“Chewie, we’re home.”
Han Solo and Chewbacca returned and Luke Skywalker narrated the second teaser trailer for the hotly-anticipated seventh installment of the ‘Star Wars’ series, titled ‘The Force Awakens.’
Director J.J. Abrams, Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy and several members of the film’s cast were on stage at Star Wars Celebration in Anaheim, Calif. on Thursday to unveil the footage.
The trailer runs 1:40 and reveals several striking new images from the film, including a first glimpse at Harrison Ford as an aging Han Solo. Mark Hamill’s Luke Skywalker speaks through part of the trailer, repeating a string of dialogue from “Return of the Jedi.”
The trailer opens with footage of a speeder racing across a desert. The camera pans across the horizon, following the speeder as it approaches the massive wreckage of an Imperial Star Destroyer half-buried in the sand. A wrecked X-wing fighter is also visible.
Abrams revealed ahead of the trailer that this planet will be called Jakku, and is not Luke Skywalker’s home planet of Tatooine.
“The Force is strong in my family,” Luke’s voiceover says, as the camera goes dark and fades up on an image of Darth Vader’s helmet. The helmet is half-melted and disfigured, like a skull. “My father has it,” Luke says.
The next shot shows what appears to be Luke with his metal hand, shrouded and crouching beside R2-D2. Luke reaches up and touches the droid with his robot hand. “I have it,” he says.
“My sister has it,” he says next, as small hands pass a lightsaber to someone mostly hidden from view. The hands look like they belong to Daisy Ridley’s character, Rey.
“You have that power, too,” Luke says.
The trailer speeds up after that, flashing footage of Oscar Isaac’s character leading a squad of X-wings over a river, followed by images of Daisy Ridley and John Boyega running away from an exploding village on the desert planet.
It also offers a few more glimpses of the mysterious red lightsaber-wielding villain from the first trailer. The villain’s “face” is shown to be covered by a sinister-looking black-and-chrome mask.
The trailer offers several glimpses of the newly-designed Imperial stormtroopers and TIE fighters, along with a more sinister-looking silver stormtrooper wearing a black cloak.
It wraps up with more of the TIE fighter-Millennium Falcon chase shown at the end of the first trailer, as the Falcon flies into the wreckage of a ruined Star Destroyer.
Ford’s Han Solo appears at the end, standing beside Chewbacca (Peter Mayhew) onboard the Falcon. “Chewie, we’re home,” Solo says.
Original cast members Hamill, Mayhew and Carrie Fisher (Princess Leia) were on stage at Star Wars Celebration for the unveil, along with newcomers John Boyega, Oscaar Isaac and Daisy Ridley.
Boyega, Isaac and Ridley all offered brief descriptions of their roles in the film. Boyega admitted his character, Finn, will be a stormtrooper, while Ridley said her Rey is a fiercely “self-sufficient” scavenger. Isaac said his character, Poe Dameron, is an X-wing pilot “on a mission” from Princess Leia.
The film is slated for release in December.
