With just a couple months left before the release of The Last Jedi, the latest installment into the monstrously popular Star Wars saga, the natives are starting to get restless. Sure, we still have Thor: Ragnarok and Justice League to get through first, but, more than anything, 2017 belongs to the house Skywalker built.
To mark Episode VII tickets finally going on sale, Lucasfilm released a new, and presumably final, trailer for the highly anticipated blockbuster. And boy, was it ever a doozy.
Unlike Justice League which, only a month out from release, is releasing drab, largely unfinished and heavily filtered advertisements in a baseless attempt to assuage the swelling nerves of would-be movie-goers, this is an exciting, highly polished product that actually helps build excitement for its pending release. It’s also a surprisingly hefty production, revealing a lot of new footage and information that had previously been kept under wraps.
We see more of Phasma, for one. A throwaway antagonist in The Force Awakens, the chrome-plated Stormtrooper appears to have an expanded role in the new film, potentially as Finn’s primary antagonist. She is seen squaring off against him in a pseudo-lightsaber battle, lightning crackling around them. We see Kylo Ren struggle against his darkest impulses, torn between devotion to his evil master and the love of his mother. We even see a pair of new animal companions: an alien ferret / penguin hybrid riding shotgun in the Millennium Falcon and an almost Miyazakian wolf standing stoically beside some kind of tank.
Of primary interest — and what has really captured the attention of Star Wars fans — is the way that it plays with, and almost outright confirms, a long-held fan theory concerning next-gen protagonist Rey and neo-Vader Kyo Ren. Speaking in voice over to Kylo Ren, Snoke reveals that “when I found you, I saw raw, untamed power, and beyond that, something truly special.”
From there, the trailer cuts to Rey’s Jedi training under the Luke Skywalker. She explains that “something inside me has always been there. But now it’s awake, and I need help.” Then, seemingly by accident, she cuts a deep fissure on her rocky training grounds using only the Force, in turn drawing Luke’s scorn: “I’ve seen this raw strength only once before,” he tells her. “It didn’t scare me then. It does now.”
The rapid development of her Jedi abilities and their seemingly unmatched potential clearly frightens him, drawing a line in the sand that he will not cross: at least, not again. After he seemingly refuses to continue her training, she seeks out the only other person in the galaxy capable of helping her: Kylo Ren.
It has long been rumored that there is a familial connection between Kylo Ren and Rey — specifically that they were siblings and the Solos sequestered her after her brother went rogue to safeguard her from his wrath — and this trailer does nothing but confirm that: certainly the former, if not also the latter. Whether this makes them siblings or cousins or just mirrored opposites remains to be seen, but the connection is there.
As of right now, you can preorder your tickets for The Last Jedi. I suggest doing so quickly. With all of the buzz surrounding this new trailer, they are doubtlessly going to run out fast.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=Q0CbN8sfihY%22+frameborder%3D%220%22+allow%3D%22accelerometer%3B+encrypted-media%3B+gyroscope%3B+picture-in-picture%22+allowfullscreen%3E%3C
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