Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens

The first installment of the sequel trilogy and the franchise's first feature film released after Disney's purchase of Lucasfilm in 2012. The premiere took place in December 2015. It was directed by J.J. Abrams, with a screenplay by Lawrence Kasdan, Abrams, and Michael Arndt, and Kathleen Kennedy served as producer. The music was composed by John Williams, who returned to the franchise after a ten-year break.

The action takes place roughly three decades after the events of the sixth episode, in the era of the New Republic, the Resistance, and the First Order, which had risen from the fragments of the Empire. The film introduces new central characters, Rey, Finn, Poe Dameron, Kylo Ren, the droid BB-8, and Supreme Leader Snoke, while bringing back to the screen the actors of the original trilogy.

Filming was done mainly on film stock, with an emphasis on real locations and practical effects, which underscored continuity with the films of the 1970s and 1980s. The film set a number of box office records and opened a new layer of the canon, to which later books, comics, and series of the First Order era are tied.