The Last Jedi: Teaser Trailer Breakdown + Rian Johnson on the Planet Crait
The first trailer for The Last Jedi is finally here! Check it out below followed by our complete breakdown, including screenshots.
The trailer starts like every Star Wars movie starts – with a star field. The stars fade out and reveal that we are actually looking at a rock, we see Rey’s hand come down on the rock, she is on the ground gasping for air, then the Lucasfilm logo, and we hear Luke (FINALLY!):
“Breathe…..just breathe. Now reach out. What do you see?”
We see two shots of Ahch-To.
There are rocks swirling around Rey’s hand. She speaks:
“Light” (image of Leia from behind). Is that the map to Luke from TFA?
“Darkness” (image of Kylo Ren’s destroyed mask, we hear Vader’s breathing)
“A balance” (light shining on old books). The books are surrounded by something that looks like wood.
Between the teaser poster Johnson just revealed at the panel, and now this as our intro to launch the trailers, this movie seems to be entering a new tone for Star Wars, where the lines between light and dark are blurred more than ever. Rey sees the light with Leia, she sees the darkness with Kylo Ren and Vader’s legacy looming, and says “a balance.”
While she says light we hear a whisper in the background:
Princess Leia: “Help me Obi Wan” (0:47)
Obi Wan: “Seduced by the dark side” (0:54)
Yoda: “Surrounds us” (0:59)
The books appear to be sitting in tree roots, which might be the roots of that Rebel symbol looking tree we’ve seen on Ach-To in previously released set photos.
We also see a book with a symbol that looks like the symbol used to depict the Jedi Order. Obviously this symbol will be important since it’s also depicted in the newly released teaser poster.
Luke – “It’s so much bigger”
Thank to Cantina member AngelEyes here’s a great shot of the Journal of the Whills:
So there is definitely a chance that we see it implemented in the story. The Journal of the Whills was a journal that referenced the Jedi. A verse within the journal labeled 7:477 contained a poem concerning the dark side and the light side of The Force.
“First comes the day
Then comes the night.
After the darkness
Shines through the light.
The difference, they say,
Is only made right
By the resolving of gray
Through refined Jedi sight.”
―Journal of the Whills, 7:477
We then see a montage of action shots, here’s a breakdown:
- Rey practicing with the lightsaber with Luke watching.
- New Resistance/Republic fighters screaming towards approaching First Order walkers on what looks like a very dry, rock based, dehydrated planet, which has a strange red soil. It’s significance is unclear but it surely looks beautiful.
You probably remember the leaked image from a set located in Bolivia with the same ship:
Also EW spoke with director Rian Johnson, who revealed some interesting bits about this new planet, which name was confirmed to be Crait (first revealed by MSW):
It’s way out there. It’s uncharted. It’s a mineral planet and so there are mines on it.
According to Johnson, Crait is the site of an “an old rebel base there that’s now abandoned” and the planet was one of the first things he had in mind when planning The Last Jedi.
“It ends up playing a key role in the movie,” he says, adding that the Resistance fighters — flying in the skimmers seen in the trailer — “show up where they have to deal with a very pressing and immediate.”
- Finn resting in a healing chamber, likely where we first see him at the beginning of the film. Could this be the now super famous Bio-Hexacrypt? 🙂
- Poe and BB-8 running down a hallway (a Mon Calamari on the right), then towards his black X-Wing when an explosion seemingly engulfs it. What’s interesting is the very next shot is the Millennium Falcon shooting down and outrunning TIE Fighters. I think Poe Dameron is going to take over the Falcon!
- Rey sprinting with her lightsaber
- Kylo Ren pointing his lightsaber, a massive fire burns behind him. His right eye is scarred (from Rey in TFA) so this is present time, he still has his same rickety red saber, and he may use his mask/helmet less often.
- Luke with R2 watching something burn. This looks a lot like the shot from Rey’s vision when Luke put his hand on R2 with a fire off screen. Perhaps this is a flashback to the moment The Knights of Ren destroyed Luke’s new Jedi Academy? Or maybe Rey’s vision was seeing the future and this event is happening in The Last Jedi!
- Captain Phasma marches in with several First Order stormtroopers. This seems like a hanger of some sorts. Perhaps the same place where Poe’s X-Wing got destroyed.
- We see stationary resistance ships set up above a planet, which looks a lot like Ach-To. A-Wings and X-Wings go flying by into battle.
Luke gives us the last line:
“I only know one truth, it’s time for the Jedi to end.”
If you lighten the image you will see a similar texture with the shot with the books. So this could really be inside the Force Tree.
