88 THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THE STAR WARS TRAILER

88 THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THE STAR WARS TRAILER

The trailer for The Force Awakens, the first Star Wars film in over a decade, dropped at the end of November. Here, Empire breaks it down in mind-blowing detail. Beware spoilers...

1.     It will be a day long remembered — The Force Awakens teaser premiered at approximately 3pm on Friday, November 28.

2.    Not a lot of work was done in the Empire office after it arrived.

3.    At that point, there was still over a year left before the film’s opening.

4.    The teaser had initially been intended for cinemas, with a handful of cinemas in the US scheduled to play the teaser before every screening they had.

5.    The Alamo Drafthouse, in Austin, Texas, screened it 17 times in a row, with a panel discussion inbetween each showing.

6.    At the time of going to press, the trailer had been watched over 81 million times on YouTube alone.

7.    The trailer is 88 seconds long.

8.    It was preceded by a handwritten card from co-writer/director J.J. Abrams, along with a sketch of a TIE fighter.

9.    Interestingly, it doesn’t feature any corporate logos at any point — no Disney, no Bad Robot, not even Lucasfilm.

10.It begins with a black screen. Then a guttural voice growls, “There has been an awakening. Have you felt it?”

11.  There was much speculation that the voice belonged to Benedict Cumberbatch, despite the fact that he hasn’t been cast. Not officially, anyway.

12.But it actually belongs to Andy Serkis, who confirmed the news to UK radio station, Absolute Radio.

13.He’s almost certainly playing a Sith Lord, although there has been no confirmation of character names or allegiances.

14.The first person we see is John Boyega as a character named Finn. And that is a stormtrooper costume.

15.Which Explains why he’s panicked and sweaty. Abrams has confirmed, in a series of character name reveals designed to echo trading cards, that Finn is “on the run”. But from what? Has he crashlanded on a planet that isn’t necessarily stormtrooper-friendly?

16.To those wondering why stormtroopers no longer look like Temuera Morrison’s Jango Fett, clones were gradually phased out from the Empire after The Clone Wars.

17.Astonishingly, some people haven’t taken kindly to the idea that the lead of the new Star Wars film is black. In a classy riposte on Instagram, Boyega wrote, “To whom it may concern… Get used to it.”

18.Is this a hint that Finn will be around for Episodes VIII and IX?

19.It’s been widely assumed that the desert planet is Tatooine, but that may not be the case.

20.Either way, the sand dunes are from the film’s location shoot in Abu Dhabi.

21.At around the 22-second mark, we hear a noise. A familiar one. Could this be an The trailer for The Force Awakens, the fi rst Star Wars fi lm in over a decade, dropped at the end of November. Here, Empire breaks it down in mind-blowing detail. Beware spoilers... Imperial probe droid, as seen in The Empire Strikes Back?

22.Next, we meet a new droid, rolling around as if his life depended on it.

23.This little chap was quickly dubbed the ‘ball droid’, and was the standout star of the teaser. That beeping sound you can hear is R2-D2 getting jealous.

24.The ball droid is, apparently, a gyrodroid, in the way that Artoo is a astromech droid.

25.But we also know his name, thanks to Abrams. Meet BB-8.

26.And what’s that he’s rolling past? Are those engines for podracers? They certainly are. It would seem that Abrams isn’t completely erasing the legacy of George Lucas’s prequels.

27.The design for BB-8 hews very closely to an old Ralph McQuarrie concept drawing.

28.The stormtrooper suit has changed in the 30-year period between Return Of The Jedi and The Force Awakens — now their ‘lips’ bleeds directly into their eyes. It’s very sleek, and very cool.

29.Is Boyega inside one of those suits? Could that be him in the middle of the frame? Isn’t this chap a little short to be a stormtrooper?

30.Most of the trailer indicates that Abrams is following George Lucas’s stylistic template — lots of clean, classic compositions. But this brief sequence, with shaky-cam, also hints that Abrams is bringing his own sense of style to the movie.

