Well... It is not supposed to go over 30 years of history. The Aftermath novels seem like the thing you are looking for.

I'm craving more info as well. But I just looked it. And starting today a couple of books are coming out that might be helpful:

Wookieepedia has some more info too: http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Battle_of_Jakku

I find it amusing Rey is named as such.

Luke brought balance to the force by the destruction of the Sith; but it will take the Rey of light at the end of the tunnel to finally end the war.

One thing my thick mind can't seem to understand. Perhaps someone more clever could explain. How is it that the Republic is back, but there is still a Resistance? Those seem to be two separate entities in the new movie.

I imagine that the Galaxy has entered a state of cold war, with the Republic leaving the New Order alone and unwillingly commuting to conflict openly. The resistance seems to be the most proactive "shadow" of the republic that had rejected call of peace in favour of counteracting the First Orders schemes directly. Basically the resistance is the republics hand in dealing with the new order without declaring war.

With the firing of the super weapon though, I am curious on whether this would motivate the republic back into open conflict, or make them cower and surrender to the new order. I am suspecting the latter.

If they've been fighting a war for decades, the latter.

If they haven't been directly involved in any fighting or only lightly or indirectly involved... it's just going to be sleeping the waking giant.

Disney definitely held back on this one, but I think that's okay. They needed to establish a baseline in order to gauge the audiences reaction to the revival.

As for not taking any risks, think about Kylo Ren's choice near the end. That was a hell of a risk, but it paid off extremely well I think.

8/10, definitely a Star Wars movie. And has been stated, that's something I never really got out of the Prequels.

To quote the San Diego Reader:

What [Abrams has] done is to remake Star Wars: A New Hope; tweaking it for the passage of time; improving on the acting, the effects, and the dialogue; and tossing in some bits from its sequels

The movie felt Star Warsy, the charactes were great and it looked spectacular.

But I left the cinema feeling a bit let down as I was hoping for something new, not just the plot of A New Hope with new characters.

It felt more like a reboot than a new chapter in the saga. That being said, maybe the franchise needed a reboot after the prequels.

Also, Phasma was underused. Why not have that saberfight with her instead of a random trooper? That seemed a missed opportunity.

SO MUCH THIS!

Great movie and I really enjoyed the performances of all the actors. However, I was not a fan of Death Star 3.0. That was just too much rehashing for my taste.

As for not taking any risks, think about Kylo Ren's choice near the end. That was a hell of a risk, but it paid off extremely well I think.

That wasn't a risk, it was a bolted-on certainty. Ford made no secret that he would only get involved in a sequel if they killed his character off.

But like you said, it did feel like Star Wars.

And like others have said, it's very derivative - Palpatine/Voldemort, whiny Anakin, female Luke, cantina Yoda, Wedge, R2D2 II and Death Star III were all back again.

Which was very obviously intentional, which is why some people felt like they'd seen it before. It's meant to be comforting and familiar, something the pre-sequels were not.

I absolutely loved Rey for the first half, when she was a plucky, resourceful scavenger. And then she went all 'Force Unleashed' on us. I guess you can't be important in SW unless you're a super special snowflake.

Just got back myself. I enjoyed it very much. A few quibbles but it is a movie and sometimes that means foregoing certain things in favour of moving the plot along.

Midnight:

I get to the theater for my Super Seven Movie Marathon, only to find it a ghost town. Wait, a Star Wars movie with no line? Am I in the right theater? Nope - that's the one. I guess that 1 AM is too much to ask of people to watch the Phantom Menace. So in I go.

1:00 AM -

As the lights go down, it's a moderately packed house, not quite 75% full or so. Also, apparently we get doughnuts later. The MC comes out and says "You guys are crazy".

True dat.

4:00 AM

One down, six to go - and the toughest one is behind us. Mind you, I made my peace with the prequels ages ago, so I have no animosity here. Also, there is not a **** thing open in Downtown at 4. This town really needs a 24 hour greasy spoon.

7:00 AM

Despite my best efforts, I nodded off during the Padme/Annie love scenes. So off to get myself a massive mocha with four shots of Wake Up! Also, snoring people at movies suck.

10:45 AM

The halfway mark, more or less. With a longer than usual intermission, I wander off to walk and wake up. I find a bored Santa with no kids and get his picture with my lightsaber. He asks what I want for Christmas. I reply "Sleep".

1:30 PM

Dear god, New Hope really is a perfect Movie, isn't it? That opening shot is still a religious experience on the big screen. Also, may need to caffinate again - I nodded off during the shootout in the detention block. Only 9 hours left to go. . . .

