Lucasfilm(LOS ANGELES) — With exactly a month to go to the official release of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, a round-up of what we know so far about the achingly anticipated movie might come in handy.
One Yoda-esque Rumsfeldian truth remains: “There are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns.”
Such is the case with The Force Awakens, which was directed and co-written by J.J. Abrams, a fanboy himself, who knows loose lips sink starships. For every scant detail that has been released about the movie, much of the movie’s plot and many of its characters still remain a mystery.
The First Order – Officially, The First Order is the name of the military junta that replaced, and was inspired by the Galactic Empire, which fell after the death of its leader Emperor Palpatine at the hands of his apprentice Darth Vader and the destruction of the second Death Star and the Rebel victory in the Battle of Endor in the closing of Star Wars: Episode VI: Return of the Jedi.
Wookieepedia notes the First Order is headed by…
…Supreme Leader Snoke, who took his position 30 years after the Battle of Endor, when the new movie takes place. Andy Serkis performed Snoke via motion capture technology he pioneered playing Gollum inThe Lord of the Rings series, and later as Caesar in the Planet of the Apes films. That’s what’s known. There’s a lot we don’t know, however, including what exactly Snoke looks like, or what his motivations are. ToEntertainment Weekly, Serkis allowed, “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. As I said, there is a strange vulnerability to him, which belies his true agenda, I suppose.”
He also noted the villain, “[i]s large. He appears tall. And also just the facial design…Without giving too much away at this point, he has a very distinctive, idiosyncratic bone structure and facial structure.”
One of Snoke’s enforcers, pun intended, appears to be Kylo Ren…
…Adam Driver’s Force-sensitive baddie who idolizes the fallen Vader. Ren is apparently not a Sith, but a member of the Sith-idolizing Knights of Ren. As a tribute, Abrams has said, Ren fashioned a homemade version of a Sith’s red lightsaber.
Gwendoline Christie of Game of Thrones fame plays the chrome-suited Captain Phasma, the leader of a specialist squad of First Order Stormtroopers.
Somewhere in the mix is Domhnall Gleeson’s General Hux. Of the latter, all we know is the actor called him “merciless,” adding, “A strong disciplinarian would be a mild way of putting it.”
It’s likely Hux operates out of the Starkiller Base glimpsed on the poster, and teased by Abrams to EW as “apparently another Death Star,” but one far deadlier than its predecessors.
Speaking of Stormtroopers, it’s known that John Boyega’s Finn was a Stormtrooper who lost his faith in his former comrades, and ends up fighting for the Resistance, the freedom fighters who took over for the Rebel Alliance. He also takes up what very well may be Luke Skywalker’s lightsaber, in a battle with Ren and his allies glimpsed in the trailers.
Speaking of the Resistance, Carrie Fisher again plays Leia, though her title of Princess has apparently fallen out of favor. Abrams tells EW, “She’s referred to as General. But…there’s a moment in the movie where a character sort of slips and calls her ‘Princess.’ He added, “The stakes are pretty high in the story for her, so there’s not much goofing around where Leia’s concerned,” as she’s, “committed as ever to her cause, but I would imagine feeling somewhat defeated, tired and p*****.”
By her side is Harrison Ford’s Han Solo, who can be heard in the trailer telling Daisy Ridley’s Rey that the stories she’s heard about the Force and the Jedi “are real.” However, the smuggler hasn’t lost his swagger, Ford cautioned. “There’s not an abandoning of the character…He does not aspire to the position of Obi-Ben Kenobi…There’s a lot of the rogue still left in Solo. Some things don’t change.”
Ford himself told fans he didn’t want to reveal too much, explaining on Jimmy Kimmel Live! “I can tell you this: it’s really, really good…The new cast, Daisy Ridley, John Boyega…Adam Driver, Adam Isaac, are phenomenal. J.J. Abrams has made an incredible movie. You will not be disappointed at all.”
Rey – As much as we know Daisy Ridley plays a scavenger on the planet Jakku, her ultimate fate — like her deliberately obscured last name — is still a mystery. She apparently grew up on her own, and the actress told The Hollywood Reporter, “I think she’s so universal and brilliant: She’s frightened but she faces up to what she needs to. And she’s brave and smart…She’s not a superhero. She’s a normal girl thrust into extraordinary circumstances, so it’s very relatable…
Chewbacca – Peter Mayhew again plays the wooly Wookiee, who is presumably still repaying his life debt to Ford’s Solo, at his side both on the battlefield and in the cockpit of the Millennium Falcon.
Luke Skywalker – Mark Hamill’s Jedi is being alluded to as the movie’s “MacGuffin” — that is, the thing the movie centers on, like the briefcase in Pulp Fiction or the orb in Guardians of the Galaxy. However, Hamill wasn’t pictured on the poster of The Force Awakens, leading fans to wonder why. Abrams explained, “No one forgot about him!” assuring fans, “Luke is a very important aspect of the story.”
Last but not least…
Maz Kanata – 12 Years a Slave Oscar-winner Lupita Nyong’o also used motion capture to bring to life her pirate character. The diminutive, goggle-wearing alien apparently has some kind of clairvoyance or similar power, about which Abrams wouldn’t elaborate, though he allowed to EW she’s around a thousand years old.
Copyright © 2015, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