Now Star Wars trailers haven’t always been chronologically accurate, to keep us wolves at bay, so it’s possible Luke says this early on and is convinced otherwise later. Time will tell.
What do you think of our breakdown? What else do you see in the trailer? Sound off below, let’s dissect this thing to it’s roots, to it’s rebel symbol shaped tree roots! I absolutely loved it, and I am sure you did to! The Force is with us all today!
“For my ally is the Force, and a powerful ally it is.”
Twitter: @JohnnyHoey
John Hoey is the Lead Editor and Senior Writer for Star Wars News Net and the host of The Resistance Broadcast podcast
"For my ally is the Force, and a powerful ally it is."
If that line about the Jedi ending(in a film called the last Jedi) is a fake out I will be very grumpy.
To me it sounds like two different lines spliced together. Listen to the atmospherics on both lines, and the tone of voice. The first section is definitely Mark Hamill, but the second section….?
You thinking snoke?
I’m not sure. Maybe it’s Luke. I just know that Rian Johnson likes to mess with us psychologically…
Well they did pull a major fakeout with Finn being a Jedi or Kylo/Phasma being competent.
Lol. That’s true.
What about Kylo Ren’s crushed helmet in beginning shots?
The book is the Journal of The Whills.
You’re right it totally is. I’m really excited to see how they fit into everything.
How do you know it is the Journal of the Whills ?
Correction: It LOOKS like the Journal of The Whills.
Why would Poe take over the Falcon? I think it’s Rey or Chewie flying in that scene. As far as the Falcon is concerned, I’m pretty sure it belongs to Rey and Chewbacca now. After all, Han offered her the job in TFA, so Chewie may honor that.
Yeah I agree, Poe strikes me as a X-wing (or similar) kind of guy. I don’t think flying the Falcon would be his style.
Me too. Can’t see why the Falcon would go to Poe. And honestly, I don’t see why it would go to Rey either. If it goes to anyone, it should go to Chewie. He’s the one that spent decades as Han’s friend and co-pilot – I think Han would want him to have it. Sure, Rey was talented and charming and cute, but she just barely met the whole gang. It also didn’t totally sit well with me that Rey was the one to go to Ach-To at the end of TFA to meet with Luke. So Leia was like – “Well, he’s my brother, my own flesh and blood, and I’ve been looking for him for years – but you’re a sweet kid and I’ve known you for 5 minutes, why don’t you go talk to him instead of me.” WTF?
The answer to your WTF?-question is the entire movie.
Well, if that’s the case it was poorly conceived and executed – unless the sequels can make sense of these storytelling decisions.
There’s nothing to clarify on that particular regard: the New Republic just got basically annihilated and, while Leia sent her “most daring pilot” to retrieve Luke’s whereabouts, this girl risked her life and actually managed to find the map and bring it back.
The point I’m trying to make is that, if you are Leia, in a situation like that, from both a political and a military point of view, it doesn’t make sense to personally go after (a remote chance to find) your brother or to send other pilots or soldier to find him – especially if you have someone like Rey who CAN’T be of any help with the political/military aftermath of the destruction of the Hosnian system but CAN fly a ship to a remote planet.
And this is just based on the info we got, on what we see – going into “head-canon”, into things we can assume even if they are not directly shown, the ‘reason why’ could get even stronger (but I generally don’t like to use head-canon).
Had things gone your way, the REAL question would be “How comes that Leia, a General AND a leading political figure, suddenly drops everything – in the middle of the worst crisis immaginable – to chase after a piece of intel that maybe, or maybe not, could lead her to her brother?”
Let’s be honest, it was the scenario that was most convenient for the finale of the film – for passing the baton from the “older” generation (Luke), to the “younger” generation (Rey). I would argue that finding the last remaining Jedi in the entire galaxy would be of great importance to Leia and the Resistance (they imply as much during the course of the movie). Even Snoke is terrified of Luke coming back and wants him dead. So you send a “scout” or someone to go check it out – what if that scout (in this case Rey) finds Luke and goes back to Leia to say “hey, he really is there.” Luke obviously doesn’t want to be found, so in the interim he could bolt Ach-To and go hide out somewhere else before Leia could show up to talk to him. And this is Luke and Leia we’re talking about here – twin siblings with Force powers that are 2 of the most important characters in the entire Star Wars saga, and Leia doesn’t have time to go check it out? She and Han (who was dead at this point) would be the 2 people in the galaxy most likely to be able to do so, not some strange girl that he’s never met before (as far as we know so far, I admit). I just thought it was a huge stretch and was done so they could end the movie in a pseudo-epic manner with the old master being introduced to the new young hero, logic be damned. Now if Leia had gone with Rey and Chewie, I would have found that more believable – but I’m assuming that didn’t fit what Abrams and Kasdan wanted to do.
