‘Star Wars: Episode IX’ Rumored to Give BB-8 a Sidekick

Star Wars: The Last Jedi saw BB-8 earn a nefarious rival, with a recent report about Star Wars: Episode IX claiming that the droid will get a pal.

According to a report from Making Star Wars, in conjunction with details possibly revealed at a Disney marketing summit, the new film will see BB-8 earn his/her own sidekick. Over on Reddit, the droid is described as “sort of a sidekick to BB-8. It’s little and has sort of a cone-shaped head, kind of like a megaphone shape if you can picture it.” The post also claimed that the droid’s name was “Dio,” which could also mean its name was “D-O.”

Making Star Wars added, “When the guys at Pinewood spoke about the little droid they said it was sort of an ugly duckling idea in that the droid treated BB-8 as a parent and was very attached to him. It sounded like he interfaced with BB-8 and someone thought the mechanism created for lightsaber storage in [Star Wars:] The Force Awakens that was never used in that film was redesigned to actually house D.O./Dio according to content seen by another source.”

BB-8 was one of the first images Star Wars fans saw in the initial teaser for The Force Awakens that excited us, having never seen quite a droid like it in the galaxy far, far away. The film also saw the return of C-3PO and R2-D2, though the main focus was this new ball droid. Some of the most memorable moments in both the original and prequel trilogies came from C-3PO and R2-D2’s dynamic, yet this sequel trilogy mostly saw BB-8 interacting with humans.

Ahead of Star Wars: The Last Jedi, our first glimpses at BB-9E confirmed that the villainous First Order also had ball droids, leading many of us to assume it would go head to head with BB-8, but it ultimately only had a brief appearance.

These new details about the new droid companion don’t reveal too much information about the potential plot, other than that the Resistance seemingly grows enough from the dwindling numbers we last saw at the end of The Last Jedi to at least include one other droid. Which hero BB-8 and this new friend accompanies is yet to be known, though this new dynamic is sure to bring some excitement to the culmination of the Skywalker Saga.

Star Wars: Episode IX lands in theaters in December of 2019.

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