Star Wars Celebration 2017 News Round-Up: Everything You Need To Know

Star Wars Celebration has come to an end. The floodgates have closed and, once again, Star Wars news has been reduced to a steady trickle instead of a tidal wave that threatens to engulf us all. But as expected, this year's convention was eventful, to say the very least. The past four days have brought us news about Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Star Wars Rebels, Disney's upcoming Star Wars theme park lands, and every other corner of the universe.

And just in case you missed anything, we've gone ahead and compiled everything you need to know in one helpful place.

The biggest news to come out of Star Wars Celebration 2017 was the release of the Star Wars: The Last Jedi trailer, which is gorgeous and enigmatic and perfectly happy to raise more questions than answers.

If you want to delve further in the Last Jedi trailer, you've got options. First, you can watch our own Peter Sciretta take to the Star Wars Celebration stage to dissect the footage with a few fellow writers/nerds (they're briefly interrupted by the arrival of a very excited John Boyega). And then you can read our extensive trailer breakdown, where we poke through the footage shot-by-shot and attempt to discern exactly what's going on.

The first poster for Star Wars: The Last Jedi arrived alongside the trailer. While it's very cool art, it doesn't seem to tell us very much about the movie...or does it? So we took a deep dive and decided to explore every nook and cranny of this one-sheet to see what we could find.

As expected, the upcoming fourth season of Star Wars Rebels will conclude the series, bridging the gap between the prequel trilogy and the original trilogy. It doesn't premiere until later this year, but here's the first trailer.

Although the biggest news to come out of the Star Wars: The Last Jedi panel was the release of the first trailer for the film, there were plenty of other tidbits and reveals to be found. We compiled them all into one handy-dandy post, which explores the state of the galaxy following the destruction of the Republic, how Rey's meeting with Luke Skywalker will not go according to plan, and everything we know about the new character, Rose, a Resistance maintenance worker played by Kelly Marie Tran. And if you want even more, here's a bunch of stuff we learned from interviews that took place after the panel, including details on the opening crawl, the return of AT-AT walkers, and whether or not anyone has seen a rough cut of the movie yet.

And while we're doing news round-ups, here's everything we learned about Star Wars Rebels season 4, straight from the show's panel.

While we still don't know its full purpose, we now know that the striking-looking planet with the red soil seen in the trailer for Star Wars: The Last Jedi is a "mineral" planet called Crait. According to writer/director Rian Johnson, this planet is home to an abandoned Rebel base, so it was of strategic importance at one time or another. All we know for sure is that some kind of major battle is going to go down here.

Will see future movies in the "Skywalker Saga" (AKA the main Star Wars "episodes") beyond Star Wars: Episode 9? Lucasfilm's Kathleen Kennedy hedged her bets while answering this one:

I certainly foresee movies past nine. Whether or not we carry on the Skywalker saga... you know, George always intended nine movies, and whether we continue that or not is something we're talking about right now. If the story warrants it, we'll absolutely do it. If it actually inspires new ideas, then we'll probably head in that direction. We just don't know yet.

Peter talked with Star Wars Rebels showrunner Dave Filoni and learned that the Battle of Scarif will not be featured in the final season. We also shouldn't expect to see Jedha, but Filoni talks about why he decided to introduce Two Tubes to the animated series.

Contrary to rumors saying that Colin Trevorrow's upcoming sequel will make use of existing footage of Carrie Fisher, Kathleen Kennedy set the record straight: the late actress will not be featured in Star Wars: Episode 9 at all:

[Todd] was probably confused, because we finished everything in [Episode] 8, and Carrie is absolutely phenomenal in the movie. We're so happy that we were able to complete shooting in the summer. Unfortunately, Carrie passed away, so by the time we were well underway with Episode 9 – in our thoughts, we had not written the script yet – we regrouped, we started over again in January, so sadly Carrie will not be in [Episode] 9. We'll see a lot of her in [Episode] 8.

During a panel dedicated to Billy Dee Williams, the actor confirmed that Lando Calrissian, Han Solo's old buddy and the Rebel commander who led the assault on the second Death Star, does not have a role in Star Wars: The Last Jedi. While it's entirely possible that he's not being completely honest with everyone and is hiding a cameo, it's more likely that there's just no room for him in a movie that already looks jam-packed. At the very least, now we need a canon reason for why Lando didn't attend Han's funeral.

