Fan Fiction: The Force Awakens

It's good vintage.

As Auntie Mame said, “Live! That’s the message! Life is a banquet and most poor suckers are starving to death!” Well, here we go to the dessert table!

I wrote this rewrite of The Force Awakens years ago, but held off on publishing it for a variety of reasons. Most of it was embarrassment since it needed edits before it could see the light of day and I wasn’t up to those edits at the time. To be frank, I was also nervous about putting this fanfic out there with so many better known authors rewriting the movie (and it’s sequels) and the huge internet fight that followed the release of The Last Jedi.

But you only live once. Life is a banquet and some people can’t find the table. I finally decided that, for Christmas, I would gift you with the polished-up fanfic outline of The Force Awakens as I wish it had been done. Fair warning, I bring in plenty of the original Expanded Universe material for this fanfic, and I don’t do a lot of recasting as I think the actors and actresses were well cast and did a good job in the film. They just didn’t get to tell a good story, unfortunately.

Anyway, here is The Force Awakens that I wish I could have watched. Once I finish with the sequels’ rewrites, I will post them here as well. But for now - have fun!

Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens

My version of The Force Awakens would start out in roughly the same place as J. J. Abrams’: in a village in the desert of Jakku, with Max Von Sydow giving an Empire of the Hand pilot part of the map necessary to locate Luke and Ben Skywalker, his son. (I have always thought Josh Hutcherson could have played Ben Skywalker, since I started cooking up this idea.) The two have gone in search of a way to stop the First Order by looking up the first Jedi enclave ever built. Since this Imperial pilot is using an X-Wing for cover, he needs a droid co-pilot, and thus we would have BB-8.

The pilot would be Jagged Fel. He is a character from the Star Wars Expanded Universe, so you may have to look him up to find him. I still would have hired Oscar Isaac to play the part, since he sort of resembles Fel and he has the acting chops for what I have in mind. Aside from these casting choices, I have no other actors in mind for roles. There is only one actress I would give another role, but we’ll get to her in a minute.

So Jagged Fel, pilot for the Empire of the Hand, would get this map from Sydow moments before the First Order’s ships arrived. He would run off to escape, only for his X-wing to be damaged while the villagers were being shot at/chased by the new Stormtroopers. He would give the map to BB-8, who would roll off into the desert while Jagged went back to buy him time to escape.

Max von Sydow gets dragged out to face Kylo Ren, and we would see Sydow close his eyes for a moment while hearing the Force music play, indicating that he sensed Jagged and his purpose. Ren would demand the map and Sydow would state that he did not have it before beginning to address Ren by his real name, whereupon Ren would kill him. In retaliation, Jagged would shoot at Ren, and we would have the whole capture scene we know from the film, only far more serious this time as Ren would use the Force to knock the pilot unconscious.

Ren would order Jagged taken aboard his shuttle and the remaining adult villagers killed. As the Stormtroopers line up, one of the villagers shoots first, killing a trooper. This would be Finn’s friend, and while the rest of the troopers murdered the villagers, he would dive down to pull his friend’s helmet off.

His friend would be afraid and reach up for Finn’s helmet, leaving the bloody handprint there, only to die seconds later. Finn would rise to a kneeling position to fire, only to see a child crying over the body of the man who shot the trooper. The child would be screaming “Papa!” as the troopers shot all the adults and Finn would have a flashback to losing his own parents when troopers came to his village on behalf of a faction of the Imperial Remnant, which has renamed itself the First Order.

Frozen, Finn does not fire, and once all the adult villagers are dead, Phasma would order them to round up any remaining children. Watching the child be dragged away from his father, Finn would have another flashback to the same thing happening to him as a child. Slowly, shaking, he would follow the rest aboard the troop ships.

On the way up to the Star Destroyer, Finn would be on the same transport as the child who saw his father killed. He would try to reach out only for the child to pull away from him, and then he would reach up to take his helmet off in the hopes of comforting the little one. One of the other troopers would stop him, saying: “Helmets stay on until we reach our berths. You know this.” Reluctantly, Finn would bring his hand down and look at the boy, who would sniffle and turn away.

Once aboard ship, Finn would continue to have flashbacks, so he would find a private place to take his helmet off, trying to understand why he is so distraught. He would mutter his designation over and over again, trying to make it stick, but it doesn’t and he hits the wall in frustration. Phasma would appear and demand to know if he was malfunctioning. Finn would show her his helmet with the bloody print on it and she would give him orders to get a replacement. “Yes, Captain,” he says, putting the helmet back on.

