Here’s The ‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens’ Cover Of Vanity Fair’s June Issue

Earlier today, Vanity Fair previewed the cover of its upcoming June 2015 issue with the phrase “Chewie, we’re on the cover!” Sure enough, the brief snippet posted to the magazine’s Twitter account (as seen above) reveals the faintest waft of Wookie-colored hair and a now-familiar beige headdress. Dig a little deeper and you’ll find characters new and old from this year’s Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

The magazine’s website posted the full cover online, along with a brief preview of the issue’s contents:

In addition to Chewie and Rey (Daisey Ridley), the cover also features Han Solo (Harrison Ford), Finn (John Boyega), and BB-8. There’s also the rather notable context of the photo — the cockpit of the Millennium Falcon. Whether or not the cast is actually sitting in the ship or in front of a backdrop doesn’t really matter, because it’s awesome either way.

Slash Film points out that Vanity Fair and Star Wars have a long history of issue covers and feature stories that dates back to the prequel trilogy. Apparently, producer Kathleen Kennedy wanted to keep this tradition going, but ran into some resistance:

Rumor had it Lucasfilm’s Kathleen Kennedy wanted a Vanity Fair photographer on set during the production of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, in keeping with that tradition, but that director J.J. Abrams nixed that idea. The cover above suggests they managed to work something out after all.

Even so, we still got an awesome cover out of whatever deal was brokered with the notoriously secretive director.

More photos, videos, and interviews will pop up on Vanity Fair‘s website tomorrow.

(Via Vanity Fair and Slash Film)