On Monday night, Disney/Lucasfilm and J.J. Abrams broke the internet with the premiere of the third and final Star Wars: The Force Awakens trailer. Our Jedi Council takes one last look back, and discusses our favorite scene…or scenes from that breathtaking theatrical cut.
David (Razor) Harris: I have always been drawn to the Force (side) of Star Wars, and so in each film, I usually gravitate to the Jedi and the Sith. However, in The Force Awakens, we don’t actually have Sith (strictly speaking) and Luke Skywalker seems to be MIA. But if you pay attention, there still is a heavy influence of the Force, throughout each trailer, and it’s even, mentioned by name — by Maz Kanata — in this particular trailer.
It would be easy for me to choose Kylo Ren’s scene as my favorite, I mean…afterall, I am a Sith at heart, but I am a little more interested in his order, the Knights of Ren, and I believe we saw a glimpse of them in the trailer. J.J. Abrams has stated that Ren is not Kylo’s last name, but the name of the order to which he belongs, and ever since that quote, I have been waiting for a glimpse of this mysterious group.
From that first shot, it seems as if the Knights of Ren — along with Kylo — have just laid waste to a large group of living beings. They definitely look ominous enough to be the big-bads of this new film.
One thing is clear from these shots, is that if this is in fact the Knight’s of Ren, then they don’t all use lightsabers…which I find extremely interesting. This trailer did exactly what it was supposed to do, and that was to make me want more, without revealing too much about this film itself. It’s going to be a long 50+ days until the premiere.
Elaine Tveit: As with many Star Wars, there are so many high points in the new The Force Awakens trailer, it’s difficult to choose just one. I love the music, the focus on Rey, the shot of Han and Leia hugging (be still, my beating heart!), just to name a few. But I’ve chosen to highlight what I think will be one of many standout moments in the film: The lightsaber battle between Finn and Kylo Ren.
In a podcast I was on recently, one of the things I said I wanted to see in the new trailer was a lightsaber fight, and (miraculously) I got that. Well, the beginning of one, at least. And what a fight it promises to be! You can tell, though, it’s most likely going to be one-sided. The moment Kylo lifts up his crackling broadsaber, Finn’s face goes from faltering confidence to, “What the heck have I gotten myself into?!”
Unless Kylo’s lightsaber abilities are just as fledgling as Finn’s, I think the match will be a short one.
One thing I’m looking forward to in this battle is seeing what Kylo’s fighting style is like. With a radical new lightsaber design such as the broadsaber necessarily comes a new form of fighting. It’ll be interesting to see if it’s slow and restrained like the forms in the original trilogy, or more fast and fluid the way Jedi and Sith fought in the prequel trilogy.
Regardless, we can assume that, if Kylo was able to construct his own lightsaber, he must know how to use it. The question then becomes: Did someone train him to make a lightsaber, and consequently how to fight with it? If so, could that someone be Supreme Leader Snoke, who, much like Luke Skywalker, has remained conspicuously absent in the trailers and marketing for The Force Awakens?
So many questions, just from one sequence.
Ani Bundel: That hug. That hug that brought tears to the eyes of Star Wars fans around the world.
In the second trailer for The Force Awakens, the moment that caused the massive freakout among fans of the original series was the ending, where Han walked into the frame, grizzled and old now, and sighing “Chewy, we’re home.” But home where? And what happened to them? And perhaps most importantly, for all of us left hanging when the Expanded universe removed The Counrtship of Princess Leia from the cannon, along with Jacen and Jaina was this: if you’re only just coming home now, does that mean you guys haven’t been together this whole time?
Many of us (well, ok, me) are still worried about this, even though signs suggest that Rey (and her lack of last name) and Kylo Ren could in fact be the next set of Skywalker force-blessed twins, one dark, one light. But there’s one thing we can stop worrying about. This between Han and leia may have gone south at some point, and from all accounts when we see them 30 yearsd later, they’ve been estranged for a long time. But the flame is still their, and like many star crossed lovers who cannot make it work in the day to day, in those emotional moments of need, they are there for each other.
I want to know so many things about this moment. What happened? Why, after all these years, are we seeing Leia, who has always been the pillar of strength, breaking down now? We have 53 more days until we find out. But until then, i’m holding up this moment of the trailer in hope.
Michael Valverde: Watching the third trailer, I noticed that I have gravitated myself toward Kylo Ren. It is easy to do, there isn’t much of the way of bad guys being highlighted, and I am not a proponent of those on the light side. The first moments we see Ren is him standing at the head of the ship looking out the window. Interesting here is that the end of Revenge of the Sith, Vader and Emperor is looking out of the ship window, and the same for Empire Strikes back, this time it’s Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia.
Kylo Ren speaks as the camera zooms up on him, and he states: “Nothing will stand in our way. I will…finish…what you started.” Wow! Is that a lot of information in just a few seconds of dialogue. Many questions raised in my mind and by breaking it down, and what it truly means, could be very important to the story, or it also could mean very little.
The first question is who is Kylo Ren speaking to or about? For instance did the editor splice it in for trailer purposes or is it occurring on actual time? Does this arrive at the end of the movie, to grab our attention for the sequel? We speculate Darth Vader, but maybe its Supreme Leader Snoke? In any sense, it seems as though he is speaking to someone who is higher up in the hierarchy and Ren has a job to do.
Ren states: “nothing will stand in our way.” Has he been deflected off a certain plan? Is it possible that Rey or Finn was turning to the dark side and it Han Solo interfered, or perhaps Luke Skywalker prevented the course of action? It appears as though whatever course of action Ren and the mysterious being had, was interrupted, and they are back on course.
Ren states: “I will finish what you started.” Besides being efficient, Ren is determined to complete the road traveled. Anytime you have someone as “kickass” as Kylo Ren appears to be, the last thing anyone would want is for him to have the determination of nothing stopping his progress. He will maim, kill, manipulate or force toss someone off a building to get what he desires. The only issue is will we find out in the Force Awakens or sequel what this all means, my vote is we find out on December 18th.