Earlier this week, the newest trailer for "Star Wars VII: The Force Awakens" dropped online and literally broke the internet. Although there have been teasers and behind-the-scenes videos, this is the first actual trailer for the film, and it contains a lot of information.
We now know that Daisy Ridley's character, Rey, is a smuggler-explorer type from Tatooine, with few prospects of getting off the planet, a la a mix of Luke Skywalker and Han Solo. We learn that when one voice-modulating villain falls, another will rise to take his place, as we now hear Adam Driver's Kylo Ren speak.The trailer also all but confirms that Jon Boyega's character, Finn, was not just involved in some episode IV-like hi-jinks but is indeed a disenfranchised storm trooper from the Empire as we see his TIE-fighter crashing down onto the planet's surface, and that Finn is the new Jedi in which the force has decided to awaken. We know this because Finn wields a blue Lightsaber in the trailer, and I know what you're thinking: It takes years of training before a Jedi is allowed to craft his own Lightsaber, so how does Finn already have one despite the fact that the Jedi council is dissolved, and Master Yoda is dead? But don't worry, it's not a continuity error. It's Luke's lightsaber from episode IV, which was Anakin's from the prequel trilogy:
I know what you're thinking, and yes, it is incredibly cool that I can recognize characters' lightsabers from single-second clips.
However, this raises a very good question in the trailer of where the hell is Luke? That lightsaber had to be given to Finn by him, and Finn has to be trained by someone, and Luke is the last remaining Jedi. Couple this with the fact that the trailer is dominated by Harrison Ford and even Carrie Fisher gets a pity shot thrown in there, yet the closest thing we see to Luke is Robo-hand here stroking R2:
This is almost undoubtedly Luke, but still one has to wonder why he is inexplicably absent, and who is this old lady who keeps talking about the force. Is this Lupita Nyong'o's character, Maz Kanata, as she never appears in the trailer? And notably, the trailer's weakest point is that it leaves so much out. Luke, Maz Kanata, C-3P0, Leia have minimal or no screentime, and Poe Dameron, a new character played by Oscar Isaac, is only in one shot.
With that said, one cannot deny that the trailer is anything short of magical. The visuals bear a beautifully familiar resemblance to the original trilogy in terms of the locations and the costuming, and John William's score is more or less a modern re-orchestration of the original trilogy's themes. In fact, William's score is so good, a fan edit of the trailer removes all the dialogue completely, and William's score does a fine job as the sole accompaniment for the trailer, ditching the generic (but necessary) sound bites of semi-profound questions and leaving the trailer with just the characters' emotions and the music's splendor.
