If the first trailer for The Last Jedi had been really epic, I might have broken out of our Easter weekend holiday to cover it. As it is though… the trailer was much, much too cryptic and obtuse. My assumption is that much like The Force Awakens was a retelling of A New Hope, The Last Jedi is sort of a retelling of The Empire Strikes Back. Meaning, Rey is the “Luke” figure of this new trilogy, and she spends much of the second movie “in training” as a Jedi, and Luke is the new Yoda or something. Anyway, here’s the trailer:
You know what this reminds me of? The fact that it probably would have been more interesting to do the movie about Luke as a Jedi School headmaster and see Ben as a young kid going berserk on everyone. I’m sure Disney is probably working on that too, The Luke Lost Years, but for now we just have to deal with Luke-as-Yoda. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed this and I’m totally going to see it. But it’s WAY too cryptic.
Mark Hamill has been talking a lot in the past week, and you can read some of his charming, mensch-y comments here at THR. He talks a lot about how much he loved Carrie Fisher. The Star Wars expo last week also did this really lovely tribute to her:
Photos courtesy of Disney/LucasFilm.
After i saw the Force Awakens I knew this new trilogy would be a ‘retelling’ of the original. Abrams did the same for the Star Trek movies.
I will def go and see if, even if it means putting up with Daisy’s constipated face for every emotions acting.
That poster is so f**king awesome. I want it on a t-shirt so I can wear it every day until the premiere.
As for the trailer…I didn’t love it when I first saw it. I didn’t get the same chills I did when I saw the trailer for TFA. But I’ve watched it now about 2,356,265 times and I feel better about it. Luke Skywalker was my first crush, is still my crush at age 37 and I can’t to see him back in this role.
As much as I liked the teaser, the shot of the ships flying across a white landscape towards what are clearly Imperial Walker-like vehicles on the horizon made me cringe. Plus a devastating attack on the Rebels…sorry, Resistance….plus the characters scattered and one off training with a mysterious Jedi master…..Gee….it’s almost like I’ve seen all of that before.
Remember when you made Rogue One and didn’t rehash the same plot points? Remember when it made a billion dollars and got good reviews? Sigh…I LIKE these characters but if this is another rehash I’m going to scream. Please prove me wrong and be original!!
LOVED rogue one, wish director krennic could be in this one. That boy knew how to work a cape *sigh*
Rogue One was great and added something to the story. This just feels like retelling with no real point (other than a money grab for the studios).
Everything you said Mia4s.
not really impressed with this trailer and not really impressed with the new trilogy so far. Hope this one does prove me wrong. I do have faith in Rian Johnson but I don’t know how much creative control he had here.
Rogue One has been the best of SW/Disney so far…because it filled in the story that impacted episodes 4-6.
Not looking forward to Young Han Solo. Would rather see a Bail Organa or Obi-Wan Kenobi movie.
On this Post thumbnail I gasped, God who put Amanda Knox on stars war poster .
Can not wait for the movie . The trailer was awesome
I saw it at Celebration and was totally underwhelmed but it was good to see Luke briefly. Mark seems to be stepping up for a lot of the promo like Harrison did for TFA. I will never complain about more Mark Hamill, he’s a gem.
Hamill’s got amazing charm so they’d be dumb not to use him (I hope they’re having to pay him a fortune), and his tribute to Carrie was wonderful.
It’s interesting that as successful as Force Awakens was they recognize that they cannot duplicate the impact of the original characters. That was a unique and special thing. The vibe really is “Luke! Look it’s Luke everybody! You love Luke!”. They say it’s “not Luke’s story anymore” and that may be true, but you can damn well bet they will market it as Luke’s story!
Yeah they will. The deafening cheers for the teaser were for Luke and him alone. I like the new characters but the original characters were lightening in a bottle. You can’t possibly capture that feeling twice. And I cannot imagine losing Luke and Leia in one movie so they better not! Do not touch Luke.
I think you can see from the trailer Mark Hamil will be the Yoda to Rey’s Luke Skywalker. The kung fu student finds her master – classic Chinese kung fu movie stuff with sci-fi thrown in! I think that explains SW’s success – western audiences don’t have that supernatural mythology.
Oh I get what you’re saying but I’ve seen that before when it was called The Empire Strikes Back. I don’t want a rehash of the OT. But the saving grace may be Luke isn’t Yoda by any stretch of the imagination. He’d jump into trouble with Rey if they keep him in character and don’t emo him up. So I’m hoping for a different way of training and master/padawan relationship, especially if Rey is who or what I think she is…
I’m thinking more Obi Wan and Anakin than Yoda and Luke with less being burned alive.
