Sky talkin'
I know why you opened this email. I’ll just let the trailer do the talking before I do:
First off, a tip of the hat to Disney, who probably goosed their ratings for “Monday Night Football” on a blowout Patriots win by making rabid “Star Wars” fans sit through a half of football before being able to watch this live.
Second, this final trailer for “Star Wars: Episode IX — Rise of Skywalker” looks a lot better than the teaser trailer released in April. Aesthetically, it looks like a good marriage between “The Force Awakens” and “The Last Jedi,” instead of the explicit “Force Awakens” callback from the teaser. That’s appropriate since the whole theme of this trailer (and, presumably, the movie) is about various factions from the series coming together to defeat evil.
Analyzing a “Star Wars” trailer is always a fool’s errand, especially when J.J. Abrams is involved. The man ain’t revealing anything until the time is right.
But it’s always fun to speculate.
‘People keep telling me they know me. No one does.’
For some reason, the intro music with the chimes reminds me of Christmas and the holidays. That has nothing to do with anything, it just made me feel all warm and fuzzy and anticipatory. (Come to think of it, maybe that’s the point.)
Here we see Rey (Daisey Ridley) coming to the end of her quest to fight for what’s right and to find out who she is. On the way, she has guidance from multiple voices through the Force — first with Luke Skywalker, then what sounds like Finn’s (John Boyega) voice (over a shot of Rose Tico! She’s back, ya jerks!), then Kylo Ren (Adam Diver), then evil, apparently eternal baddie Chancellor Palpatine AKA The Evil Emperor (Ian McDiarmid), then Luke again, and then…in a goosebump moment, Leia.
Throw in some cool lightsaber action, more Millennium Falcon, a touching moment from C-3PO (of all people), John Williams’ rousing score, a wild shot of Billy Dee Williams’ Lando Calrissian riding a tauntaun, a teasing Reylo moment and some ship ruins, and you’ve got yourself a final “Star Wars” trailer that gives away nothing but hits all the right nostalgic notes (seriously, that Threepio bit almost made me tear up at work. Almost. Then Carrie Fisher’s voice popped up and it was all over).
I’m really, really, really hoping the film’s subtitle is referring to a new classification of Jedi after the events of “Last Jedi,” where Luke found a way to channel both sides of the Force into something transcendent — no longer a binary good/bad, but something else entirely. A Skywalker Jedi.
Or it could be referring to the fact that Rey is Kylo’s long-lost sister and therefore both are baby Skywalkers, and we take this myth full circle. It’s J.J. Abrams, so both are equally possible!
But I already got my ticket to see it, so it worked, I guess. And at this point, you already know if you’re going to see this movie or not.
What did y’all think? Sound off in the comments.
