Thoughts on Star Wars: The Force Awakens

After watching the first showing of Star Wars: The Force Awakens on Thursday, I have to say it was definitely what the Prequels should have been. If this movie had come out in 1999 instead of Episode I, I'm certain that I would have embraced it much more than now. Age does seem to have dulled my sense of wonderment. However that's not to say that it wasn't a good movie.

Some of the rumours that fans speculated about were finally put to rest, but the movie itself raised a whole new slew of questions. I will be touching on SPOILERS from here onwards so please stop reading if you haven't seen the movie yet.

SPOILER WARNING

Luke

Luke was rumoured to have gone to the Dark Side, and was therefore missing from the trailers and posters. But it turned out he had gone into self-exile, just like Yoda did in Ep III.

Lightsaber

At one point there were news that the search for Luke Skywalker's lightsaber (the one he lost in Bespin) would be somehow central to the plot.

In fact, it was the map to Luke Skywalker (or to the 1st Jedi Temple) that was the object of everyone's search. The lightsaber itself seemed to be an afterthought in the show, it appeared because Rey needed it to duel with Kylo Ren at the end of the movie.

Finn

In the novel by Alan Dean Foster, General Hux evaluates Finn's psychological profile but finds no clue as to why he would defect. Perhaps this will be explained in Episode 8? Is Finn someone special, perhaps force-sensitive too?

My feeling is that it won't be explained in the movies. Star Wars movies have a bad habit of either not explaining mysteries at all or giving somewhat unsatisfactory explanations for them (Think Qui-Gon teaching Obi-wan and Yoda how to disappear when they die. Or Emperor Palpatine getting his disfigured visage because his force-lightning was reflected on him by Mace Windu's lightsaber).

Rey

Some have speculated after watching the movie, that Rey may be related to Han & Leia or even Luke, but I don't think she'll be related to any of them. From the flashback scene you can see a hand holding her, and it doesn't look human. To me it looks suspiciously like Unkar Plutt's arm. But if she was placed in his care, he didn't seem to be doing that good a job of looking after her.

My guess is that she'll be revealed to be a Force prodigy was once trained by Luke before his self-exile. This would at least help to explain her instant knowledge that allowed her to fly/fix the Millennium Falcon and also to duel Kylo Ren without any training.

She could be similar to the character of Bastila Shan from the Old Republic game. As we have seen the script writers are not above borrowing certain elements from the now defunct Expanded Universe (Jacen Solo who became Darth Caedus, similar to Ben Solo becoming Kylo Ren).

Source: www.comicvine.com

Kylo Ren

With the release of the concept art below, it was said that the new villain was a Sith Inquisitor who liked to collects relics of Sith. Now we know that it wasn't a Sith Inquistor, but a Knight of Ren.

Fans also got their wish that Kylo Ren would not be a one-off villain like Darth Maul (though Maul has been resurrected in the Clone Wars animated series which is deemed as canon), and would be more like Darth Vader, the returning antagonist in Episode IV to VII.

Source: www.telegraph.co.uk

Knights of Ren

In the flashback that Rey experiences when she touches Luke's lightsaber, we see other Knights of Ren standing beside Kylo Ren. Were they all killed by Luke, leaving only Kylo Ren? Was it because Kylo Ren was Luke's nephew and hence he hesitated to kill him? I'm looking forward to them explaining this Episode VIII.

The image that we glimpse in Rey's Force flashback really reminds me of those anime characters where everyone in the team has their own unique weapon.

On a side note, why does General Hux called Kylo Ren by his "surname" of Ren? Should he not call him Kylo, since I would think the Knights of Ren are like the Sith when it comes to naming, and their members all have "Ren" appended to their names.

Resistance

In case it was not very clear in the movie, the novelization states that the New Republic which was on Hosnian Prime was destroyed by the First Order's superweapon. This probably meant that a large portion of the New Republic's fleet was also destroyed, assuming they were all congregated in that one place.

This might have explained why there were only X-Wings left to attack the First Order at the end of the movie. And I understand that they may have chosen to show X-Wings only in order not to confuse the newer audiences and also to make it very similar to Episode IV, which only had fighters attacking the Death Star but no capital ships.

I'm hoping that we get to see some Y-Wings and A-Wings in future movies. Or perhaps something totally new, I think they played it really safe for Episode VII after And it wouldn't do any harm to thrown in some Resistance capital ships too. Some Mon Calamari cruisers or Nebulan Frigates perhaps?

Although we do have to wait till 2017 to watch Episode VIII, at least we will have Rogue One to keep us company next year. May the Force be with us!