‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens’ TR-8R Stormtrooper Has A Backstory And May Actually Be Alive

Star Wars: The Force Awakens has taken the world by storm, becoming the highest grossing movie in North American film history and rising in the global market.

But in this age of the Internet, one character from The Force Awakens has captured the hearts of fans and non-fans of the latest Star Wars movie. This character is, of course, the stormtrooper with the killer looking baton...thing. You know, the one who calls Finn a “TRAITOR!” before throwing down with him? The stormtrooper that has become a fan-favorite meme?

There you go. And while the masses have dubbed this stormtrooper TR-8R (clever) there’s actually a lot more to his story than fans may have first thought.

According to the official Star Wars website , TR-8R is actually designated FN-2199 and is called “Nines” for short. This information is made available in the Before the Awakening book that actually gives backstory to Finn, Rey and Poe Dameron. It’s written by the awesome Greg Rucka and really should have been created in a series of animated shorts, ala The Clone Wars when the prequels were still going.

But in this book, Nines served and trained in the same squad as Finn and in Before the Awakening you can see Nines in the piece of Phil Noto art below. He’s the guy in the red hair.

The Star Wars TR-8R backstory even explains that cool baton thing mentioned earlier. It’s a Z6 baton and Nines is part of the riot control squad that utilizes this crazy looking weapon.

TR-8R’s voice was provided by David Acord, a Skywalker Sound sound editor and Liang Yang, a veteran stunt performer, did all of the cool visual stuff. But the Star Wars site left this little tidbit to give fans something to talk about: “Let’s hope we haven’t seen the last of Nines. Or TR-8R. Who wouldn’t want to see round two…and all the memes it could inspire?”

Is TR-8R alive? Sure, he took a Chewie crossbow to the chest but could that really “kill” him? Let’s keep our fingers crossed that he’s kicking around somewhere.

So there you have it, the (somewhat) story of TR-8R. The Before the Awakening book is available for purchase where books are sold and is a must-read for The Force Awakens fans.

What do you think of the given snippet of backstory? Will you be calling TR-8R by his “real” name from now on? Sound off in the comments section.