The Force Awakens

Chewie...we're home. —Han Solo

Luke Skywalker has vanished. In his absence, the sinister FIRST ORDER has risen from the ashes of the Empire and will not rest until Skywalker, the last Jedi, has been destroyed.

With the support of the REPUBLIC, General Leia Organa leads a brave RESISTANCE. She is desperate to find her brother Luke and gain his help in restoring peace and justice to the galaxy. . .

Leia has sent her most daring pilot on a secret mission to Jakku, where an old ally has discovered a clue to Luke’s whereabouts . . . .

The Force Awakens (also known as Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens) is the seventh film in the Star Wars saga and the first to be released after Disney bought out Lucasfilm.

Tragically, it was also the last to feature Kenny Baker as R2-D2 and Erik Bauersfield as Admiral Gial Ackbar.

Set 30 years after Return of the Jedi, the galaxy has come under siege from an Imperial remnant, the First Order led by a mysterious dark side user, Supreme Leader Snoke. With the New Republic having opted for Head-in-The-Sand Management, the fight against the First Order is lead by Leia Organa's Resistance. In the midst of this cold war, both factions are competing for a map to locate the missing Luke Skywalker, the First Order hunt being led by the dark side apprentice Kylo Ren, a mysterious masked man connected to the Skywalker clan... all the while, the defected Stormtrooper Finn, the pilot Poe Dameron and the scavenger girl Rey find themselves caught in the middle of all of this mess.

Released in December of 2015, The Force Awakens was followed by The Last Jedi in 2017 and The Rise of Skywalker in 2019.

Tropes used in The Force Awakens include:

• Advertised Extra: Poe.
• All There in the Manual:
  • The expanded universe novels and comic explains that Rey's knowledge about the inner workings of the Millennium Falcon being taught to her by the scavengers or her flying skills coming from playing flight simulator games in her spare time.
  • The visual dictionary for The Rise of Skywalker identifies Starkiller Base as having been built into Ilum, the planet from which the Jedi harvested the Khyber crystals for their lightsabers. Something which pretty much everyone had guessed.
  • Likewise, the star left behind after the base's destruction was dubbed "Solo."
• Almighty Janitor: Finn. Despite being a Stormtrooper who worked at many of the First Order's most important sites, his main job was sanitation.
• Attack Its Weak Point: The main weakness of Starkiller Base is that there is a need to contain the energy it receives from absorbing a star and the base's thermal oscillator is one of the more important safeguards that's preventing the energy from violently tearing the First Order's stronghold apart. The Resistance is aware of the oscillator's role and with its destruction, Starkiller Base explodes in a similar manner to the second Death Star.
• Beard of Sorrow: Luke.
• Continuity Reboot: Disregards anything from Star Wars Legends.
• Crapsack World: Jakku. Han and Finn outright call it a junkyard. The EU makes clear that it's considered a nowhere planet that has no attractive features.
• Decoy Protagonist: Lots of marketing material suggested Finn was the main character. Nope, it's Rey.
• The Exile: Luke fled galactic society during the Time Skip and went into hiding on a remote world in the Unknown Regions.
• Foreshadowing: When Rey has a Force vision, she hears Palpatine, hinting at her connection to him.
• Happy Ending Override: After all the struggles of the original trilogy, thirty years later, everything is back to where it started.
• History Repeats:
  • A ragtag group of heroes, one of whom has to learn the ways of the Force. work to destroy a giant planet killing weapon while being pursued by a fallen Jedi wearing black robes.
  • An up and coming Jedi apprentice was tempted by a dark lord and turned against the larger order. Must be a family thing.
• Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy: Generally averted. Discounting those protected by Plot Armor, the Stormtroopers are relatively good shots. Finn, the best shot in the heroes, was a former Stormtrooper.
• Individuality Is Illegal: First Order Stormtroopers have numbers instead of names and are forbidden from taking their helmets off.
• Interservice Rivalry: Kylo Ren and General Hux do not like working together.
• Killed Off for Real: Han Solo.
• Made of Iron: Kylo survives a shot from Chewie's bowcaster, a weapon that can send Stormtroopers flying.
• Mind Rape: Kylo's only interrogation technique. He engages in some Faux Affably Evil discussion at first but then he goes right to burrowing into his captive's head. Everyone tries Fighting From the Inside but it's not until he tries it on the Force-sensitive Rey that he's forced out.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Kylo's interrogation of Rey allows her to properly tap into the Force and pull a Jedi Mind Trick on her guard.
• Only the Chosen May Wield: The Skywalker lightsaber responds only to Rey's Force pull, not Kylo Ren's.
• Space Age Stasis: Averted for the First Order but played painfully straight for the Resistance. It's justified though in that they don't have the funding, thanks to the Military Disarmament Act, to make a lot of new equipment.
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Starkiller Base is even acknowledged to be, essentially, another Death Star.
• Taught By Experience:
  • Ilum was purged of all native life during the construction of Starkiller Base to avoid another Endor situation.
  • The bridges of the new Star Destroyers, while still at the top of the ship, are much better protected and the back-up bridge is always staffed, clearly a lesson learned from the death of the Executor.
  • Like the original Death Star, Starkiller Base has a notable Achilles Heel. Unlike the original Death Star, Starkiller Base's weakness is covered by meters thick armor to the point that a bombing run can't even dent it.
• They Look Just Like Everyone Else: The film constantly hints that Darth Vader Clone Kylo Ren has a face just as messed up as his ancestor. But when he takes off his helmet, he's a hunk.
• Time Skip: It's been about thirty years since Return of the Jedi.
• Took a Level In Badass: Though the First Order lost a good chunk of the Empire's resources, it has better tech. Their TIE pilots in particular are far better at flying than their Imperial counterparts.
• Took a Level In Kindness: Despite the Happy Ending Override, Han Solo is much kinder than he ever was during the era of the Original Trilogy and is much more of a clear-cut hero.
• Underestimating Badassery: What allowed the First Order to rise up. Most of the New Republic, thanks to some First Order spies, dismissed them as underfunded terrorists and Bomb-Throwing Anarchists, being willfully blind to them building up the most advanced army in the galaxy.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: The unseen Mon Monthma. She loved the Old Republic so much that she rebuilt it exactly as it was in the time of The Phantom Menace. Trouble is, she remembered it through a Nostalgia Filter which made it just as ineffectual as ever, allowing the First Order to rise.
• Vestigial Empire: Both the First Order and the New Republic. While the First Order is obviously a smaller Empire, the New Republic's disarmament protocols and its distaste for a strong centralized government means that it's comparatively weaker than the Rebel Alliance was at its peak.
• What a Piece of Junk!: Guess which ship.
• Wham! Line: Kylo Ren calling Darth Vader's charred helmet "Grandfather".
• Won the War, Lost the Peace: As tie-in media reveals, the New Republic was so inefficient, and so eager to demilitarize, that it lacked the strength to prevent the First Order's rise to power.
• Wrench Wench: A lifetime on Jakku has given Rey top-notch mechanical skills.
• You Are Number Six: First Order Stormtroopers are kidnapped from their families to be raised as soldiers and then given a batch number. Finn is FN-2187.