Force Awakens Novelization (spoilers)

I just finished reading the official novelisation by Alan Dean Foster. Mainly a faithful transcript of the movie, but it does have some extra stuff. Maybe some of this was in the movie and I missed it.

- Explanation that Han found the Falcon so quick because when it took off its beacon activated.

- When Kylo is trying to mind read Rey, something about finding a block in there put by someone else. I'm now thinking she was trained as a Jedi and Luke blocked the memories in her to protect her.

- Leia fussing over and and straightening Rey's clothing and noting how it felt natural to her.

- References to a much bigger fleet owned by the First Order.

- Hosnian system's destruction visible from other planets because it was as bright as a supernova and visible from other systems. Yeah, the light would take years to reach other systems. Bad physics, but there it is.

- Totally different dark energy explanation of the Starkiller's power source. No sun eating.

- Han thought Kylo had agreed to come home with him just before he ignited the saber.

- That junkyard dealer guy also follows the Falcon beacon and catches up with them at the cantina. Chewie rips his arm off.

- More suggestion that Finn finds the lightsaber natural to hold.

Funny that this is written by Alan Dean Foster, the guy who wrote the novelization of the very first Star Wars film in 1976 and the first Expanded Universe novel, Splinter of the Mind's Eye in 1978.

Is there a reason why they keep coming back to this guy for novelizations?

Huh. Just read the wiki entry on Alan Dean Foster's novelization of Star Wars. I never realized he contributed much to the lore from George Lucas original treatment. Among them:

- He was the one who gave the Emperor's name as Palpatine. Though in the novelization, Palpatine was a ruler who shut himself from the public and was a puppet to the Imperial bureaucrats who controlled hiim in the background. Lucas would later rewrite this to make Palpatine a Sith Lord and Vader's true master.

- Speaking of Sith Lord, Foster was the first one to coin the term in the novel. It's used to describe Darth Vader but it's never expanded upon. It would be up to the Expanded Universe to further define what a Siuth Lord was and it would be only mentioned in the movies in 1999's The Phantom Menace.

horacethegrey said:

Funny that this is written by Alan Dean Foster, the guy who wrote the novelization of the very first Star Wars film in 1976 and the first Expanded Universe novel, Splinter of the Mind's Eye in 1978.

Is there a reason why they keep coming back to this guy for novelizations?

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He gets the job done, start to finish, he is able to write the story and finish it on a time line. Plus, his history, the man has been writing for franchise, including Star Trek. Not all his books are great but most are good reads.

Certainly a fast read. I read it in one night.

Comparing that to Darth Plagueis which I kinda struggled through, and which took me a week to finish.

It would make sense that Rey would be one of the kids from Luke's Jedi school, who escaped the slaughter. I hadn't thought about it for Finn but that would also make sense both from the standpoint of him using a lightsaber, and how quickly he jumped to Rey's defence.

Ryujin said:

It would make sense that Rey would be one of the kids from Luke's Jedi school, who escaped the slaughter.

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It is starting to make a great deal of sense to me, for Rey - in the flashback triggered by Luke's lightsaber, we have a moment with Rey as a child, watching the ship (presumably with her family) take off. There is a hand on her arm holding her back, and a voice - I'm pretty darned sure that voice is Max Von Sydow. Why would the same person have a map to Luke *and* have custody of Rey?

I hadn't thought about it for Finn but that would also make sense both from the standpoint of him using a lightsaber, and how quickly he jumped to Rey's defence.

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Finn has been "conditioned" so perhaps he'd forgotten his past. We would want some level of separation introduced - there's no way Snoke would allow a former Jedi student to be just let in as a Stormtrooper - he'd have the child killed, or take him for training himself. Finn has to be picked up for stormtrooper training without Snoke knowing who he actually is...

Like, maybe if Phasma found him and brought him in? Because that's got the right Soap Opera flavor...

I'd be just as happy to find that he's just force sensitive, but was never a Jedi student - that'd be enough for him to break conditioning in the face of a combat and mass murder, which he'd feel more intensely than those who are not sensitive. I mean, such people that aren't Skywalker blood have to pop up from time to time for Luke to have any other apprentices, right?

Umbran said:

It is starting to make a great deal of sense to me, for Rey - in the flashback triggered by Luke's lightsaber, we have a moment with Rey as a child, watching the ship (presumably with her family) take off. There is a hand on her arm holding her back, and a voice - I'm pretty darned sure that voice is Max Von Sydow. Why would the same person have a map to Luke *and* have custody of Rey?

Finn has been "conditioned" so perhaps he'd forgotten his past. We would want some level of separation introduced - there's no way Snoke would allow a former Jedi student to be just let in as a Stormtrooper - he'd have the child killed, or take him for training himself. Finn has to be picked up for stormtrooper training without Snoke knowing who he actually is...

Like, maybe if Phasma found him and brought him in? Because that's got the right Soap Opera flavor...

I'd be just as happy to find that he's just force sensitive, but was never a Jedi student - that'd be enough for him to break conditioning in the face of a combat and mass murder, which he'd feel more intensely than those who are not sensitive. I mean, such people that aren't Skywalker blood have to pop up from time to time for Luke to have any other apprentices, right?

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I wish that I could go back to that tiny flashback of Rey's because you're probably right about that, but I missed the voice. I went to a matinee days after the opening in an effort to see the movie uninterrupted but, unfortunately, in an almost empty theatre I had someone sit one seat over who liked playing with his bag of Nibs.

The First Order recruited their Stormtroopers from orphans. It's not a huge leap to think that someone managed to sneak at least one of the students out of the school and into general population, who was then 'recruited' by The First Order.

Or, as you said, he's just a sensitive. The old Jedi schools certainly could get all of their students from one family and, as shown in the not to be named prequels, many races provided students.

Bet we find out that Finn is Mace Windu love child.
Rey is grand child to Obi-Wan Kenobi, if they don't make her Luke's child (it was his voice she heard touching the light saber in the movie)