More info is beginning to trickle in, this time, about the political issues in VIII
As the production on Star Wars: Episode VIII (Space Bear) finishes off its (fifth?) week, the photo leaks from Dubrovnik are still most of what we know about the plot. Well, that and it looks like the movie will pick up with Daisy Ridley and Mark Hamill on Ach-To, pretty much where we left off.
This week, I have something to contribute to what we might know about Space Bear. Unfortunately it’s kind of vague, but it is from the stuff being shot at Pinewood Studios, not the location things that we’re all getting peeks at. This information comes from a source that isn’t as nitpicky about specific details as I am, but it is new info nonetheless.
There’s a stage setup like the interior of a starship. I don’t know what kind of starship, but it is large enough to have a crew and lots of droids manning it. The set has a bunch of practical effect robots and “hairy” alien creatures on it, and given that The First Order seems to be keeping up with the “humans only” hiring policy of The Empire, that suggests it is not a First Order ship to me.
In one of the scenes shot in this stage, a rag-tag group of Resistance fighters have seen some battle. Cut and bruised, they and Poe Dameron are on this ship when Laura Dern, playing some sort of captain or officer. She tells the fighters that they are the last of the rebellion/resistance and that Princess Leia has been gravely injured and is receiving medical attention.
Oscar Isaac and Laura Dern have an antagonistic exchange of words and Dern’s character is blunt with Poe, like she has some sort of authority over him. Things must be tense between these two characters because another scene we’ve gotten wind of has Poe leading a group of Resistance fighters as they take over what is presumably Dern’s ship. The scene included fighters under Poe removing technicians from their computer stations and Poe pointing a blaster at Dern’s character. That’s all we’ve got.
But with Episode VIII so locked down with the production in London, that’s a lot. Before I speculate a bit, this seems like the perfect time to bring up the recently leaked synopsis of Claudia Grey’s Star Wars book
Bloodline, which will tell a Princess Leia Organa Solo story set six years before
The Force Awakens: The entire generation has prospered during an era of peace. The New Republic, governed by the Galactic Senate on Hosnian Prime, has held power for more than two decades. The wars that divided the galaxy are fading into legend. Yet conflict has begun to take shape within the Senate. Two unofficial but powerful factions have formed – the Populists, who believe individual planets should retain almost all authority, and the Centrists, who favor a stronger galactic government and a more powerful military. As the political gridlock threatens to cripple the fledgling democracy, Centrists leaders have called for the election of a “First Senator”. It is their hope that this powerful position will bring order to the divided Senate.
But Populists like Senator Leia Organa Solo know all too well the price of such order. Even as the election nears, the divisions between the worlds of the galaxy are growing wider… At first glance, this is Star Wars politics, which is a very prequel thing to focus on. From what we’ve seen of Space Bear, it looks like this movie isn’t afraid to start treading on the ground of the prequels in terms of echoing theme and larger plot arcs.
If The Force Awakens took vague shapes from the OT movies, maybe this one is going to have some politics and urban centers. The politics is the linking factor about all this Princess Leia talk, and the report that she may be physically incapacitated at some point in the movie, causing a rift in the Resistance.