Hey everyone, Jack Drees here! Yesterday I just got an alert of some big movie news, which is the release of the all new Last Jedi trailer. Right now Star Wars Celebration is happening, it just premiered there on Friday, it was uploaded to the Internet around the same time, and I click on one of the videos showing the trailer just 6 minutes after it was uploaded. I’ll be completely honest, this is one of those trailers that I want to review right away, but I felt that I couldn’t because I still needed to process everything. Do I love it? Do I hate it? Do I think it is mediocre? I mean, to start off, it looked cool and I thought there was gonna be some cool fights in the movie, but I wasn’t entirely sure how I felt about it. Now that I have had a day to process my thoughts, I felt I should make this post before it gets washed up in obscurity.

So the trailer starts off fading up from black, then all of a sudden Rey appears. There are two things that come to mind when I see this. First off, Rey is training to improve her skills as a Jedi, she appears exhausted from strenuous work. Or the second possibility, and to me this seems much more likely than the first, Rey has had a force vision and it was a rather unfortunate one. Remember how in “The Empire Strikes Back” Luke had one too when he was training where he saw a sad future for Han and Leia? Maybe Rey has experienced something similar to this. Perhaps it may apply to Finn. Although this thought, kind of worries me, and this will apply to a future paragraph in this post.

Next up, we have the Lucasfilm logo appear, then when it disappears, Luke is saying “Breathe. Just breathe.” Interestingly enough, that could increase the possibility of the first thought I had towards the scene in the previous paragraph. Throughout this moment, we get some shots of the island where the end of “The Force Awakens” took place, which just looks beautiful. If there is one thing I admire about various “Star Wars” films, it’s the locations the crew chooses to shoot the movies. We also get a shot of Rey in front of the water, standing on the cliff of the island, which looks cool, but kind of reminds me of the beginning of the “Justice League” trailer that just came out not too long ago. Luke continues on saying “Now, reach out, what do you see?” This increases my second thought of being correct because, well, you know, force visions, seeing, get it?

Next up we get a shot where a map is shown, quite possibly the map that was missing a piece in “The Force Awakens,” and it seems that Leia is in front of it, by the way, RIP Carrie Fisher. I really want to know how Leia’s role is going to play out in this film now that Carrie Fisher is dead, a part of me hopes this doesn’t bring some sort of cliffhanger that must be resolved in “Star Wars Episode IX” because chances are that they’re probably they’re gonna have to find someone to bring in and they’re gonna have to CGI old Carrie Fisher’s face onto this person. And based on the reactions to CGI Tarkin and CGI Leia in “Rogue One,” I wonder if something like that would end up getting a similar reaction. Want to know my two cents about it? I thought it was fine, I mean, CGI Tarkin was more noticeable the second time I watched it, but CGI Leia looked OK to me in that movie.

Going back to dialogue, it’s around this time where Rey replies to Luke saying what she sees. She replies, “Light, darkness, the balance.” Luke then says “It’s so much bigger.” With what Rey just said, I don’t know if you guys noticed this, but I heard these random tidbits of words being uttered, you could BARELY hear them, I don’t know how many people heard this during their first time watching this, something comes out of someone’s mouth just before Rey says “Light.” I think it is Rey saying, “You.” Then it continuous on, right before Rey says “darkness,” somebody, presumably Kylo Ren, says something, but it ends with “the dark side.” To further my point, we get a shot that shows what seems to be Kylo Ren’s helmet on the ground. After that, I’m hearing more stuff, it doesn’t really sound like words at this point though, just before Rey says “the balance.” At this point, we get a shot of what seems to be a Jedi related book of some kind. Once again, all of this may be supporting my force vision theory. When Luke says his words, we get a shot featuring Rey and Luke, Rey is moving her lightsaber around, while Luke is just standing still watching her.

Then we get a shot of some ships in a location we haven’t seen before, which looks like the lightest desert I’ve ever seen in my life. In the distance, it almost looks like there are some AT-ATs. So I guess maybe that this is the Hoth battle on a desert? One funny thought I had in mind is, what if this is Hoth and it melted? This movie takes place 3 decades after “Return of the Jedi,” but what if Hoth, at some point between the original trilogy and this movie, had melted? Like, global warming style, although much faster than it would be on Earth, I wonder how that even would be practical, but still, it’s just a funny thought I had in mind.

