J.J. Abrams isn’t going to like this, as it appears that his mystery box has sprung a bit of a leak.  You may not like it either if you want to remain unspoiled on Star Wars: Episode VII news in general, because details regarding the film’s general plot have hit the net.  If these are true, it actually seems kind of a cool story to me.  But there are those that don’t want to know anything and I totally get it.

All I’ll say above the jump is that I hope Disney and Lucasfilm really make the best of the two week hiatus coming up in August to rework the film’s shooting schedule.  Because they’re going to need Harrison Ford.  And his leg.  Hit the jump for Star Wars Episode 7 story details.  And, in case you didn’t get the message in the first paragraph, spoilers below.

star-wars-episode-7-set-photo-abrams-kennedy-r2d2

According to Devin Faraci at Badass Digest, the story is very much in the vein of A New Hope and starts off with a nice tip of the hat to the end of The Empire Strikes Back.  Right now we’ll put this in the rumor column, but BAD is a site that I trust very much to vet their scoops.  His description is also considerately worded to avoid outright enjoyment killing spoilers (if such things even exist).  I wouldn’t be surprised if this was all true.

Per Faraci:

Imagine the standard Star Wars crawl, and when it ends the camera pans up to the stars. But instead of a spaceship zooming into frame we see... a hand! A severed hand, tumbling through space. A severed hand gripping a light saber.

That hand falls onto a desert planet, where it is discovered by characters who will be our heroes. One is Daisy Ridley. The other is John Boyega, who is playing someone trying to change his path in life (again, I'm keeping it vague here). They recognize the light saber as a Jedi relic and decide to return it to the proper people.

Their quest takes them off world, and they meet up with Han Solo and Chewbacca, who aren't flying around in the Millenium Falcon anymore but are piloting... well, that could be a spoiler. I'll leave it. Anyway, Han and Chewie recognize the light saber as Luke's, and they say they haven't seen their friend in thirty years, since the events of Return of the Jedi.

So begins a quest to find the missing Jedi Master. Meanwhile, on an ice planet, nefarious forces are building a super weapon, one capable of destroying not planets but entire solar systems...

In many ways this plot of Episode VII is an echo of A New Hope. Instead of R2 coming to Tatooine it's a hand falling from the sky, but the basic sweep of the story is similar, and intentionally so. But things that seem familiar may not be as familiar as you think - don't assume that every ice or desert planet in the galaxy has already been visited, if you know what I'm saying.

I've edited some of that down so you'll want to visit the above link for the whole thing (along with some analysis). But, as Star Wars fans, how does that strike you?  I'm not the biggest SW guy, but the directness of that plot sounds light years better than the labyrinthine narrative of the prequels. Star Wars Episode VII hits theaters on December 18th, 2015.

star-wars-episode-7-story-ford