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No need to freeze-frame the newStar Wars: The Force Awakenstrailer.
Fasten your goggles against the dust.
After all these months, we finally see her ply her trade on the scorched land of Jakku.
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It’s unclear if she’s searching for something specific, or just exploring.
It doesn’t seem that she has a specific mission in mind.
Sometimes, a person is just a wanderer.
For the lucky, adventure finds them.
And Rey answers dolefully: “I’m no one.”
That’s the central question of this trailer, and maybe the movie: Who are you?
What do you stand for?
Most important of all who standswithyou?
She and BB-8 walk (and roll) toward the horizon.
A team is forming.
Maybe you could call it a found family.
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Rey watches a distant starship rise up from Jakku and enter the atmosphere.
At least one member of these ranks is not comfortable with his mission.
Rey is alone in a sandy wasteland.
John Boyega’s Finn is alone amid thousands of brethren.
But I’ve got nothing to fight for."
He’s searching for purpose, and his line suggests something heartbreaking: a child soldier.
Someone raised only to fight, and die.
Or, as Rey might put it: “No one.”
Now it’s clear: Finn is aboard that ship.
He must be a pretty good pilot to survive a crash landing like that.
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Another homage to Luke Skywalker and his twin suns.
Finn surveys a small village below a ridge on Jakku.
It’s notable for being so … not notable.
Or is it what’s left of a town?
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A third piece of this new family has been found.
Rey and Finn’s few lines underscore a kind of existential crisis, Who am I?
What is my purpose?
It’s clear that the heroes ofThe Force Awakensdon’t consider themselves heroes.
They still have something to prove, if only to themselves.
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Adam Driver’s villainous Kylo Ren is not someone facing a crisis of identity or conscience.
Here we see him standing upon the deck of a heavy-duty starship, bathed in Sith-red light.
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Ren’s own mask appears to have seen some action.
It’s dented along the mouthpiece.
“Nothing will stand in our way,” he says to Darth Vader’s scorched mask.
“I will finish what you started.”
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Clearly, Kylo Ren is seeking some kind of connection.
He’s just looking in the damn wrong places.
(It’s never a good thing to spend too much time talking to inanimate objects, son.)
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Here he comes face-to-mask with a real-life human.
Remember Vader interrogating Princess Leia in the original film?
This scene doesn’t appear to cut away when the torture begins.
you could bet the Resistance pilot is feeling the Force and not the nice side of it.
That tan jacket we see Finn sporting on Jakku was originally Dameron’s.
So they definitely crossed paths.
What we don’t know: Who’s at the controls?
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It has to be Han at the controls, right?
Nobody else could thread that needle.
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They apparently know something about his past, even if they don’t know him.
The Dark Side, the Jedi … “Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid.”
History has been passed on as legend, as folktale.
And that means the Force isn’t something that everyone can feel.
Maybe that’s why the “awakening” of the title is so significant.
For most, the Force is a myth.
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One of the film’s major battle sequences.
As this shot pivots we see a full squadron of X-Wings skimming the surface of this world’s waters.
We don’t know where it is, but there’s something about it that seems familiar.
If it is the same place, it looks pretty ragged.
“I will finish what you started,” he vowed earlier in the trailer.
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This is the shot that makes me wonder about Finn and Poe’s history.
Poe claps him on the shoulder with a smile, but Finn looks distressed.
That encounter with Kylo Ren, that scream.
What if Finn is freaked outbecausePoe doesn’t appear to know him, but should.
How deep can a murderous arsonist go?
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Here is perhaps the most mysterious and distressing scene of the trailer.
Rey is crying, and that is somebody’s body on the ground in front of her.
The thing I can’t tell for sure is …
Does that look like fur to you on the right?
Let out a Wookiee roar if you’re starting to get nervous for Chewbacca.
(And that “fur” is just shrubbery in the background.)
EIther way, somebody’s going to hurt someone.
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“Heyyyyy, MACARENA!”
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(Sorry, this one was just for fun.
It looks like they get away from whatever is threatening them just in time.)
Chewie seems chill, though.
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One of those times when it’s bad to be on the outside of the X-Wing.
Hang tight, BB-8!
Listening again, it sounds more like Leia.
But the nurturing voice of this woman suggests there may be some Force sensitivity in her.
“Just let it in,” she whispers.
“Who are you?”
is the question, and Rey says: “I’m no one.”
The only thing missing here is Mark Hamill’s Luke Skywalker.
But we don’t hear him.
And we definitely don’t see him.
But we see these two, and that counts for a lot.
The look on both their faces says: “I know.”
Kylo Ren sparks his red crossguard saber.
We don’t see the blades clash, but we know we’re going to.
It’s a perfect ending to a trailer brimming with emotion.
Without a doubt, Finn has finally discovered something worth fighting for.
