1) Temmin Wexley
If you’re familiar with J.J. Abrams’ work, you probably took note of Greg Grunberg’s presence in The Force Awakens. Grunberg is Abrams’ childhood friend who appears in almost all of the director’s films/TV shows, from Felicity to Lost to Star Trek. He’s to Abrams what John Ratzenberger is to Pixar. In The Force Awakens, he wasn’t just given some walk-on cameo, though. Instead, he plays Temmin Wexley, a memorable lead in the Expanded Universe.
Fans were introduced to Temmin Wexley months before The Force Awakens’ release. He’s the main character of Chuck Wendig’s Star Wars: Aftermath, which takes place immediately following the events of Return of the Jedi and revolves around the Outer Rim planet of Akiva.
Temmin was abandoned here as a young boy and had to take care of himself by turning his parents’ old house into a shop. He’s 15 by the time the book begins, and his sidekick is a repurposed B1 battle droid named Mister Bones, the comedic relief that readers come away either loving or hating.
During Aftermath, Temmin’s mother returns to Akiva and the two of them join several other protagonists in helping to free the planet from Imperial rule. He’s also set to return in Aftermath‘s sequel, Life Debt, where Temmin and the gang join forces with Han Solo and Chewbacca to free the Wookie home world, Kashyyyk.
There’s about a two-decade gap in Wexley’s story before he joins the Republic Starfleet, and he later is recruited into the Resistance, where we meet him in The Force Awakens. It’s a strange feeling to spend hundreds of pages with a character in a book, only for them to be relegated into the background on screen, but that’s exactly what the Star Wars canon thrives on: developing the lives of seemingly unimportant players in the galaxy far, far away.