TOKYO - It might not be the droid you’re looking for, but a plane painted to look like R2-D2 could be the next best thing for ‘Star Wars’ fans awaiting the franchise’s reboot.
Japan’s All Nippon Airways (ANA) has unveiled a Boeing 787 Dreamliner decorated to look like the small round robot that appears in every episode with his multi-lingual sidekick C-3PO. The cockpit and front half of the white fuselage are painted with blue panels in the shape of those on the little droid who does everything from carrying secret plans for the Death Star to co-piloting Luke Skywalker’s X-Wing.
The legend ‘Star Wars’, in the movie’s distinctive font, adorns the body of the plane behind the wing, while the tail is in ANA’s normal - also blue - livery.
News of the aircraft, which ANA says will ply an international route in the autumn, comes as fans got their first look at a new teaser trailer for ‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens’, the seventh installment of one of the most successful movie series of all time.
The action-packed clip showcases aerial dogfights featuring the X-Wings of the Rebel Alliance and the Tie Fighters of the Galactic Empire.
It also offers a glimpse of mercenary pilot Han Solo and his hairy companion Chewbacca, much-loved characters of the original movie, along with their Millennium Falcon ship. The trailer ends with Han Solo - played by an ageing Harrison Ford - saying: ‘Chewie, we’re home’. The film is due for release in December. Moreover, hype surrounding the eagerly anticipated ‘Star Wars’ reboot made the jump to light speed on Thursday as the movie’s makers unveiled a new trailer that delighted fans with a glimpse of iconic characters Han Solo and Chewbacca.
The action-packed second trailer for ‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens’ showed spacecraft dogfights and a chase involving the Millennium Falcon before concluding with the unmistakable voice of Harrison Ford as Solo. ‘Chewie, we’re home,’ Solo says to his Wookiee friend, who offers a signature roar in reply before the trailer closes with a shot of the famous yellow-on-black ‘Star Wars’ logo.
The teaser was premiered at the opening of the four-day Star Wars Celebration convention in Anaheim, outside Los Angeles, sending around 40,000 fans who had flocked to the event - many wielding light sabers and wearing full ‘Star Wars’ costumes - into raptures. The hashtag #Chewiewerehome was rapidly adopted by fans on Twitter while #StarWars was soon a top trending subject on the social media site as anticipation for the movie, due out on December 18, went into overdrive.
Many fans spoke about tears of joy after the trailer’s soaring finale featuring Han Solo and Chewbacca, central characters of the beloved first trilogy of ‘Star Wars’ films made by George Lucas between 1977 and 1983. ‘I’m 41 years old and I cried at the end!’ tweeted one fan, sentiments echoed by many after the trailer’s release. ‘The Star Wars trailer literally had me in tears and cheering,’ US sitcom actor Lucas Neff added on Twitter.
In another scene, played out against the familiar soundtrack used in the first films, Solo’s spaceship the Millennium Falcon is seen being chased inside the cavernous exhaust pipe of a stricken Imperial Star Destroyer. The trailer also featured a voiceover by actor Mark Hamill, who returns as Luke Skywalker.
‘Star Wars’ has attracted generations of loyal fans ever since the first film arrived nearly 40 years ago, creating a signature moment in the history of popular culture and launching one of the biggest movie franchises ever.
After a second trilogy of prequel films wrapped in 2005, the movie franchise had lain dormant until Disney shelled out $4 billion to buy creator Lucas’s Lucasfilm in October 2012. Disney soon announced plans for three new films in the series, with acclaimed Hollywood director J.J. Abrams being entrusted with the reboot. Filming began in Britain in May last year on ‘The Force Awakens,’ or Episode VII.
Abrams told a panel discussion that the new film would seek to recreate the realism of the original films by placing less emphasis on computer-generated special effects. ‘We needed a standard that felt real. You want it to be legitimate, authentic. So building as much (of the sets) as we could was the mandate,’ said Abrams of the production, which was partly filmed on location in Abu Dhabi. ‘Star Wars is as much a Western as a fairytale and one of the things that you want and expect to see are beautiful John Ford landscapes and shooting in Abu Dhabi provided just that,’ he said.