Tales of a Caffeine Junkie: April 2015

Hey there Geeks! Are you geeking out over the new Star Wars trailer as much as I am? I hope so. After the first teaser trailer came out, I was hesitant to let myself get too excited, but this one…I couldn’t convince myself to not get excited. So let’s look at this thing shot by shot so that maybe you can understand why my geek meter is spiking at off the chart levels, shall we?

Maybe it was the atmosphere in which it was introduced…presented in the context of all the new info we got at the Force Awakens panel, but something about this was amped up. So we open on a desert planet we learned is not Tatooine. It is Jakuu (I may be misspelling that).

And as the camera pans across the desert we see a downed X-wing, which I admittedly missed first time watching.

But behind that X-wing there is a downed Star Destroyer. Which begins to make me wonder what this universe is like 30 years post-fall of the Empire. There was an interesting question to JJ Abrams during the panel about what the world was going to be like. What the mix between the shiny world pre-Empire we saw in the prequel trilogy and the dusty dirty Rebellion world we saw in the original trilogy. The rubble still there 30 years later suggests to me that things may not be better.

Luke is doing voice over at this point (at least we assume it’s Luke…I think it does sound an awful lot like Mark Hamill) talking about how “the Force runs strong” in his family. His father has it.

Now I think this is a very interesting choice of words. I don’t know what they mean. But he says has. Not Had. Has. Perhaps they were just trying to stay with the original wording of this line (Luke says the exact same thing to Leia in Return of the Jedi when he reveals that they are brother and sister). But I don’t think JJ Abrams does anything on accident. I believe that Anakin is dead. But it is still odd to me that Luke would say has, not had, when he father has been dead for 30 years and he burned his remains. (Unless of course they’re taking from the Hand of Thrawn books and have cloned him…wouldn’t that be something).

“I have it.” Luke continues and we are met with a shot of a hooded figure we assume is Luke based on the robot hand, which looks like it’s a little worse for the wear, missing the flesh covering it had in Return of the Jedi and looking more like the mechanical arm Anakin received at the end of Attack of the Clones. But the presence of R2-D2 makes me believe that this is Luke. At first watch, they want you to believe that this is a volcanic planet, but I actually think it’s more of a campfire. Either Luke is living on Jakuu or he has returned to Tatooine and is living the life Old Ben used to live.

”My Sister has it. You have that power too.” Luke continues and this is one of the most interesting shots in the trailer for me. Because they want you to believe this is Leia. But unless this is a flashback…the hands on the right are not old enough to be Carrie Fisher’s hands. But I do believe the hands on the left to be Daisy Ridley, whose character Rey we learned during the panel is an independent woman who is a scavenger on Jakuu. I’m still holding out hope that she is also a Skywalker (well, Leia’s daughter). She looks enough like Natalie Portman that I will be terribly disappointed if she isn’t.

Next shot. We are treated to some footage of the new X-wings and Poe Dameron as pilot. It was said in the panel that a certain princess has sent him on a mission. I suppose it is possible he is the Skywalker child. But given the backstory we had on Daisy Ridley’s character, she just seems the more likely candidate in this typical story.

Again we see the world’s most ridiculous lightsabre design.

And then Rey and Finn are running away from something exploding. I think this actually comes after a later shot in the trailer. In the panel they said that Rey meeting Finn on Jakuu is what kind of kickstarts her story.

Also, I couldn’t help but think of another Star Wars outfit when I saw this full shot of Rey’s costume:

I still say this is Adam Driver’s character. Because the only other cast members are ladies. And it doesn’t look like a lady’s body to me. Maybe I’m wrong. I wouldn’t mind being wrong (GIRL POWER).

This is an interesting shot I didn’t notice in detail when I was first watching. This appears to be the Empire. I mean, I know it’s the Empire, storm troopers, but look at the stage. There are still ranks amongst the Empire. The Empire isn’t dead. But I also don’t think the Empire is necessarily beaten down. And are they based on Hoth?

Tell me she doesn’t resemble Natalie Portman. Do it. I dare you.

The shots before this one are actually pretty interesting. It appears that TIE fighters are firing on other TIE fighters. And right before Finn removed his helmet, there was a bloody handprint on it. If I had to hazard a guess, Finn is about to defect. Wind up on Jakuu. Meet Rey. Set things in motion.