The Abridged Script
This script was also published on Cracked.com. If you want, you can read it there.
FADE IN:
OPENING TITLE CRAWL
The STAR WARS EXPANDED UNIVERSE has vanished. Thus, with a blank slate and endless possibilities to explore, we're soft-rebooting A NEW HOPE and continuing to make everyone related to the SKYWALKER FAMILY.
EXT. TATTOOINE JAKKU
MAX VON SYDOW hands OSCAR ISAAC a USB STICK shaped like CRAPPY LEGOS.
MAX VON SYDOW
This will begin to make things right.
OSCAR ISAAC
You mean because this device has the final piece of the map to find Mark Hamill, who went into hiding and promised to stay in exactly the same spot for as many years as it took for someone to put this map together?
MAX VON SYDOW
What? No, I mean this movie, it'll set the entire franchise right. That's what happens when you oust the creative auteur who masterminded the entire universe and replace him with a committee of marketers and business executives whose primary motivation is financial rather than artistic, right?
OSCAR ISAAC
Hang on, Disney is having a meeting discussing which possible response from me would rate most highly with all possible market demographics.
(pause)
Okay they're done. "Yes, that is what happens. Also, remember Yoda?"
Suddenly, STORMTROOPERS attack! OSCAR ISAAC hides the map in his BB-8 droid and sends it literally anywhere. DARTH ADAM DRIVER arrives in his GIANT NAPKIN HOLDER, kills MAX VON SYDOW, then captures OSCAR ISAAC.
OSCAR ISAAC
So, who quips first? I quip first, you quip first? I know someone's quipping, anyone in the audience who isn't busy laughing is going to realize how derivative this story is in like two seconds.
DARTH DRIVER
I need that map! Stormtroopers, blow his ship up without checking if the map's on it first! Then kill these villagers, any of whom he may have given the map to! And finally, burn the entire village, including the literal haystacks that could easily be storing the needle-sized map!
The STORMTROOPERS comply except for one, JOHN BOYEGA, who mostly stands around attracting WAY TOO MUCH ATTENTION.
INT. MOISTURE FARM FALLEN STAR DESTROYER - TATTOOINE JAKKU
Meanwhile, BB-8 travels randomly around the planet surface with an apparently useless bent antenna, eventually running into...
DAISY RIDLEY
Nice to meet you, droid carrying sensitive data who's been captured by scavengers! I am Daisy Ridley, a plucky teenager with a mysterious family history who dreams of a bigger destiny in the galaxy. Wow the safeness of this screenplay almost makes you appreciate the prequels, huh?
BB-8
Beep.
DAISY RIDLEY
Who am I? Well, luckily for you, I'm a person who speaks Beeping Droid! But even more luckily, I'm a kind-hearted girl who actually cares about the well-being of a droid, despite them being established as non-sentient slave labor! But even more luckily, I'm a fantastic mechanic, pilot, melee fighter, and force-sensitive future Jedi! And I'm probably related to one of the handful of characters from the original trilogy!
(pause)
And you just ran into me at random! In a galaxy containing over 100,000 planets and at least 100 quadrillion living beings!
BB-8
Boop?
DAISY RIDLEY
Yes, really! Also the Millennium Falcon is on this very planet just down the road, with the keys in the ignition and the door unlocked!
(sighing)
Look, just go with it and hope the next one's better.
DAISY RIDLEY travels to NIIMA OUTPOST with twenty tons of scrap loaded on ONE SIDE of her landspeeder and delivers it to an alien scrap dealer who strangely ISN'T A RACIST STEREOTYPE!
ALIEN SIMON PEGG
This is worth one-quarter portion of dehydrated food. That's right, we deal entirely with food that needs water added, on this desert planet.
(notices BB-8)
Hey, I'll give you sixty portions for that adorable droid unit you've got, it looks like something my kid would enjoy playing with for about twenty minutes on Life Day morning so that's easily worth $149.99 worth of portions.
