Star Wars: The Force Awakens teaser DROPS

What did I miss? Another week of teaser trailers from a beleaguered Hollywood, nigh a beleaguered world? The Star Wars trailer was delivered to us to on Friday from the Disney overlords.



John Boyega's gasping face shot from the Tunisian sands, his eyes searching for something the audience knows not. Did he crash here? Did he wake from a nightmare? Was he revived by someone or something (a droid, as the sound cue seems to suggest)? We do know he is wearing White storm-trooper gear (yes, White with a capital 'W'. That is real White. Not beige on your average crochet, box fan, or hell, cream-colored toilet). This is contrasted with the black of his skin, something Boyega told his critics to "get used to :)" [sic]. I find the contrast between the two a duality that our race-baited world is too afraid to speak of. Yes, his skin is black. Yes, his armor is white. Perhaps there is meaning to be found here. From early rumors, it appears Boyega's character is going to turn against whomever is in charge of the stormtroopers. Perhaps the contrast of 'black' and 'white' is a theme that the movie will hold from the original two trilogies. I can hope (probably quite safely).

Next...

We see a rapid succession of faces as a foreboding voice (Andy Serkis) soliloquys about the Dark and the Light. Cutesy droid bounds along the earth on a beach ball, discarded pod racer engines in the background. Daisy Ridley rides across a Sergio Leone landscape on a junkyard hover craft in the form of an ice cream bar. Oscar Isaac, inside a retro X-Wing, flies to battle over a misted lake. And then we see a hooded figure trample through a medieval wood, unleashing his tri-blade, red, as he halts. The narrator suddenly ends his philosophy over-speech with a husky, "... the light" and the Millennium Falcon zooms over a desert landscape (notice a pattern here?) avoiding Tie Fighter blasts. John Williams's score is constantly crescendoing and decrescendoing, and classic Star Wars droid, laser, and other noises are spaced throughout the teaser to give anyone who grew up with the films a nastalgia boner. It's also quite clear that most of these shots come early in the film on what looks to be Tatooine, a key location in many of George Lucas's original films.

I loved it.

I have been excited about the new Star Wars since, well, since Disney announced it was making a 2010's trilogy. I like Disney. I like that Star Wars is under the Disney banner.

It fits.

It just feels right, doesn't it?

And I love that Marvel (the house of ideas), Pixar, and Lucasfilm are under the same corporate umbrella. All that creative energy has to cross-pollinate. I think that's one of the many reasons why Disney is putting out good films like Wreck-It Ralph, Frozen, and Big Hero 6 in quick succession.

So yeah, I know I probably made you uncomfortable with my John Boyega comment. I honestly love the actor's work in Attack the Block and was excited to hear that he was in the new film. I like that he is black. It's about time a major Hollywood picture was led by someone who is. Not that I have some sort of social justice warrior thing going on, but I am excited to see a tent-pole feature that isn't brought to you by young, white hunk and bombshell 1 and 2. It's fresh, and I am excited.

The whole thing feels fresh and exciting for a 30 year-old franchise. I can't wait a year. I just can't.