As every corner of the Internet’s surely told you already, there’s a new Star Wars movie on its merry way and today, it just happens to have a real trailer to go with it. The highlights – sand dunes, lightsabers, spaceships – are just scratching the surface of our first look at a brand new galaxy. Find out what you may have missed as we put Star Wars: The Force Awakens under the microscope and see just what Disney and Lucasfilm are teasing for the year to come.
Remember those sand dunes we mentioned? Yup, by all accounts, our best guess would be that we’re going back to Tatooine from unless there’s another convenient desert planet out there that the movie intends to use. While we may not know why, there’s certainly a strong whiff of nostalgia when the home planet of the Skywalker family’s concerned. Our throaty narrator guys probably agrees. “Can you fell it?” he asks. Yes, yes we can.
Aagh! What’s this?! It’s none other than a startled John Boyega! And in Stormtrooper armor, no less, all sweaty and scared like he just woke up from a dream about a Star Wars movie on his way to Comic Con. We don’t know what he’s looking at, but we’re pretty sure it had something to do with what apparently happened a few minutes ago:
Here we have a bit more of Boyega from the back, revealing not much in the way of supplies or a jetpack, but a rather curious black spot on his black plate. He was probably branded with the black spot by a pirate – ya know, just like Billy Bones?
Yup, this movie’s got stormtroopers alright, and lots of ’em apparently. Like the well-documented concept art that’s been making their rounds, the helmets seems to share the exact design previewed to us weeks ago – blending the classic trilogy’s standard aesthetics with something of a dark, pronounced line under the visor. Is The Force Awakens trying to tell us that Stormtroopers are getting bags under their eyes already? But they’re still so shiny and young looking!
Of course, these stormtroopers are packing new trilogy heat too. Along with the helmets, the blasters in question seem to share a more even distribution of black and white in the design, and maybe some glowing, red power-cell too. The build looks far more durable than those of the prequel clone troopers’, which may indicate they’re real props this time around than CGI images.
And it looks like they’re all deploying somewhere. Tatooine is our best guess from the sand blowing into their deployment ramp. It’s not too much to assume it all might be some sort of Halo jump gone wrong, from the presumed result of leaving John Boyega’s character stranded from his unit and apparently helmet-less.
Next up, we have our other star of the hour: our very first look at what’s probably actress Daisy Ridley’s character sporting some desert-wear on what also looks like a speeder of some kind. She looks basically like what you can expect from a junk dealer or a moister farmer and she looks ready to go somewhere and entirely unsure about it. Maybe to rescue Boyega’s stormtrooper?
And she’s….riding a giant chocolate popsicle/USB drive?
Meanwhile, we have our quirky droid accounted for as per Star Wars tradition. While it may not be R2-D2, it definitely appears to be what’ll be in every Force Awakens Lego set come 2015. It’s unsure whether that ball of his is attached to his body either, of if he’s just the Star Wars series’s David Beckham of droids.
Hold up now, so who’s this?! Ah, yes, we have our Rebel/New Republic pilots back in gear. With all the appropriate rebel garb to boot. Kids, meet “Jek Butkins (a.k.a The Dude),” the only action-figure your parents can get you when all the Han Solos and Daisy Ridleys are out of stock.
And he’s not flying alone, either. Here, we get our first all-natural look at this trilogy’s X-wings and they glimmer in the light. The water planet we get here’s another nice contrast to the desert shots of slides earlier, but where are they? Odds are it’s an entirely new planet – one probably filmed in Ireland as we’ve been told in months prior – but if it’s a planet we’ve already seen, it could be Chewbacca the Wookie’s home planet of Kashyyyk judging from the hills and lake we saw from Star Wars: Episode III.
Ah, and now, our Sith of the hour. There’s a snowy forest and it’s at night, so there’s no doubt that the attack position means there’s someone hiding in these woods that Mr./Ms./Mrs. Sith’s on the prowl for. He/she’s wielding the likely weapon of choice and a darn Medieval one too with a rather interesting Medieval look about it regarding its hilt and hand guard.
And what of the narration following it? What’s this “dark and the light?” Are both sides of the Force awakening from a deep, dark sleep?
Wait – oh, c’mon!
Now THIS is the Millennium Falcon. Like our less than authentic look at it from last week’s fake trailer though, it does indeed have a new, rectangular communications dish like a cherry on top of its usual perch since it was knocked off during the Death Star II’s attack in Episode VI: Return of the Jedi. And just look at those bluest of blue skies of probably Tatooine. The real question is whether it’s still being flown by Han Solo or, as rumor has it, Oscar Isaac’s smuggler character.
WHAT?!
One roller-coaster tilt later, we see the Falcon’s righted itself and dodging a bunch of Tie-fighters. There’s not much different from the looks of the ship itself from the backside beyond the fact that it’s still in one piece after all these years.
…But maybe not for long.
And there we have it, folks. Cue title-screen and cue another 4-5 months of waiting until the next, preferably full reveal trailer.
On a final note, though, we still don’t see any “Episode VII” moniker attached to the title card like we did a week ago or so. Does that mean the movie’s deliberately detaching itself from the series as a whole? We know Luke Skywalker and friends are played by their originals as surely as we know this is a true sequel. Time – and more trailers – will tell.
Tell us: What did you think of today’s trailer? Are you excited to know more about this newest chapter in the Star Wars saga?
Star Wars: The Force Awakens opens in theaters worldwide Dec. 18th, 2015. Cheers, and may the Force be with you.