While "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" covers a lot of ground, not everything could be entirely fleshed out in the movie.

Director J.J. Abrams recently revealed that between 10-20 minutes of scenes were cut from the film's final edit. The official novelization, written by Alan Dean Foster, includes some bonus scenes, and it adds more layers to what we saw in theaters.

That valuable background includes an explanation for why R2-D2 wakes up at the end, as well as a brief history of the galactic government now in place 30 years after "Return of the Jedi" and the Resistance's relationship to political powers.



The novel also dives into the complexity of Kylo Ren's character. His uncertainty over killing his father is made clear, and it's also revealed that both Ren and Supreme Leader Snoke know how Darth Vader died.

Here are eight scenes from the novel that didn't appear in the movie: