It’s official! The “galaxy far, far away” is about to be populated with new faces, but for those of us who fell in love with the original three, it’s hard to imagine our staples being left out in the cold.

Snapshot of the “chosen” immersed in their first table read

Thankfully, we won’t have to mourn their absence because it has  been confirmed that Harrison Ford (Han Solo), Carrie Fisher (Princess Leia), Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker) and Peter Mayhew (Chewbacca) will be back to dazzle a new generation of fans in the next chapter of this imposing saga  – Star Wars VII.

J.J. Abrams will surely have a lot to live up to considering the dynamite success of George Lucas’ beloved franchise, but we have a feeling that he is aware and ready to conquer!

These are the faces of tomorrow! (Well, some of them anyway)

Now that we have established the return of the core characters, it’s time to take in the rest of the cast who will be lending themselves to what could potentially be career-making roles. Adam Driver (Girls), Andy Serkis (Rise of the Planet of the Apes), British-Nigerian actor John Boyega (Half of a Yellow Sun), Daisy Ridley (Mr. Selfridge), Oscar Isaac (Inside Llewyn Davis), Domhnall Gleason (About TIme), and veteran actor Max von Sydow will all join the inter-galactic warfare that will be unleashed sometime in 2015.

It’s an interesting bag of unknowns, relative unknowns and established names, and that signals the fact that casting took this job very seriously.

We are hopeful that this will be a box office giant when it roars into theaters next year. In the meantime, we are waiting with bated breath for those torturous set pics that we all love so much.