DAISY RIDLEY
Extremely Simplistic Screenplay Structure dictates that I must have a "save the cat" moment, so no for some reason.
BB-8
(literally purrs)
INT. IMPERIAL FIRST ORDER STAR DESTROYER
DARTH DRIVER confronts CAPTAIN GWENDOLINE CHRISTIE.
DARTH DRIVER
I somehow know exactly which anonymous Stormtrooper didn't murder villagers when I said, have him killed immediately.
CAPTAIN GWENDOLINE CHRISTIE
He's no good to me dead.
DARTH DRIVER
Fine, then I want him re-brainwashed and all of his lines dubbed over by Temuera Morrison.
CAPTAIN GWENDOLINE CHRISTIE
As you wish.
GENERAL DOMHNALL GLEESON
I knew we should have gone with a clone army! Alright, that's our only reference to the prequels, everyone can relax their sphincter muscles.
DARTH DRIVER
I will locate the map by using my Sith Mindreading ability on Oscar Isaac, which joins Sith Blaster-Bolt-Freezing, Sith Lightsaber-Crossguard-Construction and Sith Temper-Tantrums as newly canonical superpowers that must be immediately incorporated into video games, comic books, and novels.
Suddenly OSCAR ISAAC is rescued by JOHN BOYEGA!
JOHN BOYEGA
Oscar, I'm a Stormtrooper! We're all abducted and brainwashed from childhood to comply with orders, but when I watched one of my fellow Stormtroopers die right in front of me, it woke me up to the horrors of death and violence so I've defected. Can you fly a TIE Fighter?
OSCAR ISAAC
I can fly anything, it's my special unique skill that half the galaxy seems to possess! But if we're going to escape, you'll probably have to shoot a few Stormtroop--
JOHN BOYEGA
FUCK IT, KILL 'EM ALL AND LET THE FORCE SORT 'EM OUT!
JOHN and OSCAR steal a TIE FIGHTER and ESCAPE back to JAKKU.
EXT. TATTOOINE JAKKU
JOHN wakes up in the DESERT. He goes to the wrecked fighter but only finds OSCAR'S JACKET before the ship falls into a SINKHOLE, which must then of course BELCH because STAR WARS.
JOHN BOYEGA
Damn, stranded in a completely random location on the surface of this desert wasteland. Assuming this planet is about the size of the smallest planet in Earth's Solar System, I'm dealing with a surface area of about 74 million square kilometers so on foot I should be able to find an outpost in approximately OH LOOK THE ONE OUTPOST WHERE EVERYONE IS!
He walks a few miles to the outpost in less time than it takes ships capable of lightspeed to fly there. He is spotted by DAISY and BB-8!
DAISY RIDLEY
Hey, my droid recognizes your jacket so we're all friends now. Want to come on a galactic adventure to defeat the weakened remnants of the Empire that was already defeated in a movie that should have just closed out this franchise and been left well enough alone?
JOHN BOYEGA
Actually I'm a spineless coward who just wants to stick his head in the sand while space Nazis take over the galaxy, so no. But I guess I think you're pretty, so yes.
Suddenly TIE FIGHTERS attack! DAISY, JOHN, and BB-8 escape in a little junker of a Corellian freighter called... THE MILLENNIUM FALCON, HOLY SHIT IT'S FINALLY HAPPENING.
INT. THE MILLENNIUM GODDAMN FALCON
DAISY RIDLEY
We got away! Wow, look at this ship, it's got gun turrets, a secret trap door, Luke's targeting droid, and even claymation chess!
JOHN BOYEGA
Yeah, the only thing that could make this a more transparent attempt to manipulate the audience via nostalgia would be if Harrison Ford were on board, but how would we ever justify running into--
HARRISON FORD and CHEWBACCA board the ship OMG OMG OMG STAR WARS IS BACK EVERYONE WHO CARES WHY!
