Good thing that the explanation WAS in the movie then. Whether or not it was mentioned in passing (it was) and not dwelt on or elaborated, it was still part of the movie. The deleted scenes would have served to drive the point home, and it does seem like they could have been helpful.

Don’t worry, almost no one is buying that title anyway... having sold 0 copies beyond subs it sounds like it might be going sub only at my local (and large) comic shop.

They did remake the prequels — it’s a TV show called “Clone Wars” and it’s great. It has the Anakin Skywalker that we all wanted to see.

The fleet is visible in the lower left hand corner of the shot as the planet is asploding. They are also being exploded.

It should have been more clear in the movie, as should have a few other world-building details. The explanation of the the galactic chess board in the opening crawl was cursory at best. But it’s ignoring the actual plot to say that they’re the same, because they’re certainly not.

But we still have Ackbar! Statura seemed more a General Madine type replacement.

They are different, though. Officially, the Republic and First Order had a peace treaty. The Resistance was the equivalent of the militia type civilians that patrol the US-Mexico border (except in this case they’re secretly funded by a few senators who disagreed with the treaty).

Not quite! Neon tubes were used for some shots in Episode 2 during the Tyranus/Anakin duel.

Capital is no longer on Coruscant. It was moved after the formation of the new Republic

Haha, yeah, would you rather be named Ben or Obi-wan? :)

What we hear in the trailer is the actual audio from ROTJ with the order of dialog changed. Hamill recorded the same lines again and they were layered underneath for a creepy effect... I’m not sure there is anyway that would have been used in the movie to begin with.

Doesn’t she tell BB-8 or Finn that she is “no one”?

It was in the movie, but the framing was different. When Rey and Finn hear him approach the angle changes to a wide shot where Ren performs this action at the left of the screen.

Apart from facilitating their escape from the first Death Star, Leia would have also eventually found out that Obi-wan was instrumental in hiding her and her brother’s infant selves from the Emperor. Kind of a big role in their lives. From Han’s perspective, Ben is why he met Leia in the first place.

That would be way out of left field and conflict with everything previously established about Kenobi. He had no children - the closest he ever got to that was his non-physical romance with Duchess Satine of Mandalore. In Clone Wars he stated that he nearly left the Jedi Order to be with her, and it’s strongly implied…

There are many examples of mind reading. As mentioned before, Vader found out about Leia when Luke’s thoughts betrayed him. There are also numerous examples in Clone Wars of Jedi and Sith interrogating people via the force. It’s sort of a more invasive mind trick. In this context it’s likely Vader also tried…

The will of the Force ;)

Your post was unclear whether you thought the lines themselves were a mix of old and new writing, or if it was just the audio. Just trying to clarify.

I think it was, as you mention, Ren’s attempt to pump himself up with the dark side by increasing his pain/fear.

Are Hosnian Prime and Chandrilla the same planet? I had read somewhere else that the capital was now on Chandrilla (where Mon Mothma was from) ... now I see Wookieepedia lists both Chandrilla and Hosnian Prime as the capital but their individual pages don’t reference each other.