R2-D2 baixou o mapa de volta em A New Hope , mas não percebeu na hora.
Há um artigo Entertainment Weekly que reconta um Q & A pós-exibição com Abrams e os co-escritores Lawrence Kasdan e Michael Arndt. Explica como o R2-D2 passou a fazer parte do mapa estelar:
The story group’s thinking went back to the 1977 original movie, when R2-D2 accessed the Empire’s mainframe as the heroes searched for the captured Princess Leia. “We had the idea about R2 plugging into the information base of the Death Star, and that’s how he was able to get the full map and find where the Jedi temples are,” Arndt said.
Abrams says he chose to spell this out indirectly in the movie because he didn’t want the story to get bogged down in “how s–t happened 30 years ago.”
“But the idea was that in that scene where R2 plugged in, he downloaded the archives of the Empire, which was referenced by Kylo Ren,” Abrams said. Thirty-eight years later, in both our own and galactic time, that data becomes useful in The Force Awakens when a new droid approaches the dormant R2.
Isso não explica como o mapa do R2-D2 tem uma peça que faltava - parece incomum que os dados do Império teriam um buraco tão específico - mas aparentemente é assim que aconteceu.