New Toy Confirms Old Character Rumor

ralph-mcquarrie-star-warsA long time ago, we ran four little rumor articles based on the accounts of King3000, a source of ours with knowledge of Star Wars: The Force Awakens who told us information about the film on our message board The Cantina. After months of waiting, the posts have been vindicated by a plethora of new footage from the movie.

 

Minor spoilers ahead.

Hassk ThugShown above is a new toy of a wolf-creature (via JediTempleArchives). I point this out in particular because this was one of the first things that King3000 told us about – a werewolf-type alien based on previously-unused Ralph McQuarrie art (see title image). This is the most recent thing in a long history of things that he’s been right about, and since we’re so close to release, I’d like to talk about a few of his “greatest hits” with the information he’s given us.

 

Pegg's Character

The shape of the suits in above image strongly implies that Simon Pegg is the character that J. J. Abrams is gesturing toward, and the character in question has been confirmed to be the elusive Unkar Plutt via a few new toys.

 


King3000 mentioned that Simon Pegg’s character would be seen in a Cantina-esque scene. In the scene described, Unkar Plutt harasses Rey until a slightly-wounded Chewbacca comes after him. He taunts the Wookie by telling him he’s no good with a single arm, and… well, let’s just say that Han wasn’t kidding when he said that Wookiees were strong enough to actually pull arms out of sockets.

 

We now know that said scene actually takes place on Takodana (judging by a few of the background characters in the image with Rey), but Pegg was still seen in costume for the Abu Dhabi shoot. From this, we can infer that Unkar Plutt ends up being present on both worlds over the course of the movie. This is pure speculation on my part, but the easiest explanation as to why this is would be that Unkar Plutt is the owner of the Millennium Falcon at the time of The Force Awakens until Rey “borrows” it. So he somehow learns of this, and travels from Jakku to Takodana to get it back, only to get a dislocated (or possibly severed) arm or two in the process. What a rotten deal!

 

lupita-nyongo-imageAnother key thing that King3000 told us about was how they brought Maz Kanta to life. At the time, some people thought that her character would be a puppet (like Yoda, circa the OT) with Lupita Nyong’o’s motion-captured face superimposed over it (also like Yoda, but circa the PT). However, King3000 made the assertion that a little person would portray the character’s body in “physical scenes” while Nyong’o would do the motion-capture for her face. He also noted that there were some scenes where the character was entirely played by Nyong’o when she was seated or “standing” on her knees. The character’s inclusion on the poster and her presence in the second teaser strongly indicates that the motion-capture/body double method is what was used in the end.

 

Beyond this, King3000 has told us about several other little things – Nien Nunb’s presence in the film, Rey and BB-8 descending a few steps together, and several details about background characters. It will be interesting also to see if the Benedict Cumberbatch cameo rumor pans out.

 

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Grant has been a fan of Star Wars for as long as he can remember, having seen every movie on the big screen. When he’s not hard at work with his college studies, he keeps himself busy by reporting on all kinds of Star Wars news for SWNN and general movie news on the sister site, Movie News Net. He served as a frequent commentator on SWNN’s The Resistance Broadcast.

Grant Davis (Pomojema)

Grant has been a fan of Star Wars for as long as he can remember, having seen every movie on the big screen. When he’s not hard at work with his college studies, he keeps himself busy by reporting on all kinds of Star Wars news for SWNN and general movie news on the sister site, Movie News Net. He served as a frequent commentator on SWNN’s The Resistance Broadcast.

18 thoughts on “New Toy Confirms Old Character Rumor

  • December 6, 2015 at 9:17 pm
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    What exactly is the “rumor” mentioned in the title? That wasn’t clear to me from the article.

    • December 6, 2015 at 9:24 pm
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      This new toy confirms the rumor about the wolf creatures that we posted almost a year ago.

      • December 6, 2015 at 9:34 pm
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        Ah, I see. Cool.

      • December 7, 2015 at 2:33 pm
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        Could be the same race as the wolf creature evil sidekick in the Chewbacca comics…

  • December 6, 2015 at 9:34 pm
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    Reminds me very much of Zeb from Rebels.

    • December 7, 2015 at 2:25 am
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      That’s what I was thinking too, almost at if they’re of the same species.

  • December 6, 2015 at 10:07 pm
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    No article about the toy that reveals Greg Grunberg’s character is named “Snap Wexley”, and Chuck Wendig’s subsequent hint on Twitter that it’s no coincidence that Snap shares a last name with Norra and Temmin Wexley from Aftermath?

    Personally, I think the character might be a future Temmin, with “Snap” being his callsign or a nickname or something. The age totally matches up for this, since Gre Grunberg is in his late 40s, and Temmin would be in his mid-to-late 40s by the time of TFA. They don’t mention any other family on the “Wexley” side in the novel (Norra’s sister wouldn’t be a Wexley, and is also much older with no children anyway), so if Wendig is suggesting it’s no coincidence, the most obvious connection to me would be a grownup Temmin. It would also make sense for him to eventually follow his mother in becoming a Rebel/Resistance pilot, especially after they both reconcile at the end of the novel, and form a little team with Sinjir, Jas Emari, and Jom Barell.

    • December 6, 2015 at 10:14 pm
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      Personally, I think the character might be a future Temmin, with “Snap” being his callsign or a nickname or something. The age totally matches up for this, since Gre Grunberg is in his late 40s, and Temmin would be in his mid-to-late 40s by the time of TFA. They don’t mention any other family on the “Wexley” side in the novel (Norra’s sister wouldn’t be a Wexley, and is also much older with no children anyway), so if Wendig is suggesting it’s no coincidence, the most obvious connection to me would be a grownup Temmin. It would also make sense for him to eventually follow his mother in becoming a Rebel/Resistance pilot, especially after they both reconcile at the end of the novel, and form a little team with Sinjir, Jas Emari, and Jom Barell.

  • December 6, 2015 at 10:11 pm
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    Cool. All these weird and wonderful creatures, this is the SW I fell in love with as a kid.

  • December 6, 2015 at 10:26 pm
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    I wonder if that tall red droid that was seen in the BTS video on Jakku is Unkar’s droid? That would explain why he and Unkar both appear on Jakku and Takodana.

  • December 6, 2015 at 10:39 pm
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    Plageuis peeps we have been vindicated! So stoked!

  • December 6, 2015 at 11:12 pm
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    Frankly, I’m much more interested in knowing what character Miltos Yerolemous will be portraying than Simon Pegg. Maybe this is it…

  • December 6, 2015 at 11:14 pm
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    What were the details on the Cumberbatch cameo? Does anyone remember? Is it just a faceless stormtrooper-type situation?

  • December 7, 2015 at 2:27 am
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    Speaking of Pegg, I found this tweet earlier in regards to him. I couldn’t help but laugh at what this person stated, especially since it’s deserving

    • December 7, 2015 at 4:07 am
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      I’m sure Pegg is really concerned by what some oversensitive prequel devotees think of him. Enjoy spending money on something and then burning it.

    • December 7, 2015 at 5:45 am
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      I’m confused.

  • December 7, 2015 at 6:51 pm
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    Cumberbatch could be the tall thin hookah smoker from ANH cantina scene, aged 40 years and still hitting the pipe in the confirmed new cantina scene.

  • December 8, 2015 at 2:00 am
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    Hassk vaguely looks like a feral version of that creature that offers Homer a Frogurt in that Treehouse Of Horror episode. Still probably my favorite new alien of this film.

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