The Max von Sydow thing confuses me. All signs point to his character being killed in the raid pretty much right off the bat, but if that’s the case, why cast such a legendary actor for two scenes? Maybe the raid takes place a little later than we think and there’s some stuff between him and Rey before Poe shows up. That way his death could echo Owen’s and Beru’s.
Well, the film is going to have Simon Pegg, now a very famous actor, completely unrecognizable as an alien at some point in the film. Sydow’s character will at least be seen, heard, and is probably going to play a pretty important part in the events of the story despite a relatively short appearance.
And of course we have no idea how the scene itself if going to play out. TFA, like ANH will probably wait a fair amount of time before showing us the lead characters. It wouldn’t surprise me if the first 10-ish minutes of the film is entirely focused on Poe and Sydow’s character. And eventually BB-8 as he leads us to Rey and later Finn.