Potential spoilers and plot leaks thinly veiled may follow below...
With the restoration of the Galactic Senate,
a forum was created
where the New Republic
would define its very nature.
It was decided all worlds would
have an equal say in the
shaping of government.
This change resulted in the capital of
galactic politics moving from Coruscant.
Member worlds would now
host the Senate on a rotating basis.
At this time, it is the cosmopolitan
world of Hosnian Prime
where the Senate convenes.
Deep in the Unknown Regions,
the First Order has constructed
a
superweapon that uses an
entire planet as its weapons platform
and is able to sterilize the worlds of a
distant star system with a
single shot.
The icy world that houses the Starkiller
is the First
Order’s greatest secret,
and essential to its plan
to conquer the
galaxy.
Jakku
Rey was left in the care of Unbar Plutt when she was abandoned as a child on Jakku, with the script saying: "Unkar Plutt’s meaty hand holds her thin arm" while the starship that brought her there flies off "towards the desert sun."
Speeder bike and goggles concept art from "The Phantom Menace."
General Leia at the Galactic Senate
Originally Leia appeared much earlier in the film. Her appearance set up the Galactic Senate, with Leia having a conversation with Korr Sella (played by Maisie Richardson-Sellers), the dark-haired woman who is featured in the balcony scene during the attack on Hosnian Prime.
The book also explains that Leia, with a reputation twisted by corrupt politicians, relies on the young envoy to “make her case for the Senate to take direct action against the First Order.”
The scene is described in the novelization as follows:
As usual, Leia did not waste time on small talk: “You need to go to the Senate right away. Tell them I insist that they take action against the First Order. The longer they bicker and delay, the stronger the Order becomes.” She leaned toward the other woman. “If they fail to take action soon, the Order will have grown so strong the Senate will be unable to do anything. It won’t matter what they think.” Sella indicated her understanding. “With all respect: Do you think the senators will listen?”
“I don’t know.” Leia bit down on her lower lip. “So much time has passed. There was a time when they were at least willing to listen. And of course, the Senate’s makeup has changed. Some of those who were always willing to pay attention to me have retired. Some of those who have replaced them have their
own agendas.” She smiled ruefully. “Not all senators think I’m crazy. Or maybe they do. I don’t care what they think about me as long as they take action.”
The emissary nodded. “I’ll do all I can to ensure the Resistance gets the hearing we deserve. But why don’t you go yourself, General? An appeal of this nature is always more effective when delivered firsthand.”
Leia’s smile thinned. “I might make it to the Senate, yes. I might even be able to deliver my speech. But I would never, never get out of the Hosnian system alive. I would have a terrible ‘accident,’ or become the victim of some ‘deranged’ radical. Or I would eat something that didn’t agree with me. Or encounter someone who didn’t agree with me.” She composed herself. “I have total confidence in you, Sella. I know you will deliver our message to the full extent of your considerable abilities.” The emissary smiled back, grateful for the confidence the general was expressing.”
Kylo Ren
Further detailed in the screenplay, which notes that Ren is "horrified" and "somehow weakened" by (the defeat of) his father. Additionally the novelization confirms that Snoke informs Ren that Darth Vader's only weakness was the love he had for Luke, and that was the reason the dark side ultimately fell.
The vision
Rey has when first touching Luke's lightsaber is also detailed, confirming that Cloud City is shown in the opening flashes. Additionally, the script notes that the scene in which Luke is touching R2-D2 is indeed during the attack on his new Jedi Academy.
Ren battles with Rey
Emphasizing the fear felt within Ren during his battle with Rey, noting Rey's character nearly killed him before she realized she was standing "on a greater edge than even the cliff — the edge of the dark side."
As such, it's clear Rey also feels the pull of the dark side. In fact, the novelization says she hears an "amorphous" voice telling her kill Ren, which, according to the audio book, appears to be Supreme Leader Snoke.
R2-D2's low-power mode
In the official novelization for "The Force Awakens," author Alan Dean Foster dives further into what exactly stirs R2 from his low-power mode.
As members of the Resistance are gathered to discuss the location of the missing map piece, Rey says that the First Order has the part they need because "they extracted it from the Imperial archives."
Admiral Statura (portrayed by Ken Leung) explains why that makes sense:
"The Empire would have been looking for the first Jedi temples," he says. "In destroying all the Jedi sanctuaries they would have acquired a great deal of peripheral information.”
As a discussion about the missing part of the map occurs, R2 overhears and awakens, and he comes beeping into the room.