4:15 PM

The fever dreams are kicking in. Bea Aurther and Harvey Korman are singing to me. Sanity is slowly slipping away

Almost there

Allllmost there

Stay on target!

8:00 PM

Man, if I fall asleep during Force Awakens, I am going to be so pissed. . . ..

10:30 PM

Oh my goodness - I'm all done! One brand new Star Wars film under me! So how was it? It was weird as hell coming into a story where I knew none of the characters, none of the settings, none of the aliens and droids. Weird and kind of cool. The movie has a whole bunch of great moments and the dialog was witty as hell. And I love BB - that lil' fellow can emote! The script on the other hand? I'll need to see it again, but I don't think much of the third act.

Consider Star Wars for a moment. Its a pretty linear progression of events: Get off the Blockade runner, find Kenobi, get off Tatooine, rescue Leia, blow up the Death Star. A, B, C, D. But here, we have a "Shoot the Macguffin" goal, but suddenly we're all over the place. Blow this up, find this person, do this, do that. We're here, we're there. Oh and then shoot the Maguffin.

Like I said, I'll have to see it again (two or three times) and not in a sleep deprived state before I pass final judgement. . . . .

It was cool. Not the best SW film but far from the worst. Some confusing things but overall, two thumbs up.

I'd say, 8.5 out of ten, It is definitely in the OT realm of quality if you ask me. They did such a good job of selling Finn as Force Sensitive I'm still not convinced he isn't. Poe is awesome. Rey is cool, but they progress her force powers extremely fast so I guess she's a natural (Also probably a Skywalker). Digging the PT Obi Wan look that Luke has going on, its pretty great. All in all, a great experience and I can't wait for the next movie.

Well... It is not supposed to go over 30 years of history. The Aftermath novels seem like the thing you are looking for.

Aftermath has awful reviews. I don't think I can bring myself to read it.

- I highly enjoyed it.

- Answered some questions, created some new ones.

- Loved the humor. Series really needed it.

- Definitely like how they killed Han. Made Kylo's turn to the dark side complete.

- I like the fact that Kylo Ren is not dead and that he will be returning as even more bad ass. Setting up an even more epic battle with Luke and his new Padawan.

- I also like how Kylo Ren's real name is Ben.

- They really made Poe out to be an unreal starfighter ace. He was waxing those Tie's during the water battle. One man squadron.

- Really liked seeing Rey kick some but with her staff. Makes my hunch that she is going to turn her staff it into a double bladed lightsiber even bigger. And it will be pink or some other color besides green/blue. Because, why not?!

- I liked the force vision. Was a really cool sequence. It also makes me think that Rey is related to Luke somehow. Especially since it was said/eluded that the lightsaber "knows" and that it is pasted down from father to son.

- Underwhelmed when they said "Send in the fleet" and it was like 2 squads vs an entire planet's worth of defenders. Kind of lopsided.

- Was hoping for some flashes to Lea when the planets were destroyed. Some kind of Force feeling similar to Ben's. That would have been cool.

- Would have liked to see 1 or other types of fighters besides the new xwings.

- Would have been a nice nod if Poe's last name was Antillies or maybe seeing Wedge in the command room at the end.

- But I do agree. Feels more like a safe reboot than an original movie (main plot "stop the big bad super weapon from blowing us up").

Guys, FFS stop using words like reboot, remake, etc. It is a giant disservice to what the movie is...

My two cents on a complety different pathway:

The reason JJ Abrams said "yes" was because Kathleen Kennedy asked him the question "Who is Luke Skywalker?"
JJ then makes a movie where Skywalker just shows up in the end for a few seconds, or does he?

What do we know of Luke?
- Force Sensitive Emergent that is not ready to leave home but is brought to do so by an outside agency
- Unexpected Hero rookie that dreamed of the Imperial Academy but cannot do anything other than the right thing
- Excellent pilot and motivational leader
I think Rey, Poe and Finn are all built on certain aspects of Luke magnifying those elements and fleshing them out in fully conceived characters.

Luke is there in absence constantly. All through out the movie we see him in the actions of the new leads constantly exploring the deeper elements of what makes Luke Luke.

Luke doesn't show up at the end he is the entire movie, it is a character study in answering the question that made JJ decide to go ahead and make the movie.

Guys, FFS stop using words like reboot, remake, etc. It is a giant disservice to what the movie is...

It isn't a remake or reboot, but it used so many elements from Ep VI, it felt like it, to me anyway.

I wanted to see a continuation of the saga, and I didn't feel it was.

