Today the final Star Wars: The Force Awakens trailer was released on US television and uploaded simultaneously online. Advanced tickets also went on sale a day before. The trailer is 2 minutes and 35 seconds long and gives a lot of insight into content we haven’t seen before. So far, over 5 million people have watched the trailer at the time of writing and it has only been released for a few hours.
This trailer is filled with plot which raises many questions about the story. Who is the red lightsaber wielding Kylo Ren and what is his connection to Darth Vader? Maybe my readers know more about this and can inform us in the comment section. The character of actor John Boyega known as “Finn” is stranded hopeless and without a cause on the infinite sea of sand that is presumably either Tattooine or Jakku. This is also where the scavanger Rey played by Daisy Ridley happens to be daydreaming about adventure and intergalactic travel. It’s also where Han Solo’s Millennium Falcon is spotted flying over which seems to suggest our characters are destined to cross paths here. We know that Finn is later in the movie going to be wielding a lightsaber so we must assume that he will receive training in the ways of force after having left his past as a First Order storm trooper behind him. It makes sense that Luke Skywalker will be the one to teach this to our new padawan just like Yoda taught him in the swamps of Dagobah. It then also seems logical to think that Han Solo will be the man to help Finn find his teacher. Of course this is all just my speculations.
All the previous movies have included some sort of romantic aspect (first Anakin and Padmé Amidala then Han and Princess Leia). Unless this episode is going to go against the trend we can assume there will be a relationship developing between Rey and Finn.
I must confess I was not overly excited by this trailer. My main concerns for this movie are as follows:
The predictability of the plot seems disappointing as this trailer leaves us with our first impressions. We know there will be another Death Star, another Darth Vaderlike character and we can guess there will be another Yoda and a new padawan. There even seems to be a new supreme leader above Kylo Ren just like Emperor in previous episodes. This said I would love to go into that movie theater and be surprised by all the twists in the plot that I didn’t predict. Looking at the trailer however the plot seems to be lacking in my eyes.
My second concern is the development of the new characters and their stories. In creative writing we often discuss characters in the terms “flat” or “round”. Round characters are complex and will undergo a development throughout the story, sometimes so much that it will surprise the audience. Flat characters on the other hand are two-dimensional in that they are relatively uncomplicated and most importantly they do not change throughout the course of a story. As we are introduced to Finn and Rey in this final trailer we find that Rey seems to express feeling empty, unimportant and longing for adventure. Finn has lost his passion, his cause and his belief in what he is doing with his life. This seems to be a clear foundation for the building of flat characters. The movie seems to start presenting the individual struggles in these characters existence and is presumably going to end with Finn finding “a cause worth fighting for” and Rey exploring the galaxies and being someone of importance. If so this would not be a true change to the nature of the characters, it would only be a change in their circumstances. They remain fundamentally the same archetypes with the same aspirations, fears and desires. I could of course be completely wrong here, and god knows I hope I will be because there is nothing more dull than predictable and flat characters.
What are your predictions for the plot and the characters? Are you unimpressed by the trailer like me or are you excited by it? Let us know in the comment section below!
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