C-3PO has the ability to translate R2's beeps and tells the group that R2 might have the same map, having tapped into the data before.
“If the information you are seeking was in the Imperial archives, he believes he may have catalogued that data," C-3PO says. "He’s scanning through it now.”
Director J.J. Abrams and cowriters Lawrence Kasdan and Michael Arndt backed up this reasoning in a Q&A following the film's premiere.
The group thought back to the original film, 1977's "A New Hope," when R2 tapped into the Empire’s mainframe while searching for Princess Leia.
“We had the idea about R2 plugging into the information base of the Death Star, and that’s how he was able to get the full map and find where the Jedi temples are,” Arndt said.
Abrams followed up that it wasn't explicitly detailed in the film to avoid focusing on past events.
“But the idea was that in that scene where R2 plugged in, he downloaded the archives of the Empire, which was referenced by Kylo Ren,” Abrams said.
Later, BB-8 says something to R2 that starts to stir him awake.
“BB-8 comes up and says something to him, which is basically, ‘I’ve got this piece of a map, do you happen to have the rest?’” Abrams said. “The idea was, R2 who has been all over the galaxy, is still in his coma, but he hears this. And it triggers something that would ultimately wake him up.”
The director also said that waiting to bring R2 back until after Han Solo's (defeat) was purposeful:
“While it may seem, you know, completely lucky and an easy way out, at that point in the movie, when you’ve lost a person, desperately, and somebody you hopefully care about is unconscious, you want someone to return.”
Leia & Rey discussion
Leia and Rey originally had a longer discussion at the end before the General says “May the Force be with you.”
Here is an excerpt from the novel:
“I’m proud of what you’re about to do,” she told the girl.
Rey replied in all seriousness. “But you’re also afraid. In sending me away, you’re—reminded.”
Leia straightened. “You won’t share the fate of our son.” “I know what we’re doing is right. This is how it has to be. This is how it should be.” Leia smiled gently, reassuringly. “I know it, too. May the Force be with you.”
Ahch-to
The planet on which Rey meets Luke Skywalker is called "Ahch-to" and is said to feature a "pristine and mighty" ocean that is "dotted with random, beautiful, mountainous black rock islands," as well as "countless green trees." Not much is known about the planet, but notes that Ahch-to is Hebrew for brother.
Luke
is well aware of who Rey is, saying Skywalker "doesn’t need to ask her
who she is, or what she is doing here." It also describes Hamill's
character has having "kindness in his eyes" despite the "tortured" feelings within.
The Finalizer
The powerful flagship shared by General Hux and Kylo Ren, the dagger-shaped Finalizer is nearly twice the length of an Imperial-era Star Destroyer.
The first of the new Resurgent class constructed in violation of treaties with the New Republic, the Finalizer’s heavy weapons are augmented by two starfighter wings, a hundred assault craft and a full legion of stormtroopers. Her turbolasers are more powerful and faster to recharge than Imperial-era weapons, a product of kyber crystals harvested in the Unknown Regions.
Starkiller Base
was an ice planet located in the Unknown Regions.
The First Order, a junta that believed themselves to be the successors to the ideals of the Galactic Empire, converted the planet into their headquarters and armed it with a superweapon capable of destroying entire star systems.
The ice planet known as Starkiller Base was converted into a stronghold of the First Order, which operated it as their headquarters three decades after the Battle of Endor.
The superweapon housed in the base possessed far more power than its predecessors and was more than twice the size, as it was built into a planet.
Starkiller Base represented a technological step forward in power, as the First Order believed that they needed to become more powerful than the fallen Galactic Empire if they were to succeed in enacting their goals. Starkiller Base gets its power from the energy of nearby stars.
The first test of the of the base’s weaponry would happen right before the Battle on Takodana.
Snowspeeder Chase
The biggest action sequence that ended up
on the cutting room floor is perhaps a snowspeeder chase that happened
outside Starkiller Base. Finn and Rey stole the speeder to escape First
Order stormtroopers.
Here is an excerpt from the scene from the
novelization:
Careening over a snowdrift as Rey
struggled to maintain control of the unfamiliar machine, they scattered
small local creatures in front of them as they sped toward the
containment center. …
“Snow is cold!” Rey squeezed the speeder between a
phalanx of willowy alien trees. “It’s the complete opposite of
Jakku!”
“Try living here,” Finn told her. “There are only two seasons:
winter, and dead of winter!”