Phasma would watch him go before leaving herself, muttering something about “troopers who joined as adults never had this problem” under her breath.

I would have kept the whole torture scene for Jagged, but instead of being just a regular smart alec, Jagged would make a comment to Ren about his sister. Ren would become noticeably angry and use the Force to steal the information he required from the pilot’s mind, leaving Jagged a wreck. As Jagged passed out due to the stress, a slithery female voice would speak to Ren through the Force, reminding him to channel his anger into more useful endeavors while insisting he needed to find that map – and the Skywalkers.

After this, Finn would rescue Jagged and they would get in the TIE Fighter. Jagged would ask his name and Finn would reply with his designation. At which point Jagged rolls his eyes and say something like, “That’s a number, not a name. Ugh – all right, it starts with FN? Then I’m calling you Finn.”

Pausing, Finn would think that over, muttering the name to himself. Then he would nod, once. “Finn. I like it.” Another pause. “Thank you.”

Jagged would stop, glance over his shoulder, and smile a little. “You’re welcome, kid.”

After this would come their daring escape, wherein they would take out some turbolasers. Finn would compliment Jagged on his skill, to which Jagged would say, “You should have seen my old man fly. Only a few could match him, and only one could beat him.” He then mentions that he has to go back to Jakku get his droid, which has vital information in it for the New Republic (he doesn’t say what kind, only that it’s vital). The two get shot down after this and Finn needs to find a place with water and all that good stuff.

Meanwhile, we have Rae (not “Rey”), who is working as a scavenger for Unkar Plutt. He would own her more obviously in my version of the movie than in the official film; she would live in his warehouse full of other scavengers to earn her “daily portions,” though this living hasn’t made her harsh and selfish like some of the others.

The way to show this is that she would say something nasty to one of the young children Plutt employs as street urchins and appear to slap him, but in reality, what she was doing was giving him a little treat and didn’t want anyone to notice. The boy would grumble out loud while shooting her a grateful look. He would bend over to pop the food in his mouth while Rae smiled slightly over her shoulder at him, before hiding the look by snapping at someone “in my way!”

While out in the dunes, Rae runs into a different scavenger working for another slaver who is in the process of capturing BB-8. Rae rescues the droid, planning to take him to Unkar and get a bigger meal – one she can share with some of the kids. BB-8 asks her about the kids and she explains about Plutt picking her up when he found her beside a dead woman in the streets. BB-8 is sympathetic and the two talk, becoming friends, and Rae decides she can’t sell him to Plutt after all. So Rae tells BB-8 where to hide to avoid discovery from scavengers, slavers, and other unsavory characters before re-entering the warehouse. That night, Rae overhears some of the younger scavengers play a game of “which ship you would choose to fly if you could” and begins planning to escape Jakku altogether with BB-8 in the morning.

Next morning, she gets her gear together and makes an excuse to Plutt so she can stay at Niima Outpost rather than go scavenging. Plutt grumbles but agrees, since she’s his best scavenger and he can afford to give her a morning off. Once outside, Rae picks up BB-8, but is discovered by rival scavengers and attacked.

This is when Finn comes to the rescue, using his Stormtrooper training to fend the men off and make them run. Once Finn gets the bad guys to bug out, BB-8 recognizes his jacket and tells Rae it belonged to his owner. She attacks Finn, proving that she can fight. Finn almost overpowers her but BB-8 rolls into his legs, knocking him over and Rae reveals her staff is an energy naginata. She holds the blade to Finn’s throat and demands he tell her what he did to the jacket’s owner.

We then have the scene where Finn says Jagged is dead and he grabbed the jacket thinking Jagged was still attached to it, with BB-8 mourning his lost master. Rae sympathizes with the droid and shuts down her naginata before apologizing and helping Finn up.

At that moment, the First Order shows up, and our trio makes a run for the ships. The two pick out a “garbage” ship and take off. Because she must fly around Niima Outpost to scrounge for scrap, Rae knows how to fly. She’s also learned how to fly well so as to avoid and/or escape unfriendly fellow scavengers; thus, she flies the ship while Finn goes to fire the lasers and take out the TIEs. Because it’s bigger than anything she has flown previously, Rae has some trouble with the ship but eventually gets the hang of it.

