Craig played the trooper tasked with standing watch over Rey after Kylo Ren had interrogated her, though she managed to successfully perform a Jedi Mind Trick on him in order to escape. One need only look at what happened with Order 66 and the extinction of the Jedi for proof od that.īy now, even casual Star Wars fans are aware that James Bond himself, Daniel Craig, appeared as a stormtrooper in The Force Awakens. After all, clones could be programmed to remain loyal. Perhaps the stormtroopers weren't as loyal as the First Order thought, which is why Kylo Ren postulated to General Hux that Supreme Leader Snoke should consider creating a clone army. FN-2187, aka Finn, left the First Order and joined the Resistance.

Perhaps that form of training makes them more loyal - but there are exceptions. In The Force Awakens, we learn that the First Order takes their candidates from birth and trains them, throughout their lives, for battle. This practice continued with the First Order. But when the Galactic Empire formed, the clone program was abandoned, and more loyal, patriotic volunteers were instead employed in the Stormtrooper Corps. They were elite warriors who fought alongside the Jedi during the Clone Wars. The giant, planet-destroying space station in The Force Awakens was codenamed Starkiller Base, likely to pay homage to both Lucas' original vision and the well-liked video game series.ĭuring the prequel trilogy (and the era of the Republic), the Grand Army of the Republic consisted entirely of clone troopers, whose DNA was based on that of the bounty hunter Jango Fett. Unfortunately, after Disney's acquisition of Lucasfilm in 2012, The Force Unleashed was removed from canon - but the Starkiller name would still live on. In that game, Darth Vader's apprentice, Galen Marek, was named Starkiller. It had very unpleasant connotations.' Despite the change, the Starkiller name lived on in various ways.įor instance, when Lucasfilm and LucasArts attempted to bridge the gap between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope, they did so by making the video game The Force Unleashed. Lucas eventually changed the name because he felt ' a lot of people were confusing him with someone like Charles Manson. When George Lucas was still writing the script for his original Star Wars film, Luke Skywalker's name was actually Luke Starkiller.

Starkiller Base) has a long history within the Star Wars franchise. Star Wars fans will more than likely already know this, but for the uninitiated, the Starkiller name (i.e. Here are 15 Secrets Hidden In The Force Awakens.

With Gareth Edwards' Rogue One: A Star Wars Story having recently released, and Rian Johnson's Star Wars: Episode VIII on the way, we've decided to run through some of these hidden gems. Abrams and the rest of the cast and crew's love for Star Wars showed in the final product, which is why there is an abundance of hidden secrets only longtime (or well-informed) fans could've spotted. It was a worldwide phenomenon before it released, but no one knew how much until it broke virtually every box office record standing in its way, including the big one: highest-grossing film of all time.Īnd why wouldn't it? The film capitalized on nostalgia in a major way not just of the original trilogy, but of Star Wars as a whole (people love the prequel trilogy, too!). Abrams' Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens released in theaters to overwhelming fanfare. Disney acquired Lucasfilm seven years later, and subsequently announced Star Wars: Episode VII.įast forward three more years, and J.J. But thankfully for us moviegoers, we hadn't yet made our last trip to the galaxy far, far away. When George Lucas's Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith released in 2005, people thought that was the end of the Star Wars saga - the biggest entertainment franchise the world had ever seen.

Greg grunberg tubbler