What we learned at Star Wars Celebration Europe: Rogue One, Thrawn, and our new (young) Han

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Another Celebration is over, and while this one felt a bit restrained, here are the big hits. Follow the links for all the details!

ro-posterRogue One
We didn’t get a Rogue One trailer – what was shown only to the live audience was mostly footage we’ve already seen with only a handful of new additions – but there was a nifty sizzle reel. And we learned a couple things about the worlds and characters of the film – plus a poster! And Gwendoline Christie is a fantastic panel host. Later, Kathleen Kennedy said they’re leaning towards not giving the film an opening crawl. Also, check out these amazing cast photos from behind the scenes at the con.

Rebels expands the GFFA
But the con’s big surprise – at least for our purposes – is Thrawn coming to Rebels. The rumor has been floating around since January 2016, but what really took it over the top was the additional news that Timothy Zahn will be writing a new novel about the character. In other book news, we learned that Alexander Freed is doing the Rogue One novelization, while James Luceno is writing the film’s tie-in, Catalyst. We also got a cover for the Ahsoka novel, as well as some hints as to what the character got up to between The Clone Wars and Rebels.

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Han Solo and the Official Casting Announcement
Alden Ehrenreich was finally confirmed as the young Han Solo, and Batman on the Millennium Falcon is totally canon. (Or not.)

Episode VIII
With the focus on Rogue One, we didn’t get much on VIII. But Mark Hamill praised Rian Johnson’s dialogue, and Johnson showed a few new behind-the-scenes pics at the Future Filmmakers panel. We didn’t get a title because it doesn’t have one yet. But remember, there’s still one more Celebration between now and the film’s release…

And finally, here’s a sweet video that was played at the Closing Ceremonies:


We’ll have a new tweet roundup in a day or so, as well as continuing wrap-up coverage, but those are the highlights!

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