They escape the TIEs and Jakku, then have their geek out moment in the cargo hold when a gas leak erupts, which they repair before getting tractored in by a bigger ship and boarded. Chewie, Han Solo, and Anakin Solo board the ship while Rae and Finn prepare to gas them. The scenario we see in TFA plays out, and Rae can still understand Shyriiwook. But when Finn says, “You can understand that thing?” Han gives his response and Anakin chimes in with: “He’s also much stronger than you and doesn’t like being insulted.”

Han, Chewie, and Anakin explain they are on a mission for the New Republic and are looking for a pilot who was sent to Jakku to find something important. Rae and Finn explain about Jagged seconds before Finn notices the lightsabers on Anakin’s belt (one of them would be Obi-Wan Kenobi’s saber), revealing that the young man is a Jedi. Anakin admits he is one, explaining that they picked the two up not on scanners but because he detected them through the Force.

The two Solos also explain that the First Order used to be the Imperial Remnant, which had a truce with the New Republic until two years ago, when the Knights of Ren took over the government in a coup using special Stormtroopers and pilots they had trained from childhood in secret. After the coup, the Imperial Remnant became a government-in-exile that allied with the New Republic to take back control of their territory, receiving help from the Empire of the Hand in Wild Space. Jagged was one of several pilots, soldiers, and Jedi who allied directly from the Hand Empire to the New Republic to make the connection between the three governments better, though Jagged had a “more personal reason” than most for doing this as well.

Here the proximity alarm goes off and they exit Finn and Rae’s ship for the Solos’ bigger ship. Han, Anakin, and Chewie explain that they commandeered this ship from pirates to run this mission for the New Republic, storing the Millenium Falcon in the hold for when they were ready to abandon the bigger vessel. They had just finished said mission and were on their way to rendezvous with Jagged when they detected Rae and Finn. We get the whole thing about the monsters and the “bigger crew,” with Anakin implying that they tricked (by normal means, not via the Force) the pirates into the monsters’ pens.

The proximity alert was set off by a couple of pirate gangs who are approaching the bigger ship, mistakenly believing the original crew is running it. Han gets Rae and Finn below decks – along with BB-8 – and says they’ll talk their way out of it. Chewie makes his comment and Han comes back with, “Yes, I do! I always do!”

“Except when you’re arguing with Mom,” Anakin quips, giving Han one of his own innocent looks as his father sends him a mock glare that morphs into a fond, proud smile.

The pirates come aboard, and a fight starts because the First Order has bounties out on Jedi. Since Anakin forgot to hide his lightsabers, they know what he is and figure out who he and his dad are. Anakin ends up drawing both of his sabers to redirect blaster fire while Han and Chewie shut the doors and the three head inside.

Told over the comm what is going on, Rae eagerly sets out to help, trying to set the monsters on the pirates while leaving a path for the three heroes to follow. Only she mixes up the fuses and the critters get loose in their corridor as the pirates catch them. Chewie gets shot, Finn saves Rae as she almost throws up, and Rae returns the favor by shutting the door on the tentacle for the monster about to eat Finn. Throughout, Anakin protects Han from blaster fire as they all retreat to the Falcon. Finn complains about Chewie nearly killing him six times, they blast their way out of the ship, then jump to hyperspace. In the meanwhile, the pirates call the First Order.

Aboard the Falcon, BB-8 reveals his secret to Han and Anakin. Since the Falcon is so small there’s no room to keep it the map from Finn and Rae and they are let in the know about that part of the situation, too. Anakin notices Rae is cold and looks to see if any of his sister’s clothes are still aboard. Finding some warm clothes, he gives them to her and she goes off screen to change. While she’s gone Anakin and Han have a little talk in the cockpit, with Anakin saying there’s something familiar about Rae and that he thinks she is Force-sensitive.

“Would explain why you picked her up in the middle of nowhere like you did,” Han agrees. “Your Aunt Mara did the same to Luke.”

Anakin settles back in his chair, frowning. “Yes. She did.”

Han side-eyes him, then sets the controls for autopilot and turns to him. “All right, I’ve done this often enough with your mother and your uncle to know that tone means Force shenanigans. What is it?”

“There’s…something about Rae,” Anakin starts, frowning at the stars going by. “Something – something familiar, Dad. I can’t place it, but I know it’s there. It’s like I know her and don’t know her at the same time. It doesn’t make sense.”

