The Big Three – 70’s style (Picture: LucasFilm)

The world of Star Wars is constantly bubbling over with rumour, reports and discussions and the past few days have been no different as the rumours surrounding the plot for next December’s Star Wars Episode VII jump into hyperspace.

Fans and websites, podcasts and blogs have dissected the reports, pulling out any tidbits of information they can as they eagerly await some official confirmation of cast, characters and plot.

Over at Jedi News the team have delved into the Hollywood Reporters recent article, which suggested a series of actors for roles in the new film including Michael Fassbender, Adam Driver and Hugo Weaving. But perhaps the most interesting section focused on this particular paragraph which gives some background to the much discussed departure of Oscar winning scriptwriter Michael Arndt from the project:



‘Arndt is said to have focused on the offspring of Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill), Han Solo (Harrison Ford) and Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher), with the original trilogy heroes taking on supporting roles. Abrams, however, wanted Episode VII to focus on the classic trio of characters, so audiences could have one more chance to enjoy them before a fitting send-off. The new characters, the offspring, will now be in supporting roles, according to these sources, and take center stage in Episode VIII and IX. Some characters have disappeared from the Arndt script and new ones are being drafted.’


So what does this mean? In the much-discussed and choppy waters of the Star Wars Expanded Universe, a fictional arena consisting of novels, novellas, comics, computer and roleplaying games and much more besides, the Big Three characters all have children. Han and Leia (married after the events of Return of the Jedi) have twins Jaina and Jacen (who like his grandfather turns to the dark side) and a younger son Anakin and Luke marries fan favourite character Mara Jade and has a son, Ben.

But are the stars of the original trilogy leading the new film, to the exclusion of the newer cast? No, but it does appear that they’ll be opening the new trilogy and then taking more supportive roles as the newer characters come to the fore in Episode VIII and IX, due in 2017 and 2019 respectively.

If true, it’s a sensible decision by director and co-writer J.J. Abrams (a writer and director well versed in taking existing franchises, notably Star Trek and Mission:Impossible and steering them into new waters), as the world is longing for some classic Star Wars action and who better to bring that to the screen than the franchises Big Three of Ford, Fisher and Hamill?

Stay tuned, this one’s going to run and run.