A sudden boom and the speeder’s course
wobbled. They’d been hit! Switching systems around like a card sharp
dealing on a busy night, Rey succeeded in maintaining speed. A second
shot barely missed them. A glance back showed a second snow speeder in
pursuit and closing. Finn realized that the way its driver was shooting,
if he got any closer, he could take them out with his next burst. They
had to do something, and fast. Rey was skilled at driving, and he was
skilled at… “Switch!” he yelled. They made the difficult change only
because they had to, with Rey still in control of their vehicle but Finn
now in position to accurately return fire. Multiple blasts hit nothing,
as Rey slalomed around and between trees while Finn fought to take out
their pursuer. Damn driver knew what he was doing, Finn thought with
grudging admiration. The man might even have been a former squadron
mate. He tried not to think of that as he aimed and got off another
burst. This time his shot struck home, sending the trooper flying.
Whether he’d killed him or not Finn didn’t know, but the pursuer’s
speeder slammed into the trees and burst into flame. “Got him!”
Hosnian Prime
After gaining Supreme Leader Snoke’s approval, General Hux would order the base to fire on the capital of the New Republic, Hosnian Prime, and four other planets in the Hosnian system, in an attempt at destroying the planets along with the New Republic’s fleet.
D’Qar
As Starkiller Base prepared to wipe out the world of D’Qar, the site of the Resistance’s headquarters, the Resistance would plan an attack of their own.
Kylo Ren
Not as accomplished as Vader was in A New Hope.
Rather, we see him growing from scene to scene, attempting to succumb to the Dark Side.
Kylo Ren, was taught the ways of the Jedi. But chose the Dark Side. He killed the other students, which prompted Luke to leave to a remote corner of the known universe.
Director J.J. Abrams, along with writers Lawrence Kasdan and Michael Arndt, revealed during a Q&A session after a screening that “Star Wars had the greatest villain in cinema history. So, how you bring a new villain into that world is a very tricky thing,” Abrams said.
“We knew we needed to do something f***ing bold...”
“Long before we had this title, the idea of The Force Awakens was that this would become the evolution of not just a hero, but a villain,” the director said. “And not a villain who was the finished, ready-made villain, but someone who was in process.”
Knights Of Ren
We learned a great deal about The Force Awakens' Vader obsessed baddie Kylo Ren. One piece of information revealed that Kylo's surname "Ren" comes from a group called the "Knights Of Ren".
Abrams revealed the Knights of Ren in an interview discussing The Force Awakens villain Kylo Ren, Abrams noted that the character’s surname wasn’t given to him at birth, but rather bestowed when he joined the shadowy group of (presumed) dark side Force-sensitives.
“He is a character who came to the name Kylo Ren when he joined a group called the Knights of Ren.”
The Knights of Ren operated in the decades following the Galactic Civil War. While under the command of Supreme Leader Snoke, they were used as a tool of the dark side of the Force alongside the First Order.
Kylo Ren's Table Of Ashes
By Dirk Libbey
Kylo Ren keeps a table full of ashes around because he likes to collect the remains of his victims in one place.
You probably eventually noticed that when Kylo Ren removes his helmet while interrogating Rey, he kicks up a bunch of dust when he puts it down on the table.
According to Entertainment Weekly, that table actually contains human remains that Kylo Ren has been collecting from those he’s eliminated. J.J. Abrams tells them where the table originally came from.
The backstory is, that that table has the ashes of the enemies he’s killed.
That moment was actually shot for, and meant to be used in, the scene where he was talking to the Vader mask.
Apparently, the scene in which Kylo Ren is communing with Darth Vader’s mask was shot two different ways, once with the mask on, and once with it off. In the version where the mask was off, it included him slamming it down into the ashes of his victims, a shot which J.J. Abrams loved, but then ended up not using after they decided to hold the reveal of Kylo Ren’s face until later in the film.
When it did come time to have the mask come off, and simply be placed on part of the set, it was deemed to be utterly unimpressive, thus the table of burned bones made a return.
We didn’t know it was possible to make Kylo Ren an even more terrible person than he already was, and yet, here we are.
We see him kill Lor San Tekka early in the film, so we know he doesn’t have a problem killing people.
However, the idea that he may have had Lor San Tekka’s body brought on board so it could be cremated and added to a collection of other ashes, is a new level of sadistic we had not previously attributed to the son of Han Solo.
Stormtrooper Identity
The baton wielding First Order stormtrooper, FN-2199, was part of Finn’s training squad.
Due to his designation, he’s called “Nines” by his pals. The character is part of an elite riot control squad, hence the electrified Z6 baton.
