Star Wars: The Force Awakens banner courtesy Walt Disney Studios
As most of the galaxy has heard, there is a new Star Wars film coming out in two months, and you'd have to be living under a rock (or on Tatooine) to be unaware that the final trailer premiered yesterday. The trailer is filled with throwbacks to the previous films, which I will highlight below, and while it defines the story a bit more, it still leaves much of this new chapter shrouded in mystery. However, it answers more questions than it would appear on the surface. **Warning: slight spoilers in this article**
Let us review.
What was Old is New Again
The callbacks to previous films begin after the Lucasfilm emblem, as the First Order assembles on an icy world reminiscent of Hoth from The Empire Srikes Back, When we see the new masked villain Kylo Ren (Adam Driver), he is speaking to the partially-melted helmet of Darth Vader, determined to "finish what [he] started." This is immediately followed by a shot of Kylo putting his hand to the face of a screaming Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac), a scene not unlike Vader's torture of Han Solo in Episode V. Dameron's screaming fades to a shot of a huge explosion ripping through a forest, perhaps a metaphor of the agony Dameron experiences at the hands of Ren. (And perhaps an indicator of something more.) As the Millennium Falcon evades a TIE fighter attack on Jakku, Han and Leia's love theme, first heard in Empire, blares loudly, and the ships drop into a ravine similar to the chase through the asteroid belt in the same movie.
Top: Asteroid chase from "The Empire Strikes Back"; Bottom: Ravine chase from "The Force Awakens"
The trailer continues, showing Kylo Ren with his lightsaber standing among a squadron of stormtroopers in the rain, bringing to mind the fight between Obi-Wan Kenobi and Jango Fett from Attack of the Clones. X-wings set their S-foils in attack formation before they engage TIE fighters in battle above a jungle planet which looks very much like Yavin 4. There is even a shot of Poe Dameron wearing a Rebellion-style fighter uniform greeting Finn on the same planet, underlining this throwback to the battle against the Death Star in A New Hope. As shots of this battle appear, we also see Han leading Rey, Finn and BB-8 to a temple with multi-colored banners hanging above the entrance, a temple so similar to the Massassi structure of Yavin 4 that it cannot be coincidence. (We also see a shot of Han, Chewbacca and Finn with their hands behind their heads in front of a destroyed building which could be the same temple. We have seen Han in this pose before: on Endor in Return of the Jedi.)
Top: the Endor moon from "Return of the Jedi"; Bottom: Unknown planet, "The Force Awakens"
We get another throwback to Hoth as Poe Dameron leads an X-wing battle on the aforementioned ice planet, Captain Phasma (Gwendolyn Christie) and stormtroopers walk through a fiery wreckage field (Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru, we barely knew ye) and a First Order shuttle lands in the same environment as embers fly through the air (hello Mustafar). Kylo Ren ignites his saber and cuts across the screen before he throws his hand towards the camera with fire behind him: perhaps this is the First Order's first order of business in the new film. Rey is crying in one snowy/ashy scene, then firing a pistol in another (on the same jungle planet we keep seeing). And as the Resistance troops get to their fighters on the jungle planet, Han embraces a saddened Leia (Carrie Fisher) before we see Finn ignite Luke's original blue lightsaber in a snow-covered forest. His opponent, Kylo Ren, also fires up his unique cross-guarded blade, and if you look closely you will notice Kylo's hair is flying loose in the wind. His mask is apparently gone, his true identity is revealed, and his motivations with it.
Finn and Kylo Ren engage in battle, "The Force Awakens"
The trailer ends, and as the film's title appears on the screen, there is an immediate realization: we still have not seen Luke Skywalker.
Where is Luke?
It begins with Rey (Daisy Ridley) climbing her way through an abandoned Star Destroyer on the planet Jakku. Her goggles are made from an Imperial Stormtrooper's helmet, and she rappels from the ceiling of a former landing bay, its large opening reminiscent of that which the Millennium Falcon and Emperor Palpatine's shuttle entered in A New Hope and Return of the Jedi, respectively. A woman's voiceover asks, "Who are you?" As Rey and her droid BB-8 make their way through the desert, she answers: "I'm no one."
