Star Wars is a multimedia empire unto itself. As such, it’s more than a little complicated when you want to keep the details of your new movie secret while also making merchandising deals for everything from kid’s toys to clothing. You can do everything in the world to prevent leaks from your film set, but if the children’s picture book leaks instead, the same damage can be done. Now it looks like that may have happened.
There will be SPOILERS for The Force Awakens discussed in this article! You have been warned.
Some images have hit the web that appear to be from a new Star Wars: The Force Awakens children’s book. If accurate, the pages appear to give away plot points from the new movie. Most involve Rey and BB-8, and some suggest at a major component of the mission that Finn (John Boyega) has to embark on -- and how it might involve Han Solo (Harrison Ford) and Chewbacca (Peter Mayhew). Some of this could have been deduced if you studied every frame of The Force Awakens footage that has been released. We’re not going to post any of the images in this article, but if you NEED to see them, check them out here. It should be noted that the images don’t include anything like a title page or cover, so it’s not even totally clear that the pictures are even legitimate, as we can’t confirm that they come from a book we know is part of The Force Awakens official merchandise. They could be a complete hoax. They could be accurate.
Keeping a lid on spoilers has to be a full-time job for somebody over at Lucasfilm, between the cast and crew of the movie itself, the writer of the novelization that will surely be coming, which will be turned into an audiobook, requiring a reader and an audio crew to produce, the fact there are likely quite a large number of people who know major details, if not the entire story, of The Force Awakens. It's utterly amazing at this point that we know as little as we do.
And all that says nothing of the licensing deals. When something as simple as a commercial for batteries contains potential spoilers, it can be hard to escape the ever increasing flood of Star Wars-related advertising that tell you more than you want to know. With just over three weeks until the movie hits, the promotion of everything with a tie to the film will only increase, and for those looking to avoid all spoilers even the slightest reference can give more detail than fans want to see.
Are you happy or frustrated with your own amount of pre-movie knowledge? Do you already know more than you wish you did, or are you frustrated by the success that Disney is having at preventing leaks? We're going to go bury our heads in the sand for the next three weeks. Wish us luck.
