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Star Wars: The Force Awakens trailer - a classic recipe trailed subliminally across the taste buds Star Wars: The Force Awakens trailer - a classic recipe trailed across the taste buds
(3 days later)
“There has been an awakening — have you felt it?” A quick tantaliser of a feel is what we’re offered in this first teaser-trailer for Star Wars: The Force Awakens. A little way further into the trailer’s 90-second-odd running tiime, we hear the gnomic utterance: “The dark side. And the light….” It could be that those three statements on their own — together with the three glimpsed locations, desert, forest, skies — are a perfectly accurate summation of a tripartite storyline: the initial mysterious stirring, the midway plunge into narrative jeopardy, and then the emergence into happiness, probably clouded once more just before the final credits, to keep the larger narrative arc open.“There has been an awakening — have you felt it?” A quick tantaliser of a feel is what we’re offered in this first teaser-trailer for Star Wars: The Force Awakens. A little way further into the trailer’s 90-second-odd running tiime, we hear the gnomic utterance: “The dark side. And the light….” It could be that those three statements on their own — together with the three glimpsed locations, desert, forest, skies — are a perfectly accurate summation of a tripartite storyline: the initial mysterious stirring, the midway plunge into narrative jeopardy, and then the emergence into happiness, probably clouded once more just before the final credits, to keep the larger narrative arc open.
But is this trailer anything like an accurate representation of the film itself? Just watch that original, mystifying trailer for the first film in 1977, which is quite without John Williams’s joyous theme. It manages to make it look like a dark, disturbing picture like 2001 or Dark Star — the sort of sci-fi movie that was de rigueur in those days, and which Star Wars replaced.But is this trailer anything like an accurate representation of the film itself? Just watch that original, mystifying trailer for the first film in 1977, which is quite without John Williams’s joyous theme. It manages to make it look like a dark, disturbing picture like 2001 or Dark Star — the sort of sci-fi movie that was de rigueur in those days, and which Star Wars replaced.
The title plays on the current movie-franchise fashion for beginnings and origin myths, and it takes a fraction of a second to remember that this film is set 30 years after the end of Return of the Jedi.The title plays on the current movie-franchise fashion for beginnings and origin myths, and it takes a fraction of a second to remember that this film is set 30 years after the end of Return of the Jedi.
The very first image we see is a kind of a tabula rasa, a return to the original, a desert, like the one on Tatooine. John Boyega pops up, playing a stormtrooper: sweaty, panicky, missing his helmet. Has he been separated from his comrades, left behind enemy lines? It’s an intriguing and very human approach to the Star Wars infantry: and a potentially refreshing change from the visual emphasis on the endless serried CGI ranks in Attack of the Clones.The very first image we see is a kind of a tabula rasa, a return to the original, a desert, like the one on Tatooine. John Boyega pops up, playing a stormtrooper: sweaty, panicky, missing his helmet. Has he been separated from his comrades, left behind enemy lines? It’s an intriguing and very human approach to the Star Wars infantry: and a potentially refreshing change from the visual emphasis on the endless serried CGI ranks in Attack of the Clones.
A burbling droid sweeps from right to left, instantly bringing in the kind of scurrying, worrying, seriocomic robot-presence with which George Lucas brilliantly leavened the dramatic mix in the first three films. At once, Star Wars fans have the classic recipe trailed subliminally across their taste buds.A burbling droid sweeps from right to left, instantly bringing in the kind of scurrying, worrying, seriocomic robot-presence with which George Lucas brilliantly leavened the dramatic mix in the first three films. At once, Star Wars fans have the classic recipe trailed subliminally across their taste buds.
Then we see more stormtroopers, flown in on a night-time raid, evidently about to disembark into hostile territory: has the narrative order been juggled? Is this the operation from which Boyega has been calamitously detached? Or this the division moving in on a Saving-Private-Ryan type expedition to bring him back?Then we see more stormtroopers, flown in on a night-time raid, evidently about to disembark into hostile territory: has the narrative order been juggled? Is this the operation from which Boyega has been calamitously detached? Or this the division moving in on a Saving-Private-Ryan type expedition to bring him back?
Then Daisy Ridley appears in faintly Arabic dress — looking a little bit like TE Lawrence on his motorbike, zooming off feistily on a serviceable hovercraft, and thus establishing the important female presence: not decorative but boldly active. She is moving right to left, and in visual balance to that we see Oscar Isaac (recently the folk singer Llewyn Davis for the Coen brothers) flying in the opposite direction at the controls of an X-Wing starfighter — the design of which does not seem to have evolved much in three decades.Then Daisy Ridley appears in faintly Arabic dress — looking a little bit like TE Lawrence on his motorbike, zooming off feistily on a serviceable hovercraft, and thus establishing the important female presence: not decorative but boldly active. She is moving right to left, and in visual balance to that we see Oscar Isaac (recently the folk singer Llewyn Davis for the Coen brothers) flying in the opposite direction at the controls of an X-Wing starfighter — the design of which does not seem to have evolved much in three decades.
From here we are plunged into a wintry forest, which plays more on associations from the wildly popular Anglo fantasy myths of Hobbit, Game of Thrones and Harry Potter, with a dark Sith lord stalking fiercely away from camera. He is perhaps slightly injured, a semi-conscious link to the world of Darth Vader.From here we are plunged into a wintry forest, which plays more on associations from the wildly popular Anglo fantasy myths of Hobbit, Game of Thrones and Harry Potter, with a dark Sith lord stalking fiercely away from camera. He is perhaps slightly injured, a semi-conscious link to the world of Darth Vader.
Then, with an exhilarating whoosh, we shift to the blue empyrean, with a craft evidently looping the loop over those desert sands, and leaving us with the glorious sugar-rush of the Williams theme, the iconic title, yellow-on-black, enforcing the brand loyalty.Then, with an exhilarating whoosh, we shift to the blue empyrean, with a craft evidently looping the loop over those desert sands, and leaving us with the glorious sugar-rush of the Williams theme, the iconic title, yellow-on-black, enforcing the brand loyalty.
Insofar as it is possible to tell anything at all from this impressionistic splurge, it looks as if director JJ Abrams wishes to return to the verities of character and story and to move away from the inert digital gigantism of the last decade’s prequel-trilogy whose masses of pointless minor characters seemed to be there simply to sell action figures.Insofar as it is possible to tell anything at all from this impressionistic splurge, it looks as if director JJ Abrams wishes to return to the verities of character and story and to move away from the inert digital gigantism of the last decade’s prequel-trilogy whose masses of pointless minor characters seemed to be there simply to sell action figures.
These are quick bites from the action sequences. The trailer can’t or won’t give away any of the dialogue and doesn’t allow us to test the all-important humour quotient or romantic interest. So are we going to get it in 3D? In recent years, it’s been assumed that flight sequences can’t really be shown any other way, although Christopher Nolan did without it for Interstellar.These are quick bites from the action sequences. The trailer can’t or won’t give away any of the dialogue and doesn’t allow us to test the all-important humour quotient or romantic interest. So are we going to get it in 3D? In recent years, it’s been assumed that flight sequences can’t really be shown any other way, although Christopher Nolan did without it for Interstellar.
The scene is set for a revitalised Star Wars, after that long, pointless and calamitously misjudged prequel detour. Provisionally speaking … I’m on board.The scene is set for a revitalised Star Wars, after that long, pointless and calamitously misjudged prequel detour. Provisionally speaking … I’m on board.