The Star Wars: Episode VII teaser trailer introduced us to a Stormtrooper protagonist, a girl with a cool landspeeder and rolling droid, and a mysterious cloaked figure wielding a controversial new lightsaber. Now we have their names!
Director J.J. Abrams and Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy chose a very vintage way to introduce the new generation of Star Wars heroes and villains and those in-between: They’re releasing Topps trading cards, made to look like the old Topps cards sold with Episode IV back in 1977, with the new characters’ names.
Spoilers for Star Wars: The Force Awakens.
This first set features cards with red and blue borders; with the original Topps, those were the most desired cards. As you saw above, the rolling droid (snarkily nicknamed “R2-FIFA” by some fans) is actually called BB-8. Here’s everyone else—and yes, there is significance to the card numbers, teases Abrams.
Though a lot of speculation had Daisy Ridley’s character as Kira, Rey suits her better. Interestingly, Rey does not have a surname—or at least, not one that we get to know yet.
As EW points out, the name Poe immediately evokes thoughts of darkness and intensity. When we first saw Oscar Isaac in his X-Wing, he did look rather forbidding.
The caption informs us that Finn (again, no surname provided) is on the run. So, the mystery remains of whether John Boyega’s character is a rogue Stormtrooper or just using the armor as a disguise.
Is that Adam Driver wielding the new saber? We don’t know yet, but we do have a name for our ominous figure: Kylo Ren.
Now that you have a sense of who’s who, it might make it more fun to contemplate the alleged spoilery plot details leaked last week. Check out the full list at Entertainment Weekly to see the Millennium Falcon and other familiar ships.
Lucasfilm has hinted that they might release a round of yellow-, green-, and orange-bordered cards down the line. Ostensibly these would introduce us to the characters played by Lupita Nyong’o, Gwendoline Christie, Domhnall Gleeson, Max von Sydow, and Andy Serkis. Whether we’ll get our first look at Luke, Leia, and Han through trading cards or some other method remains to be seen.
Photos: Lucasfilm Ltd.
