My Thoughts on the 'Star Wars: The Last Jedi' Trailer

Hello, fellow moviegoers!

   In case you haven’t heard, the first official trailer for Star Wars: The Last Jedi premiered this weekend at Star Wars Celebration. For those of you who don’t know, Star Wars Celebration is a yearly convention in the vein of Comic-Con, except it is entirely Star Wars-centric. The convention is actually run by Disney and Lucasfilm, so there are often many major panels and announcements to be had. This year alone, there were panels about The Last Jedi (obviously), the show Star Wars: Rebels, the Star Wars: Battlefront video games, as well as individual events with Mark Hamill, Ray Park (Darth Maul), Ian McDiarmid, Anthony Daniels, and many more.
   The largest piece of news to come out of Celebration this weekend was the release of the first official trailer for the eighth episode of the Star Wars saga, The Last Jedi, and spoiler alert, Luke talks! Yes, Luke Skywalker has more lines in this trailer than he did in the entirety of Star Wars: The Force Awakens. It was a no-brainer that Lucasfilm would have Luke talk in this trailer because fans probably would’ve rioted if he didn’t at least have one line, especially since he was teased so heavily in Episode VII. Not only having Luke talk but narrate the entire trailer was a very smart play on Lucasfilm’s part.
   The elephant in the room with this trailer was Carrie Fisher’s once Princess now General Leia. After the unfortunate passing of Fisher in December, many were curious as to how her character would be handled in the film’s proceeding. Aside from one shot of her looking at a map, we don’t see her almost at all in this trailer. However, it was revealed this weekend that despite some earlier reports from the Fisher family, she will not be appearing in 2019’s Episode IX. There are many ways that Lucasfilm could move forward with the iconic Princess. They have already said that digitally recreating her à la what they did in Rogue One is off the table. So there are two options here, either they write the character out or they recast. Both of which are obviously not their first choice, but they’ll have to figure it out somehow. If it were up to me, I would have the character written out, because the idea of recasting Leia is something I’d rather not think about. Plus, imagine having to fill the shoes of Carrie Fisher, that’d be an enormously stressing task to any actress out there.
   Getting back to this trailer though, it was definitely a teaser. We didn’t see a whole lot of the film (Laura Dern and Benicio Del Toro’s new characters were both missing), but what we did see was very intriguing. We saw several shots of Rey training with Luke on the island from the end of The Force Awakens, and we once again got to see the new characters that we all fell in love with in Episode VII. Poe Dameron and BB-8 can both be seen in what appears to be an assault on a Resistance base, and we see the ex-Stormtrooper Finn noticeably still in a comatose state after his injuries he received courtesy of Kylo Ren, though this is probably temporarily at the beginning considering we have seen him up-and-about in other released images. It’s great to see all of these returning characters, and I’m extremely excited to see what direction they’ll go in. Hopefully, we’ll finally have an answer to that Rey Kenobi vs Rey Skywalker debate, and after the immense speculation from fans about an LGBT relationship between Finn and Poe, it’ll be interesting to see whether or not Disney will explore that or not.
   Now for what everyone has been talking about, the last spoken line of the trailer right before it cuts to the logo. We hear Luke say “I only know one truth. It’s time for the Jedi to end.” Fans have been speculating non-stop over the past couple days as to what this might mean. Has Luke given up? Has he turned to the dark side? Or is it something else? One theory that has gained some momentum is that Luke has turned into what is known as a Grey Jedi. A Grey Jedi is someone that taps into both the Light and the Dark Side of the Force in an attempt to achieve balance. This is an idea that has been explored upon in the show Star Wars: Rebels, and it’s a very likely possibility considering “balance” is something that is heavily featured earlier in the trailer and in the rest of the series as a whole. Frequently people in this galaxy say they need to “bring balance to the force” which means a balance of the Light and the Dark. The philosophy of a Grey Jedi is a very interesting way to go about this, and I’m personally hoping that is the route they decide to take it. 

​   So, what did you think of the first trailer for Star Wars: The Last Jedi? What you do think Luke means by “It’s time for the Jedi to End,”? Let me know by commenting on this post! Also, if you enjoyed this article, share it on Facebook and Twitter. It really helps! Don’t forget, I post every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, so check back then for more movie reviews and miscellaneous movie thoughts!
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