The Biggest Unanswered Questions In The Force Awakens

Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens is officially here, and people are talking. Mostly good things, since director J.J. "King of the Nerds" Abrams tends to turn out a crowd (and fan) pleaser. Yes, Abrams totally rocks it, and he's set up some huge mysteries that we still want solved. We understand that it's hard to explain everything in two hours and that there are two more movies to come in Abrams' trilogy, but here are our major question marks. Warning: major spoilers ahead for The Force Awakens.

We're assuming Han and Leia named their son Ben after "Old Ben Kenobi" a.k.a. Obi-Wan Kenobi, the guy who trained Anakin and is called a "crazy old wizard" by Luke's Uncle Owen at the beginning of A New Hope. Then, as we learn in The Force Awakens, Ben went dark and changed his name to Kylo Ren during Jedi training with Uncle Luke. Because, as we learn, "he had too much Vader in him." This was apparently too much for Han and Leia, so they split up. But in the most amicable way ever, apparently, because when thrown together for the sake of the Republic, the former lovers are as chummy as ever. So what really happened between the pair? There has to be something more than Kylo Ren's darkness. What broke the love that transcended galaxies? We're dying to know.

Traditionally, the Star Wars saga focuses on the Skywalker dynasty, meaning a Skywalker's incredible power with the Force and how he handles that power. Episodes IV, V, and VI focus on Luke Skywalker's ascent to becoming a Jedi Knight, while Episodes I, II, and III focus on Anakin Skywalker's descent to the dark side. Both Skywalkers discover that the Force is strong with them, learn how to use it, and assume their respective places on either side. Based on what Abrams has shown us in The Force Awakens, we're assuming he won't be avoiding the traditional Skywalker focus—and we don't think he'll be focusing exclusively on Kylo Ren, especially since his journey to the Dark Side is complete. Rey is the one the lightsaber called to, and Rey seems to be the one whose Jedi training the trilogy will focus on.

Also, the original lightsaber: Kylo Ren believes it belongs to him, and he even tells Finn that explicitly. But it calls to Rey. Rey is the one it flies to when the two battle over it in the snow. This is significant because only two Jedis have held the lightsaber before her: Anakin Skywalker and Luke Skywalker. So even though we're pretty positive she's not the daughter of Leia and Han Solo since neither of them even acknowledged that they had one, there's another possibility: is she the daughter of Luke? We hope we'll learn the truth of Rey's origins sooner rather than later.

Maybe J.J. Abrams wanted to create his own Yoda, or maybe she actually is an old friend of Han Solo's. But what we're wondering is who is Maz Kanata and how did she come into possession of the original lightsaber? That's one pretty symbolic relic to just have lying around locked in a trunk in the bottom of your basement. Han Solo mentions that she's an old friend, but we've never heard her name before. Who is this alien who's been trusted with one of the most important weapons in the galaxy? Will we learn more about her?

George Lucas resolved his original trilogy with the notion that the Dark Side can be dispelled by the Light, with the power of the Force and heroism. Darth Vader makes the ultimate sacrifice to save his son, bringing him over to the Light Side. So what's up with Kylo Ren's reveration of him? Why is Ren trying to finish what his grandfather started? Logically, shouldn't Kylo Ren be embarrassed by his grandfather's final actions and be working in defiance of the Light? This leads us to wonder what really led to Ben Solo's corruption, and why he's obsessed with Vader despite his redemption at the end of Return of the Jedi.

When we left Luke, Leia, and Han, the Empire is defeated and Luke has eradicated the Sith Lords who follow the path of the Dark Side. So how did the First Order come to be? And who put the giant, larger than life, half dead alien hologram in charge? This is begging for an explanation. What broke the utopian society Lucas left us with at the end of Return of the Jedi? What happened in the last 30 years besides the birth of Kylo Ren?

It's clear that this new trilogy needed a new version of Emperor Palpatine. Supreme Leader Snoke fills that void in the form of a gigantic holographic alien. Throughout The Force Awakens, we see Snoke and Ren's master-student relationship. Han and Leia hint at how their son was seduced to the Dark Side by Snoke, so we know he's a powerful Force user. But who is he, and where did he come from? And just as we don't know how the First Order arose from the ashes of the Empire, we don't know how Snoke learned the ways of the Dark Side either. Who was his teacher? Is he related to any of the characters from the earlier movies?

When former-Stormtrooper Finn is involved in the big battle on Jakku early in The Force Awakens, he realizes that he's not cut out for a life of shooting hot laser death at innocent civilians. We learn that he was abducted from his family as a baby and raised to do the First Order's bidding, and that he turns his back on all that during that battle. But what really causes him to break free of the Order's hold? How come no other Stormtroopers have had revelations like his? Is he secretly strong with the Force? From what family was he stolen, and will we ever meet them?

It sure seemed like we'd get a lot of Captain Phasma in The Force Awakens. She's dressed in super-cool looking, shiny Stormtrooper armor, with a cape and everything. She doesn't have a number like the other Stormtroopers under her command—she actually has a name. But we never get to see her really do much in The Force Awakens, and she's dispatched off-camera...possibly thrown down a garbage chute. So is Captain Phasma merely this trilogy's Boba Fett—a mysterious figure who looks cool but ultimately doesn't do much?

We're told that Kylo Ren is the leader of the Knights of Ren, apparently some kind of spiritual successor to the Sith Lords from the original and prequel trilogies. But we never hear more about these Knights, what they do, or how they came to be. An even bigger question: are there more Knights of Ren waiting to appear?