Did One News Organization Leak The Plot of Star Wars VII In A Mayan Apocalypse Story?

Something interesting happened yesterday. International news agency Reuters published a story with some information on Star Wars VII. In it, they seemed to detail a very specific bit of plot related to a shooting location. And honestly? While it might have been a mistake, it could be the most legit bit of news we’ve heard about the upcoming film’s plot so far. 

Here’s the thing, the story was actually about the end of the Mayan calendar, aka the Mayan Apocalypse. They talked about the Maya temples of the ancient city of Tikal, which happened to be a shooting location of the first Star Wars film for director George Lucas. Amongst a lot of history and people discussing how the area looks like another planet, the writer snuck in:

Yavin 4 and the rebel base return to the Star Wars plot in the forthcoming Episode VII, announced in October by the Walt Disney Co, in which Skywalker comes back to the planet to build a Jedi Knight academy. However, fans said that Disney will likely film those scenes in a studio rather than return to Tikal.

Ok. Ok. Remain calm. They just said Luke Skywalker is definitely in Star Wars VII and that he’ll be building a Jedi academy.

Was this simply a writer getting their wires crossed or did they actually get as-yet-to-be-announced facts from the people they spoke to? It was previously mentioned the new trilogy would not take from any existing source material but Luke and the Jedi academy was the plot of Kevin J. Anderson’s Jedi Academy trilogy.

Here’s the thing, Reuters is kind of a big deal in news and if they have facts wrong in a story, they will correct that story. This one was originally posted on Tuesday and has not been updated even though many other sites have picked up on the plot information. That leads me to believe it’s true. And really, with Disney now involved, you’d think they’d get on that if it were false.

And let’s not forget, Mark Hamill was talking about Star Wars VII back in 1983 so perhaps this really was an elaborate plan years in the making. What do you think?

UPDATE: TheForce.net contacted the author of the Reuters piece and received this comment back:

This was a mistake. I misunderstood what fan clubs had told me and shown me in book plots and that storyline has not been announced by Disney. Perhaps I should have written something along the lines of ‘Yavin 4 appears in several Star Wars book plots and while Guatemala fans said they hope film crews return to Tikal, the company has not announced plans for the new episode.

However, at this time, I still don’t see a correction on the original article.

(via Fanhattan)

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