If this article is the first you’re hearing about the new installment of the Star Wars franchise, may I humbly express my relief that you’ve finally been freed from the dank suburban basement in which I assume you’ve been held captive for the past couple years. But what you’re reading now is true: Ten years after George Lucas completed the final installment of his prequel trilogy, he’s handed the reins of the property to nerd-messiah J.J. Abrams for a seventh episode, titled The Force Awakens. Star Wars fans are an excitable bunch, bless their hearts, and have accordingly devoured the meager tidbits of information that the PR-industrial complex has afforded them. But these fancy, at times comically small aperitifs (do Star Wars emojis count as “news”?) have only inflamed our collective appetite for the feast to come. 

Insider morsels and gossip have been flying around the Internet like so many TIE fighters, and so the faithful young Padawans of the Dissolve News Team have taken it upon ourselves to compile the following dossier of known details from The Force Awakens. We scoured the many galaxies of the web (a search that led us through some truly wretched fan-made hives of scum and villainy) and gathered all the salient facts we could about the most feverishly anticipated release of 2015. May the force be with you.

The Basics

• In this age of hacking and photo leaks, it would seem that no information is safe. Regardless, director J.J. Abrams has done a surprisingly thorough job of keeping the specifics of the film’s plot under wraps. But come on, it’s Star Wars. Don’t we all sort of know what will happen? A hero will do battle with a villain for the fate of all the galaxy. Other things will also happen, presumably, but we can always turn to Joseph Campbell for the broadest spoilers possible.
• What we do know is that this thing is real, which feels like a big deal in and of itself, and that the general public will be free to luxuriate in Abrams’ vision (or fume at the gravest injustice in pop-cultural history—these are the only two choices) on December 18.
• Regardless of how the film actually performs in theaters, The Force Awakens will spawn two sequels to be released in 2017 and 2019, respectively, at least one of which shall be directed by Rian Johnson.

Characters

• John Boyega’s is the first face shown in the initial teaser. The former star of Attack The Block will play Finn, a member of the Empire’s peacekeeping force known as Stormtroopers.
• Oscar Isaac joins the cast as Poe Dameron, a pilot seen flying in the X-Wing, the vehicle of choice employed by Resistance fighters in the original film. 
• Daisy Ridley has signed on to play Rey, a woman scavenging the planet Jakku for scraps. Abrams has gone on the record as saying he deliberately selected relatively unknown actors to emulate the 1977 original’s cast makeup.
• Adam Driver will bring the fidgety intensity he’s displayed on HBO’s Girls to Force Awakens as the mysterious, hooded villain Kylo Ren.
• Lupita Nyong’o will appear as pirate Maz Kanata, a CGI-created creature whose castle provides the setting for part of the film.
• The Force Awakens will introduce BB-8, a new droid character shaped like a little machine-head on a rolling ball. He’s a practical effect and cute as all get-out.
• Domhnall Gleeson, Max von Sydow, Andy Serkis, and Warwick Davis will also take on supporting roles in the film.
• Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Mark Hamill, Peter Mayhew, and Kenny Baker will reprise their roles from the original trilogy.

Production Details

• Empire Strikes Back and Return Of The Jedi scriptwriter Lawrence Kasdan rejoined the franchise to co-write the Force Awakens script with Abrams.
• Importing cinematographer Dan Mindel from his Star Trek reboot franchise, Abrams shot Force Awakens on 35mm film, with some sequences on IMAX 65mm.
• Abrams shot segments of the film in Iceland, Abu Dhabi, Ireland, and England’s Pinewood Studios.
• Living legend composer John Williams (creator of the iconic bum-bum-bum-BAAAAAM-BAAAAAM-bum-bum-bum-BAAAAAM-BAAAAAAM theme) has returned to score the film.
• Abrams worked with a $200 million budget. If he fails to recoup the costs of production, rain shall fall upwards and dogs shall meow as cats.
• Abrams has stated that he has employed practical effects whenever possible in Force Awakens, as opposed to the CGI favored by the prequel trilogy. At the Star Wars Celebration panel, Abrams was quoted as saying, “The thing that struck me, and wouldn’t get out of my head, was just how real you knew and felt Star Wars was when you saw A New Hope… It’s Star Wars. There are going to be an endless number of effects, CG and otherwise, but we needed to set a standard that was real, that felt like you knew those people were in those places.”

Miscellanea

• In keeping with the general attitude of reverence for the original trilogy, the officially released promotional posters harken back to Drew Struzan’s classic poster art.
• David Fincher, Brad Bird, and Guillermo del Toro were approached to direct the film after Abrams initially turned it down, citing his intensely personal fandom as a cause for his refusal.
• Now seems as good a time as ever to note that Davids Cronenberg and Lynch were both offered the gig directing Return Of The Jedi. Dune pretty much ended up being Star Wars as imagined by David Lynch, but man, the head reels trying to imagine a world where Cronenberg took over the galaxy far, far away.

Hard Evidence

• Here’s the first 90-second teaser, released in late November of 2014. Can you say “hilt-mounted mini-lightsaber”?
• Here’s the trailer that aired at the Star Wars Celebration convention in Anaheim back in April. We’re home too, Han.
• Here are the gorgeous photos that Annie Leibovitz took for Vanity Fair’s spread on The Force Awakens’ production process.

It’s going to be a long summer, but a new trailer is sure to arrive soon and make the coming months a little less interminable. Just remember: Using a red marker to X out days on the calendar, sighing, and gazing dreamily out the window only makes the wait feel longer.