This is a moment that, when Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith premiered in 2005, fans never thought they’d see. But here it is, the first teaser trailer for a brand new Star Wars movie, The Force Awakens.
The roughly minute and ten seconds of footage clips show plenty that puts a twist on the familiar, but there is a least one thing that will have longtime fans flashing back: The end of the trailer concludes with the Millennium Falcon…and the howl of TIE Fighter engines along with the chatter of their lasers.
But what new can we attempt to draw out from the footage shown? For starters we have the narration from someone doing their best Benedict Cumberbatch-as-Smaug impression. Although Cumberbatch was long rumored for a role in Star Wars, when the casting news came, he wasn’t among the names released. We’re of the opinion that this is instead probably Max von Sydow, whom we’ve previously suggested could be an Obi-Wan Kenobi type figure, but it sounds like he could just as easily fit into the Emperor Palpetine mold. Not that we’re hoping for new character to exactly mirror an old one (as Gabriel Urbina has talked about already).
The first character who appears, though, is John Boyega dressed up in Stormtrooper armor – and apparently on Tatooine, where much of the trailer is set. Boyega is nervous and sweating, which fits with some early rumors that he’ll be a deserter of some sort who helps the other new leads. Another familiar sound plays behind him to suggest he’s being hunted: that of a scout probe like the one which found the rebel base on Hoth in The Empire Strikes Back.
Other characters spotted include Daisy Ridley on a hulking speeder bike of some kind, Oscar Isaac as a grim looking X-Wing pilot, and most strikingly, an unidentified Sith Lord (who we’ll assume from rumors is Adam Driver) who pulls out the craziest lightsaber we’ve seen since Darth Maul stepped onto the scene in The Phantom Menace. Since those side blades would almost certainly get in the way of some of the fancy saber-spinning found in the prequel trilogy, we have to wonder if this hints at a return to the lightsabers of the original trilogy (George Lucas first conceived of them as predominantly two handed weapons).
No evidence is seen so far of the original cast members of Harrison Ford, Mark Hamill, and Carrie Fisher other than the Millennium Falcon, but doubtless more will come when a proper theatrical trailer is eventually released. We haven’t even gotten into the spinning astromech droids and stormtrooper drop shops here, but suffice it to say that this trailer will certainly have plenty to keep die-hard Star Wars fans excited and nervous for the months to come until something more substantial drops.
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