Another Absurd Cameo Revealed in Star Wars: The Force Awakens

As we wrote on Tuesday, there has been an endless cascade of reveals of secret cameos in Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Perhaps the best is Daniel Craig's turn as the initially petulant Stormtrooper keeping an eye on a captured Rey. You remember that scene, right? The one where Rey tries out her Obi-Wan Kenobi skills? Obi-Wan famously told a Stormtrooper in the first Star Wars, "these aren't the droids you're looking for," a Jedi mind trick that resulted in the Stormtrooper repeating his words and letting Obi-Wan, Luke, and the crucial R2D2 (and yes, C3P0) pass unmolested. The line became a piece of pop culture history.

So when Rey is captured, she tries out the same thing on the Stormtrooper who's minding her. 

“You will remove these restraints and leave this cell with the door open,” she says to him. That Stormtrooper is Daniel Craig. 

“I’ll tighten those restraints, scavenger scum,” Craig’s Stormtrooper responds, in arguably the best of all the surprise cameos. Better than Kevin Smith, Radiohead's Nigel Godrich,  and everyone else's by our estimation. 

Well, it turns out another certain someone made an appearance in an equally crucial scene, the Maz Kanata's bar scene. This sequence was a hat tip to the Mos Eisley cantina scene from A New Hope (which came soon after Obi-Wan tricked the inquisitive Stormtrooper), and we already knew the music was provided by Broadway superstar Lin-Manuel Miranda (the man behind Hamilton!), but what we didn't know is the person who joined him for the vocals of the song during that scene is none other than director J.J. Abrams himself.

Let Miranda explain in this clip from Entertainment Tonight.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=648rfHgdWDk