J.J. Abrams Reveals the New X-Wing in Latest Star Wars Set Video

After years of being infamously secretive about his projects ahead of their release, J.J. Abrams has surprisingly flipped the script when it comes to next year's Star Wars: Episode VII. He's already given fans a glimpse of what looked like a marketplace on Tattooine and a chess table from the Millennium Falcon, and now he's sharing a familiar sight from the first three Star Wars movies—although in a slightly different form.

J.J. Abrams apparently can't help himself.

After years of being infamously secretive about his projects ahead of their release, the director has surprisingly flipped the script when it comes to next year's Star Wars: Episode VII. He's already given fans a glimpse of what looked like a marketplace on Tattooine and a chess table from the Millennium Falcon, and now he's sharing a familiar sight from the first three Star Wars movies—although in a slightly different form.

Shot on the set of Episode VII in London, the new video features Abrams making one last appeal to fans to sign up for the Star Wars: Force for Change campaign (benefiting Unicef's Innovation Labs) in front of what appears to be a modified X-Wing fighter, complete with an orange jumpsuit-wearing pilot climbing on board.

It's not the traditional X-Wing viewers are used to from A New Hope through Return of the Jedi, however; the engine configuration is different, and there doesn't appear to be a droid co-pilot sitting behind the cockpit. Given that Episode VII is supposed to take place decades after Return of the Jedi, such modifications in the design aren't that surprising. However, what is a bit surprising is that X-Wings are still in use at all in the new movie.

Of course, just because the ship shows up in this new video doesn't necessarily mean that it will be in the new movie, or that it will have a huge part to play. Abrams, after all, is a fan of misdirection almost as much as he is one of mystery. And while the assembled internet is easily distracted by videos like this, it's worth noting that we still know very little—outside of unsubstantiated rumors—about the movie itself. We don't even know what it's actually called yet.

Perhaps Abrams hasn't changed his secretive ways after all.