Star Wars Bits: 'Force Awakens' Toy Rumors, BB-8, Drew Struzan, Star Wars Celebration, Comics

This latest Star Wars Bits might be the most jam-packed yet. Below, read about the following:

Header image: Fan art by Love Carmichael on Deviant Art.

One of the things that makes Star Wars Star Wars is the merchandise. It's the beating heart of the franchise so with 11 months to go until Star Wars: The Force Awakens hits theaters, you knew we'd start to hear about the merchandise. Previous Star Wars Bits have had links to rumor prototype figures and lists and today there's a bit more. JediNews reports that the merchandise from the film will begin to hit shelves on September 4. Making Star Wars adds, and it's a tidbit we'd heard as well, that the film's main villain, Kylo Ren, would be on the packaging. This kind of makes sense if you think about Darth Maul appearing on some packaging and Darth Vader some other.

JediNews also has a list of a ton of as-yet-unannounced Star Wars Lego sets. Original trilogy packages have names, but Force Awakens packages do not. Those just have set numbers and prices, ranging from £15 to £130. Hit the link for more.

This is awesome. Another event has been announced for Star Wars Celebration in Anaheim. It's called Star Wars: Smuggler's Bounty and tells a non-canon Han Solo story set during the original trilogy. Co-written and directed by Fanboys director Kyle Newman, it'll feature voice actors from The Clone Wars and more. You can read more about it, including a plot description, on StarWars.com.

Artist Sam's Myth has made these super cute, Force Awakens art pieces, available in his store here. There are only 15 of each 5 x 5 image of Finn, Rey and Poe as well as 15 sets of all three. Of those 15 sets, three will come with a mystery 4th character. Visit the link.

Drew Struzan has been doing posters for Star Wars for as long as the franchise existed. He also did the theatrical one sheets for the last six live action feature releases, the Special Editions and Prequel trilogy. So it's been rumored for years (most recently, this past May) that he'd be back to do The Force Awakens. Well, that rumor is popping up once again thanks to Schmoes Know. They say it's a "done deal" but we probably won't know for sure until the summer when the final poster is released.The Playlist pointed us to this below video, which is a look back at the locations used when filming Return of the Jedi. Kevin Pike  is the subject and he was the "Location Special Effects" person on the film. Check it out.

Since Oscar Isaac has been talking about it non-stop, Collider took the opportunity of A Most Violent Year to ask his co-star, Jessica Chastain, about the Star Wars: The Force Awakens trailer. Watch it below and note that Isaac said this is still the only footage he's seen from the movie, at all.

Though Marvel has the current Star Wars comic book license, it would be hard to forget the great work Dark Horse did over the years. As a nod to that, StarWars.com revealed they'll be releasing these two collections over the summer. Read much more at the link.

If you can't wait for those, ComiXology just added a bunch (and I meant a BUNCH) of old Star Wars content. Visit the full selection here.

Previously, we've collected a ton of the variant covers coming for Marvel's Star Wars #1. But it turns out maybe we weren't even close to complete. Bleeding Cool reports there will be over 100 variant covers for the issue, which is a comic book record.

We've all see Daisy Ridley's character, Rey, on a speeder in The Force Awakens trailer. Were you curious how fast it was going? Wired figured it out and it's a pretty fascinating look at math applied to art. I'm still scratching my head.

The Star Wars Disneyland Half Marathon in later this month and while it's certainly too late to sign up, the official Star Wars website has some maps of not only the full race, but the shorter ones as well. It's pretty cool. This is just for the 5K, head to the link for more.

MINOR SPOILERS FOLLOWBB-8 is the ball droid revealed in The Force Awakens trailer and, apparently, he's got plenty of surprises. Making Star Wars has two articles based on possible concept art of the droid. In them, they reveal that the orange circles on his body all open up into compartments that perform functions similar to R2-D2. There's even a potential spoiler in one of the articles about what one compartment might fit. Head to those links to read them.