I will be able to accept Chewie's death in this (provided they do it well) film. Though, anything is better than that dumbass moon death.
Also, Leia and Han hugging like that? Yeah. Super softie feels from me on that front. Maybe cause I'm a sweet at heart, who loves that stuff, but damn. That was the most poignant thing in the entire trailer for me.
What continues to both fascinate and bug me is the lack of names. If Kylo and Rey are some combination of Han/Leia/Luke's kids, then fair enough... but what's the deal with Finn? Apparently, that's not even his name, it's just that instead of a TK- stormtrooper number he has a FN- one. (Maybe because he's manufactured in Belgium?)
This is a military character: for them to refer to him exclusively by a nickname rather than "Rank Surname" or whatever... that's almost going out of their way to hide his real name. But why would they do that, unless his surname is either Calrissian, or Windu?
My theory is that Kylo (and possibly Rey, if they're twins - I like that theory) are Luke's kids, not Leia's. The idea that Kylo is aspiring to be like his grandfather feels (to me) like a potentially richer story if he resents his father for not accepting Vader's offer to rule the galaxy as father and son. You've got the potential to take all of those powerful scenes between Luke and Vader and flip them on their head, with Luke dismayed that his son has fallen to the same darkness... there's just not that same emotional connection if he's Han and/or Leia's kid, because they are (more or less) "ordinary folk" rather than spiritual Jedi stuff. Also, looking at it from the other direction... it makes far more sense to me to have Luke as an absentee parent than Han or Leia, and if Rey ends up being his daughter, then her starting out on a desert world tinkering with technology is a sort of continuation of Anakin and Luke. In fact, it's almost like the two sides of Anakin and Luke being split amongst two characters: the lighter aspects with Rey, the potential for darkness with Kylo.
As for Finn, my theory is that Leia hooked up with Lando. All of the vibes I get from Han in the trailers do not fit with a guy who has been happily married to Princess Leia for thirty years. Leia seems like she's continued to be a leader throughout, but Han looks like he carried on being a drifter. Also, if Han was with Leia, then what's with the "we're home" stuff? Why is Han only just now returning to the Falcon? If he was with Leia, where's the logic in him not having his ship around to aid the Resistance? I'm stretching a bit... but I've always felt that Obi Wan Kenobi was the Han Solo of the prequels (the big brother, the sass, the shrewd commander, the guy who knows the world that Luke/Anakin has stumbled into). What if Han Solo, having grown apart from Leia, becomes the Ben Kenobi of Episode VII: the old guy living on a desert planet, keeping an eye on his best friend's kid? All of those sexy-as-hell Falcon scenes seem to happen on Jakku after all... and if Han is the one filling in Rey and Finn on "it's all true", that would echo Ben Kenobi's role of providing exposition to the protagonist in Episode IV.
It's like that, and that's the way it is.
I think somebody definitely dies, but my fear is it will be Han. Harrison Ford always wanted to kill off Han, and this movie feels SO inspired by the original that killing off the old mentor in the movie would continue that theme.
Plus we see Rey crying, clutching a jacket. If that belongs to the dead character, it's either Finn, Poe or Han. Poe seems unlikely as he's mainly a pilot (although we know very little about him).
I hope it's not Chewie. Killing Chewie always felt like acop out to me. Sure, he's a big character, but never well rounded like the rest of the cast.
So, the official Star Wars instagram uploaded BB-8's reaction to the new trailer.
https://instagram.com/p/9HlyUSP7DE/
Me too, little buddy. Me too.
It's pretty clear, IMO, that Rey and/or Kylo are part of the Skywalker family tree, be it through Luke or Leia. Rey's backstory is setting up to mirror Anakin's and Luke's in many ways; Kylo's obsession with Vader could easily be him wanting to live up to and exceed the legend of his grandfather. The movie poster juxtaposing Kylo's lightsaber with Rey's staff is pretty blunt symbolism that, although we see Finn wielding Anakin's/Luke's lightsaber in the movie footage, this will eventually be about Kylo against Rey (maybe not directly in Episode VII, but as the story progresses). I'm fully expecting to see Rey wielding some variant of a double bladed saber eventually.
I also agree that someone significant is going to die, as a mirror to Obi-Wan's death in ANH, or Qui-Gon's death in TPM.
One of the reaction reels on YouTube made a pretty convincing case that it was Chewie, or that Chewie was at least injured during the movie.
Also this trailer is my new coffee. I watch it when I get up or anytime I need energy.
I'd love it if Kylo does turn out to be a nobody. I doubt they'll do it, but it'd be awesome if they did, just to surprise everybody.
Did we ever find out how Andy Serkis fits into things?
His character (and General Weasley) are missing from the poster too, but we know from the trailers that the General is fairly important... and Andy Serkis had that ominous "there has been an awakening" monologue that sounded super evil and makes it seem like he's probably of some sort of significance to the story, so there may still be hope for Luke Skywalker playing an important part.
Part of me wonders if Serkis is going to end up playing one of the Inquisitors from Star Wars Rebels. Those guys are creepy and interesting, and it seems like they're all the same race which intrigues me. I could see Serkis' voice fitting with one of those guys, and that would seem like a pretty solid reason to have not let us see what he looks like yet... plus, isn't Rebels supposed to have ties to Episode VII in some way?
