Honestly? I hope he doesn't have the cajones. I like the original cast, I like their characters, and I don't particularly want to see them killed off. I'd especially be irritated if it's some homage to the original, Luke doing the Obi-Wan, because after that, you really have to expect that episode VIII will be the "Into Darkness" of the series, and then it'll be dead to me.
I don't mind if they play it particularly safe, I'm just not built for shocks. I hope Han and Leia make it through, and I hope that Luke gets to restart some form of Jedi Order, even if it is just one or two apprentices. I just want a comfortable nostalgia fest featuring some new talent, but it looks set to be a rehash of the originals (Which, is strictly speaking, what Abrams is good at, making a shitty popcorn version of a classic with everything worth watching stripped out).
But I reckon that I'll be disappointed, and that Luke will be killed off somewhere, and Han or Chewie too, which will be a lovely ending to tack onto their stories from the original trilogy: And then, having resisted the pull of the dark side, discovered the truth about his father, fought in a brutal civil war and helped destroy two genocide machines, and inheriting the powers of a once-dead cult of mystical peacemakers, Luke died like a chump to raise the stakes for another continuation of the status quo.
I mean look at it, it looks like the Empire is alive and well, Han looks to be some form of smuggler still, Jakku is fucking Tattoine, and we've got stand ins for Vader and Palpatine inbound, with callbacks to Vader, and fucking iStormtroopers.