Although he was last seen missing an arm and being flung out a window, actor Samuel L. Jackson insists that Jedi Master Mace Windu is still alive and waiting to return to the big screen:

While you're all sitting there, I know you're all in my corner on this, we know Jedi can fall from incredible heights and survive. So, apparently, I am not dead! Yes, I have two appendages right now, but we know the long and rich history of Star Wars characters reappearing with new appendages and being stronger and better than they ever were. Mace Windu is awaiting his return. Let's make it happen.

Jackson proclaimed this to a room filled with thousands of fans (not to mention George Lucas and Lucasfilm's Kathleen Kennedy), so, at the very least, his message has been heard.

The Star Wars theme park lands coming to Disneyland and Walt Disney World are still a few years away, but a number of details were revealed at Star Wars Celebration over the weekend. The video above reveals the broad strokes, including a lot of previously unseen concept art. However, we were present for the panel and collected all of the relevant details. What Disney is building sounds truly immersive and next-level, including the chance to build a "reputation" in this world that will follow you around and customize your experience.

Having seemingly learned their lesson from the "Where's Rey" controversy, Lucasfilm is doubling down on female representation in the Star Wars universe with a new series of animated shorts and a new toy line called "Forces of Destiny." Characters like Rey, Leia, Padme Amidala and more will be the stars of the line, offering Star Wars-loving girls a chance to engage with their heroes.

So...how did infamous bounty hunter Boba Fett get that dent in his helmet? According to animatics from an unused sequence designed for the final season of Star Wars: The Clone Wars, the damage was the result of a showdown with Cad Bane. However, it's not clear if this is actually canon or not. The fact that we didn't actually see it happens means that that a future story could decide to turn things in another direction.

Who does "the last Jedi" refer to? Will Luke Skywalker turn to the dark side? Will Rey become something more than a typical Jedi Knight? Few of these questions can't be definitively answered right now, but you can parse through new quotes from Rian Johnson, Mark Hamill, and Daisy Ridley. Oh, and will the next movie reveal Rey's parents? Maybe. Kind of?

With Star Wars Rebels ending soon, we have to start wondering what will become of the series' cast. Will they all die? Will they continue to fight in the Rebellion despite not being seen in the original trilogy? According to the news out of Celebration, at least some of them are still around during the events of the original trilogy – we just didn't see them. Or in the case of Captain Rex, they were hiding in plain sight.

Mark Hamill pitched an idea for an alternate ending for Star Wars: The Force Awakens, one that would have allowed the original trilogy's three leads to be together one more time:

In fact, I was reading and thought if Leia is trying to mentally contact me and she's not successful, she'll rush to his aid. She'll get close to him and then get into some dire situation and THAT'S when I show up for a big 'yay'. Save her life, then we rush to Han and are in the same position that Rey and Finn and Chewie are in. Too late to save him, but witnesses. Because it would carry so much emotional resonance into the next film. For us: his wife, his best friend to witness. Instead of two characters that have known him, what, 20 minutes? [Besides] Chewie. I thought that was a great missed opportunity.

The Star Wars 40th anniversary panel included a touching surprise – a video tribute to the late Carrie Fisher. For those Star Wars fans with souls and working tear ducts, please note that clicking play on the video above tends to make a room awfully dusty.

If you want to cry some more, you can also watch the entirety of Mark Hamill's tribute panel to Carrie Fisher. And while it seems weird that the thumbnail features Hamill giving the audience the middle finger, it's actually very sweet and very touching in context!

As he's done with previous projects, Star Wars: The Last Jedi writer/director Rian Johnson spent the entirety of production with a camera on his person, snapping behind-the-scenes photos on beautiful black and white film. While these photographs will hopefully form the basis for a coffee table book of some kind in the future, we saw a few of them during the film's big panel. These photos are certainly more artful than your typical set photo, offering a very unique perspective on a major film production.

Fans at @SW_Celebration do a most impressive recreation of THAT scene from #RogueOne... pic.twitter.com/HiZpsK9igg

— Star Wars UK (@StarWarsUK) April 15, 2017

If you put a bunch of costumed nerds in one place, they'll eventually end up recreating the final scene from Rogue One. That's just science.