Star Wars: The Force Awakens – Let’s Analyze Those Empire Covers

Our first look inside a First Order Star Destroyer!

Another day, another piece of information about The Force Awakens. The good news is this isn’t just a rumored character or plot point, it comes in the form of two covers for Empire magazine. One is for the characters of the First Order, while the other shows our protagonists who are in some way affiliated with the Resistance. Let’s look at them both and see what we can find.

Let’s see the bad guys first.

Here you go:

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The first thing that jumps out at us is that Kylo Ren‘s lightsaber looks much more stable than usual. Sure, there are crackles here and there but the blade itself seems a lot more solid white. We’re willing to bet this is the result of two things: The first is photoshop and the second is the blade tends to look a bit more stable when we’re looking at it in a still image for obvious reasons.

There’s not much to say about General Hux or Captain Phasma that hasn’t already been said. They look great and are in poses we’ve pretty much seen them in before. It’s worth noting that the First Order stormtroopers beside them look very similar to their Imperial counterparts from behind. In fact, if we didn’t know this took place thirty years after Return of the Jedi we would be surprised to hear it was different armor.

The real differences come in for the background. we’re willing to be that these characters are aboard the Star Destroyer glimpsed in this shot from the trailer:

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The bluish-white lighting is very reminiscent of Abrams past work, most notably the Vengeance Dreadnaught in Star Trek Into Darkness.

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The hanger bar is also more angular in design than the ones we saw aboard past Imperial ships, most notably the Executer and the two Death Stars:

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What about the good guys?

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You’ll notice they’re on Jakku. Rey’s pose seems to be very similar from the D23 poster, which leads us to believe both poses are from the same promotional photo shoot:

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It’s nice to see Poe with Finn and Rey. He’s dressed in his flight suit, which they really seem to be pushing with the character. This guy is being branded as the pilot of the group, as if they really wanted one of the big three to be the new age Wedge Antillies. We’re surprised there’s no Han Solo, but it seems they’re really trying to put the marketing emphasis on the newcomers to the saga.

To their right is the Falcon, which seems to look more worse for wear than in any shot we’ve ever seen it. We’re curious about the piece of cloth blowing off the ship. Is it some random adornment or was the ship covered in a large tarp like a piece of trash? Hopefully we’ll know more soon.

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