ST Unanswered Questions About TFA Still Nagging

If you're like me you read all the rumors and you probably feel like you have a pretty good idea of what is going to happen in TFA, how and why. However, there are still some unanswered questions that are bothering me. So in no particular order, here are mine:

1. How is Luke/Anakin's lightsaber back in play after being lost at Bespin all those years ago in TESB?
I know that there's going to be a flashback/Force vision explaining how the lightsaber found it's way to Poe but I haven't heard that it begins on Bespin and it really should.

2. Who is Supreme Leader Snoke and how is a master of the dark side? Is he an existing background character from the OT (one of Palpatine's advisers from ROTJ) or a character that was mentioned in the PT (Darth Plagueis the Wise keeps coming up in debates on this board)?

3. How long has Luke been missing? Why is Luke missing?
It's never really been believable to me that Luke just gave up on training new Jedi and went to wallow in self-pity somewhere but that seems to be what people are saying. Early on I remember there were rumors that Luke had given in to the dark side after the Empire destroyed his Jedi school and caused all the Imperial wreckage on Jakku and then repented and went into self-exile. I also remember the rumors that he was captured and being held captive or that he was guarding some kind of dark side nexus to keep it away from Snoke and Ren. I like all these better than what we know so far which seems to be just Luke lapsing into depression and isolating himself on a distant planet. I hope that Luke hasn't been missing for too long because I want there to be at least a 10 year period where we get some further adventures of Luke, Leia, Han, Chewie and the droids together after ROTJ in the EU.

4. How long has it been since Han and Leia split up? Did they ever have any kids? What happened to them?
Again I'm hoping that Leia and Han don't break up right after ROTJ as I want some post-ROTJ EU adventures with our heroes all together. As for the kids that leads me to:

5. Are any of our new, younger characters descended from our OT heroes?
People are really obsessing over if Rey and Kylo Ren are a part of the Skywalker line with some people sure they are Solos, some sure they are Skywalkers and some think we'll get one of each. Finally, some people think we'll only get one "legacy character" and some think we'll have none. None seems a bit unlikely considering the saga has always had a member of the Skywalker line as one of the young heroes.

6. What are these superweapons that both sides supposedly have and how do they work?
I heard about "the Starkiller" and "the Array" and "The Catapult" but we haven't heard what it will look like when they're used.

7. Who is Maz Kanata and how does she have powers?
I've heard she used to be an OR Jedi, that she used to be one of Luke's first students or that she's just part of an alien species that has visions when they touch things. Which is it? I'd love it if there were a few more trained Jedi around from Luke's post-ROTJ period. Maybe Episode VIII would be about Luke training Rey then bringing them all back together again to fight The First Order?

 

There are threads that have been speculating the answers to all of these questions exhaustively.

1. http://boards.theforce.net/threads/...ousness-for-sophisticated-discourse.50024907/
2. http://boards.theforce.net/threads/andy-serkis-supreme-leader-snoke-in-episode-vii.50020018
3. http://boards.theforce.net/threads/mark-hamill-luke-skywalker-in-episode-vii.50016395/
4. http://boards.theforce.net/threads/harrison-ford-han-solo-in-episode-vii.50018763/ and http://boards.theforce.net/threads/carrie-fisher-leia-in-episode-vii.50017178
5. http://boards.theforce.net/threads/john-boyega-finn-in-episode-vii.50019925/ http://boards.theforce.net/threads/daisy-ridley-rey-in-episode-vii.50019976 and http://boards.theforce.net/threads/oscar-isaac-poe-dameron-in-episode-vii.50019972/
6. http://boards.theforce.net/threads/death-star-and-superweapons.50016096/
7. http://boards.theforce.net/threads/lupita-nyongo-maz-kanata-in-episode-vii.50020658/

And of course, they have each been speculated for many posts over in the main catch-all thread... http://boards.theforce.net/threads/...ousness-for-sophisticated-discourse.50024907/

Seek those threads.