Star Wars: Episode 7 New Stormtrooper Design; Filming Resumes This Month

Official Star Wars: Episode 7 news has been – and probably will continue to be for some time – quite sparse. Whether this is due to the highly secretive filmmaking process of J.J. Abrams or Star Wars films in general (or both) is anyone’s guess.

Today, we have both unofficial news and official news to tide you over until the next Star Wars 7 morsel.

First, the unofficial: According to design artist Tom Hodges (who has worked on some Star Wars stuff himself), he was lucky enough to see the new Stormtrooper design for the upcoming Star Wars trilogy. In an attempt to circumvent Disney’s legion of lawyers, he recreated the design in a drawing that he then posted on Instagram.

Alas, the image was removed from Instagram soon after, but JoBlo still has it on their website.

The new look – if legit – is a much more streamlined variation on the old Stormtrooper design from the Original Trilogy. In fact, it more closely resembles Ralph McQuarrie’s original Stormtrooper concept art for the first Star Wars film, though it’s even more streamlined than that.

If indeed the final Stormtrooper design is meant to resemble McQuarrie’s original artwork, can we expect other characters, robots, monsters, villains, and so on to have that McQuarrie style, too? It would be an interesting way to simultaneously harken back to the original films and create something fresh

Of course, it’s entirely possible that Hodges’ take on the design – again, if legit – doesn’t accurately capture the look of the Stormtroopers in Episode 7. We’ll have to wait for something a tad more official to know for sure.

Speaking of news that’s a tad more official, Star Wars 7 is set to resume filming this month. If you’ll recall, Harrison Ford – who will star in the film as notoriously scruffy-looking nerf herder Han Solo – broke his leg on the set in June, which led to a lot of Star Wars-related broken leg jokes around the Internet.

There were rumors that the film might get severely delayed as a result, but that didn’t end up happening. Instead, the filmmakers shot around Ford’s scenes and then the film went on a short two-week hiatus this month as they waited for the actor to heal. Now, according to THR, that hiatus will end soon.

Hopefully, this means that Harrison Ford is just about all healed up. After all, it would be a shame if the filmmakers couldn’t use (arguably) the most beloved Star Wars character in the way they had initially envisioned.

Star Wars: Episode 7 hits theaters December 18th, 2015.