Han raises an eyebrow and chuckles. “Son, after everything I’ve seen, it’s a wonder any of you can make any sense out of the Force and its – proddings, I think is what they’re called? You don’t have to figure it out right now.” He pauses, raises an eyebrow. “Do you?”

For a moment, Anakin stares out the window. Then he shakes his head. “No, I suppose I don’t.” Then he shoots Han a smirk. “But I guess your impatience rubbed off on me, Dad. This is going to drive me nuts until I figure it out.”

Laughing, Han slaps him on the shoulder before returning his attention to the console of the Falcon.

They arrive on Takodana to get a ship for Rae, Finn, and BB-8. The plan is that Han, Chewie, and Anakin will lure the First Order away while Rae and Finn deliver the map directly to the New Rep fleet. Finn tries to assert dominance and gets slapped down by the wiser Han Solo, who asks Rae what she wants to do after all this is over. She admits she is happy to be off Jakku but has no idea where else she could go, especially since the First Order’s messing everything up. She also laments her abandoned naginata and Han gives her a small blaster he hopes will make up for the loss. Anakin comes up and says Rae would make a great pilot, leaving her thoughtful.

They go into the castle, Maz quietly picks out and approaches Han and Anakin, and they have their whole chat in the cantina where she says Finn wants to run. Finn does run and Rae tries to stop him. He admits the truth about his past before she gets called downstairs and finds Anakin Skywalker’s lightsaber. Rae has her disturbing vision of her past, plus the rise of the First Order and the first lightsaber duel between Luke Skywalker and Kylo Ren, who kills a bunch of Jedi (but not the whole New Order!) before escaping the temple with the Knights of Ren and a bunch of traitorous Jedi.

Maz finds Rae, tells her Luke is the answer to her questions, whereupon Rae runs off in confusion just as the First Order shows up. Rae gets caught as Han, Chewie, Anakin, and Finn do battle with the Stormtroopers. They get surrounded, only for the New Republic to arrive to save the day.

Jagged Fel is helping to lead the charge and we see him trading banter with a fellow pilot, one Jaina Solo (played by Billie Lourd, Carrie Fisher’s real-life daughter). The two best pilots in the New Republic X-wing corps show off by saving themselves and each other, romantically needling one another as they do. Since they have cleared the way, drop ships arrive and numerous Jedi Force-leap from them to the ground. Among these Jedi are Kam Solusar, Corran Horn (Michael Stackpole thinks Chris Pratt could play the character and I am not arguing), Kyle Katarn, etc. They are led by Mara Jade Skywalker, who oversees the Order in her husband’s absence, and thus they make short work of the Stormtroopers.

But they are unable to capture Ren as he runs off with Rae just before Leia arrives with Threepio. Anakin gives her a kiss before going to talk to some of the Jedi while she glares at Han. “It was a simple mission, Han, a simple mission! Why do you always have to complicate things?” Leia asks in apparent frustration.

“It’s no fun if it’s easy.” They stare at each other for a minute, then smile and share a big hug. Han gives her the rundown on what happened as they walk toward the Falcon, then mentions seeing “their son” just briefly.

Now we go to the base we saw in TFA – which, in my version, would be a New Republic base with all the bells and whistles. It would also be crawling with Jedi. Finn would go to talk to Leia, who would be consulting with Han, Bel Iblis, Talon Karrde, Tenel Ka Djo, Lando Calrissian, Kyle, Corran, Mara, and others.

R2 would still be in snooze mode, and we would get a scene of Anakin meeting up with his wife: Tahiri Veila Solo, and their young son, Hananiah. Their niece, Allana, would be there, too. We would also get the reunion between Jagged and Finn, with Jaina asking who the new guy is and Jagged explaining everything to her. Jagged would let Finn keep the jacket since Jaina already got him a new one and the old one looks good on Finn. He would also reveal he had been given a new droid and ask BB-8 if he wants to stay with Finn. BB-8 would trill a “Yes, please!”

Then the First Order would use the Sun Crusher to destroy the Hosnian system – the second biggest shipyard in the New Republic, not the home of the New Republic government (why would they move that off Coruscant, anyway?). Finn would be given the green light to go with the strike team composed of Han, Chewie, Anakin, and Jaina. Both Solo heirs have prepared the Falcon already, so they’re good to go.

We would get the whole “bring our son home” bit between Han and Leia, too, because that was sweet. Along with this I would have Anakin’s good-bye to his family and a warning from Jaina that Jagged had better not get himself captured again “or I’ll kill you myself.”