HARRISON FORD
Chewie... we're home. Good thing I installed "Find My iPhone in Space" or whatever otherwise this would be one insane coincidence too far, eh?
DAISY RIDLEY
It's an honour to meet you! This droid has an extremely detailed map to find Luke Skywalker and we need your help. To, uh, read it, or something?
HARRISON FORD
Alright, but first let's have a totally gratuitous side encounter with octopus creatures that inexplicably neither film editor was willing to cut.
They DO.
EXT. MOS EISLEY CANTINA LUPITA NYONG'O'S CASTLE
HARRISON AND THE GANG go visit LUPITA NYONG'O, a yellow alien whose name is literally almost MOS CANTINA.
CGI LUPITA NYONG'O
You must join the fight to restore balance to the Force! The Force, by the way, is an energy field that surrounds and penetrates all living things, THE END. Note the lack of microbes in my description.
JOHN BOYEGA
Daisy, I confess I'm not really a hero, but I want you to run away with me despite having only known you for... two hours? If that?
(leaves)
DAISY RIDLEY
No, don't leave! Please stay, it's vitally important that hey what's in this box?
(views teaser trailer for Episode VIII)
Aaaaaieee!
(leaves)
HARRISON FORD
Wow, both our new heroes just totally bailed. I've got a bad feeling about this...
(pause)
...movie taking a hard right turn away from the whole "map to Luke" storyline and into unapologetic original trilogy retread territory.
EXT. DEATH STAR STARKILLER BASE
GENERAL GLEESON and DARTH DRIVER meet with enormous GOLLUM CREATURE ANDY SERKIS.
GENERAL DOMHNALL GLEESON
Bwah ha, our ultimate superweapon is finally ready, and it's yet another Death Star! I know, I can't fucking believe it either, this is the best Lawrence Kasdan could do!
DARTH DRIVER
What, how? Aren't we just sort of surviving on the carcass of the old Empire? We're even flying around in their ships! How the shit did we manage to turn an entire planet into an enormous sun-eating eyeball gun? With what resources? And whose money?
SUPREME LEADER ANDY SERKIS
Uh, mine, I suppose? And in this movie's most intriguing piece of originality, I'm a twenty-foot-tall giant monster - PSYCHE! - this is a hologram and I'm probably four feet tall.
The PLANET shoots an ENERGY BEAM that travels through hyperspace and blows up A BUNCH OF PLANETS so that's way higher stakes than those other wimpy movies that only blew up ONE PLANET at a time!
SUPREME LEADER ANDY SERKIS
Driver, we got like forty text messages that the droid with the map was spotted with your father... HARRISON FORD!
(pause)
Of course, this information is basically useless, since the map isn't really in the droid as much as it's on the small, portable device located in the droid's storage bay. As such, nobody would be stupid enough to leave it there and carry the droid from place to place across the galaxy, especially once they are aware that we're looking for it.
Miraculously, THEY ARE!
EXT. MOS EISLEY CANTINA LUPITA NYONG'O'S CASTLE
JOHN, HARRISON, LUPITA, and A FUCKTON OF ALIEN CHARACTERS EACH SOLD SEPARATELY all watch as planets light years away explode visibly in the daytime sky.
JOHN BOYEGA
Gah, the enemy I was too scared to fight is even stronger than we thought, so I'm back to fight!
HARRISON FORD
Is that Coruscant blowing up or what? The New Republic? And that's different from the Resistance, right? And the thing we're Resisting is called New Order? First Order? So the prequels spent too much time focusing on the political landscape and now we're going to overcorrect by skipping it entirely?
CGI LUPITA NYONG'O
Yes, and it looks like the entire galaxy was alerted the instant you stepped foot in my hidden fortress refuge making it worth fuck-all! John, you must take Luke Skywalker's old lightsaber, please try not to accidentally cut all of your limbs off within seconds the way that an untrained regular person obviously would.
FIRST ORDER TIE FIGHTERS arrive and SHOOT THINGS! So RESISTANCE X-WINGS arrive and SHOOT BACK! No new kinds of spaceships have been invented in the last three decades, your childhood has been PRESERVED!