Well, I hate to break it to you, but it is. It is a continuation of the Saga and it borrows heavily from elements that were present in all the movies. That is what SW has Always been about, or would you consider RotJ a reboot/remake of ANH/ESB as well?

- It starts with 2 droids in a desert (ANH)

- It then moves to the heroes escaping Tatooine (ANH)

- It then moves to Luke going into training (ESB)

- Family ties are revealed (ESB)

- Death Star plans are revealed (ANH)

- A light sabre fight between Luke and Darth Vader ensues mirroring the battle between Obi-wan and Darth Vader and Luke and Vader's earlier fight (ANH/ESB)

- Hands get chopped off (ESB)

- Space battle against the Death Star (ANH)

You could do this exercise for all SW movies, these are themes that mirror, eccho and repeat that is the way the saga works and is now continued.

Guys, FFS stop using words like reboot, remake, etc. It is a giant disservice to what the movie is...

You don't get to decide what we can say, sorry.

It's a fun movie, but feels like a remake/reboot.

It's a film made for fans of the first movies. The design brief was clearly 'don't be like the prequels!!!'. And the easiest way to do that was re-write the first movie, which is what they did.

Some people will love the familiarity, others feel disappointed it was so totally derivative. There's room for different opinions.

I was just amazed that the Scots and Genghis Khan bounty-hunters weren't led by Boba Fett.

And I fully expected the item in the mysterious box Rey found was going to be Leia's slave bikini, which of course she'd have to wear for the rest of the film...

Also, Phasma was underused. Why not have that saberfight with her instead of a random trooper? That seemed a missed opportunity.

SO MUCH THIS!

From what I've heard, Gwendoline Christie (actress that played Phasma) is due to be back in the later films. So it's quite likely that her role (which was initially meant to be a man prior to the outcry about not enough female actresses) was meant to be a "one and one" prior to her casting, much as Fett's was in the original films.

I wasn't the least bit bothered by all the parallels to the prior movies. DanteRotterdam pretty much hit the nail on the head, and is something we frequently see in Star Wars, the recycling of themes and elements from prior films. If anything, it hit the nostalgia button to see many of these familiar elements show up in a new way.

Lucas did it with the prequels (albeit with a much heavier-hand) to show the differences between Luke and Anakin and the choices each of them made. And JJ Abrams did it with splitting Luke's essential character out into three individuals (the awesome pilot, the nascent Force user, the idealistic recruit).

As for Starkiller Base... the First Order is a rehashed Empire, and the Empire loved it's superweapons, so no big shock that the main villain organization would have a superweapon on hand. If anything, that final sequence had more nods to RotJ than ANH, given it took a small strike force to create the opening to enable the X-Wings to make their attacks by taking down the planetary shields, and then same strike force creating a literal opening for Poe to make the decisive attack that lead to the base's destruction.

I'm kind of "meh" on Kylo Ren's real name being Ben, as neither Han or Leia had much connection to Kenobi. Then again, that might be my own attachment to Legends and the characters of Mara Jade and Ben Skywalker speaking.

I did love how Han seemed to take a bit of perverse joy in taking the piss out of Finn when the ex-stormtrooper was starting to get a little too big for his britches. And you could tell that Harrison Ford was enjoying himself with the role, especially since he knew it was going to be his last time playing everyone's favorite scoundrel.

Guys, FFS stop using words like reboot, remake, etc. It is a giant disservice to what the movie is...

You don't get to decide what we can say, sorry.

What are you 12?

I am just stating that it is neither, no matter how much "it feels like it" so it is doing a disservice to what the movie is and does.

Wouldn't it be better to discuss the movie on its actual merits and flaws instead of confusing familiarity with a movie series' elements and themes and a movie being a rehash?

Because that is what people are experiencing; familiarity. Something that was sorely lacking in the PT and even there those elements and themes were used to create a SW movie. Then it didnt work out so well, now it did. It feels like something you know because it is supposed to.

It uses elements and themes, explores familiar terrotiries because it mirrors what came before. A common trop in serials is that history repeats and that is exactly what this movie did it tells a new story with elements that made SW such a unique saga to begin with.

I say it feels like something we know and love and that is a good thing. Apparently it wasn't easy since it took 33 years for it too happen.

I'm kind of "meh" on Kylo Ren's real name being Ben, as neither Han or Leia had much connection to Kenobi.

I don't think the actual connection really matters. If there was no Ben then there would have been no Han and Leia.

He hired Han and set him on the path of the rebellion, he got the twins back together, he sacrificed himself so that the "big three" could get away. I would totally name my kid after someone who had done such things for me.