Giant Freakin Robot

It’s getting to be that time. Principal photography has wrapped up on Star Wars: The Force Awakens—the J.J. Abrams directed one, not the fan film of the same name, just in case you were wondering—and word is we’re getting a trailer soon. How soon is a point of contention, but it should arrive before too awful long, and though it isn’t here quite yet, we’ve heard our first description.

I guess maybe there are spoilers beyond this. Can you really spoil a trailer? Also, this is all just rumor and unconfirmed reports, so make of it what you will.

Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar was perhaps our most anticipated movie of 2014. Now that it’s come and gone and sharply divided audiences, the next truly massive science fiction to take up the “most anticipated” mantle has got to be Star Wars: The Force Awakens. After all, it’s the first new Star Wars film since 2005’s Revenge of the Sith, it’s the first where the buck doesn’t stop with George Lucas, and it’s the first stage of Disney’s massive and ambitious plans for the franchise. Needless to say, all eyes are on The Force Awakens…and two of those eyes belong to Christopher Nolan, who recently discussed his love of Star Wars in a new interview, as well as answering whether he would be up for directing a Star Wars movie of his own at some point.

Speaking to The Daily Beast, Nolan recalled seeing Star Wars in theaters at the age of seven, and how transformative that experience was, with the screen “opening up, sucking you in, and taking you to a different galaxy.” That, combined with getting to see 2001: A Space Odyssey on a massive screen with his father, helped set Nolan on a path that eventually led him to make his own space epic. Nolan said:

Yesterday humanity made history by successfully landing a spacecraft on a comet for the first time ever, thus bringing the scenario from Armageddon one step closer to becoming a reality. The European Space Agency’s Rosetta mission, which has been going on for the better part of a decade now, approached Comet 67P and unleashed its Philae lander, which touched down and started transmitting information back to Earth. It’s a momentous occasion for the species, and this ball of rock and ice hurtling through space is now the seventh heavenly body we’ve touched. We know this is a big form flying around out there, but it all sounds so abstract and can be hard to visualize. Fortunately for us, some folks out there have taken it upon themselves to put Comet 67P into a context we, as science fiction fans, can wrap our heads around.

Over at Nerdist, they took dimensions of the comet and compared it to the specs of various elements of popular science fiction, which, again, gives those of us familiar with such things a new way to think about this that makes sense to our pop culture addled brains. For instance, if you ask yourself, well, how does this compare to a Galaxy Class Starship from Star Trek? This handy image shows you just how it compares. It’s also much bigger than Deep Space 9, but is roughly equivalent to both the Borg Cube and a Federation Space Dock. So now you can picture just how big this thing is.

Of the various things you might expect to find on a Star Wars comic book cover, a giant green space rabbit probably isn’t very high on the list. But that’s precisely what we’ve got on the above variant cover for Star Wars #1, the first of several new Marvel comics set in George Lucas’ galaxy far, far away. And unless you were a fan of Marvel’s classic Star Wars comics back in the late ’70s and early ’80s, you could be forgiven for wondering if this signaled some sort of ill-conceived Star Wars/Bucky O’Hare crossover. That’s exactly the sort of hare-brained scheme fans were worried about when it was first announced that Disney had purchased Lucasfilm!

But no, he isn’t Bucky, but rather a blast from Marvel and Star Wars‘ past. The space bunny in question is actually named Jaxxon. He was created by Roy Thomas and Howard Chaykin way back in 1978 and first appeared in the eighth issue of Marvel’s ongoing Star Wars comic series. That put him in the second story arc in the series run, and also made him one of the earliest original characters to be introduced into the embryonic “Expanded Universe.” And like the rest of the original EU, he’s been swept aside to make room for Disney/Lucasfilm’s more interconnected and closely policed Star Wars canon. Don’t worry, he won’t actually appear in the new Star Wars series; Jaxxon just drops in for the “Party Variant” cover, which will only be available at Star Wars #1 launch parties. Bonus points if you show up to one dressed like him and refuse to answer to anything but “Bucky.”

Star Wars: The Force Awakens as Episode VII of the beloved space opera franchise is now known, is still 400 or so days away, but your first look at a trailer is right here, right now. Okay, not exactly. While this video is in fact a trailer for something called Star Wars: The Force Awakens, it’s not the one you’re probably thinking of. Back in 2006, a fan made his very own film, interestingly enough called Star Wars: The Force Awakens. And this is the trailer for that.

The word iconic is thrown around a little too liberally, but when it comes to Darth Vader, perhaps the greatest villain in all of film, that’s the most appropriate description we can come up with, nothing else fits. Everything about the Star Wars baddie is emblematic, from his sleek, black look all the way down to his lightsaber and the way he moves. And his voice, oh that voice. It’s damn near impossible to think of Vader and hear the deep, raspy rumble of James Earl Jones. His is one of the most recognizable vocal performances of all time, but it wasn’t always the case. Check out this video to hear what Darth Vader, the man with the most authoritative vocal chords in the whole galaxy, originally sounded like. It’s not what you expect.

When George Lucas was filming Star Wars, what Vader sounded like was still up in the air. For such an important character, hitting on just the right voice was both a necessity and a challenge, and one the production didn’t have a handle on right away. During shooting, David Prowse, the bodybuilder who wore the distinctive suit, was the one delivering the lines from the script and working with the other actors.