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'Star Wars: The Last Jedi' to feature crystal foxes

Edited by Sonious as of Fri 4 May 2018 - 18:30
Your rating: None Average: 3.3 (15 votes)

Vulptex

Furry fans may have noticed a seconds long clip of crystalline, possibly fox-like critters scampering around the trailer for the latest instalment of Star Wars, subtitled The Last Jedi. The upcoming movie was the subject of a cover story by the magazine Entertainment Weekly, and one of the things covered were these "crystal foxes", which are known as vulptices. The Last Jedi is scheduled to be released December 15 (which technically means it's opening Thursday, December 14 for "previews") in America, and now furry fox fans have a reason to get excited.

They are natives of the planet Crait, an old abandoned base of the Rebel Alliance not previously featured in the Star Wars movies. The planet is covered in salt crystals. Living on this planet has caused the native fauna to become covered in crystals themselves. Other details revealed that the creatures also glow in the dark, and though they do not appear to be anthropomorphic in either form or intellect, they are more than just cool set decoration, and have a part to play in the plot of the movie.

The creatures will be created for the movie via both CGI animation and animatronic puppetry. The video included with the EW story shows some of the manufacturing process of one vulptex puppet. The article also contains an anecdote about giving a puppy a suit made of straws in order to research how a vulptex covered in long crystals may actually move around.

This is not the only odd critter introduced by The Last Jedi trailers to the Star Wars universe, with the sea-gull-mated-with-a-Furby porgs coming under fire from some Star Wars fans as too cute and obviously commercial. Nor are the vulptices of Crait the first foxy aliens to make the Star Wars universe. The Amarans were a race of foxy aliens that now have a dubious relationship with actually being canon now that the newer movies have been introduced.

Foxy aliens? Complicated relationships with current canon? Space opera franchises with the word "star" in the title? Crystals? What does this remind me of?

Comments

Your rating: None Average: 4.4 (7 votes)

So it's basically Hoth but not Hoth? Kinda like how Jakku is Tatooine but not Tatooine? I see the new trilogy is just as original as ever!

Your rating: None Average: 3.6 (7 votes)

Between the porgs and the vulptices, it feels like Rian Johnson is lobbying really hard to direct a live action Pokemon movie.

Your rating: None Average: 2 (5 votes)

Just got back, and can confirm: I don't know if Rian Johnson actually wants to direct a live action Pokemon movie, but he really needs to.

Loved the "bob-ear" hyena/horse things; they had the best scene of the movie ... no, the year ... hell, the entire Star Wars saga.

Your rating: None Average: 3 (5 votes)

Final Fantasy borrowed a bit from Star Wars with FF12 so I guess it's fitting they'd borrow either from Final Fantasy or other JRPG/Animu bullshit like that. Seriously. Thing looks like it could be some guild's mark for a sidequest or something. Damn it Star Wars, do it right and literally become a Star Fox movie, with Krystal Fox and not just crystalfox.

Your rating: None Average: 4.5 (8 votes)

I hope they include a moment with a sandwich.

Your rating: None Average: 3.8 (6 votes)

That is terrible. So terrible in fact I'm going to look for any excuse I can to necro that entire thread.

Your rating: None Average: 2.4 (5 votes)

If a thousand crystal foxes have to die so that Luke doesn't die so be it

Your rating: None Average: 4 (5 votes)

If it's like Battlefront, you'll have to grind through a whole planet of crystal foxes just to access one of the main characters!

Your rating: None Average: 1.2 (5 votes)

The trailer linked too is literally "yeah, we're totally going to kill off Leia" and you're worried about Luke?

Your rating: None Average: 3.4 (5 votes)

Isn't she basically the princess in another castle, though? I know they have that family thing going on, but in truth there'll always be more princesses, more castles, but only one Mario.

Your rating: None Average: 3 (5 votes)

Well given Carrie Fischer died, it would make sense to do this in more than just the narrative means.

Your rating: None Average: 3 (5 votes)

I already knew Leia was going to die when I found out Disney had a $50 million life insurance policy in case Carrie Fisher couldn't be in all three sequels, and they'd already said they weren't doing Rogue One levels of CGI recreation of deceased actors anymore.

Plus, I heard some rumor that Mark Hamill wasn't going to be in ep9.

Your rating: None Average: 1 (4 votes)

See what happened was Mark Hamill dropped character during shooting of the big revelation of Rey's back story and just went "You know what, screw this, I'm going back to my cave. Luke, out!" as a joke, and then Kathleen Kennedy was all like, "You know what, we can save a LOT of money not having to pay him for the third movie if we just write that in." and Colin Trevorrow was all like "But I was going to do some really cool stuff with him in the third movie." and Kennedy was all like "Okay, Book of Henry, you're fired. What do you think, Ryan?" and Ryan Johnson was all like, "Yeah, sure, whatever."

That's what I heard.

Your rating: None Average: 3 (5 votes)

...Somehow that is more coherent and substantial than the rumor I heard.

Your rating: None Average: 1 (3 votes)

On reflection, this joke prediction turned out to be surprisingly accurate.

Your rating: None Average: 3 (3 votes)

Coming back to this comment to say that I hate everything.

Your rating: None Average: 3.2 (5 votes)

awesome

Your rating: None Average: 3.3 (4 votes)

Not everything vaguely canine is a fox.

Well, I'll be...

Your rating: None Average: 2.7 (3 votes)

Well, seeing as how the filmmakers are calling them foxes, naming them after the Latin word for foxes, holding up pictures of real foxes to compare them to their creation on video, you're right; they're very vaguely canine at all, but really, really, REALLY vulpine.

Your rating: None Average: 2.3 (3 votes)

Am I the only one who thinks it's played out giving everything Greek and Latin names? Or at least that it makes no sense in a setting like Star Wars? Yeah, I get that English already has a lot of Greek and Latin in it and most of the characters have to speak English because not everything should have con-langs. But when the older Star Wars movies were using vaguely Asian sounding names, or words that were probably just made up because they sound alien, that actually helped the "Galaxy far, far away" seem both ancient and alien to English speakers. Latin might be ancient but it's hardly foreign to anyone who speaks a western language and while I think the Romans might have been remnants of some subhuman proto-race, they were at least from earth and so not exactly alien.

Your rating: None Average: 2 (3 votes)

There's a very good chance the words "vulptex", "vulptices" or "crystal foxes" will not be spoken in The Last Jedi (or even the word "porg" for that matter); the word "Ewok" never appeared in Return of the Jedi, only on merchandising and "expanded universe" material.

While I'm here, calling foxes "canids" ... that's fighting words. YOU HAVE ALL BEEN WARNED.

Your rating: None Average: 3 (3 votes)

I know it's official. My point still stands.

Well, I'll be...

Your rating: None Average: 1 (5 votes)

So the point you felt the need to make sure we all got was "foxes and dogs aren't the same thing"?

Mind not exactly blown over here, Twister.

Your rating: None Average: 2 (3 votes)

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