Jagged’s response: “Wouldn’t dream of it – although I’d certainly die a happy man.” Jaina would punch him in the shoulder for the comment before the two of them kissed and went their separate ways.

Meanwhile, we would have the interrogation scene between Ren and Rae, down to his taking off the mask and her being able to resist/reverse his mind probe. He goes off to tell Snoke about it, then hears the mysterious female voice say that Rae could be a powerful ally with the right training. While he is gone Rae fakes a medical emergency (which involves her feigning passing out), and the Stormtrooper goes to release her restraints to take her to sickbay. She grabs his blaster and shoots him/bludgeons him with it, before escaping the room to try and find a way out of the base.

Later, Kylo Ren states he senses a familiar presence. The female voice hisses through the Force once again, “The time of sacrifice is at hand! Do not fail, Kylo Ren, or all will be lost!” He turns on his heel and marches away.

After this Han and everyone else would arrive on the planet, which is when they learn Finn was here on sanitation duty. Han gets his whole “Sanitation?!” spiel, with Jaina and Anakin giving him a little loving flak for it, reminding him that he “only saved Mom for the reward.” They get inside, throw Phasma down the trash compacter (much to Jaina and Anakin’s delight), and pick up Rae after Han tries to surreptitiously get Finn’s attention. Then they go to plant the charges in the base, whereupon we have the confrontation between Ren and Han.

Ren is revealed to be Jacen Solo, Jaina’s younger twin and Anakin’s older brother. Before Jacen can kill Han, Anakin yanks their father out of the way via the Force as Jaina engages Ren in a duel. Anakin joins her and it becomes a three-way battle among the siblings. During a breathing space, Anakin turns to tell Han to run –

But this puts him between Jacen and his father, which means Jacen – who is ostensibly leaping to get past Anakin and kill his father – accidentally and (it seems) fatally stabs his brother instead of Han. Jacen stares at his younger brother in horror as Anakin’s body locks up and he cannot turn his head to look back at his brother. Anakin’s eyes roll up in his head and he falls to the catwalk, apparently dead.

There is a universal outcry over this horrendous act. Chewie shoots Jacen in the side as Jaina tries to attack her twin. Jacen manages to escape, leaving Jaina and Han to hold Anakin, whom they realize isn’t physically dead (though he’s not in good shape). Jaina cannot sense his spirit, however, scaring and enraging her.

Meanwhile, Rae and Finn have run off, Finn hoping to get her to safety, only they encounter Ren instead. Furious over Anakin’s “death” since she liked him and considered him a friend/older brother, Rae calls Jacen a monster. Infuriated, he throws her into a tree, knocking her out. Finn tells BB-8 to run before activating the Anakin Skywalker’s lightsaber and engaging Jacen. But Jacen defeats Finn in their duel as he has more experience and tries to take the lightsaber – only for Rae to instinctively call it to her.

Things go badly for Rae, as Jacen’s greater experience and skill overwhelms her. She ends up on her knees and is in big trouble when she hears Anakin tell her through the Force to let him help. He guides her sword strokes and she defeats Jacen, then runs back to Finn, whom BB-8 is beeping over in concern. The three get picked up by everyone on the Falcon. There she tells Jaina she heard Anakin and that he helped her overcome Jacen. Jaina and Han sag in relief since, although she still can’t sense Anakin, Jaina is convinced by Rae’s tale that his spirit isn’t shattered or lost forever. Coupled with the fact that they got his body medical treatment in time, things aren’t looking as hopeless as they did moments ago.

Meanwhile, Jagged and a fleet from the New Republic/Hand Empire have come to destroy the Sun Crusher and the First Order base; they get the base, but not the Crusher (though they seriously damage it), which goes to hyperspace. They return to the New Republic base and have a “funeral” for Anakin to make the First Order think he is in fact dead. Mara gives Rae the hug she needs as the Solo family mourns their son’s betrayal and the crippling loss of Anakin.

R2 reactivates at this point and the map scene plays out as before, except that BB-8 stays with Finn. Mara decides to send Rae to Luke to see if he’s found what he and Ben went to look for, as well as to begin her training, while the rest of the family stays to continue the war effort. Last shot we have is Rae with R2 being met by Ben, who takes her up to see Luke. She holds the lightsaber out to him and BAM! Movie ends!

At least until Episode VIII appears, anyway. ;)