Then we get a shot of Finn, he has his eyes closed, he’s still in the previous state we saw him since the end of the last movie. And if you’re wondering if he’ll actually do something in this movie, John Boyega says he will. I wouldn’t be surprised if he wakes up at one point and we see him in action somewhere, despite how he wasn’t exactly a master at it in “The Force Awakens.” Plus there’s gonna be a whole toy line released based on this movie months before it comes out, and the packaging for the toys are gonna contain an image with Rey, Poe, and Finn on it.

You’ve also got a shot of Poe and BB-8 quickly moving through a hallway, then the next shot shows an explosion, I’m not sure what exactly is receiving the explosion, but the explosion looks like it is growing and moving towards Poe’s X-Wing ship, which can’t be all that good. These shots, for what I know, seem to be displayed during the same scenario, but aren’t right next to each other in the movie’s runtime.

Afterwards we get our first shot of the Millennium Falcon in this trailer. It’s being chased by some TIE Fighters, while at the same time, it just took one out. I wonder who’s in the Millennium Falcon, it might be Chewbacca. After all, when Rey was going to the island where Luke was in the last movie, Chewie was in the Falcon with her, so this assumption might make sense.

 

Then we get a shot of Rey running with her lightsaber on, her face is almost a silhouette, which then cuts to Kylo Ren, and just look at him, he has a scar now. Just goes to show you, lightsaber duels can do some rough things to you. I wonder if he’ll even wear his mask anymore throughout this movie, or even the series for that matter. Although before we get to that shot, Luke starts saying, “I only know one truth,” which ends at a shot of R2 standing alongside someone, maybe Chewbacca or possibly a new character, right in front of a burning building. If I had to guess, I’m assuming that’s a base. We then get some more cool shots, including our first look at Captain Phasma, which means she made it through the trash compactor, then we get a space battle that looks sick, then all of sudden the trailer cuts to black. Luke then finishes his quote, he says “it’s time for the Jedi, to end. We then see Luke not really looking like the most optimistic or happiest person in the universe, then we get a look at our red title. When Luke says that it is time for the Jedi to end, that is kind of what is making me confused. Why should they end? Does Luke think it is time for darkness to consume the universe? Is there a better light title to be determined than a Jedi? What does this mean? Besides, if it is time for the Jedi to end, why do we even see Rey training in the first place? Although I will say, she did seem to know some Jedi skills in the previous film, I heard she learned a bit about the art of the Jedi in some Star Wars book. I don’t know, I feel like I’m digressing.

At the beginning of this I mentioned the force vision possibility, and how I view it as worrisome. Why do I feel this way you ask? Because I feel like this movie is just going to rip off “The Empire Strikes Back.” Granted, “The Force Awakens” ripped off the original “Star Wars” film, but I thought that was justified, because the intention was to pay homage to “A New Hope,” while at the same time giving people something they haven’t seen before. I thought that was masterfully done and pretty reasonable because there were some people who loved the original trilogy but hated the prequel trilogy, and this was essentially a reminder that “Star Wars” was gonna go back to the way things were without as much CGI and all of that stuff. Although if this rips off Empire, I’m gonna take some points off of the movie’s score when I see it. If Rey’s hand gets cut off, then I’m probably gonna lose it, maybe not, we’ll have to see what happens.

Well, that’s the first trailer for “Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi,” I didn’t get the same feeling for this trailer that I got after watching the trailer for “The Force Awakens,” I couldn’t wait for “The Force Awakens,” this trailer, got me somewhat excited in various ways, but in some ways, made me fearful for how the movie will be as a whole. I probably will go see this movie the day it comes out, after all I don’t want any spoilers, but I don’t think this will be as good as “The Force Awakens.” If there’s one thing I like about this film, it seems to hide a bunch of key plot elements, much like the trailers for “The Force Awakens.” Will this movie be good? Hopefully, but there’s no guarantee. Thanks for reading guys, be sure to keep your eyes open because pretty soon I’m gonna review “The Fate of the Furious,” I’m also gonna possibly review “Mission Control: The Unsung Heroes of Apollo,” and maybe one more movie next week, depending on what happens. Stay tuned for all of that coming soon, and I just want to know, what are your thoughts on “The Last Jedi” teaser? Also, are you at Star Wars Celebration? How is it? Did you see the trailer there? Let me know! Scene Before is your click to the flicks!