I’m assuming that – if that were the case (Leia with Rey and Chewie) – we would be dealing with endless hordes of SW “fans” complying that it was out of character, for someone who always put the fight against the Empire/FO before anything else, to drop everything in the middle of such chaos to personally search for Luke without even knowing if she would actually find him, there.
You know what’s curious, though? In the late ’70s/early ’80s, almost no one thought about complaining that the Rebel Alliance let a farmboy, with zero military experience or training, be a part of their most important attack.
What I’m getting at, is that – sometimes – SW fans really, really like to create problem for themselves where there are none.
Mounting an attack against impossible odds when you are majorly outgunned/outnumbered and including any competent pilot who can fog a mirror is one thing – trying to find your long lost brother who’s been missing for years and could be the key to resolving major strife in the galaxy due to his unique and exception abilities (i.e. The Force) is something else. Leia is Luke’s sister. They are blood. It makes no sense to me that Rey would go to him and Leia would stay home. None whatsoever. Sorry, I just can’t see the logic, other than to keep Leia out of the way in order to further push Rey as the new hero. If it were my family, I wouldn’t just sit on my hands and send someone else that I barely knew – literally for less than a couple of days.
Now you are using your head-canon, to the point where you are talking about what YOU would do. Which is fine, I’m not saying that’s bullshit – all I mean is that, going by the same logic, we can sit here and poke holes in the “logic” of each and every SW movie (and, really, of any blockbuster movie ever).
I could write that you are right, those ARE two different things – allowing an inexperienced pilot to take part on a mission means putting the whole team at risk, because now they have to worry not just about the enemy, but of whatever mistake the farmboy can make. Or, I could take a different road and speculate that, Leia being Force sensitive, she felt “something Force-connected” with Rey and that’s the reason why she sent her. And so on and so forth. But this kind of nitpicking crap is not the point of this movies 🙂
I’m not quite sure what “head-canon” is. I assume it’s the story one would make up in one’s mind to make themselves satisfied. I think one can still be critical of a story and not be guilty of trying to change the story to his/her liking. I’m just trying to express how I don’t understand some of the actions taken by the characters in TFA. Obviously they don’t have to react how I would, but in this case I believe it seems out of character and out of the spirit that we’ve seen before. Remember in Empire how Luke abandoned his training with Yoda to go to the aid of his friends Han and Leia, even though Yoda and Obi-Wan pleaded with him not to go? Luke was adamant that “they were his friends and he had to help them.” For the most part, I liked TFA. But there’s a few things about it that bug me. This is one of them. I honestly can’t relate to the decision of Leia to stay home and let a practical stranger go and try to bring her brother back. I’ve acknowledged that maybe this will be addressed in the next movie(s) and all will be made clear, but for now it doesn’t seem to jive with the Star Wars we’ve seen before. That’s my opinion.
Sure – I’m not saying you should change it, either. I’m just tryin’ to offer you a different perspective, the purpose of which is, mostly, to help you enjoying TFA (and, possibly, the new movies) more 🙂
30-something years have passed, for these characters, since TESB. People changes, in 30 years.
Maybe you’re right. Maybe I just have to look at it “from a certain point of view.”
The only thing that makes even a little bit of sense is something you touched on – that Leia “felt” something through the Force about Rey and sent her to Luke, believing that this unknown girl might somehow pull Luke out of his isolation – possibly more successfully than Leia could herself. It’s a big risk for an important leader like Leia to take on an essentially unknown girl, but it seems possible. The galaxy is at stake here though, so if that’s the case Leia is really rolling the dice…
Well, if I managed to give you a POV that can work for you, I’m definitely satisfied 🙂
Given that every ship he flies seems to get blown up, I hope not!
i only know one truth.. that’s not luke’s voice.
What isn’t Luke’s voice? the last line? Because it most definitely is Luke speaking.
No it’s the Joker 😉
Lol i guess that’s another truth also
No, he means just the part that says I only know one truth. That sounds like Kylo’s voice not Luke’s.
I just checked the italian version of the trailer, the whole line is Luke’s.
Where’s the Italian version? How would it give away who’s saying what?
You can find it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHanxElimZQ
The actor doing the voice over for Luke, at the beginning, is the same one at the end – you can hear it even more clearly because they have to re-arrange the sentence to make it work in italian so there is less of a pause.
