Via Starwars.com:

Han Solo lounges in the cockpit of the Falcon. His head is tilted, his smile is sly, and his eyes betray an ever-youthful bravado. To his right are two new faces — Rey and Finn. They look confident, excited, cool. In the background is BB-8, the ball-shaped droid. He could be powered off, he could be on. He appears curious and innocent all the same. Above them all is Chewbacca, towering as always, but with a grin and welcoming demeanor. Suddenly, Han’s eyes suggest a here-we-go-again wariness, and he now seems almost protective of his younger companions. We’re home.

That’s what you get from an Annie Leibovitz Star Wars photo — the cover photo, in fact, from Vanity Fair’s blowout on Star Wars: The Force Awakens. You get a story, you get character. You get Star Wars. And you get it packaged in Leibovitz’s arresting style of moment-in-time clarity, allowing you to take in expressions, fashions, and attitudes. It’s a powerful match, one whose seed was planted when the photographer saw Star Wars for the first time in 1977.

“I can remember, from the very beginning,” Leibovitz tells StarWars.com in an exclusive interview, “I was astounded by the universe that George [Lucas] had created. I’d never seen anything like it. It was just unbelievable, and the actors and characters really resonated with all of us. It was a great, great visual story that continues to carry forth today.” It follows, then, that Leibovitz would honor both the characters and the filmmakers in her Star Wars photos, of which there have been many. Indeed, Leibovitz has been bringing her vision to Star Wars iconography for a long time: She photographed the cast of The Empire Strikes Back for Rolling Stone back in 1980, and has made a tradition of visiting and shooting Star Wars sets for Vanity Fair starting with 1999’s The Phantom Menace. Her shoot for The Force Awakens was a continuation of this tradition, and especially meaningful.

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