The Force Awakens Deleted Scenes You Didn't Know About

Fans can't get enough Star Wars, so that's why Disney stuffed a few minutes of deleted scenes into the DVD and Blu-ray releases of Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Even though these nerf-herding Force Awakens scenes ended up on the cutting room floor, not to mention some bits that didn't even get filmed, diehard Star Wars fans will savor every second of them. And now you will, too!

The Force Awakens shows us that Kylo Ren can sense when Han Solo is nearby, but in one deleted scene, he goes a little further. After he realizes Solo landed on Starkiller Base, Ren actually finds the Millennium Falcon and—after ordering a squad of snowtroopers to make sure it's clear—climbs aboard. In an emotional moment after entering the cockpit, he's heard saying, "Han Solo..."

An early version of The Force Awakens opened with a shot of Luke Skywalker's lightsaber floating in space, perhaps still gripped by the hand Skywalker had lost during his battle with Darth Vader in The Empire Strikes Back. Abrams reportedly cut it late in production, perhaps because the lightsaber was seen drifting toward a planet other than Jakku, giving fans too much to wonder about and question before the film had even begun.

In the final cut of The Force Awakens, we don't see General Leia until after the Resistance beats back the First Order during its attack on Maz Kanata's castle. One version of the script, however, had Leia joining the fray much earlier—and explaining the political turmoil in the galaxy during a conversation with a Resistance commander named Korr Sella. In the theatrical cut, we only see Sella, played by actress Maisie Richardson-Sellers, for a brief moment...before the Starkiller Base wipes out the planet she's hanging out on. Sorry, Sella.

On The Force Awakens Blu-ray, we do get to see Leia in action on the Resistance base, although Sella isn't involved. Instead, we see her learning of Poe Dameron's possible death after the ambush on Jakku and urging a subordinate to find the missing BB-8. As she knows all too well, you should never underestimate a droid's ability to get away and make trouble for the bad guys.

Watching The Force Awakens, it's clear that the death of Finn's friend on Jakku is the catalyst for his turn away from the First Order. The Blu-ray includes a brief deleted scene that adds a bit more detail to this important character evolution, depicting Finn aiming his blaster at a panicked settler before lowering his weapon and letting her get away.

Poor Finn has quite the hike into the Nima Outpost after crash-landing on Jakku—but one deleted scene would have given him an opportunity to rest his feet a little. As depicted in concept art included in the book The Art of the Force Awakens, the script originally included a scene in which Finn flags down a passing ship and tries hitching a ride into town. It didn't make the cut, but like many of these scenes, it's included in the film's official novelization. Too bad there's no Uber on Jakku.

The digital edition of The Force Awakens offers a bonus deleted scene the other versions don't. The clip, called "Tunnel Standoff," shows Maz with Han, Finn, and Chewbacca when they're cut off by stormtroopers on their way out of the palace. Han stalls for time by playing dumb with the First Order soldiers, referring to Supreme Leader Snoke as "Smoke" and wondering aloud what he did to become "Supreme." Ordered to hand over his blaster, Solo quips, "It's broken." Oh, Han. That's the oldest trick in the book.

Then, in another portion of the scene that was apparently cut from all home releases of The Force Awakens, Maz Kanata proves she's also a secret Force-user—one capable of bringing an entire ceiling down on the heads of some stormtroopers. Looks like those helmets were good for something after all.

Junk dealer Unkar Plutt is clearly ticked off after Finn and Rey take off in the Millennium Falcon, but he's largely forgotten once the action leaves Jakku. Originally, he was supposed to make an appearance at Maz Kanata's castle, confronting Rey over her theft of the Falcon and getting into a fight with Chewbacca. Spoilers: It ends badly for him. In an echo to the Mos Eisley Cantina scene in A New Hope, Plutt gets, well, "disarmed."

Remember that moment during The Force Awakens trailer showing a lightsaber changing hands? We all assumed someone was handing it to Leia. As we later learned, that's exactly what was going on. At one point, Maz Kanata was supposed to head to the Resistance base after the First Order destroyed her place. She was supposed to speak with Leia, handing over the lightsaber in the process. Even after getting cut from the final film, it remains one of the most iconic images from The Force Awakens.

So how did Maz end up with the lightsaber, anyway? We would have gotten a better idea in the longer version of Rey's Force vision. As originally conceived, that sequence saw her gripped by a Force-fueled glimpse of the battle between Luke and Vader on Bespin, followed by images of how the lost weapon changed hands over the years. Speaking of changing hands, Luke's missing appendage is still nowhere to be found....

After Han, Chewie, Rey, and Finn land on Starkiller Base, they tell the Resistance they're in position, beginning the final assault on the First Order's terrible weapon of mass destruction. In a deleted scene found on the Force Awakens Blu-ray, the Resistance's small squad of fighters jumps into lightspeed together—right after the pilot played by J.J. Abrams' old friend Greg Grunberg quips, "Is there any other speed?"

The Force Awakens has no shortage of action sequences, which might be why Abrams decided to lose a Starkiller Base set piece that found Rey and Finn stealing a snowspeeder and being chased by First Order stormtroopers. Or would they be considered snowtroopers? Either way, you can catch a small glimpse of what might have been (albeit with unfinished special effects) on the Force Awakens Blu-ray, as well as the Lego First Order Snowspeeder set.

Finn's such a big part of The Force Awakens that we weren't really worried about his fate at the end, even though he'd taken quite a beating during his fight with Kylo Ren. Perhaps that's why Abrams decided to delete the extra Blu-ray scene that shows a Resistance medic (the same one seen telling Chewbacca he's very brave) assuring Rey that Finn will be just fine. No need to overstate the obvious, right?

Fans took issue with Kylo Ren's quest to finish what Darth Vader started. After all, in his final moments, Vader turned his back on the Dark Side, killing the Emperor, and sparing his son's life while sacrificing his own. But a passage from the Force Awakens novelization sheds more light on Ren's motives: his mentor, Supreme Leader Snoke, explains that the First Order sees Vader's last act not as his redemption, but as a moment of weakness marring the legacy of an otherwise great man. At least they didn't see Hayden Christensen's Force ghost spliced into Return of the Jedi. That's the weakest moment of all.