J.J. Abrams

When Rian Johnson was officially announced as the Star Wars: Episode 8 director last week, one name was conspicuously absent from the initial press release: J.J. Abrams. Among the producers listed — Kathleen Kennedy, Ram Bergman (Looper) and Johnson — Abrams was nowhere to be found. An updated release was later sent with Abrams noted as an Executive Producer, but it only fueled the flames that J.J. Abrams may be one-and-done with the Star Wars franchise. Not so fast.

Star Wars: Episode 7 spoilers are a dime a dozen on the internet. The hard part is, it's difficult to determine whether any of those spoilers are actually true. Director J.J. Abrams, himself a fierce protector of spoilers confirmed that some of the stuff you're reading online is actually true.

The new Star Wars: Episode 7 lightsaber was the most hotly debated topic that came out of the first teaser trailer. What is this thing? Where did it come from? It turns out those answers might come from a very unlikely source: Apple.

Your mission if you choose to accept it: save ‘Mission: Impossible 5’ from being trampled by ‘Star Wars: Episode 7’ at the box office. Mission complete. While ‘Mission: Impossible 5’ was originally set to open this Christmas, just one week after the juggernaut that is ‘Star Wars’, Paramount has wisely thought this over and moved the new Ethan Hunt adventure up to this July.

J.J. Abrams is famous for keeping secrets. His whole schtick as a director is the “mystery box”—finding pleasure in the unknown, and in the tease of that uncertainty. He didn’t show the monster in the trailer for ‘Cloverfield’; hell he didn’t even show the title of the movie in the trailer for ‘Cloverfield.’ If J.J. Abrams could release a movie without telling you anything about it, he probably would.

Pretty much everyone has seen the 'Star Wars: Episode 7' trailer at this point. It was the most-viewed trailer of 2014 and is on track to become the most-viewed trailer of the internet age. It has been viewed over 72 million times and has spawned countless parodies and memes but, there's still one person who hasn't seen it: George Lucas. The man who created the franchise says that he hasn't seen the 'Force Awakens' trailer and has no plans to. In fact, he's not even that interested at all.

Yes, it’s easy to decry the permeation of film marketing and our obsession with trailers and posters and previews, but let’s just be honest with ourselves here: The ‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens’ trailer is going to an event that rivals the release of most movies. Think back to the good ‘ol days of 1998 (”A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away...”) and remember how fans would buy tickets to ‘A Bug’s Life’ and ‘The Siege’ just to watch the teaser trailer for ‘Star Wars: Episode I.’ If you’re one of those people and want to replicate that experience, you’d better pre-order your ticket for ‘The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies’ pretty soon.

'Star Wars: Episode 7' may not hit theaters for a little over another year, but production has already wrapped on the project. It'll still be a long road of editing and post-production, and it may be hard to believe that they're already done filming, but we have the evidence in the form of a special note that director J.J. Abrams and the producers sent out to the cast and crew, and you can read it for yourself.

'Star Wars: Episode 7' is bringing back so many familiar faces and names that the question on every fan's lips shouldn't be "Who's coming back?", but rather, "Who isn't coming back?" Warwick Davis may not be the biggest name in the 'Star Wars' saga, but fans will know him well ... and they'll be pleased to hear that he'll be back for the new film.

Like every other entertainment site on the internet, we've done our fair share of reporting about the various rumored plot details and characters of 'Star Wars: Episode 7.' Naturally, all of these have been behind big spoiler warnings and we've always been careful to let readers make the decision to be spoiled or not. And that brings us to the most recent story detail to hit the internet ... and it's a big one. So big, that we're not even going to write about it. Instead, we're going to issue a warning.

We've seen tons of leaked photos of 'Star Wars: Episode 7,' from Adam Driver in an unexpected uniform to new filming locations to the Millennium Falcon, but there's still plenty more over which to geek out. For example, a new image has been revealed that showcases a new breed of Stormtrooper, called a Chrome Trooper.

It's here, folks! After weeks of seeing leaked images of 'Star Wars: Episode 7' set pieces and cast and crew members, the first official footage of the Millennium Falcon has landed. Better still, it's a continuation of J.J. Abrams and Zack Snyder's ongoing 'Star Wars'-'Batman' crossovers.