(please, don’t mind the quality of the voice over, it makes my ears effin’ bleed).
It’s shaping up like Finn and Poe don’t meet up with Rey at all in the film :/
Could the tree on the island be one of the Jedi Temple trees that Luke took in the shattered empire comic?
Also, it’s Obi-Wan saying “Seduced by the dark side” after vader breathing. I did some audio tweaking on it.
Listen carefully to voice speaking the final lines – “I only know one truth… It’s time for the Jedi to end.” The first segment is clearly Mark Hamill. But the second part sounds a bit different… perhaps it’s actually Benicio Del Toro?
Del Toro is playing a character on the casino planet. Not likely to have anything to do with Luke or the Jedi.
Perhaps…
Yoda had alot of gambling debt which passed to Luke.
It was probally Luke who burned down the New Jedi Temple for the insurance.
If you listen carefully, you would hear it is Mark Hamill.
I thought the opposite. Sounded to me like “I know one truth” was maybe Kylo. And “Its time for the Jedi to end” sounded like Hamill. Maybe just me.
Ooo. The staff!
When? Where?
Left to Luke in the last image.
I really hope this new AT-AT vs. speeder type vehicle battle isn’t too much like the battle of hoth. That sequence is so genius that it should never be replicated, especially after we just got the greatest hits in TFA.
Nice work, I’m still underwhelmed by it though and less of a ST fan than a spinoff fan at this point. I think a big reason why is that the old EU proved how there is not much story after Jedi no matter what direction they go in or at least not ones worth telling.
I’m calling it now that IX will end on a unresolved cliffhanger seeing as how the next trilogy is all but confirmed, Unlike III or VI prepare for a very unsatisfying ending to the ST.
But Snarkums, you said Johnson couldn’t possibly disappoint you or anyone else.
The next trilogy is not all but confirmed. It hasn’t been confirmed at all, it’s being discussed.
I’m not shocked to have you here saying how terrible everything will be in the future.
You were wrong about VII and Rogue One.
We’ll wait to see if you’re wrong about this too. Don’t worry, I’ll still be here to remind you how your predictions went sour.
I do remember a lot of people saying in Rian we trust and how horrible JJ Abrams is as well as Colin Trevorrow.
It will be interesting to see how they view Rian after this movie if it doesn’t live up to everybody’s expectations.
Trust me, if you dial back December/January 2016, Snark here was the biggest culprit.
On every thread.
I think it mind end in a manner to that of RotS. We might get a conclusion to the evolution of the Jedi, as I don’t believe in my heart Disney/Lucasfilm will drop the Jedi. But a new menace might appear at the end.
This is laughably wrong
Who’s hand is touching the book? It looks like they have like a glove on? Would that be Rey? or possibly Snoke or Tel Toro?
Could be Luke. It’s been reported that in The Last Jedi he goes back to wearing a glove on his robotic hand.
Don’t know if anyone else has mentioned it but there is the sound of a lightsaber igniting right after the shot with the hand on the book.
At the very end of the trailer, during the logo, the music turns into the sidious/snoke theme. if you listen closely.
Which means nothing b/c the people making the trailer don’t know the plot. As we saw in Rogue One.
I found it interesting that there was absolutely no shot from the Dubrovnik scenes
I wish there was far more of Finn in the trailer. He may be the key for the Jedi to rediscover the pure Light.
I am pretty sure we’re going to get something new to replace the Jedi altogether.
uhm… Rey?
luke is force choking rey on the first shot!!
Dude that’s h0t.
Daddy
And that’s when Rey finds out her parentage.
Wouldn’t she be clutching her throat with her hands if he was?
Hopefully now people can accept that it IS Luke saying the final line…THE WHOLE LINE. ya know…now that Mark actually said it was him…but if you listen with ear buds, take one out, raise the treble and drop the bass you can totally tell it’s Rodney Dangerfield saying the jedi must end part
This is an amazing plot line:
In the scene Luke tells Rey that the Jedi Council became “arrogant” and that they were hiding a “secret,” which led to their demise. The old Jedi master takes Rey’s hand and shows her a glimpse into the past. They see two children playing near a tree on an alien planet. The boy noticed that he had greater strength and intuition when he was closer to this tree. The girl noticed that the tree also made her brother increasingly angry. One day an argument breaks out between the children, and the boy kills the girl. The boy touches the tree and is “transformed,”. He kills his parents and leaves the planet. Meanwhile the girl is revealed to be alive, transformed by the tree as well, using her power to start the first Jedi Order.
