A few years ago, I had a student whose ultimate fandom of choice was Star Wars. Sure, I like Star Wars too, but Lucasverse does fall behind Rowlingverse and Tolkienverse for me. This kid… he’s read all the books, whereas I’ve read a total of, well, none. He explained to me that (SPOILER ALERT), in those books, Luke Skywalker, the hero of Episodes IV through VI, his father’s savior in the Return of the Jedi, actually follows in his father’s former footsteps later in his life.
At first, this upset me, because I’ve always thought that in a classic “good versus evil” epic fantasy (or science fiction) story, the protagonist should always remain the good guy, the hero. But then, as I thought about it some more, I wondered what a movie based on this storyline might be like, and I realized that I need to see Mark Hamill playing an evil Luke, like, yesterday. Hamill, as you may already know, voiced The Joker brilliantly in Batman: The Animated Series in the 1990s.
As is also obvious to anyone with eyes, Hamill doesn’t look quite like he did the last time he played Luke, 32 years ago. A younger Skywalker would not be able to pull off evilness. An older Skywalker? Why, heck yes, I think he can. Granted, Mark’s face was not shown in the trailer (though we do get to see Harrison Ford as Han Solo!), but his voice was heard. His voice had a certain edge to it, as if he is hinting that the Luke Skywalker character is headed in that direction.
See (and listen) for yourselves! Watch the new The Force Awakens trailer below:
We hear Luke in voiceover narration throughout the trailer:
The force is strong in my family. My father has it. I have it. My sister has it. You have that power, too.
I’m assuming that the last line, which is the only line not spoken by Luke to Leia in Return of the Jedi is referring to (or rather spoken to) some Skywalker offspring. If anyone can confirm this for me, please comment below.
There are some awesome visuals in this trailer too. For one, seeing the Imperial Star Destroyer utterly, well, destroyed and in ruins in the deserts sands of Tatooine—or what I’m still assuming is Tatooine, unless it is a totally new planet—is really cool. Furthermore, seeing Darth Vader’s also destroyed mask sends chills down my spine. When Luke says his “sister has it”, we see a woman’s hand grasp a lightsaber. Does that mean that Carrie Fisher (Leia, Luke’s sister) is going to wield a lightsaber in this film, or is that some other woman’s hand? Frankly, I never thought I would see Yoda wield a lightsaber until I did, so I’ve learned to never be surprised by anything. I’m thinking it’s unlikely, but you never know.
And what’s with the sudden zoom during the Millennium Falcon chase scene? That’s twice now that the new Star Wars trailers have given me vertigo while watching the Falcon fly. I don’t know how I’m going to sit through a whole film!
What excited me most was seeing the Falcon’s pilots at the end of trailer. Han Solo says:
Chewie, we’re home.
And every fan let out a collective sigh, because it truly feels like we are all returning home. Not to the atrocities from the late nineties, but to the beloved original trilogy from the seventies and eighties. We’re finally going back home.
What did you think of the trailer? Share your thoughts about it in the comments!
