes part of what drives the plot of A New Hope, as everyone wants the R2 unit that houses the plans.

It's a cool story idea. What's cooler still is how the filmmakers are rumored to have it all unfold. Reportedly, the Rebels will involve the services of a number of bounty hunters to help steal the plans. This jibes with earlier rumors about a Boba Fett-centric film. Who is a more famous bounty hunter in the Star Wars universe? There's nothing confirmed, obviously, but it would be interesting to learn more about Boba Fett through some kind of deal with the Rebels against the Empire.

"This deal's getting worse all the time..."

What's also reported is that the main character of the film will be introduced in The Force Awakens, which means the character will appear much younger in the spinoff than in Episode VII. What we find out about the character when he or she is debuted might inform a little more of the plot of the spinoff. There are a few actors whose characters we don't yet know about in The Force Awakens, but few would fit the age range to have lived through the events of the original trilogy. Most reports point to Max von Sydow, who has (like everyone else) an unspecified role in the new film.

So we have a movie about stealing the Death Star plans by way of bounty hunters that stars a younger version of a character we've yet to meet, and oh yeah—the leak also mentions that the Millennium Falcon may be involved in some way.

There's plenty we don't know, plenty of questions left, but we're unlikely to know much more about the expanded Star Wars universe until Star Wars: The Force Awakens opens December 2015. Until then, debate away among yourselves, but write it down so you can put it in the comments so everyone else can dissect your brilliance!