As I’m sure most of you have seen by now, last night a new ‘Star Wars: The Last Jedi’ trailer was released upon the world, packed full of new shots and story hints! As we’ve seen in previous trailers, they tend to have some misdirects, but here is our breakdown of what we think could be going on…
We open on Kylo Ren (Adam Driver), overlooking production on the First Order war machine, and then that war machine in full effect…
That’s a LOT of AT-ATs – or rather AT-M6 ‘gorilla walkers’ – storming what looks to be the planet Crait. That also looks to be Kylo Ren’s shuttle in the background. Cue the voice over from Supreme Leader Snoke (Andy Serkis) telling (we presume) Kylo, “When I found you, I saw WAR! Untamed power! And beyond that, something truly special.” This is intercut with some stunning images of Kylo leading a group of First Order troopers, in a shot which rather mirrors Vader entering the Jedi Temple on Coruscant. Next, we see the Vader fanboy in a very red room picking up his lightsaber. It looks similar to the one we saw him with last time, but darker and with a slightly different hilt, so it’s possible Ren has done some tinkering with it since ‘The Force Awakens’.
Next, we hop over to Ahch-To and catch up with Rey and Luke, starting with our newly force awoken girl turning on Luke’s old lightsaber.
“Something… inside me has always been there… Then I was awake, and I need help,” says Rey. There’s something about this that makes me feel it’s spliced together to remove parts of the sentence and obscure some important information. It’s implied this is Rey talking to Luke, but I’m not entirely sold on that idea. I think this could be a misdirect taken from another part of the film.
As we see in the next few shots, Rey is clearly extremely powerful in the force, leading Luke to say “I’ve seen this raw strength only once before. It didn’t scare me enough then. It does now!” It’s likely this is Kylo he’s talking about here not Vader, as he references “raw strength”. You can see by the look on Luke’s face, this terrifies him.
And given the next shot, you can see why…
That would seem to be Luke and R2-D2 overlooking the Knights Of Ren’s handy work destroying the Jedi Temple, or Luke’s Jedi school on Ahch-To.
The next shot, we’re back with Kylo Ren, staring at his helmet… get your minds out of the gutter! His voiceover comments “Let the past die”, as he smashes his headwear into a wall, which is quite intriguing. Is this one of Kylo’s normal temper tantrums, or is this him rejecting his dark path to follow in Vader’s footsteps?
We then see him take to space in his ‘TIE Silencer’ as the vo continues saying “kill it… if you have to. It’s the only way to become what you were meant to be.” followed by a shot of his mother, General Leia (the beloved, and ever missed Carrie Fisher.) This is set up to look as though Kylo/Ben is going to commit parricide for the second time, but again, this is probably set up as a misdirection. It’s also not clear who Kylo is saying this to, although signs later on in the trailer point at this possibly being Rey…
Never one to miss out on a marketing opportunity, there are some new little creatures who have seemed to have made their way onto the Millennium Falcon. These are ‘Porgs’, a seabird species native to the planet Ahch-To, and will probably be available in plushy form at your nearest Disney Store.
Next, we have Finn vs. Captain Phasma (Gwendoline Christie)… As John Boyega? says on his twitter account, “If you’ve ever had a crappy boss…You’ll wanna see this fight…”
Back to Luke, now looking rather wet, declaring “This is not going to go the way you think!” Is that him talking to Rey? Or is he facing off against his nephew Ben/Kylo?
Or this could be warning to the audience sneakily put in there by the editor as a hint about what’s to come. There has been a lot of discussion about whether Luke is still the beacon of light we knew from the original movies, or whether he has embraced the dark side of the force as well…
After a few more shots of all-out war, we come to see Snoke in the flesh for the first time as he is seemingly telling Rey to “Fulfil your destiny,” whilst force-choking, or rather force-bending the poor girl.
Either way, she doesn’t look happy about it! Then comes the final kicker…
“I need someone to show me my place in all this,” says Rey, but who is she talking too…
Oh dear… This can’t be good…
Don’t do it, Rey! That is, of course, if this isn’t another classic misdirect, where they’ve cut 2 separate scenes together to make it look like it’s Rey asking Kylo for help. It could also be that the tantrum we saw early was Kylo rejecting his dark side teaching and turning to light?
We shall see when ‘Star Wars: The Last Jedi’ comes to cinemas on the 15th December 2017. Book your tickets now!
