SPOILERS AHEAD: This article contains spoilers for Star Wars: The Force Awakens. If you want to read our spoiler-free review, click here. The rest of you, read on… but know that you have been warned.
Several months ago there was a really odd rumor going around that James Bond himself, Daniel Craig, had a cameo role in The Force Awakens. The rumor appeared to be confirmed when Simon Pegg went and blabbed it all over the internet. Then, it looked like Pegg might have been full of crap when Craig not only denied it, but did so in an expletive laden tirade. Now that the movie has officially premiered, the facts are starting to slowly come out, and it turns out that Daniel Craig is in the film, and he is a Stormtrooper. And now we know which one.
If you’ve seen the movie, and god we hope you have if you’re reading this, you’ll easily remember which trooper he was as he’s the most memorable one who doesn’t take off his helmet. Daisy Ridley’s Rey has been captured by Kylo Ren and she‘s bolted to a table undergoing interrogation. Having begun to understand that she has some ability to use The Force, she attempts that old Jedi mind trick she probably heard stories about, on the Stormtrooper on guard duty. "You will remove these restraints and leave this cell with the door open." At first, the trick doesn’t work, but after another try, Rey succeeds.
It’s a fantastic scene on multiple levels. As Entertainment Weekly points out, it’s an obviously intentional call back to "these aren't the droids you’re looking for" with a Stormtrooper repeating back everything that he’s told. It’s also one of the funnier scenes in the film, with the mind trick not actually working the first time, followed by the "leave your weapon" bit at the end. It’s also the first time Rey intentionally attempts to use the Force, so it shows some major growth for her character.
We have to hand it to Daniel Craig, though. The man knows how to kill a rumor dead in its tracks. Simply saying "oh, no, that’s not true" is one thing, and it hardly ever works. Ask J.J. Abrams about Kahn being in Star Trek into Darkness and he can tell you all about simply denying rumors. Craig didn’t just say no. He said, "fuck no," and then added an "and fuck that guy who said it" for good measure. We have to admit we began to wonder if it was true a few days ago when Carrie Fisher admitted that somebody famous had a Stormtrooper cameo in the film. She also swore a lot at the time. We’re not sure why swearing is a necessary part of discussing Daniel Craig and Star Wars, but there you are.
