Dissecting the Star Wars: The Force Awakens Trailer

So, yesterday the promised teaser trailer for Star Wars: The Force Awakens dropped like a crashing Super Star Destroyer. Everyone was pretty much flabbergasted, but unlike the Jurassic World trailer that premiered earlier in the week, it didn’t exactly give many plot details away. We’re nothing if not would-be detectives here at Cultured Vultures, so I thought I’d go through the trailer bit by bit and do some intergalactic snooping, like Robert Mitchum, but with lightsabers and Billy Dee Williams.

So, the first sight we’re gifted with is a somewhat startling shot of someone in a storm trooper uniform bursting into frame like he’s just woken up on Tatooine despite having been out drinking on Coruscant the night before. This is John Boyega, who you may or may not recognise as Moses from Attack the Block. His sudden appearance is preceded by a sinister voice-cover, which states that: “There has been an awakening, ave you felt it?”. Early speculation suggests that Boyega plays a rogue storm trooper and his panicked expression would suggest that his defection didn’t go over to well. This obviously also means that remnants of the Galactic Empire are very much in play.

Alrighty then. The more than passing resemblance to R2-D2 (or at least his head) his obvious, but everything else, not so much. I can only assume that this is some more advanced or differently purposed version of the astro-droid. What I can say for sure is that it’s freaking adorable. I’d also wager that this is more than a just a brief aside, this little bugger might be a new sidekick of sorts.

And here comes the darker side of the equation, the shiny new stormtroopers. Some images of the new design have cropped up here and there via the odd little leaks about the film that have surfaced. They look appropriately more advanced than their 1980s predecessors and all the other media set after the original trilogy confirms that the Empire didn’t exactly just dissolve after the death of Palpatine and the destruction of the Death Star. This entire clip has a kind of shaky, queasy feel to it, making it clear just how stylistically removed from the other films this one is going to be.

This is Daisy Ridley and if you recognise her you’re either wrong or you actually met her somewhere because this is her first gig, by and large. Suggestions have been levied that she might be Han and Leia’s daughter and  thepole-like attachment on her speeder looks like it could very well be some manner of lightsaber (or a variation on the theme). Jedi are supposedly more common during this time period, so it’s not exactly a stretch. Also in the spin-off material Han and Leia have a daughter named Jaina and she’s totally a Jedi, so there’s that.

This is Oscar Issac, ie  Llewyn Davis, the one we got inside during that Coen Brothers’ movie. He’s very clearly adorned in Rebel Alliance garb, and if such things still exist then presumably there’s actually something to rebel against. The size and nature of the stakes remain unknown, what we do get an idea of, however, is the hardware…

EEEEEEEEE! Sorry, I can’t even look at a screencap of that without getting a little giddy. Those are the same X-wings that we were offered a glimpse of during one of J.J. Abrams’s promotional videos. Here seen skimming across a lake, this is our first proper look at any planet outside of Tatooine. The new look has the fighters a bit more streamlined and using a blue motif instead of a red one. Any particular reason? Who cares! THEY’RE BEAUTIFUUUUUL.

The only character to make a physical appearance without any kind of actor reveal, this may well be Adam Driver as one of the central antagonists. The Sith outfit doesn’t exactly instill any confidence, to say nothing of the red lightsaber. The only one that appears in the trailer, now with added hilt! It’s kind of surprising it’s taken the franchise this long to implement that idea, considering  how much risk of finger amputation the original models carried, seems like a bit of a no-brainer. The snowy woodland setting implies that this might be the same planet from the previous shot.

This is when things get ramped up to 11. The Milennium Falcon, back in action over the skies of Tatooine. The classic John Williams fanfare bursts into play right at this moment, as it rightly should. It’s worth noting that everything in this trailer happens planet-side and seeing Han Solo’s old warhorse in a dogfight over solid ground makes for a refreshing, new take on an old mainstay, much like the lake-skimming X-wings. But is it Solo piloting her? Lando? Luke? Impossible to say, but damn if isn’t great to see the old girl again and she looks fantastic.

As the trailer draws to a close we catch a glimpse of two TIE fighters making an attack run at the tail end of this dizzying tracking shot. The trailer does an excellent job of juxtaposing new faces with familiar locations, sounds and sights whilst wisely keeping back any footage of Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Mark Hamill or anyone else who’s reprising a role rather than taking on a new one. It’s also immediately obvious how different in style and tone this film is going to be from any of the ones before it. December 2015 cannot come quickly enough.

If you need a refresher, here’s the trailer again.