Mythology Gag / The Force Awakens

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• Towards the end of the film, Finn and Rey are attempting to escape Starkiller Base when they're confronted by Kylo Ren in the forest. Rey is knocked out, and Finn takes her lightsaber to duel Ren. He's quickly defeated, but then Rey wakes up and finishes the fight, copying Splinter of the Mind's Eye, the first expanded universe novel, where a similar scene happens with Leia standing in for Finn, Luke for Rey, and Darth Vader for Kylo Ren.
• Poe and Finn escaping a Star Destroyer by stealing a special two-man TIE Fighter is just like the Star Wars Legends computer game Rebel Assault II: The Hidden Empire. But unlike the game, Poe and Finn don't make it far.
• Also from Rebel Assault II: The Hidden Empire, this isn't the first time a hero pilots a starship inside a Super Star Destroyer, albeit in this movie it's a crashed one rather than a functional one.
• The sequence of Poe destroying Starkiller Base's thermal oscillator from the inside greatly resembles a stage from the first Rebel Assault game, where during the attack of the Death Star the player destroys a gigantic cannon from the inside.
• Finn is a disillusioned Stormtrooper who deserts when his superiors discover that he has disobeyed an order to gun down a group of peaceful villagers. The same thing happened to Daric LaRone, the protagonist of the Timothy Zahn EU novel Allegiance.
• The T-70 X-wing is based much more closely on artist Ralph McQuarrie's pre-episode IV design for the starfighter.
• BB-8 was inspired by one of Ralph's early designs for R2-D2.
• The scene of the X-wings flying over a lake borrows visual elements from the pod racing scene in The Phantom Menace.
• The First Order Base in the movie is named Starkiller Base. Starkiller was intended Luke's original last name during the production of A New Hope, which was changed to "Skywalker" later. Additionally, this isn't the first time the term "Starkiller" appeared in Star Wars (or, for that matter, even the second).
• Constable Zuvio◊ appears to be based on early concept art of Leia's Boussh disguise◊ and wears a hat that makes him look like Embo. Which makes sense, since Zuvio and Embo are part of the same species.
• Finn's Stormtrooper callsign is "FN-2187" — 2187 was the number of Princess Leia's detention cell in A New Hope.
• Maz Kanata's castle is based on an early concept for Jabba's palace.
• There are a number of allusions to the Knights of the Old Republic series:
  • Kylo Ren borrows design elements from Darth Revan.
  • Starkiller Base sucks energy directly from the nearby star, just like the Star Forge did.
  • Supplementary materials state that Kylo's lightsaber is based off a design dating back to the Scourge of Malachor.
  • In the closing scene, Rey's vest-and-glove ensemble resembles that of Satele Shan.
• ME-8D9 looks quite similar to SCORPIO. In fact, her background allows her to be SCORPIO.
• Rey's home is an AT-AT shell. Player characters in Star Wars: Galaxies could also live in these.
• The Rebel pilot helmet Rey wears during the night on Jakku looks like the same helmet Tiree (Gold Two) wore in the Battle of Yavin in A New Hope.
• Han offering Rey a permanent spot on the Falcon's crew mirrors the same offer he made to Luke in A New Hope.
• A few concepts from the now-not-canon Legends continuity appear:
  • Kylo Ren is Han and Leia's son, who trained as a Jedi before turning to the Dark Side, much like Legends' Jacen Solo. Kylo's given name, Ben, was the name of Luke's Legends' son Ben Skywalker (who was Jacen's apprentice).
  • Rey is a Wrench Wench, a great pilot, and Force sensitive, much like Han and Leia's daughter Jaina Solo — also Mara Jade and Ahsoka Tano, for that matter.
  • A student of Luke's turning to the Dark Side and rising up against him happened before, with Brakiss and the Shadow Academy.
• An old female offering an untrained female Force user an old lightsaber. Yes, we had that.
• Starkiller Base has an obvious parallel to the Death Star, but it also resembles the Star Wars Legends' Galaxy Gun mated to a entire planet, and powered by a version of the Star Forge.
• Luke as an old man resembles the character in the early script of The Star Wars, in which he was a 65-year-old general (who in later drafts morphed into Obi-Wan).
• In the same or a related early script treatment, Starkiller was accompanied by a young woman. After Starkiller became Obi-Wan, many of his female companion's traits were used to create Luke Skywalker, while others were used as the foundation for Leia. Rey is also a young woman who shares many of Luke's characteristics.
• Finn, an ex-Stormtrooper, can fight with a lightsaber without any Jedi training or Force-given abilities. Other Stormtroopers are wearing weapons that can stand up to lightsabers. In the early script drafts for The Star Wars, lazerswords (as lightsabers were originally called) were mundane weapons wielded by Rebel and Imperial soldiers alike (including Stormtroopers).
• The attack on Starkiller Base is led by Blue Squadron, which was going to be Luke's squadron in the original drafts of A New Hope before Lucas realized that the blue highlights on the X-Wings would blend into the bluescreen.
• Ello Asty's helmet has the same pattern as Biggs Darklighter's helmet in A New Hope.
• During the attack on Maz's palace, Han and Chewie briefly assume the same pose as a famous promotional photo◊ of them.
• The dark-sided son of Han and Leia killing a beloved family member to cement their turn to the Dark Side is very similar to Jacen Solo murdering Mara Jade Skywalker in Legacy of the Force.
• When someone is communicating with Snoke via hologram, Hologram Projection Imperfection is normally averted. However, as Starkiller Base crumbles during the final transmission, rocks infrequently fall in front of the projector, causing the hologram to briefly revert to the translucent-blue-with-scan-lines visual of the originals and prequels.
• As Rey is sneaking around Starkiller base, she comes across two Stormtroopers, one asking the others if he's seen the new T-17s, the other reply that he hear they are an improvement. An almost identical conversation between Stormtroopers regarding BT-16s is overheard by Obi Wan in A New Hope when sneaking around the Death Star. Also another almost identical conversation featuring T-17s is overhead by Kyle Katarn in Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast. In a change from the way those discussions usually go, in The Force Awakens a third line is added where the first Stormtrooper tells his colleague that they don't actually hold up.
• The name Kylo Ren is taken almost letter-for-letter from Kybo Ren, a villain in the old Droids cartoon. The guy even had TIE fighters painted in red and black, much like the First Order does.
• Snoke's scars slightly resembles Darth Malgus.

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