Star Wars: Episode VII’s Villain Could Be A Descendent Of An Earlier Enemy

By Brent McKnight | Published

This article is more than 2 years old

DookuStar Wars: Episode VII is more than 15 months away, but when has that ever stopped people from talking about Star Wars? Reports, rumors, and set photos have been flying around pretty much since Disney bought out Lucasfilm and announced there would be more movies, and many of these have revolved around potential villains (knowing that Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, and Harrison Ford are all back gives us at least a face to put on the good guys), and now we’re hearing new details about who those who inhabit the Dark Side of the Force.

As usual, there are SPOILERS beyond this point, read on with caution. And, as always, this report is unsubstantiated and unofficial, so take it with a grain of salt.

Making Star Wars has been flinging news all over the place lately, and now they have a bit about Adam Driver’s character. We’ve been hearing since the beginning, even before he was officially cast, that he is most likely going to play a bad guy. This latest report follows along those lines, but he’s not just a villain, he’s a legacy villain, one with a familial reason to bear a grudge against the Jedi.

According to their sources, Driver’s character is a descendent of Count Dooku, aka Darth Tyranus, who appears in Attack of the Clones as well as the animated series The Clone Wars. Anakin Skywalker kills him in Revenge of the Sith, but Driver is reportedly part of a continuing “aristocratic family line” that flows down from Dooku.

This lineage doesn’t just include Driver, however. It’s been reported that Game of ThronesGwendoline Christie took a role that was originally intended for Benedict Cumberbatch, and was gender swapped along the way. The assumption was that Cumberbatch was going to be related to Dooku, and if Christie is in that role now, it’s possible that could still be the case (unless they could have migrated that character trait to Driver’s character).

DriverBut if Driver is indeed a bad guy, why was he recently spotted (click HERE to check it out for yourself) walking around the set of Episode VII in what appears to be an X-Wing pilot get up? There are a number of possible explanations for that. Maybe that’s not Driver, but another tall, lanky, scraggly looking actor. That’s possible. He could also be undercover, sneaking onto a base or trying to steal a fighter. We’ve heard that there is a kind of Cold War style standoff between the Republic and the remains of the Empire, which maintains control of some smaller outlying star systems, so maybe he’s a spy or something of that ilk.

Here, however, is what I think is the most interesting prospect, one that could have implications reaching farther into the future of the franchise: What if he starts out as a good guy (possibly one of those numerous X-Wing pilots that we heard about earlier) but jumps ship in favor of the Dark Side? If he’s Dooku’s descendent, that certainly seems possible. He could be a member of this rich, noble family, but the darker factors in his bloodline could come into play, especially if, as has been reported, that the Emperor, or some other Sith lord, starts getting the Dark Side band back together. Maybe the draw is irresistible and he betrays his previous allegiances. There are a lot of ways this could shake out.

As with everything related to Star Wars: Episode VII, we likely won’t know until the film opens on December 18, 2015, but until then, we certainly have a lot to consider.

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