You mean Luke’s long lost daughter / Adam Driver’s cousin? The Obi Wan thing is more mentor than shifu/master, but the trailer seems to suggest she’s actually training on the isolated island with Skywalker. At end of first sequel she only just started discovering her talents. Also, the heroine-finds-herself theme often has the master expiring or going away in some way so the hero/heroine can become a fully fledged master in herself/himself. I’m guessing but my feeling is they will disappear or background Luke in some way after he’s fulfilled his “master” purpose in the plot because they want the focus on Rey as the key protagonist. Masters eventually retire in some way to give way to the disciple in this type of genre. But of course it’s just a guess.
Honestly I think Rey is like Anakin. She actually exhibits a lot of his abilities from Episode 1. Not that I 100% want or think this is true. It’s just a thought I had watching TFA. Plus Kylo, who is obsessed with his grandfather, would lose his mind if there was a chosen one that wasn’t him.
And Obi Wan did train Anakin and was his master but their relationship was different than that of Yoda/Luke or even Obi Wan/Qui Gon.
Sorry- giant SW nerd. 😊
Phew. I know I’m pregnant, but the tears with that tribute. Wow.
Shit Ripley, me too. Started a fountain but in my case maybe it’s menopause. 2016 really sucked. Carrie was a complex, wonderful, multifaceted, multitalented person and I loved that she showed her frailties in her monologues. What a relief in a world that seems to demand perfection all the damn time.
It’s funny. The opening scenes of the trailer, and presumably, were filmed very close to where I live. I can see some of it from my house. It’s very hard to take it seriously when you know what field it was filmed in.
Isn’t the concept of the last Jedi speaking more of Luke than any new characters? The dark and the light need to be in balance to maintain the force. Once the dark is eliminated, the light too has to end itself. Feels like a goodbye to Luke.
Either I’m getting old (or the currant administration is sucking the like out of me!) but I’m not as excited about this as I thought. I liked TFA well enough, but it was really just nostalgic fun, nothing new. I don’t want another rehash!
IDK, I enjoyed it and assume it was intentionally cryptic. I feel like this trailer, and the last 1 or 2 for TFA, did an outstanding job of building on excitement and anticipation without giving jack sh*t away. Which I think is actually a really effective marketing strategy. No one likes a movie where all the good parts are in the trailer
That Carrie Fisher tribute was just gut-wrenching.
The Last Jedi trailer was very, ho-hum, unlike the teasers for Force Awakens and Rogue One which made me want to see the films immediately. Heck, I got more excited about the Thor trailer, which wasn’t even something I was really looking forward to.
I LOVED the nostalgia+ storytelling in Force Awakens. It was completely entertaining, true to the franchise, genuinely moving and unique and well-acted enough to make all the winks and nods and outright copying of New Hope work. But I also feel strongly that now this film needs to go its own way. If they’re truly just going to re-do the whole original trilogy, there are big time diminishing returns with that idea.
😭😭😭 and further proof that life is cruel and unfair, no more Carrie Fisher, too much Darth Bigly.
I will fully admit that short of them deciding to bring Jar Jar Binks back to the big screen, there is little that will stop me from seeing the new movie.
And while I think the criticism of it being a rehash of the original movie (we’ll see what happens this time around) is legitimate, I still can’t entirely fault them for it. Lucas made a travesty of his own franchise with the prequels and I kind of looked at TFA as kind of a palette cleanser. In a way, they recreated the magic of the first trilogy for a new generation and stayed true to what fans love about it.
Yep am with you on that one. I just want to see more of Poe with the fabulous hair!
And Mark Hamill is kinda hot with that beard!
That Tribute video is everything. Sniff.
I think it’s very derivative of Asian mythologies and Hero with a Thousand Faces
(which George Lucas is a big fan of). George Lucas got a little away from all that in the three prequels, but JJ Abrams or whoever is overseeing the writing has gone back to the roots, which, if you’ve watched kung fu movies and know of kung fu classics (a genre equal to the British and European literary classics in cultural power for the Chinese-speaking world), you kind of recognise as very find-your-destiny-through-internal-powers kind of thing, but with sci-fi and science thrown in. My post is a rambling mess!
I don’t know where the inspiration for the Star Wars story comes from, but I wanted to note that the tropes you mention (secret destiny, hero’s journey, warrior training, etc.) are also pretty common tropes in western fantasy novels. Whatever the case may be for the original trilogy, western audiences have had a lot of exposure to supernatural mythology by this point. That’s why the story line strikes me as a bit dull, anyways. It’s like your basic fantasy novel set in a science fiction universe . .
Agree with you to an extent but the lightsabres training / tapping into the Force / using intuition to make moves is pure kung fu stuff. I don’t know where Lucas specifically got his inspiration but I think the themes are objectively speaking derivative of Asian mythologies – the “animistic” stuff isn’t really like Merlin or other western magical mythology but more kung fu-like, more spiritual, like being aligned with the Tao in Taoist thinking.
I see what you mean. The fighting/training does seem to show that influence. I mostly see The Force as the form magic takes in this particular universe, with a light and dark side that sets up the good vs evil theme.
Ditto on young Ben being the more interesting story here. Rey’s story is a bit meh so far, imo.
*Ren