OSCAR ISAAC
(flying in)
Not so fast, First Order douchebags! The Resistance is going to save the day! Also I'm alive because
The X-WINGS destroy all the TIE FIGHTERS and TROOPERS! Meanwhile DARTH DRIVER captures DAISY RIDLEY and takes her aboard his ship. CARRIE FISHER'S SHIP lands and she sees HARRISON for the first time in years.
CARRIE FISHER
So our son runs off to join the Serkis, becomes an evil murdering asshole and your solution was to go capture Hentai tentacle monsters?
HARRISON FORD
This from the person whose immediate reaction to seeing her entire Republic blown up was to give me shit about my jacket?
INT. REBEL RESISTANCE BASE - YAVIN 4 D'QAR
Our heroes arrive at the BASE to find R2-D2 in PERMANENT SULKY POUT MODE as well as FAT C-3P0 and ADMIRAL ACKBAR and a bunch of JJ ABRAMS'S TV BUDDIES.
KEN LEUNG
Our spy planes have provided this schematic of the Death Planet. It's 100 times larger than the Death Star, but on the flip side, it's 100 times easier to randomly cross paths with whoever you happen to be looking for.
GREG GRUNBERG
Also, the First Order has tracked the spy planes back to our location, because we suck at spying. So we're the next target.
JOHN BOYEGA
The Death Planet absorbs power from its sun. Even though its last shot didn't use up the sun, this one will apparently, which means its usefulness as a weapon will be zilch after today, I guess?
HARRISON FORD
We need a plan. I vote we do Return of the Jedi again, who's with me?
CARRIE FISHER
Done! May mass and acceleration multiply themselves in your presence.
(pause)
Was that right? It's been a while.
INT. DEATH STAR STARKILLER BASE
As the DEATH PLANET begins sucking the energy of an ENTIRE FUCKING STAR into a MASON JAR, DARTH DRIVER prepares to interrogate DAISY.
DARTH DRIVER
Now that everyone knows my identity, time for the dramatic visual reveal! I am...
(removes helmet)
...FACE-SQUISHED ANDY SAMBERG just kidding it's me, Adam Driver from "Girls"!
(smirks)
Now to extract the map from your brain! Surely your memories of an extremely complex galactic map that you saw for five seconds, extracted via whatever the fuck this is, will be as detailed and specific as the actual map!
They MAKE SCRUNCHY POOP FACES at each other a while until...
DAISY RIDLEY
A-ha, now I'm in YOUR head! You're afraid you'll never be as iconic a character as Darth Vader. That no matter how many crazy Force powers you incorporate, you'll always be seen as a pale imitation of something far greater! Subtle, JJ.
ADAM DRIVER
Hey, I'm just as good as Vader! I've got his whiny approval-seeking uselessness and overwrought sulky angst and -- aw shit, I've been doing the wrong trilogy!
(leaves in a huff)
DAISY RIDLEY
Wow, so I have Force power too! Hmm. Guard! Release me and give me your gun!
(pause)
But don't give me your armour. Or security codes. Or directions out of here. Or a Bond movie as good as Casino Royale.
DANIEL CRAIGTROOPER
Yes ma'am.
The DEATH PLANET continues charging its big gun just as the FALCON crash lands at LIGHTSPEED, NONSENSICALLY!
JOHN BOYEGA
Look, I don't actually care if we fail to drop the base's shields as long as I'm with Daisy while watching the First Order kill the galaxy. But I bet if we capture Captain Gwendoline Christie, she can drop the shields.
HARRISON FORD
But she's a Stormtrooper Captain and super formidable, besides we don't even know where she is and--
CHEWBACCA
(sticks out arm)
(clotheslines Gwendoline)
They make GWENDOLINE drop the SHIELDS. While JOHN, HARRISON, and CHEWBACCA are all distracted, she stands up dramatically as if to reveal that she actually thwarted their plans, but she DIDN'T.
