The San Diego Comic-Con panel for Star Wars: The Force Awakens, sucked all the oxygen from the room on one of the biggest days in pop culture. If you weren't in town, or if you were and want to relive it, you can watch it all in this video from Flicks and the City.
In terms of new news, this panel focused on introducing the antagonists of Episode VII, the First Order, an Imperial remnant that isn't taking the defeat at Endor lying down. Make no mistake, though, this was a kitchen-sink panel.
Director J.J. Abrams and Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy were present, as were all of the new actors who will bring The Force Awakens to life and make it their own: John Boyega, Daisy Ridley, Oscar Isaac, Adam Driver, Domhnall Gleeson and Gwendoline Christie (who portrays the splendidly named Captain Phasma.) For a new generation of young kids, these will be some of the first celebrity names they learn.
"This is so out of control right now," Christie says, and she's reminded she stars in another mammoth franchise, Game of Thrones. "Game of who?" she replies.
For girls and boys of a certain age, though, Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher and Harrison Ford are as revered as any sports hero and loved as family. The three had very different careers after Star Wars. Fisher became a bestselling author, Hamill a voice actor with iconic roles in animation and video games, and Ford a traditional leading man. To see them together again, to see the same chemistry they had in the original films, before it all changed their lives, is heartwarming to anyone raised on the lore of a galaxy far, far away.