31.The stormtroopers are on an armoured transport — where are they going? It looks wet and windy, wherever it is.

32.This is the fi rst time in all of the Star Wars movies that we have been inside a stormtrooper transport.

33.Meet another new face in the Star Wars universe — this is newcomer Daisy Ridley.

34.Abrams has confi rmed that her name is Rey, and not Kira, as had been rumoured. If you believe everything you hear, Rey is a resourceful young scavenger whose home may be the hollowedout shell of an AT-AT.

35.Her surname, notably, hasn’t been revealed. Given that she may be the daughter of Han Solo and Princess Leia, there could be a very good reason for that. Is she Rey Solo?

36.Look at her goggles — they seem to be taken from an old stormtrooper’s mask.

37.The design of Rey also echoes a Ralph McQuarrie concept drawing for Luke Skywalker, back when he was called Starkiller.

38.The story would seem to be throwing Finn, stranded on the sand planet after being shot down, together with Rey as they embark upon a quest.

39.The vehicle she’s riding is a new kind of Star Wars transport — a landspeeder we haven’t seen before. Some cruel online wags mocked its unfortunate resemblance to a Magnum.

40.And what’s that on the side of her speeder? It’s a gaffi stick, a Tusken Raider’s weapon.

41.Rey is headed towards a town. If this is indeed Tatooine, could it be Anchorhead? Might she be on her way to Tosche Station to pick up some power converters?

42.At first glance, this X-wing pilot seemed just like any other X-wing pilot — but this is our first look at Oscar Isaac as… Poe Dameron!

43.Poe Dameron. What a name. With its obvious shades of Edgar Allan Poe (not to mention the Teletubbies), does it imply that Dameron might be tempted by the darker side of life?

44.Again, there’s some subtle redesign work on the X-wing pilot’s costume. The helmet is black instead of white and closer-fi tting; note the Rebel Alliance insignia, prominent on both Poe’s helmet and vest. The X-wing-targeting computer can be seen over his left shoulder.

45.Poe’s piloting an updated X-wing, seen here flying alongside two others in formation on an as-yet unidentified planet.

46.The presence of X-wings in the movie has been known for some time — an X-wing pilot was seen boarding his craft in one of the ‘Force For Change’ videos that J.J. Abrams released a few months ago, while pap shots of the fi lm’s UK shoot revealed several full-size X-wings on set.

47.Note the subtle differences to the X-wing: instead of four circular engines, it has two, which split in half when the S-foils are deployed. Expanded universe fans will notice design traits in common with the X-wing’s predecessor, the Z-95 Headhunter.

48.It seems clear, as they fly over the lake, that this is a new planet.

49.It’s the first time in the Star Wars saga that we’ve seen X-wings flying — not taking off or landing — anywhere other than space.

50.It’s also notable that there isn’t a single second of ‘space’ footage in this Star Wars trailer. Plenty of Wars, not a lot of Stars. Expect that to change.

51.Then, staggering into a clearing in a snowy forest, we get our first glimpse of the back of the film’s presumed bad guy, Kylo Ren.

52.This is rumoured to be Adam Driver, star of Girls and Inside Llewyn Davis, as the movie’s answer to Darth Vader. But Abrams has not confirmed that yet.

53.There have Been suggestions that Kylo could actually be played by Game Of Thrones’ Gwendoline Christie. But even though it’s a made-up moniker, Kylo sounds like a guy’s name.

54.Driver has been glimpsed on set in X-wing fi ghter pilot costume, though. A red herring from the notoriously spoilerconscious Abrams? Or does his character switch sides in the film — something that, Anakin Skywalker aside, has not happened in the saga to date?

55.Leaked concept art suggests that Kylo could wear a Vader-like mask, and have a Vader-like robotic hand.

