Here it is guys, the Star Wars: The Force Awakens teaser trailer we’ve been waiting all week for. I had a little bit of a fit when I first thought it would only show in NINE THEATERS across the U.S. and nowhere else. Then they opened up the kimono a little and revealed it would be in quite a few more theaters than that, including a theater I generally like to go to in Franklin (though I probably would have driven 50 or 60 miles to some theaters somewhere in or around Nashville to see this teaser). But I had nothing to fear because it’s on iTunes Trailers, and on YouTube.
I’ll have some analysis below, but without further ado, here is the trailer:
Now for that analysis…
Overall, I’d say this teaser is trying to strike a balance between making us feel nostalgia for the old Star Wars (and I certainly don’t mean any of the prequels), and making us feel like this is something altogether new and interesting and different.
We start out on what looks like the sands of Tatooine with a voice-over very reminiscent of Bennedict Cumberbatch. The shot is static, not moving at all while the voiceover speaks, which is most unlike J.J. Abrams, really. We are told there has been an awakening and asked if we have felt it. Then a guy in a white Storm Trooper uniform, sans helmet pops up into the screen, he is very distressed and he’s obviously worried about something. Cut to black.
This is obviously meant tell us that something bad is going down on Tatooine, and remind us that this film will be taking place in familiar locations, at least to some extent.
We’re also hearing just a tad of the imperial probe droid noise mixed in with the sound (the one from the beginning of The Empire Strikes Back). The music, though not an exact cue, is reminicent of the cue from when Luke is about to jump into the Sarlacc pit. All this is very much to put is in the Star Wars universe.
Next we get a quick taste of some strange rolly droid, and several quick and flashy cuts of Storm Troopers. The Storm Troopers look fairly traditional, though their helmets have been modified a bit from the Original Star Wars era and seem as if they’ve had a tiny smidge of Clone Trooper thrown in there.
Next we get a woman in the same sort of garb Han and Leia were wearing in Return of the Jedi on Endor. I think it’s Daisy Ridley. She’s riding some sort of hover transport.
And then we get X-Wings! It looks like they are over snow a bit reminiscent of Hoth, and we have the classic X-Wing sounds. Very nastolgic!
And now we come to something even more interesting: a guy walking through a dark woods in dark garb. He looks like he’s probably a Sith. And he unsheathes a red lightsaber-like weapon. I say “like” because it’s not quite like any lightsaber we’ve seen yet. It seems to crackle with electricity, and has weird, short side blades extending from the hilt. What exactly would have been wrong with going with the classic lightsaber?
And finally, we get the Millenium Falcon flying around. But this is not your ordinary flying sequence from the original Star Wars films, or even from the prequels, this is J.J. Abrams flying sequence style. It arcs up, down, around, camera pans and twirls, there’s ships coming at us firing blasters. It’s pretty crazy.
Honestly, this is the most worrying aspect of the trailer to me. This is very jittery, J.J. Abrams spaceflight style. Basically, if you can think of and remember the ship that Kirk, Spock, and Uhura flew around in on Qo’noS (Kronos, the Klingon home world), and how crazy all that flying sequence was (and how reminicent in some ways that ship was of the Falcon), then you kind of know the style we’re talking about here. It’s not good and it worries me.
And then of course, we get the logo and the iconic orchestral Star Wars music.
Overall, despite some concerns, mostly centered around the flying vehicles, I’m still super excited by this.
What do you guys think?