Does The Force Awakens contradict any other Disney canon work?

Question

I have no reason to believe that there is but I was just wondering if anyone found anything in either the movie or the novelization that simply contradicts any of the facts presented in other canon works.

Answer 1

First of all, there aren't many contradictions, for several reasons:

• Virtually entire continuity staff of Lucasfilm, headed by Leeland Chee, T-1000-like morphed into Lucasfilm Story Group at Disney, so basically the same canon gurus who used to run the licensing and canon before, are still running it and still know their stuff.

• J.J. Abrams repeatedly stressed how much of a fan he is, and therefore would likely try to not make mistakes and have background not to.

• Kasdan was involved in the script too. That adds extra eys with experience and knowledge.

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1. C-3PO isn't boastful and is comparatively silent. No "6 million forms of communication". No endless chattering except getting in between Han and Leia's reunion. Basically, he acts like he's a human who grew up and mellowed out and has less neurosis - except he's a droid so such a personality change seems more like a canon contradiction than natural storyline progression in 30 years.

2. New Republic seems waaaay too cut-throat. Leia tells her envoy that if she attends the Senate, she basically won't end up making it out of there alive.

   Granted, post-ROTJ EU showed some rather unsavory sausage-making in the New Republic, but most certainly this contradicts the Rebellion's unified tone in original trilogy; and even goes way way way too far compared to EU. Nobody tried to off Leia there on her own side.

3. This is not quite a confirmed contradiction, but in old canon, we never saw a TIE fighter pilot without a full space flight suit and helmet.

   In episode VII, we see Poe and Finn escape in a TIE/se with basically no special outfit on, bareheaded. **There is no explicit "life support" mentioned for TIE/se anywhere in new canon. Personally, I think this will be retconned in short order to NOT be a contradiction (it has a hyperdrive, so it's likely life support is included - BUT it wasn't in Incredible Cross-sections or novelization)

4. Luke Ran Away. I don't care what the retcon explanation is - he didn't run away when he failed in a cave on Dagobah. OR when Vader chopped off his hand and said he's his father. Yoda didn't run away after Vader killed Padawans in the temple - he went to confront Sidious and only ran away after he fully recognized he has no chance to beat Sidious (see novelization) and he wasn't running away in shame, but to bide his time till Luke and Leia grew up. This jars with OT and PT greatly.

5. The universe scale.

   Original EU canon had millions of worlds in the Empire and the Galaxy.

   Episode VII has a map that shows like 20 distinct worlds; an "Empire" that seems to regard a couple of planets in a Resistance system worth serious consideration to occupy vs. destroy (See General Hux conversation with Snoke), because they already destroyed 5 planets in Hosnian. Old Empire really wouldn't care a whit about measly 1000 planets give or take.

   Rebellion managed to scrape together a fleet of capital ships, and thousands upon thousands of soldiers. Resistance can barely field <30 X-Wings and explicitly notes this is all they could get. Yes, it's retconned as "Donations", but with millions of systems, one would expect they could Kickstarter a bit more.

   For that matter, New Republic's entire fleet (destroyed in Hosnian system) is said to be "hundreds of ships". Which means precious few capital ships given typical ship role and size ratios in space navies in Star Wars and in general. Even considering "Demilitarization act", this seems pitifully small in a galaxy where Empire fielded thousands of SDs.

6. Not sure worth including as contradiction, but Vader's helmet seems to have been unlikely to have melted from that pitiful little Boyscout fire Ewoks and Luke started at the end of ROTJ.

7. This isn't a contradiction YET (probably will show up in 8/9), but what happened to Rebels/Aftermath continuity? Where is Admiral Sloane? Where is that Thrawn-like boss of hers with his iPod full of music? (unless he turned out to be Snoke?) It's as if they are GONE. Erased from existance by Narada.

8. No Midichlorians mentioned at all - which isn't strictly speaking a contradiction of PT, but I'll count it anyway as it was deliberate.

Answer 2

I am not sure, but I think there are some contradictions:

• Rey using the Force without any training, despite the previous movies suggesting that years of training was required to use skills like Force Persuasion(even some young Padawans couldn't do it)
• Kylo Ren saying he will finish what Vader started, so it appears that he has no idea of the fact that Vader died a good man.
• The Millenium Falcon could remain in lightspeed so near to a gravity well(a planet)