More Star Wars Episode VII Casting and Plot Rumors, Now With 75% More Geek Cred!

As you probably are well aware, rumors about Star Wars Episode VII casting continue to swirl furiously… as they have pretty constantly since work started on the next round of Star Wars movies! The new rumors, however, give not just a peek into the casting process but also a look at some new details regarding the plot of Episode VII.  Since the departure of original screenwriter Michael Arndt, apparently the focus of the next installment has changed, requiring a shift in casting plans as well as in the actual script itself.  Rumors and potential spoilers after the jump, so don’t read on unless you want to know!

Actors who are currently speculated to be up for roles in the newest movie in the Star Wars franchise include Michael Fassbender, Adam Driver, Hugo Weaving, and Jesse Plemons. Fassbender and Weaving, of course, have established roles in other geek franchises as Magneto and Agent Smith/Elrond, respectively, but obviously that’s never stopped a casting before!  Driver has been rumored to be up for the role of Nightwing for the upcoming Superman/Batman film as well.  So that’s quite the geek-cred list there.  The Playlist speculates Plemons might be either a young Luke Skywalker or perhaps Luke’s kid, given his vague resemblance to Mark Hamill. Really, though, all four men are pretty great actors and it would be interesting to see them join the Star Wars universe, but it’s impossible to know what roles, if any, they’d be playing at this stage in the game.  It also seems that the Star Wars team, helmed by J.J. Abrams, is basically talking to everyone in Hollywood.

The two plot-related details to surface through all these rumors are even more interesting than the casting rumors, though.  Apparently Arndt’s departure was because of his script’s focus on the next generation of heroes, while Abrams wanted to focus at least one more time on the main trio of heroes from the original Star Wars movies.  If this is true, it means that Episode VII will be chock full of Luke, Leia, and Han – but is that the best way to launch the next round of movies?

The other interesting rumor is that “Abrams and Lucasfilm are now searching for a 20-something female actress who is either of mixed race or black. The rumor is that Obi-Wan Kenobi had a daughter or granddaughter.” That is definitely an exciting rumor on many levels ranging from wanting to see Obi-Wan’s kid to seeing more diversity in the Star Wars movies.  Here’s hoping for a lack of tokenism and for a galaxy far, far away that’s full of fully-fleshed out characters of all types. You can do it, LucasFilm. You can do it.

(via The Hollywood Reporter)

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