Review: Star Wars – The Force Awakens Teaser Trailer

Now that we’ve had a few moments to digest the first trailer for Star Wars: The Force Awakens and get ‘the feels’ out of the way, it’s time for a deeper look at what we see in our first glimpse of the Star Wars universe as brought to you by J.J. Abrams and team. If there’s one thing this trailer does, is it alleviates your fears. No, J.J. Abrams isn’t going to cram a million lens flares into every frame like he did with the Star Trek series. In fact, it is very much in keeping with the cinematography of the original trilogy.

In fact, this trailer appears designed to make you forget about the second trilogy (the prequels) entirely. I’d say it just about succeeds. It has the scope and adventure of the original trilogy, it evokes the dirty worn down tech we were used to, and it transports you to an otherworldly and exotic place. By the time we get to the new John Williams score, we’re ready to believe that this is going to be an awesome film.

The narrator appears to be Andy Serkis. While we know he’s been cast, we don’t know quite what character he’s playing in the film, but it might be one of the force wielding bad guys. We see the new look Storm Troopers, very close to the classic look, but just different enough to be amazing and menacing.

The appearance of the Storm Troopers tells us that even though this film is set some 30 years after Return of the Jedi, there are still elements of the Galactic Empire, or whatever replaced it, fighting it out. We see the X-Wing pilot is still wearing the logo of the rebels. In the expanded universe, this became the ‘New Republic’ logo, but we don’t know that is the case in this movie.

Of course, there’s the Millennium Falcon. It’s had some slight changes since we last saw it. A new rectangular radar dish to replace the one lost in Return of the Jedi. It is, once again, engaged with tie-fighters. We don’t see who is piloting it. In fact, we don’t see any of the legacy characters at all. However, in addition to Boyega and Ridley, we get a look at Oscar Isaac as that x-wing pilot.

So far, the new rolling soccer ball droid is the scene stealer. It’s rumored to the be droid of the character played by Daisy Ridley. Like Ridley and the Millennium Falcon, it’s rolling around on a desert planet. We assume that planet to be Tattooine. But it could also be Danttooine. We also see Ridley’s character flying around on a hover barge of some kind.

The trailer seems to involve a lot of people under stress, from John Boyega in the Storm Trooper outfit looking confused or panicked, to Daisy Ridley setting off on her chase, to Isaac’s X-Wing pilot, they’re all a bit rushed, like they’re in the middle of a chase. That might be a sign that the pace of this movie will be a bit faster with action and pauses, like in the original trilogy.

The media was also sent an image of what the film will look like in IMAX (see the MF photo at the top). It’s hard to judge based off of one image, but that appears to be the preferred format for Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Buy your tickets now.

Finally, could any of this end up in the parks? It seems likely there will be another update to Star Tours (the latest update was supposed to make adding new segments much easier) at least. So far, I don’t see anything that screams “New Attraction” but you never know.

What did I miss? What do you think of the trailer?