Star Wars: The Last Jedi leaks suggest the sequel to The Force Awakens will have an immense ground battle, similar to the Battle of Hoth in The Empire Strikes Back (or all of those video game cutscenes in Attack of the Clones). Making Star Wars’s Jason Ward got a peek at one of the new First Order walkers that will appear in Episode 8’s big battle sequence. The new walker is called the “First Order Heavy Assault Walker” and while it shares a similar design to the Empire’s AT-AT, there are some substantial (and weird) differences.
A lot larger than the AT-AT, the Heavy Assault Walker will be immune to the small-arms tactics that worked so well on their smaller cousins. An old-model AT-AT could nearly walk underneath one of these, assuming the Making Star Wars description is accurate to what we’ll see in the final cut of The Last Jedi.
But these aren’t just big-ass AT-ATs. The Heavy Assault Walkers came to be known as “Gorilla Walkers” during production, because of their immense front legs and loping gait. With a different walk pattern and a sloped back, the Heavy Assault Walker sounds like it will emulate a gorilla in more than just its front “arms.”
Even weirder looking is the face of the new First Order walker. It looks like a bearded Cylon, with narrow eyes and a long, armored grill, like the cow-catcher on the front of a train. Here’s a sketch based off the leak:
There are sure to be a lot more vehicles, spaceships and pieces of military hardware added to the Star Wars universe in Episode 8. But what this leak promises, more than an updated AT-AT, is a huge ground battle when Star Wars: The Last Jedi premieres in theaters Dec. 15.
