In a galaxy far, far away, first it was the Rebel Alliance vs. the Galactic Empire. Then the prequels brought the war between the Seperatists and the Republic. And now, Episode VII will introduce two (at least two) new factions: The First Order and the Resistance. Thanks to the 2015 Star Wars Celebration, we have plenty of official details to start forming a picture of what’s been happening in the Star Wars universe for the last 30 years. Let me speculate.
We can deduct from the two teaser trailers that the main trio is Kira Rey, Finn and Poe. We see Finn in armor a lot (Stormtrooper like armor), and then we see him riding, still in armor, but as prisoner. We see him weathered and beaten, taking his helmet off and looking shaken, and the lighting is consistent with the scenes of the place being burned by the First Order. We see him dropped into the desert, still in armor. Later, he’s scrambling in the desert with Kira Rey, who we’ve also seen wandering around without him, and of course the classic hand-up gesture, which movies reserve for a moment of newly forged friendship… so from all that we can deduce they meet on Jakku (desert planet). They’re not much of a group of friends if they’re on opposite sides until the last few scenes, so to be consistent in tone with the other movies, it’s likely that’s taking place earlier, rather than later.
The First Order has a different banner than the old Empire, so they’re politically distinct, and we know the old people are still around, so therefore they’re a new thing, but trying to build on the Empire’s lost glory. We know they’re putting some positive spin on it because they’ve got so many non-clone, non-droid followers, and the heroic Finn is part of that until he sees what’s going on.
There’s a lot of talk about family, and two characters, one who strongly resembles Leia/Padme, with ties to the action and very similar KR names. They’re doing a lot of callbacks to the original trilogy, which makes it likely they are Luke/Leia analogs for the new story, but they’re on opposite sides. Further, the Falcon is being flown on Jakku, but we know it’s not initially still in the hands of Han Solo, which makes it likely that it’s been loaned out, and who else would he ever give the keys to that to?
The reveal of parentage is probably later in the movie because Han and Chewie have been away from the Falcon. That makes it likely they’re meeting the ship on forest & water planet after it’s already been shown in the movie. We’ve seen action sequences of the ship on Jakku, so that makes it likely Kira Rey had it there, and uses it in their escape from that planet.
We know Kylo Ren has to be a self-proclaimed Sith, because there aren’t any real Sith to otherwise declare him (or are there?) We know Vader’s mask features in the story, and we know the saber does as well, and we know the saber is retrieved by a woman’s hand, and is at some point being lugged around by Finn in his Jakku action gear. So it seems likely he’s helping her escape with the saber (rather than the other way around), since he didn’t hand her the saber. Thus the saber is the MacGuffin for Jakku, at least.
Sabers wouldn’t be that hard to recover, since there were plenty of dead Jedi at the end of ROTS, so it must be specific to that saber, which is special because it was wielded by Luke, and before that Anakin. If the Vader helmet factors in enough to get a big focus shot like we saw in the trailer, then it has some story prominence as well, and those two objects are linked by a common owner. The bad guys are chasing Finn and Rey, so it seems likely they’re trying to get the saber, and if they’re building a collection of Anakin souvenirs, it’s probably not because the First Order takes its museums very seriously.
Then we have forest & water planet, on which we see the new X-Wings coming in low, and then some engagements there, but much less action than we see on Jakku. There are several reasons that might be, but I think it likely that their engagements are later in the film, and more of a spoiler, and requiring more involved effects shots, thus shown less in the early trailer. That being the case, we know it would be a multi-prong attack because Poe, a major character, is leading part of it, and Star Wars usually divides the final action into multiple parallel sequences, and the goal of the movie is to recall the feel of the older films.
Now, The First Order. Could mean two things (or not).
1) Without a single figurehead, the Empire has reordered as…what, an aristocracy? Junta? Plutocracy? Whats’ the right term?
2) The rebranding. That new logo. Blood red. The old Imperial crest was the perfect symbol for a fascist state. A cog in the machine. But that new symbol resembles more the Black Sun (the criminal organization in the Star Wars AND the occult Nazi symbol of the same name) and looks extremely decadent. It also looks like they’ve dedicated themselves to an ideology. A radical, militant, movement based around the Sith religion. The First Order feels like a name you would give something you were purifying. In the way that fundamentalists are always claiming to go back to the pure essence of whatever their ideologies are. Perhaps whatever Kylo Ren is behind (likely Sith, but anything is possible). Makes sense. I mean, you can’t really go on calling it an Empire when there’s no Emperor. First Order Of The Sith, perhaps?
As far as, The Resistance. It doesn’t necessarily mean the rebellion. Despite their best efforts,I think the Rebel Alliance still is dealing with pockets of the galaxy that stayed loyal to the Empire despite its destruction. Putting it into proper perspective, the Galactic Empire encompassed a vast number of systems that taking out the Emperor and Darth Vader would not have given the Rebel Alliance total advantage to abrogate the current system. What it would have given them was the momentum to stand toe to toe rather than be the underdog every single time.
Not sure what to make of the lack of Jedi though. One does wonder what Luke’s been doing all this time. If it took the Jedi centuries to figure out the key to not turning into some kind of maniacal monster is a combination of meditation and meticulous self-control, and YOU are the only one (literally) in the galaxy who knows how to help those who have this power, it certain seems (to me) like you have a pretty big social responsibility to pass on this knowledge. It seemed pretty clear to me that Yoda and Obi-Wan’s intentions were for Luke to restart the Jedi Order and he already had a potential pupil (Leia). Why hasn’t he stepped up to the task then? That’s a question I’m curious as to what the answer is. I mean, Luke isn’t exactly a puppet to the wishes of Obi-wan and Yoda. In a lot of ways, he acts completely contrary to their intentions (leaving Dagobah before ending his training, going to try to turn Vader instead of destroying him, etc.) So it wouldn’t exactly be out of character for Luke if he reached his own conclusions about the desirability of reproducing the old Jedi Order.
-Dagobot
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