I'm not sure the Inquisitors are all the same race. One of the new ones that will be in Season 2 of Rebels actually looks Mirialan, and some have speculated, even though the facial appearance doesn't exactly match, that this could be Barriss Offee. And they both look very different from the Inquisitor from Season 1.
That said, with the power vacuum left after Palpatine and Vader died, any surviving Inquisitors could easily have been in the mix vying for leadership.
I don't think they'd make a major plot point of the villains from Rebels. I think at best it'd be really subtle references.
The new inquisitor isn't Bariss
There was some fan art of Bariss as an INQ which looked pretty friggin' legit, but it definitely wasn't official/real. The only two new Inquisitors I'm aware of are this guy from the end of last episode, and Sarah Michelle Gellar.
They're not necessarily the same race, true - Inquisitor #1 looked like he was from Utapau, whereas the new lady Inquisitor is maybe a very pale/ashen Mirialan or something - they just happen to all be greyish-skinned, yellow-eyed, facial markings/patterns, slightly pointed teeth, and vaguely demonic in appearance.
As far as making a "major plot point" out of it - not what I'm suggesting at all. But, if Andy Serkis is going to be the sort of guy who senses Force awakenings and what-not, does it not make sense to tie him into the existing group of darksiders you've already established in Rebels as working for the Empire, instead of sort of... conveniently having him crawl out of the woodwork? If you don't have the benefit of our familiarity with the EU and with roleplaying (aka. if you are the majority of the audience), it might seem a bit incongruous to have Force users just popping up out of nowhere. Taken in isolation, the original trilogy makes it seem like Luke is the last Jedi, and Vader is the last Sith... using the Inquisitors is better than saying "oh yeah, there's totally a book that explains this", IMO. Not everyone watches Rebels, but a lot of the younger viewers will, and they're the ones most likely to require an explanation to grasp what's going on. And, all you need to do to establish that connection is to give him grey skin, yellow eyes, and some face markings... and maybe a spinny lightsaber.
And okay, so if Andy Serkis isn't an Inquisitor, then why don't we know what he looks like? Are they just holding stuff back for the sake of holding stuff back, or is there some spoiler about his appearance that they don't want to reveal until we're watching the movie? Is he... I dunno, Darth Maul? Is he gonna show up all blue skinned and red-eyed and make the EU fans go wild when they realise he's secretly Admiral Thrawn? Surely there's some sort of significance there.
Yellow eyes is just a sign of Sithliness though sometimes. The first Inquisitor was definitely from Utapau, the other two are definitely different species. I don't think Inquisitors are a specific race. It's more like a rank.
I don't think they'll use them. Firstly, I imagine there's a limited amount of them (and they'll probably get finished off in Rebels before the main movies begin), and secondly we already know that the new movie is introducing the 'Knights of Ren' as sort of wannabe Darksider fanboys (okay, maybe that last bit is my interpretation). But basically there's already a new group of Darksiders in the movie. To then link one to a much older organisation too would be confusing. You have to remember, this movie is going to be seen by a lot of people who only know the original films, or even only vaguely remember them. It's pretty much going to be the biggest film of all time. I'm sure they'll want to keep it simple.
I think they're holding him back for the sake of holding stuff back, yes. You have to remember, this is JJ Abrams. He made his career out of not telling the audience stuff. Lost, Cloverfield, even the new Star Trek, it was all built around hyping people up by not revealing anything. Same has been happening here subtly. Without doing serious spoiler research, and just going off the trailers, we have no idea what the actual plot to The Force Awakens is. Compare that to older trailers where they at least gave you an idea of storyline. Here, we know some characters, some sequences, but not a clue how it all fits together (unless you go beyond and read fan theories and set reports and leaks and stuff). He's again keeping things secret to surprise you in the cinema. Same reason he's not shown Luke yet. An image leaked, so we know he's in full Jedi-mode, not like, secretly Kylo Ren or something, but they didn't want that getting out.
JJ Abrams likes to surprise and hype. Andy Serkis is probably just a major really cool character he wants to surprise us with, like the new Emperor or something.
We don't actually know that the Knights of Ren are Force users. We know they're obsessed with the dark side, but Kylo is literally the only one who has a lightsaber and who has displayed any sort of actual dark side power. They could easily just be actual fanboys - fans of the dark side, not users of it.
And yeah, there's definitely the JJ Abrams holding things back angle... but there's a whole lot of stuff that it's weird that we don't know. There's "not telling", and then there's "deliberately making the effort to hide things". It would be really odd to have all this conspiracy level secrecy if it's just "we don't want to show you this guy because he looks cool and we want you to be surprised".
Well okay, true, they might just be fanboys, but again it lends to the fact that they're out there, and somebody has to be leading them. And I get the impression Kylo is just the rich kid of the group with the best collectables, not the group leader.
Well, that seems to be what they're doing with Luke, right? Intentionally holding him back just to make his appearance in the movies be a more epic moment.
With Luke... yeah, maybe. I'm guessing they don't want us to get a proper look at his new hand and stuff. But I dunno, holding back things like this on a project that has got so much anticipation and so much excitement surrounding it... I hope the stuff they're holding back is really spectacular, else they're just sorta... not showing us what Luke looks like as a marketing ploy. It's an effective strategy sure, I just hope that the secrets end up feeling worth the secrecy.
This is Mr "John Harrison is totally not Khan super mega ultra promise" Abrams.
I'm sure it'll be a good movie, but don't get your hopes up on the reason he's keeping secrets.
A nice fan-cut of the trailer
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