What the new Star Wars trailer tells you about the film

Last night a special event took place. After nine years an icon returned. After nine years we were witness to the new trailer of Star Wars movie. In this case, it is JJ Abrams’ Star Wars: The Force Awakens. From what we know so far, it is going to be a sequel to the original trilogy and the story will surely be after the Return of the Jedi. The movie will feature legendary actors from the original series — Harrison Ford, Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher among a host of new actors who will make a new generation of Jedi and Sith.

But what did we actually see in the new trailer that tells us what to expect from the movie?

The fact of the matter is not much. This is only the first sneak peek into the Star Wars Episode 7: The Force Awakens. We are in December 2014, the movie will release exactly a year from now. However, we still get a glimpse of a few things.

1) Firstly, going by the trailer we can expect Tatooine, the desert planet to make a return. For the uninitiated, it is the home planet of Anakin Skywalker and after he turned to the dark side in the Revenge of the Sith, it became the home planet of Luke Skywalker. In fact, going by the trailer, it could be a major setting for the movie. Three of the six Star Wars movies have featured Tatooine as a major setting — Star Wars: A new hope, Star Wars: A phantom menace, and Star Wars: The attack of the clones, so this was on expected lines.

2) The stormtroopers make a return. After the death of Darth Sidious aka Emperor Palpatine, one does not know if they are stormtroopers or Clones, but hey they are still there, we just don’t know what they are called. In fact, in the first glimpse we see there is a black dude who is in a stormtrooper suit, which clearly is not keeping in with what a stormtrooper is. The Clones (played by Tamura Morrison in the prequel trilogy) were rechristened stormtroopers by Darth Sidious after he ordered the execution of the Jedi order. They were clones of the Mandalorian mercenary Jango Fett, who was the father of Boba Fett, the ruthless mercenary Darth Vader had hired to capture Luke Skywalker in the Empire Strikes Back. 

3) The biggest giveaway that this is a throwback to George Lucas’ original trilogy, is the Millennium Falcon. Yes, Han Solo’s (played by Harrison Ford) space ship. So clearly, old habits die hard, and frankly we are glad.

4) The dark side of the force as always is alive and kicking. While we did not get to see who exactly is the new villain, but we did manage to see his badass new lightsaber. It is an all new design, which has a light beam pulsating horizontally from its grip, in addition to the deadly vertical beam. In the prequel trilogy, Lucas had a penchant for showing new lightsaber styles. The double bladed lightsaber of Darth Maul, the walking stick lightsaber of Count Dooku and the lightsaber of Chancellor Palpatine aka Darth Sidious are good examples.

5) There is a war going on. We just don’t know the participants. We see fighter crafts, rebels, stormtroopers, a dark side lightsaber wielding Sith lord, the Millennium Falcon and even Tatooine.