Today we got some random rumors that have been going around. These are rumors and aren’t things I can say are going to happen, but they’re interesting. The rumors do require knowledge of spoilers to understand the full context to some degree. I generally do not consider these worthy of an update by themselves but since there’re a few rumors, so I figured I’d put them all here to laugh at, scorn, or maybe watch pan out. I try not to delve into Star Wars: Episode VIII rumors too early as they’re impossible to verify, but I’ll break that rule today with special reason.

Interesting things are coming out from people who are licensees for the new Star Wars products coming down the pipeline. We talked about this on the podcast but it is late coming out today, so I’ll put it here. They’re being told “Lando is likely to return in Star Wars: Episode VIII to avenge a friend and lead a fleet.” If it goes that way, it makes sense as we know the Resistance Fleet is destroyed in VII and there is a friend to avenge.

Furthermore the licensees are being promised a “Female Sith” for VIII that will lead to a lot of marketing opportunities. Now, when they say “Sith” do they mean it or do they mean evil person who uses the Force and has a red lightsaber? I don’t know. I was initially hesitant about it being accurate but more than one person has spilled this now. So it might be our first indication we’re going to see a very evil woman in VIII.

The final bit from the marketing and licensing side of things is fairly funny. There was talk about doing a mail-away Luke Skywalker figure from Star Wars: The Force Awakens which would require consumers to buy several figures and take the pack-in clues, mail them away with the barcodes and a shipping & handling money order to get Luke from the new film. It was apparently discarded. But I’m not sure if it was the marketing gimmick or the mail-away idea itself.

Things for Rogue One are moving full steam ahead on the toy front as well. It appears as if only the main important and eccentrically memorable stuff from The Force Awakens will be produced in the first year as Rogue One is already a priority for some. It does not appear as if Rogue One will have a smaller merchandise rollout than The Force Awakens but they are being cautious and how The Force Awakens performs will indicate how much Rogue One material we see out there. I tried to fish around to see if there were any concerns about the movie being more adult and selling that merchandise to kids, but it doesn’t appear they are concerned or worried about the tone of the film, just the designs.

Our buddy Jordan at Cinelinx posted a photo of an autograph Carrie Fisher signed. The interesting bit is how she signed it:

That’s right, she signed it as if she plays Han Solo’s wife. It originally appeared at Revenge of the 5th.