The first trailer for Star Wars: The Last Jedi is here, and it’s fantastic. It’s also full of hints, Easter eggs, clues, and telling omissions. Here’s what we can glean from the first trailer.
Rey Is The Last Jedi, Or At Least Luke Hopes
The trailer is built around Rey training to be a Jedi, including the classic technique of lifting some rocks:
And training in using the lightsaber by the sea:
And we hear Luke walk Rey through training, having her reach out with her mind, including an interesting shot laid over that dialogue that we’ll get to in a minute. But the most telling line comes from the last shot in the trailer, where Luke states: “It’s time for the Jedi to end.” Speaking of which…
Luke And Phasma Have Bad, Bad Blood
If you think back to The Force Awakens, there was a shot of Luke touching R2-D2 with his robotic hand. And it looks like The Last Jedi will get into that… and also that a certain Captain Phasma was somehow involved, since she’s marching out of the flames of what appears to be a Jedi temple.
This seems to tie in, somehow, to this shelf of burned books, likely what Luke rescued from the fire:
The Rumored Title ‘The Fall Of The Resistance’ Is Probably Accurate
You might remember that a while back, The Last Jedi supposedly was titled “The Fall Of The Resistance.” Well, we only get two shots of Poe, who’s reunited with BB-8, but they’re pretty grim ones that seem to indicate that the First Order, or whatever’s left of it, makes a pre-emptive strike:
This is paired with a huge space battle over a planet with TIE fighters weaving in and out of Resistance ships, so it’s safe to assume that at the very least, the Resistance is getting some payback from the First Order.
Kylo Ren Is Not Having A Good Time
We don’t see much of Kylo, but we do get a couple of telling moments, like his most prized possession being a smashed, smoking ruin:
And Kylo himself only turns up in one shot, waving his hooptysaber around. Is he out of favor, after he got his butt so thoroughly kicked in The Force Awakens?
We Finally Meet Laura Dern’s Character… Or Not {UPDATE}
Meet Laura Dern’s hairstyle!
This is likely the rumored Admiral Holdo, an obstreperous bureaucrat and potential hindrance to our heroes. She’s also likely got her hands full, what with the seat of the Republic being destroyed, so it might simply be she’s got no patience for hippies. Also of interest; Rey and Holdo are lit and shot the same way in two separate shots in the trailer. A possible hint about Rey’s parentage, perhaps?
(UPDATE: So it turns out this is Leia, instead:
https://twitter.com/CinematicEX/status/852904652458819584
We’ll just have to see what Dern’s character looks like later on.)
What’s Finn Up To?
We don’t see a lot of Finn in this trailer: Just him in sickbay and a shot of the Millennium Falcon doing what it does best.
But, of course, that’s no guarantee that Finn is flying it. Especially as, earlier in the panel, it was hinted that Kelly Marie Tran’s Rose has a role to play with Finn and Poe. Which leads us to the big question…
So Where Is Everybody?
What’s interesting is what’s missing in this trailer. Chewie and C3-PO aren’t seen. Rose, a major character in the movie, isn’t in the trailer at all. Maz Kanata is unseen. Benicio Del Toro has a character that we haven’t seen yet. We’re glad the trailer isn’t giving anything away, mind you, but it does raise the intriguing question of just where all these people are and what they’re doing while these battles are unfolding. And finally there’s this riddle…
The AT-ATs Are Back. But Who’s Fighting Them?
Look in the distance of this set of shots, and you’ll see these junker hydrofoil-type ships are going up against some AT-ATs.
But where is this? Who’s fighting them? And why is the Empire sending in the Walkers? We’ll just have to wait until Christmas to find out.
