Suvudu Universe

A fellow Star Wars friend on Tumblr recently brought this detail to my attention.

…if you’ve got one of those Star Wars Rebels badges at Celebration Europe, you might have noticed a little URL printed on its side. If you type that URL into your browser it takes you to this post on the official Star Wars blog. It’s a picture of that Ghost ship we’ve all seen by now…

…the blog post itself has been set on the date January 5th 1976. I don’t know if they chose that date to better hide the post or because it has some kind of significance in Star Wars history…

I was aware of the Ghost‘s plan, but the URL on the side of the button and the January 5th date completely escaped me. After a little research, which really didn’t involve much other than typing “January 5th 1976 Star Wars” into the Google search engine, I found this event in Star Wars history:

On this day in 1976 [January 5], Star Wars concept artist Ralph McQuarrie completed the first painting–The Droids in the Desert–to help sell the look of George Lucas’ faraway galaxy to studio executives at Twentieth Century Fox. (Source)

As we all know, the style of Star Wars Rebels will be influenced by the palette and design of Ralph McQuarrie’s concept artwork. The unusual date on the blog post might be referencing this fact and significant point in Star Wars history. Or if you like to read into things like I do, this might be a hint of some kind.

Could we possibly see appearances of Threepio and Artoo in the new series? After the events of Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, Bail Organa had ordered Captain Antilles to wipe the protocol droid’s databank. According to Wookieepedia, only Threepio’s memories were wiped, whereas Artoo’s memories remained intact. Both droids were assigned to the corvette Tantive IV of Alderaan, where the two served the House of Antilles for nineteen years. If we do see our favorite two droids, we could also possibly see appearances of Bail Organa, Captain Antilles, and Leia Organa.

As of right now, we have no details about who captains the Ghost and the role the starship will play during the early years of the Galactic Empire. The 1976 date on the blog post could just be an intriguing reminder that the show will reference Ralph McQuarrie’s work. What alternative meanings do you think the date has?

Lastly, I should also note that there is one other post dated May 25, 1977 in the official Star Wars blog. Most fans will recognize this as the release date for the original Star Wars film. The post features digital trading cards commemorating some of our favorite classic moments and scenes.

Click here to view more trading cards!