Legendary Star Wars Actors Hidden In The Force Awakens

There's no doubt that Star Wars: The Force Awakens has been a hit with audiences and critics alike. While there's been plenty of justified criticism over how the movie revisits (or maybe even rehashes...or rips off) elements from A New Hope, the movie as a whole is still a great time. But even with old favorites like Carrie Fisher, Harrison Ford, Peter Mayhew, and Mark Hamill returning to the fold, there are even more Star Wars actors who put in more subtle, even hidden appearances in The Force Awakens that you may have missed on your first few viewings. Be careful now: major spoilers from here on out.

Much to the relief of the most ardent Star Wars fans, there's very little of the prequel trilogy that gets referenced by The Force Awakens. Even still, it's clear that the legacy of the first three episodes still has an impact on the director J.J. Abrams' movie. That reverence for what's come before comes into play during Rey's Force vision in the film's second act, when she hears voices from important Jedi masters from the past. That includes Ewan McGregor, who portrays Obi-Wan Kenobi in the prequels. McGregor lends his voice to say the line, "Rey ... these are your first steps."

Even more impressive than getting Ewan McGregor to reprise the role of Obi-Wan for a single line of dialogue? Getting the late Alec Guinness, the original Obi-Wan Kenobi from Episodes IV through VI, to do the same. As it happens, the line that we hear in the movie is a blend of the voices of both McGregor and Guinness. In A New Hope, Guinness as Obi-Wan offers Luke a similar bit of wisdom, telling him, "you've taken your first step into a larger world." To get Guinness to say "Rey," however, Abrams and his editors took the actor's utterance of the word "afraid" and reworked it to sound perfectly at home in The Force Awakens.

Said Abrams to Entertainment Weekly of the final result: "They cut it, and you hear the performance—he's saying it the way I would have begged Alec Guinness to have said it. It is so crazy perfect...So when you hear Obi-Wan talk to Rey it is both Alec Guinness and Ewan McGregor doing the voice."

No ancient wisdom would be complete without a word from arguably the most important Jedi master who ever lived: Yoda. The same EW report says that Yoda's voice actor, Frank Oz, came down to Abrams' Bad Robot studios to lend his talents to the Force vision as well. However, whatever dialogue it was that Oz recorded, it turns out that Abrams wound up using lines that already appeared in the previous Star Wars films. Make the movie's final cut, Oz does not.

When the Force Awakens gang all gathers at the Resistance base, they join with General Leia and her military allies. And no such gathering would be complete without Admiral Ackbar. You know, the fish-head guy who infamously yells, "It's a trap!" in Return of the Jedi. While it's pretty awesome that the filmmakers brought the fan-favorite Ackbar back for the new movie, it's even more exciting that the actor portraying the good admiral, Tim Rose, was invited to the set to reprise his role, too.

Another bizarre-looking star from Return of the Jedi comes to the Resistance base to mount a counter-attack on the Starkiller Base. Nien Nunb, Lando Calrissian's co-pilot from the attack on the second Death Star, is shown to be still in action as a valuable member of the Resistance. And just as Admiral Ackbar is played by Tim Rose, so too is Nunb played by both his original puppeteer and voice actors, Mike Quinn and Kipsang Rotich, respectively. Not appearing in The Force Awakens, however, is Richard Bonehill, who played the character in wide shots. Maybe two actors for one character is plenty...

One more actor from Return of the Jedi who made the trip to Abrams' new film is Warwick Davis, who played Wicket the Ewok. You know—the one who first meets Princess Leia on Endor. Unlike Rose, Quinn, and Rotich, Davis actually has one other Star Wars appearance under his belt, having played one of the fans in the stands during the podrace scene in The Phantom Menace. In The Force Awakens, Davis plays a new character called, Wollivan. According to his entry on the Wookieepedia, Wollivan is a Blarina who hangs out during the scene set in Maz Kanata's castle.