Howdy Amigos,

Hope you are all enjoying the Bank Holiday weekend!

As you all probably know,  the annual Star Wars Celebration event is now taking place at Orlando, and it is fast becoming a time when we fans can expect some exclusive looks at new films, books and other projects that The House Of The Mouse has up it’s sleeve. This year has been no different, with our first look at the latest movie dropping yesterday. It was indeed a Good Friday!

So, here’s Rich Reviews with his thoughts on what we saw and didn’t see and what we might expect from the upcoming movie:

“After the announcement that Disney would be purchasing the rights to the ‘Star Wars’ franchise from George Lucas, ‘Star Wars: Episode VII’ The Force Awakens was released on December 17th 2015.  Being a massive ‘Star Wars’ fan for all of my life and even going as far as naming my son Luca Sky after a certain famous Jedi, my views on ‘The Force Awakens’ were mixed. After the amazing trailers, I had been extremely excited, but after seeing the film, I felt that J J Abrams, although a good director, was better suited to the Star Trek universe that he had so successfully reinvigorated.  After hearing that Rian Johnson was slated to direct episode VIII I was somewhat relieved and excited that somebody else would take the helm from Abrams. I’ve been a fan of Rian Johnson’s film career since I first saw Brick in 2006 and then proceeded to watch any film he directed (which to be fair isn’t many) and also pray to the film gods that one day he would direct a ‘Cowboy Bebop’ live action movie.  This leads us to this weekend which is Star Wars celebration in Orlando. In a coincidence this also happens to be the 40th anniversary of ‘A New Hope’ and also the release of the teaser trailer for ‘Episode VIII The Last Jedi’ (the force moves in mysterious ways).

 

The trailer starts off with what looks like the skies of space but slowly comes into focus of Rey’s hand falling onto rocks and her breathing heavily. The LucasFilm  logo then fades onto screen in its glory just to remind you that this ain’t no joke. We hear what we assume to be Luke Skywalker’s voice guiding Rey to use the voice to feel the universe all around her, only to be told that everything she feels is so much bigger.  

 

  • A brief scene shows us Rey training on a mountain top with the Luke ROTJ green lightsaber while he observes. (Training is something we have never seen before in a Star Wars movie so this is something I am looking forward to)

 

From this trailer alone just from Luke’s voiceover we can definitely expect a very different Luke Skywalker from when we last left him dancing away to ewok pop songs after the battle of endor.  Even with the (spoiler) death of Han Solo in the last movie this trailer has a very somber feel to it with nothing looking like it may be going right with the new rebellion:

 

  • General Organa-Skywalker-Solo looking over some  star formations (Light)
  • A crushed Kylo Ren mask (Darkness)
  • A manuscript of some sort (Balance)

 

With trully epic music reaching high crescendos that we could only expect from John Williams and his orchestra we get a brief look at some new ships racing over a landscape while trailing red smoke, a close up of Finn being carted away in a capsule, Poe and BB8 running through a corridor only to see their X – Wing get blown up, the return of the millennium falcon taking out some TIE FIGHTERS.  The next scene begins to remind us why we are here and why the film has been named thus with a clip of a close up Rey running while holding a blue lightsaber (hopefully this means we will see the lightsaber construction trials that Jedis have to take), a close up of Kylo Ren still looking slightly upset while brandishing his red lightsaber, Luke falling to his knees beside Artto D2 while his new jedi order temple burns and sees Captain Phasma leading some stormtroopers through the fire.  A brief space battle can be seen and all the while these last few scenes are being played the final one is of Luke saying that the Jedi must end.

 

This trailer is perfect in which it sticks to what a teaser trailer is meant to do. It reintroduces us to characters we already know and tells us just enough to let us know that not only has time moved on for us but also for them and so we can expect some story arcs to be definitely moving forward. The decision to still not show Luke Skywalker had turned from annoyance to excitement and intrigue as he gives a voice over on what was originally his story that we all know and love.  The feel of the trailer has an Empire Strikes Back feel to it with the odds seeming to stacked up against our heroes which is something that I felt the Episode VII lacked but was brought back with ‘Rogue One: A Star Wars Story’.  I for one feel a bit more excited about the franchise that has dominated my life and cannot wait for next trailers to drop and then obviously the film to hit cinemas in December.

Rich Reviews.”

So, there you have it. As for me, i’m pumped and i’m sure the rest of you are too! We’ll be back with more content soon, in the mean time, enjoy your weekend!

Jason P.