56.That’s the lightsaber of a Sith. Crucially, though, he’s not called Darth. Is this film about Kylo earning the right to be called Darth [Insert Ominous Word Here]?

57.Then again, he could be an Inquisitor, a group of villains connected to the Sith. The first Inquisitor is currently being exquisitely evil in the animated series, Star Wars Rebels.

58.The lightsaber, or ‘broadsaber’, was an instant hit. A cruciform design, the hilt itself is made of light, making it a bugger to hold. Note also the jagged red blade. This is one angry laser sword.

59.Kylo is preparing for battle. But with whom? Is Mark Hamill’s Luke Skywalker about to enter the fray?

60.Rumours about the film’s plot have Luke removing himself from the Galactic fray following the events of Return Of The Jedi. Could it be that his return to action is the “awakening” referenced at the beginning of the trailer, and that Kylo could be about to hunt down the last remaining Jedi?

61.Kylo is stepping into a snowy forest clearing, but chances are he’s not on Hoth. A new planet?

62.The clip further suggests that Abrams is defi nitely ploughing his own stylistic furrow — the camera tracks with Ren as he heads into the wood.

63.That being said, there’s nary a lens fl are — one of Abrams’s favourite fl ourishes — to be seen.

64.Lightsaber ignited, the voiceover kicks back in: “The dark side…” intones Serkis… “and the light.”

65.And with that, an old friend returns. Hello, the Millennium Falcon, we’ve missed you.

66.The ship — which may not be piloted by Han Solo and Chewbacca at this point in the film — swoops and glides along sand dunes in the teaser’s most ostentatious shot…

67.Revealing that it’s engaging in battle with TIE fighters.

68.Which have had a colour inversion — black with grey accents/panels instead of the reverse.

69.Although this shot makes it look like the Falcon is performing all kinds of dexterous acts, clever online types have stabilised the shot, and therefore make it clear that it’s simply swooping down to the sand dunes, before fl ying along.

70.Most will assume this is the first glimpse of the Falcon since Return Of The Jedi, when it escaped the Death Star at the cost of one of its radar dishes.

71.Not so — George Lucas included the ship as an Easter egg in Revenge Of The Sith.

72.And that radar dish has since been replaced. It’s now square.

73.Note the contrails in the Falcon’s wake — a result of flying in a planetary atmosphere.

74.The music that greets the Falcon? You might just recognise it.

75.Otherwise, all the music in the trailer was composed for the trailer by John Williams himself.

76.Within hours of the teaser’s launch, there were numerous parodies doing the rounds.

77.There was a George Lucas Special Edition parody.

78.It got over nine million views alone.

79.Also a Wes Anderson parody and a LEGO version.

80.And a version that added Abrams-style lens flare to every shot.

81.Plus a Saturday Night Live parody, which hilariously pointed out that the leads from the original trilogy — Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher and Harrison Ford — are older now than they once were.

82.There’s even a lightzimmerframe joke.

83.Of course, this ignores the fact that Abrams withheld Han, Luke and Leia from the teaser trailer in the first place. An admirable sign of confidence.

84.But what’s this? There is a lightsaber sound at the very end of the teaser… it’s Luke’s saber from A New Hope.

85.This may not be an accident — early rumours about the film’s plot indicate that Luke’s lightsaber, which he lost when Vader cut off his hand during their clash in Cloud City, will play a crucial role.

86.The trailer was greeted with almost universal acclaim… “That Star Wars trailer gave me the tingles. So thrilled to see John Boyega in there.” — @edgarwright

87.Despite all that, George Lucas claims he still hasn’t seen it. “I like going to the movies and watching the whole thing there. I plan to see it when it’s released.” Get a move on, George.

88.Mark Hamill has recently revealed some interesting titbits: that the fi lm firmly focusses on the “current generation at the BB-8 droid is a real prop and not CGI. Coolness.

STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS IS OUT ON DECEMBER 17.

Please share if you like this article