The girl explains how The Force can be used for both good and evil. She tells her followers that one day she would return as either a boy or a girl, and that they should train this child. Luke tells Rey that the Jedi Order had been searching for The One (reincarnation of the original founder of the Jedi) for a millennia. When they found Anakin Skywalker and thought that he would bring balance to The Force, the Jedi were “deceived” and the Clone Wars were the result. The scene also shows Rey’s parents, and Luke is not the father. Luke tells her how she was identified as strong with The Force, and how she was supposed to begin her training, but never reached her destination for an unknown reason. In the scene Luke gives Rey a choice, and she has till sunset to make it.
http://www.cinemablend.com/news/1525430/star-wars-new-rumored-episode-8-scene-sounds-like-pure-madness
My take on this:
If Rey is not a Skywalker her role as a reincarnation of an ancient prophecy to uphold the “the chosen one” myth would be representative of an “Avatar : The Last Airbender” theme ( Cartoon not the movie ) this would bring a conclusion to the Skywalker saga and justify their purpose of bringing a balance to the force…guiding and training the chosen one to restore the the Jedi Order
This plot piece would also serve to re-affirm the prequel trilogy as an homage to, the lack of a better word, the ignorance of Jedi Order in the prequels.
Finally, from a franchise and money-making aspect it sets up a continuous series of Star Wars episodes 10-12 of the trials and tribulations of Rey to establish a New Jedi Order.
This may be completely fake…but it’s a refreshing take on the Skywalker Saga and their ultimate purpose of being the guardians of a new Jedi Order…for the next generation of actors to takeover.
The Tree is the shape of the Jedi Crest which evolved into the rebellion emblem https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/2ccebf468bb0bc839688a3605c3d0c6aa0397bc32f7dab85c08c93b2f1db0c76.png
Maybe one of the books is the journal of Obi-Wan that Luke’s been reading in the Marvel series.
I have to wait till December to watch the entire trailer !! This sucks !
The most intriguing shot for me is the very first one — I didn’t expect such a level of distress after (what looks like) a few mere minutes since we last saw Rey with Luke.
Would it contradict anything established in recent canon (time-wise) for Rey to recognize Luke as her father, but not realize until now that her dad was in fact the guy she heard about in myth & legend? Maybe I’m just watching to much of ‘The Americans’ (great show btw), but I’m theorizing that maybe he was present in her early childhood, but never revealed his true identity in order to protect her, and then had to disappear in a drastic manner. They do act out that final scene in TFA as if they both recognize each other.
You would think that once she discovered that the mythological Luke was real in TFA, she might have at least googled what he looked like… but maybe not? If the recent books/comics/canon-whatever contradict any of this, I’ll toss it.
One thing’s for sure though — a two-year cliffhanger is really fucking sadistic.
If this one does turn out to be a remake of TESB, he will probably reveal it to her in the third act.
Looks great. So does this one come after the one where they find Earth and have the flying bikes? Is Starbuck a man or a woman in this version?
This is the one where they fight Batman.
It’s Luke saying “I only know one truth”, but it’s Benicio Del Toro saying “It’s time for the Jedi to end”…
you can see Lukes mouth moving saying “to end”
Mark Hamill has confirmed the voice is his
I thought this as well!
The shot of the falcon is of it (escaping?) Ach-to I think, not Poe. Look at the surface of the planet
When the word December is shown a snippet of Plagueis’s theme is playing.
That’s not his theme. That’s the music of the opera they are watching.
Anyone know what those red markings on the book are? It’s not aurabesh, though they look like the markings near the cockpit of a Naboo starfighter.
Considering the Whills are back in canon, I think it’s very possible this is part of that journal, or something similar, like Obi-Wan’s journal. Would be a nice way to incorporate something from the comics without people needing to read all the backstories.
I just had a thought. That aircraft flying over the salt flats toward the walkers – the one that bounces off the ground – is it possible Finn is flying that ship? Maybe Poe has been teaching Finn how to fly and he’s still a bit raw. Seems a bit of a clumsy maneuver for an experienced pilot – that’s what made me think it could be Finn behind the controls. Just a thought…
This teaser left me with such a weird feeling, not a happy hype feeling like the second teaser for TFA did.
It’s almost designed to make you feel sad and worried.
Pretty underwhelming teaser. Not even close to being on par with the excitement the TFA teasers brought upon me. However I am really ok with that. The TFA trailers were better than the actual movie so if TLJ trailers are just ok but the movie delivers I will be a very happy man.