So I just finished the novel, SOOOOO much more info explains and makes everything make sense.
Things I took from it that the movie missed (or cut).
- The Resistance did not have time to send more than the fleet they did to attack Starkiller Base. Akbar wanted time to regroup, get more of a fleet to attack, but Leah overruled him once they knew Starkiller was about to fire again, they knew they had to attack immediately.
- The creature that was trading rations to Rey tracks her to Maz's castles to get the Falcon back, Chewie literally rips off his arm when he tries taking Rey. (apparently this scene was filmed! Excited to see it in the deleted scenes)
- Rey dreams of the island that luke is on during her time on Jakku. Ren see's this in her mind, I believe this is said in the film too, but the book makes it much more clear. He doesnt make the connection that she is dreaming of the First Jedi Temple.
- There was a speeder chase from the Starkiller Command Center to the area they are trying to blow up, (Apparently this scene was filmed too! You can actually see the speeder bike parked outside when Rey and Finn run in)
- Starkiller base was intentionally not defended by the First Order's fleet to avoid attracting the Resistance. Fleet movements are carefully watched and they took all precaution to avoid their base being found.
- Snoke was watching Ren sence Ren was born, Leah knew this and thought she alone could protect Ben from his influence, she never told han. When Han is telling Leah its his fault they lost their child, Leah goes into the rant about how she knew the whole time that Ren had both equal good and bad and him and that Snoke was watching from the shadows, slowly manipulating him. Thats why she eventually sent him to luke for training, but it was too late. Leah feels everything is her fault (and she's pretty much right). While the book doesnt give a timeline, Leah and Han are officially still married but havnt seen each other for "Many years". So many in fact that C3P0 doesnt initially recognise Solo and has to take extra time to process the extra wrinkles and face chanes.
- The New Republic officially does not support the resistance, only a few senators do in private (thus why they are a rag tag bunch, all their money is private and hidden). Some of the senators secretly support the New Order. In the last 30 years the senate went from a dream come to life to a more standard political theater that involved back stabbing and standard polititan stuff.
- The book includes Ren finding the Falcon and spending time on it. Its super short though, but its a great scene as he's in the cockpit and sees the Xwings jump out of hyperspace and start attacking the base.
- Ren has a LOT of good, cut lines in the book. The way he talks to Rey about her not understand the First Order was great, and basically underscores the complete logical difference between the Resistance, Republic and First Order. Its all stuff we already know, but hearing Ren talk about bring about order from chaos, about how the Resistance fired first, about the failure of the New Republic all very much helps establish the current politcal atmosphere.
- The Storm Trooper armour CAN filter poison/gasses, just not in its default configuration, Finn goes into a long explanation saying you have to use different filter configurations for different gasses and the standard procedure for boarding a capture craft is to just be running on standard O2 tanks.
- Akbar debriefs Finn about Starkiller base and you get a lot more info regarding why its underprotected, how Finn is just guessing on how it works (but its confirmed from the reconosence mission they quickly send out). Also lead me to wonder if the the planet can move on its own, which one of the Disney producers twitter accounts confirmed thats the intent, and said it had also moved once before after the first shot at the new republic, but that opens a plot hole because the Resistance did not know the location of Starkiller base until Finn told them, but how we he know the new location of the base if it moved to absorb a new star?
- The whole story of how Poe got off Jakku is written out, takes a whole chapter and makes sense. Glad it wasnt in the movie as it was honestly pretty boring (but it did involve a speeder chase). Apparently after Finn ejected (which he did manually and was conscious of, which the film doesnt show), Poe woke up while still in free fall, he had enough time to bring the Tie Fighter in for a crash landing (thus why it was still mostely intact). The impact sent him flying out of the craft (his jacket staying behind). He couldnt find Finn so he set off to get back the New Republic because BB-8 had a tracking device installed..
- Speaking of that tracking device, C3P0 was the one responsible for insuring it was turned on... which he forgot to do. A small part of the book is him panicing that he has no way to find BB8 once the resistance learned that the droid and Poe were missing.
- The shields for Starkiller base were still lowered by Captain Phasma in the book, but she puts up more resistance, but chewie basically threatens to start ripping off limbs and han calls her out on trying to lie to him. She turns off the sheilds assuming they will be turned right back on once the command center sees they are off. To stop this Han destroys the shield room and wields the door shut with his blaster. Once the First Order realizes whats going on they try to override the shields from the command center, but are a second too late because the Xwings jump in just in time to get inside the shields before they come back on. The whole sequence is much more exciting and well done in the book than the movie and shows Poe as a great leader.
- Ren and Snoke discuss how the ONLY reason the Empire fell was because Vader gave into the light side and saved his family, that the light side is the sole reason for its fall and the ultimate evil basically. Thus why Ren is so affraid of the light side and fears it in him, he fears he'll do the same as Vader, thus why killing Han is the ultimate test. By doing it he proved he is not Vader, that he'll go the whole way and not give in to his light side.
- Ren is indeed playing with Fin during the fight, once he gets slightly touched by the lightsaber, Ren takes it seriously and ends it right away (though in the book the slice is across Finn's chest, not back).
- Its implied Snoke speaks to Rey in her mind when she beats Ren, telling her "Kill him" basically tempting her to the dark side.
- The books very slightly hints at a Rey/Poe relationship, with Rey and Poe embracing, than both being embarrassed, than Rey thinking she likes how he looks. May setup a love triangle for future films?
- Chewie gives the Falcon to Rey in the end, in a cute scene.
