This morning we have another plot rumor, this time concerning the characters being played by John Boyega and Daisy Ridley. All of the usual caveats apply, of course, but you may want to treat this as a potential spoiler.

From MakingStarWars.net:

A friend of ours has confirmed the obvious, John Boyega is playing “Thomas” and Daisy Ridley is playing “Rachel.” Those are code names from the casting call, not the names used in the film. We will hopefully have those character names sooner than later. We have heard that Thomas starts the film on the side of the villains. Thomas is shot down over Tatooine and he is injured from the crash. The things we heard from Abu Dhabi about a crashed ship is rumored to have been Thomas’ fighter. Rachel rescues him from the wreckage and the elements of the sandy planet. Over the course of their “unlikely pairing,” Thomas sees the reality of the universe and he defects from the side of the villains and decides to help Rachel for saving his life. However, things are not easy for the character because unlike most of the rebels we’ve met in the series, none were traitors, they were always on the side of right from the beginning. However, it appears Rachel and Thomas have an innocent flirtation in their first film with hints at romance in the future episodes. I often hear Thomas is a Jedi in the film, but I am beginning to think he might start that journey midway through Star Wars: Episode VII, which is why he has a lightsaber according to many reports. We have never heard Thomas has a lightsaber during the Abu Dhabi sequences, but we have heard set reports from Pinewood that he fights with two hands on his saber, without much of the prequel style flash of a one handed Obi-Wan Kenobi. It makes me wonder if Thomas and Rachel’s characters discover they share the same propensity for the Force that has so far been untapped until they meet a certain old Jedi in the second act of the film.

A lot of interesting tidbits here, all or none of which may have any basis in fact. But it does give us some possible context for the inclusion of Tatooine in the movie. Now, I don’t know what kind of sources MakingStarWars.net has for these rumors, but for what it’s worth, my personal impression is that in all likelihood, this rumor is largely a combination of the “Thomas and Rachel” casting dialogue (which, according to the article is actually taken from The Hunger Games) and the fact that John and Daisy were part of the desert shoot in Abu Dhabi (which also reportedly featured a “crashed starship” set piece.) But hey, in the absence of any confirmed Episode 7 storyline, it does make for some fun speculation fodder.

And it also points to an interesting possible arc for Boyega’s character. After all, though we’ve seen the “neutral scoundrel turns good” arc from Han, what we haven’t yet seen in the Star Wars movies (aside, perhaps, from Darth Vader’s one-second-to-midnight return from the dark side in ROTJ) is a bad guy who makes a conscious decision to trade his black hat for a white one and join the heroes.

Again, this is still all just speculation and nothing’s been confirmed, but there are certainly some cool ideas to play with here. Have at it!