A Certain Point of View: Writing, Film and Stuff

Cover art by Drew Struzan. (C) 2015 Del Rey/Random House and Lucasfilm Ltd. (LFL) On January 5, 2016, Penguin Random House's science fiction/fantasy imprint Del Rey published the hardcover edition of Alan Dean Foster's Star Wars: The Force Awakens, the novelization of the film written by Lawrence Kasdan, Michael Arndt, and J.J. Abrams, directed by Abrams, and based on characters and situations.  Though Lucasfilm's corporate parent, The Walt Disney Company, allowed Del Rey to release the e-book edition on December 18, 2015, the same day of the film's theatrical release, it asked the publisher to delay the publication of the hardcover for a few weeks. Disney feared that if it followed the long-standing tradition of releasing the novelization of a Star Wars film before the theatrical premiere, fans would leak the film's plot - especially the "big reveals" that Abrams strove to keep secret - all over the Internet.  However, Disney-owned Lucasfilm p...

Officially?  None.  Star Wars: The Force Awakens  and its two sequels, Star Wars: The Last Jedi   and Episode IX  are all-new original stories based on concepts by J.J. Abrams, Michael Arndt, Lawrence Kasdan, and the Lucasfilm Story Group. (George Lucas, when he sold Lucasfilm to Disney, handed in a treatment for  Episodes VII-IX,  but it was not used.) Unofficially:  Some story elements of  The Force Awakens  bear some resemblance to plot points from the  Star Wars  Expanded Universe novels and comics. For instance, in the film, Han and Leia have a son (Ben Solo) who is strong with the Force and is seduced by its Dark Side. This is also a plot point in the old EU, except that in the books the son is named Jacen Solo (who has a twin sister, Jaina) and after undergoing training as a Jedi in Luke Skywalker’s academy, turns bad and becomes Darth Caedus.