If you’re anything like us, and most of the other people on the internet, you’ve spent the better part of the last day pouring over every frame and word in the latest Star Wars: The Force Awakens trailer. It’s yet another look that sends shivers up our spines, but, as with the previous offerings, for everything that it shows us, there is still a great deal that remains hidden.
For all the crazy awesome action scenes, grim moments, and dramatic beats that we’ve now seen, we don’t really know much about the story. And for all of the characters we’ve glimpsed on screen, there are some notable ones that we haven’t really laid eyes on yet. We thought, what better time to run through some of the characters we’re most excited and curious to see in Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Let us know who you’re most excited about in the comments below.
Maz Kanata
We got our first look at the completely CGI pirate in the latest poster for The Force Awakens, though it’s far from detailed — there’s also that bit in the second trailer that we suspect is her handing over a lightsaber. However, as much as we want to see this character full on, we probably won’t, as Lucasfilm has said they plan to keep Maz Kanata under wraps until the film is unveiled. Voiced by Oscar-winner Lupita Nyong’o, though we haven’t seen her in action yet, we believe we got to hear her urging Rey (Daisy Ridley) to let the Force wash over her in the new trailer. At this stage, we don’t even know much about her aside from the piracy thing, and that her dwelling is a hangout for nefarious space outlaws and folks of that ilk. It will be interesting to see how she fits into the narrative. She obviously has knowledge of the Force, so we have to wonder if she’s a Jedi, something of a historian, or just a useful person to know if you’re battling the First Order and need a place to lay low.
Supreme Leader Snoke
Another character we’ve heard but haven’t seen is Supreme Leader Snoke, yet another fully motion captured character, this time performed by Andy Serkis. And if his appearance is even a fraction as ominous as his voiceover in the first trailer, he’s going to be one straight up terrifying villain for our heroes to contend with. Aside from the fact that he’s the commander of the First Order, skilled in the Dark Side of the Force, and reportedly a mentor to Kylo Ren, there isn’t a ton of information about him. It’s easy to picture him in a role similar to Emperor Palpatine in the original trilogy, a looming threat, pulling the strings while other villains, like Kylo Ren and Captain Phasma, execute the on-the-ground part of their plan. At the end of the new canon novel Aftermath, there is a character who is neither named nor described, but who has a sinister presence that terrifies even his underlings. We don’t know who this is, but many have speculated it could be Snoke, and a scary as he is there, given 30 years that elapse between that time and The Force Awakens, he has space to grow into something truly chilling.
General Hux
We’ve encountered photos of Domhnall Gleeson as General Hux, and even spied him from a distance addressing a massive throng of First Order stormtroopers, but the new villain has yet to pop up in any substantial way in the trailers. Hux appears to be carrying the torch of characters like Peter Cushing’s Grand Moff Tarkin and his ilk, in that he won’t necessarily cut you in half with a lightsaber or Force choke you, but he represents the military might of the First Order. We know he commands the new battle station, Starkiller Base, which, according to reports puts even the Death Star to shame. Instead of being a planet-sized battle station, it’s an entire planet, repurposed and turned into a killing machine the likes of which we’ve never seen. This is going to be horrifying to watch.
Max Von Sydow’s Character
Max Von Sydow plays a spooky character like few other actors of his or any other generation. When it was announced that he was part of the cast, many assumed he would be a villain, but here we are, less than two months away from The Force Awakens, and we still don’t really know anything about his character. The latest rumor, emphasis on the rumor part, indicated that his character is named Lor San Tekka, and while he doesn’t play a huge role, he provides a key to the plot. Tekka is said to be a village elder on Jakku, the desert planet where Rey lives and where the action reportedly kicks off. We’ve heard a lot about Luke Skywalker being missing, and according to this report, Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac) tracks Von Sydow down, hoping to find out clues about the missing Jedi’s whereabouts. This jibes with other rumblings we’ve encountered, that Poe is on a mission from "a certain princess," and it would make sense that Leia would want to find her missing brother. This would also provide a way for the three new core characters — Poe, Rey, and Finn — to come together. However it goes down, we can’t wait to see Von Sydow on screen, as the 86-year-old actor is always incredible.
Luke Skywalker
There’s been a lot of talk about how we haven’t seen much of Luke Skywalker so far, just that one clip that all you really see is his hand — though we did hear his voice. He’s not even on that new poster. To be honest, I doubt we’ll see him before the actual movie. Up to this point, the rumors surrounding his role have all generally followed the theme of no one knows where he is and the plot revolves around the other characters trying to find him. We know he’ll be back for Episode VIII, and the prevailing logic is that we won’t actually see him until near the end of The Force Awakens. If that’s the case, you have to presume that Lucasfilm and Abrams don’t want to give away too much in the promotion, and it is increasingly unlikely that he’ll show up at all in the marketing.