HARRISON FORD
Let's stuff her into a trash compactor to be brutally crushed. You know, like good guys do.
JOHN BOYEGA
Great, then we'll rescue Daisy and Harrison can confront Darth Driver.
CAPTAIN GWENDOLINE CHRISTIE
What if he doesn't survive? He's worth a lot to me.
(vanishes from movie)
(gets more toys than main characters)
JOHN BOYEGA
Hey, Daisy is on the side of a wall way over there! Let's teleport over that giant chasm and meet her.
They all travel together to the MAIN REACTOR OR WHATEVER-THE-HELL and confront ADAM DRIVER.
ADAM DRIVER
At last we meet again, father. On an extremely dangerous catwalk over a bottomless pit. Somehow we had the cash for a laser planet but a couple railings were just asking too much.
HARRISON FORD
It's not too late. Come home, BEN. That's right, you're named after the one character from the original trilogy that I had absolutely no relationship with whatsoever, and was kind of a rude dick to.
ADAM DRIVER
Okay! Together we can tour at least two more full press junkets as father and son!
HARRISON FORD
Oh crap you're right.
(dies)
HARRISON just sort of slumps over and goofily ragdolls into the pit in a manner truly befitting of an ICONIC STAR WARS HERO.
EXT. HOTH STARKILLER BASE SNOW-COVERED FOREST
DAISY and JOHN run off but are confronted by ADAM!
ADAM DRIVER
Not so fast! Though I can likely just force choke the both of you, I just realized that this movie is about to be over without a single lightsaber duel. Pzzzrrrrhhww vrwommm vrwom krsshh!
JOHN BOYEGA
Now's my chance to display my badass lightsaber fighting skills as implied by the poster, trailer, toys, and every shred of media coverage!
ADAM effortlessly puts JOHN into a COMA and summons his fallen lightsaber, but instead it flies dramatically into the hand of--
DAISY RIDLEY
A-ha, yes it's me! Did you think it'd be Mark Hamill? Come on, admit you thought about it for a second. See, you'd write a shitty one too.
She and ADAM DUEL! ADAM forces her to the edge of a CLIFF!
ADAM DRIVER
You need a teacher, all evidence to the contrary! Join me and I will train you in the Force.
DAISY RIDLEY
Huh? Oh yeah, the Force!
(closes eyes)
ADAM DRIVER
Don't worry, I'll hold totally still and do nothing while you have your big moment. Just let me know when you're ready.
Finally the SURPRISINGLY FORGETTABLE MUSIC swells and DAISY OUT-FORCES ADAM and DEFEATS HIM. CHEWIE shows up in the FALCON and they all ESCAPE right before the PLANET STOPS WORKING which must then of course EXPLODE because STAR WARS.
EXT. REBEL RESISTANCE BASE - YAVIN 4 D'QAR
CARRIE FISHER
I'm bummed Harrison came up with the idea of being killed off before I did. But on the bright side, R2-D2 woke up and now, between him and BB-8, we have the complete map to the next movie!
DAISY RIDLEY
Guess I'll take the Falcon and go get Luke then, nobody minds if I claim the ship for myself, right? Nobody else ever had dreams of being the main pilot?
CHEWBACCA
(dies a little inside)
CARRIE FISHER
Yeah, you go on ahead, I'll just hang out back here despite the opening crawl specifically stating that I'm "desperate to find Luke."
DAISY follows the MAP to IRELAND and finds... MARK HAMILL!
MARK HAMILL
Oh goody, the Falcon! Is Harrison here? Is it time for our big emotional reunion which the fans have been looking forward to ever since this movie was announced?
DAISY RIDLEY
Ermm... hey look, I bet you'll be happy to see this... it's your old lightsaber!
MARK HAMILL
Oh cool, yeah my father used that to murder like 100 children.
DAISY RIDLEY
Wait, what?
END