Nines and Finn were paired with Zero and Slip during training.
Slip was the stormtrooper killed at the start of the movie who streaked his own blood down Finn’s helmet, very much a turning point for the hero.
The backstory explains why the call of “Traitor!” sounded quite so personal.
Supreme Leader Snoke,
is clearly being portrayed as the puppet master a la Emperor Palpatine. Aside from the fact that he is a powerful servant of the Dark Side and works with Kylo Ren, little is known about Snoke.
Snoke is the ruler of the first order.
Supreme Leader Snoke is quite an enigmatic character, and strangely vulnerable at the same time as being quite powerful. Obviously he has a huge agenda.
He has suffered a lot of damage. Supreme Leader Snoke has been said to "look like an old man, zombie like, almost risen from the dead." His face is deformed as a result of some form of trauma in battle.
Serkis had previously mentioned that director J.J. Abrams was still trying to figure out the look of the character during production. Serkis claimed that Snoke’s scars and disfigurements made motion-capture a necessity. Snoke only appears in Star Wars 7 via hologram (as a 25 foot giant).
Maz Kanata
She says, "I have lived long enough to see the same eyes in different people. I see your eyes. I know your eyes."
A little more of Kanata's history, includes that she's been a space
pirate for quite some time and has lived for "over a thousand years."
Most interestingly, Abrams let on that Kanata has been the owner of a
tiny bar, tucked away in the corner of the galaxy, for about a century.
It turns out Maz Kanata isn’t just Force-sensitive, she’s a Force badass.
According to Chris Corbould, the SFX Supervisor at Industrial Light & Magic, a scene was filmed, but eventually cut, which included Maz using her powers...
There was a particular part of a scene that never made it, where they go
underneath the castle and they’re going into the underground
passageways, and stormtroopers are coming down the stairs and Maz uses
her powers to collapse the ceiling.
Maz says that she’s not a Jedi in the film, but based on information in the
Star Wars: The Force Awakens Visual Dictionary, we have already learned that she’s able to use the Force in order to locate certain relics that are associated to the Force.
Maz seems to serve a very specific purpose for the Force Awakens story.
Once the action leaves Takodana, she isn’t seen again and nobody
mentions her name.
Unkar Plutt & Chewie
They reshot some of Maz’s castle scenes. Originally Unkar Plutt, the Jakku junk buyer played by Simon Pegg, showed up at Maz’s castle and confronted Rey about stealing his prized possession, the Millennium Falcon. The sequence happened right after Finn confessed that he was not with the Resistance.
Here is an excerpt from the novelization:
He smiled. It did not improve his appearance. “The ship you stole. The Millennium Falcon. You can’t really track a ship while it’s in hyperspace — but when it emerges, and particularly after it sets down somewhere, there are ways. Expensive, but in the case of valuable property, often worth it. Definitely worth it in the case of the Falcon. It happens to be fitted with a covert Imperial homing device. Old technology, but still quite functional. To which my presence here can attest. “Didn’t take much to get the necessary relays working.”
No one in the hall was paying them the least attention, she noticed worriedly. In a place where everyone minded their own business, she found herself wishing fervently for someone to butt in. She twisted defiantly in Plutt’s grasp.
“I suggest. Kindly. That you let go of me. Now.” Despite her attempts to pull away, he drew her steadily closer. She could not avoid the fact that his breath was a suitably aromatic match for his visage.
“I suggest, less kindly, that you come quietly with me. Otherwise we’ll begin right here, where you can provide some entertainment for this galactic rubbish.” Putting his face so close to hers that they were almost touching, he lowered his voice. “I’m gonna make you and that wearisome droid pay for what you’ve done.”
Rey attempted to defend herself with the new blaster that Han gave her, but Plutt was easily able to remove it from her hands. After Plutt issues Rey a threat, Chewbacca steps up and forcefully removes the gun out of his hands. Rey was glad to have someone to protect her.
Unkar tells Chewie, “Half a Wookiee ain’t much to worry about, not against all of me,” and begins to poke Chewie in his injured arm. Of course, this made Chewbacca angry.
Grabbing the thrusting arm, a roaring Chewbacca twisted and ripped it off at the shoulder, throwing the dismembered limb clear across the room. Looking down at himself, Plutt let out a scream of agony as his underlings hurriedly fell back. The arm landed on a table where a group of four-armed, long-snouted Culisettos was gambling. With an annoyed huff, one of them picked up the amputated limb and absently tossed it aside, allowing the game to resume.