Top: Daisy Ridley in "The Force Awakens"; Bottom: Mark Hamill in "A New Hope"
Both the environment and her answer immediately bring the Luke Skywalker from A New Hope to mind: a young man believing himself to be nothing more than the nephew of moisture farmers on a wasteland planet; a "no one," with only his droids to keep him company. As Rey watches a ship depart her planet, it recalls Luke's desire to travel off-world and become something more, something great. Rey would appear to be the new hope for this trilogy, fulfilling Luke's role in Episode IV, yet the man who she may be modeled after remains absent.
The lack of Luke in the trailers and the poster is very intriguing, yet appropriate. In one of the trailer's most engaging moments, former non-believer Han Solo tells Rey and Finn (John Boyega) that "the stories are true, all of them": the Dark Side and the Jedi are real. The Rebellion against the Empire and the events of the Original Trilogy have seemingly become nothing more than galactic legend, similar to how the events of the Prequel Trilogy were simply myth to the young hero of A New Hope. It also stands to reason that the Force itself has become even more distanced from the current generation than it was in the days of the Rebellion. It is therefore appropriate that the man at the center of the Rebellion, and the last known Jedi, has been missing from what we've seen thus far. But there is, perhaps, an answer: it has been reported that JJ Abrams agreed to direct The Force Awakens only after producer Kathleen Kennedy asked him, "Who is Luke Skywalker?" Until now, that question has had a fairly straightforward answer, but with this new scene and dialogue, we must approach it with a different point of view.
To the audience, Luke Skywalker is the hero of the Original Trilogy, the son of Darth Vader and the man who stopped the Emperor and saved the galaxy. One would think the man would be legendary thanks to his accomplishments and place in galactic history. But if the struggle against the Empire is now, itself, a legend, with the truth known to very few, then mention of the galaxy's savior would be even more limited. Kennedy's question, therefore, speaks to the state of mind of the galaxy far, far away and lays the foundation for the new trilogy: no one knows who Luke Skywalker is or what he has done. Rather than becoming legendary, Luke has all but vanished from the universe... much like an old general from the Clone Wars living as a hermit in the Outer Rim. After all, a Jedi craves neither adventure nor excitement. But where is he now, and what has he been doing?
Mysteries of the Force
There is much we still do not know about the galaxy far, far away, beyond the mystery of Luke Skywalker: Who is Kylo Ren? How did he learn the ways of the Dark Side? Why does he have Vader's helmet and why does he want to finish what was started? Is he related to a character we know? (My money is betting that he's the son of Han and Leia.) Who is in charge of the galaxy now, and what government took over from the Empire? Is Rey a Skywalker, a Solo, or neither? Why is she crying in that snowy/ashy scene? And why does it look like there's a furry body in front of her? (That fur does look familiar...) How does Finn end up with Luke's (and Anakin's) lightsaber? How does Max Von Sydow's as-yet-unrevealed character fit into all this? What's up with the droids? Is the woman narrating the trailer Maz Kanata, played by Lupita Nyong'o?
And what's the deal with the explosion in the forest I mentioned earlier?
Is there an ice planet in The Force Awakens? Well...
As previously mentioned, the parallels between the jungle planet of The Force Awakens and A New Hope are both numerous and obvious, and a third-act attack by the First Order emphasizes those similarities. But what if this new film offers a different outcome? What if the explosion in the jungle occurs because this weaponized ice planet opens fire? It would establish the First Order as a credible threat to the galaxy and offer a new take on a familiar tale. (Fun fact: Anakin and Luke's family name was originally Starkiller.)
One last thing to consider is the title itself: The Force Awakens. What could that mean? Well, if the Force has been relegated to myth, and there aren't Jedi or Sith using it, then at some point the Force is going to say, "Enough is enough," and start awakening in people and creatures all over the galaxy, including in Rey and Finn (how else could he survive the TIE fighter crash?) It may even cause a disturbance within Luke and serve as the catalyst for bringing him out of hiding.
Time will tell if I'm right, but one thing that's clear is that this movie contains classic elements from Episode IV, V and VI which will be familiar yet different to the audience. How will it all fit together? The answers will be revealed when The Force Awakens on December 18.
All photos belong to Lucasfilm and The Walt Disney Studios. No copyright infringement intended.
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