Star Wars: The Force Awakens doesn't hit theaters for another four months, landing it in that torturous zone that's so close it seems like it's just around the corner and yet so far away that it'll never get here. Worse yet, Lucasfilm hasn't released any substantial new footage from the movie for a few months now, so instead we're stuck pouring over Star Wars pictures that -- gasp! -- don't even move! I mean, what are we -- kids in the '80s, hunched over under our bed sheets reading magazines for sequel clues?

No, we're adults in the 2010s looking at magazine covers on our smartphones. There's a big difference.

In case the giant letters didn't make it clear, these new images come courtesy of Empire magazine as part of October's big winter movie-preview edition. They're not just cool collectibles showing the new heroes and villains, though. They're reminders of the new generation marching forward, out of the past.

Star Wars obsessives may notice that the right side of both images contain old designs. The Millennium Falcon and the stormtrooper suits are both from the original trilogy; they are not the modified designs already seen in The Force Awakens. And so in both versions we get the new cast emerging out of the old universe. It's certainly subtle, but it's a smart way of expressing how The Force Awakens may look like the Star Wars everyone grew up with on the surface, but there's new blood pumping through its veins.