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Daisy Ridley as Rey.
John Boyega as Finn.
Oscar Isaacs as Poe Dameron.
Ball Droid is BB-8



The mysterious figure holding the red lightsaber is Kylo Ren.

Takes me back to 7th grade when I was all like, "Kwai Gon Jin?"

All the names roll pleasantly off the tongue yet are unfamiliar as fuck. Save for Finn. Huck Finn?

I dug the rumoured Daisy Ridley character name "Kira" but Rey works too. Now we discuss whether they've intentionally left out her last name. Is it Solo? Skywalker? Something completely different, only for her to be revealed as a Solo / Skywalker later in the film?

I really hope there is Skywalker lineage here.

BB-8 is an instantly great droid name. I'm sure he'll be called "BB" for short.

Another thing: nerds need to crack the code that is the card numbers, stat.

Rey is "king" in Spanish. Me thinks this could be like the foretelling of Vader as "father" in Dutch.

I wonder if those are all holdovers from a Lucas outline. He is known for creating lists upon lists of names.

Daisy will always be Kira to me.

A hint of Lucas' involvement in this new release of legitimate information? Somewhere, Alexrd just peed a little.

Kylo Ren? The mysterious robed figure wielding the new lightsaber's name is identical to a character in the animated SW series DROIDS:


Kybo Ren: http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/The_Revenge_of_Kybo_Ren

Certainly not a coincidence

Surely a Skywalker or a Solo in there somewhere..

REN is the main antagonist and REY is the main protagonist? I wonder if we're not being setup for another twins motif here.

I think it's just a nod the number in a series of the old style cards.

Yup. Ben Burtt is working on the new film, he also worked on Droids, and several Droids references made it into the Prequels, or the Prequel background lore (Boonta, a member of the Baobab family, Bogden, the wheel bikes, four-armed café owners etc.) I'm sure the Kybo Ren-connection is deliberate. Hope they add him in this villain's backstory.

I'm glad they didn't go with the name Kira. We already have a Kira in the realm of sci-fi.

So they are referring to the triple blade as a lightsaber, even though it looks and sounds different.

Lotta calls for that.

Isn't a common prequel-hater sore spot that of Lucas shrinking the GFFA by making so many characters interrelated?

Your point makes zero sense. The Skywalkers are the protagonists of the Star Wars saga.

The story of this new trilogy could easily accommodate the original cadre of protagonists while introducing a set of brand-spanking new characters and not lose an ounce of potency. At least in my fledgling storyteller mind. Why are Skywalker/Solo offspring so fervently desired or assumed all over the place when this interrelatedness was such a lightning rod of the prequels? Easily a double standard.

I'm also reminded of criticisms of the almost genetic-like explanation of the Force (via midichlorians) because to many it seemingly demystified and exclusified the supernatural. Won't sticking to the same character bloodlines do the same thing to the scope of this new trilogy?

You have to look at this from the viewpoint of the casual fan though. Most people don't have a deep fascination and love for the SW universe in all of its grandeur and potential scope, like the hardcore SW fans might. I would say that it can be argued that the vast majority of moviegoers happen to know and connect SW to a handfull of beloved characters (and locations).

So from just a marketing standpoint, it would seem counterproductive to potentially eliminate those masses just to satisfy the desires of a small minority of ravenous fans who, say, read all of the EU and crave and embrace expansion of the SW universe.

I dont want to see a stingray, demolition man, rage, starfox, gilgamesh Avengers 7... some key people have to stick around their movieverse.

You've totally confused (probably conveniently), PT criticisms of a "shrunken" universe with the point that the Skywalkers should be a key part of the Star Wars saga. Nobody criticizes the PT because Anakin is a Skywalker.

That would be ludicrous: the story of the prequels revolves around how Anakin became Vader and, since the time the OT was being finished, Star Wars has been known as the "Rise, Fall and Redemption of Anakin Skywalker." People criticize the PT because Anakin lived on Tattooine, built 3P0 and owned R2.

I think your point here is moronic and I don't think you seriously believe that the Skywalkers being part of the ST is the same thing as, say, Jango Fett being the source of the clone army and Boba being his clone son.

Let's separate two issues:

1. Can Star Wars storytelling exist beyond the plight of the Skywalker family?

Yes it can.

There can absolutely be a trilogy or trilogies of films involving brand new characters with their own motivations and narrative arcs.


2. Can the ST of the episodic Star Wars story (Episodes I-IX) abandon the plight of the Skywalkers and remain narratively relevant?

No it can't.

The beginning and middle pieces of this saga have revolved around the Skywalker family. They aren't just characters in this opera, they're the primary characters. The development of the plot and secondary characters revolves around their actions and choices. For the sequels to suddenly depart from the Skywalker family would be jarring and completely inappropriate narratively. It would be like suddenly shifting the focus away from Harry Potter (or leaving him out completely) in the last three books.

I've said this from Day 1: If JJ Abrams / Larry Kasdan don't find a way to connect the ST with the previous trilogies and keep the Skywalkers as the continued focus then this exercise will be a colossal disaster in my eyes.

As it stands, I am still not convinced there needs to be a sequel to ROTJ. I'm excited and enthused by what I've "seen" but the story will make or break the ST and I can't think of one that won't feel like anything more than a glorified epilogue.



I don't see how those two even remotely resemble the same thing. You're trying to make 1+1=3 and I don't feel like teaching math.

the droid is called BB-8 because that's how it looks. a ball on top of another. like the letter "B" or "8"