That was worth opening for the background wallpaper alone.

If I didn't know that was for SW: VIII, I would have sworn we were looking at an episode of Doctor Who filming.

Looks like some diplomats or high-class folks. You might get your wish for a little more nuts & bolts of the universe, Brian.

Game of Thrones.

Not enough snow, wine, boobs, or man ass.

Are they going to a Space Opera?

ILM put this portfolio of pre-production art from TFA on their site. Amazing.

http://www.ilm.com/visual_development/the-force-awakens-portfolio/

Imgur album: http://imgur.com/a/gBoLA

Never would've imagined the TIE wings folded up.

8- would have been cool, but I guess they can do this down the line.
41- Han, with a beard and wearing a duster? Can't get much more western than that! would have been great to see.
45- IS THAT MUSTAFAR?!??!?!?!?!!? Vader's Castle maybe? Perhaps..... We will see this place in VIII?!

^ That Vader fortress in the middle of what looks like Mordor gives me a raging nerd boner.

Beat me to it jabber.

I'm just hoping that eventually makes it into the larger SWU..... Vader's Castle seems like a great place for Kylo to want to venture so he can connect with his grandfather.....

Seems to me that'd be a great place for Rey to finally face Kylo in the final chapter of this trilogy.

So BB8 rescues a dismembered C3PO from the first order?

Yeah, this looks amazing and would've been so much cooler.

The original concept for the huge, futuristic-looking junkyard that Rey grew up in was pretty awesome too. (You have the Art of TFA book right?)

I hope both of these concepts are revisited in the next two movies, cause they are so much better than just barren desert landscape.

yeah TCTTS that picture is what made me think that stuff was from VIII since that looks so much like the stuff from Dubrovnik

Yeah, the Art Of book is so cool that it almost makes me like TFA less. There were SO MANY cool ideas that were abandoned. Rey growing up in that junk/shipyard would have been amazing. It's crazy to me that even Star Wars falls prey to budget restraints.

On the bright side, I doubt Bob Iger will have much of a problem throwing an extra $100M at the next movie, right?

One can hope.

If there was ONE image I wish they would have kept from the Art Of - which could have been super cheap to include - it was the idea of once again opening on a Star Destroyer, just like in Episode IV... but this time, the twist is that it's abandoned, obviously decrepit, and just hurtling through space. We then see a group of space scavengers exit from the bottom after their loot of whatever was left. Granted, this idea was obviously appropriated for Rey on Jakku, and I understand not wanting to go to that well twice, but man, that would have been the PERFECT opening image to start this new trilogy.

So my wife flew to London yesterday for business. She texting me from the plane, "here's my seat that lays down, and here's the champagne they handed me on my way in, and my fancy BA sleep mask, yada yada. "

And I'm like "yes, yes you're a very important 1%er person and I have to fly coach when the company sends me places, it all sounds pretty awesome."

Then she tells me that The Force Awakens is one of her movie choices....

Pretty sure I'm voting for Bernie Sanders now....

That reminds me. My roommate was in Times Square a few weeks ago, eating at Bubba Gump Shrimp. Who does he see eating there, alone?

Daisy Ridley.

I hate him so much.

Maybe Daisy is a Forrest Gump enthusiast?

Lol, that was my reaction as well.

He's not a making **** up kind of guy.

In fact the first thing I thought was that she was in London filming. But then she was at the Oscars. She might've stayed in NY for a day or two, who knows.

There's no way Daisy Ridley was at the Times Square Bubba Gump

You got me, I made up a secondhand celebrity story just for this thread. And I decided on Bubba Gump as the setting.

Guys, it's New York. You run into celebrities in very random places.

Alas, there is no evidence, so you can make up your own mind. "You dont believe in the force do you?"