#anyway it’s almost summer which means it’s time for a rewatch and subsequent posting about all my faves again

[the-woman-upstairs]

Challengers, but for middle-aged spies:

[officialdeathbycinema]

Star Wars Official Trailer Analysis

OK! So i've watched...and re-watched...and rewatched...and analyzed this two and a half minute piece of cinema hypeness, and i've a few things to say if you don't mind...well, I really don't care if you do mind or not because it's 2:10 in the morning and i've been trying to bring my thoughts together on not only a trailer, but two movies as well, so fight me.

So we open to see an Imperial Officer looking silhouette staring at an assembly line. This could be Ben Solo, but for all intents and purposes, i'm going to assume this is the previously unseen "Rose" character, only officially depicted in Funko Pop! form. I'm honestly kinda interested to see what we see in this character, considering she's been so prominently featured in toy sales but no real promotional material for the movie itself (As i'm typing this however, I looked back and it really is just Ben).

Six seconds in and we transition, the change in scenery accompanied by Ces- I mean Snoke's voice over towards Ben, giving the audience a taste of what we have in store when it comes to the new Emperor-type Big Bad. We see a bunch of AT-M6 Walkers in a line for a span of three seconds, which then transitions into an overhead location shot of what i'm going to assume is Snoke's actual lair, which we see Ben and a good number of troopers walking in formation, presumably on the way to see the Supreme Leader (HA, Rocky and Bullwinkle reference!) at thirteen seconds in. Then a profile shot of Ben with his helmet on at fourteen seconds, which leads into him reaching down and picking up a new saber. This being essentially the same saber design, only sleeker, blacker, and more refined.

After that, a few seconds of black, followed by the blasting sound of a saber igniting and we see Rey on Ahch-To. We're gonna skip ahead to thirty-five seconds in, and watch Luke Skywalker take back his saber from Rey. But at thirty-eight seconds, we hear Rey say the line "Something inside me has always been there." Ok, that's a pretty cut and paste line, so i'll move on because that's probably one of the least interesting things to talk about in this trailer. Forty-one seconds into the trailer and Rey is entering the temple tree, where the books are held. Now in the first trailer we saw the insignia of the "Grey Jedi". Think of them as the agnostics of the Star Wars universe. That's obviously an oversimplification, but we can get to that topic later. Maybe when the films come out, but later. Forty-seven seconds in and she's training with a saber, and I'm really wanting to assume she's been here for a few months, and not just a week or two after the first film when this scene plays out (*cough cough, make Rey not a Mary-Sue anymore cough cough*). The force is apparently so strong with Rey that she can make the ground crack beneath her, which prompts Luke to say, in my opinion, a very interesting line.

At fifty-two seconds we hear Luke say the line: "I've seen this raw strength only once before. It didn't scare me enough then, it does now." Couple that with imagery of a building burning, more burning, and Luke's robot hand emerging from debris like he's in The Evil Dead, and people are going to assume one thing. They're going to assume that he's talking about Ben Solo. I however, do not think this is the case. Sure he underestimated Ben, but he wasn't scared of him because he was family, not because he had darkness in him. No, he's not talking about Ben, or Vader, or even Starkiller. No, I think he's talking about Sideous. Because if you remember the original trilogy, Luke was very, VERY headstrong when it came to defeating the dark side, and in turn didn't take the Emperor as a serious threat until it almost cost him his life...but now that he sees that same pure, raw power, it TERRIFIES him. But then it plays into the whole "Old man doesn't want to train young pupil for something that happened to them personally until they reluctantly give up" cliche that this series seems to want to jerk off like Ron fuckin Jeremy...but I digress. From one minute and three seconds in to one minute and eight seconds in, we hear Ben say the words "let the past die" while he subsequently DESTROYS his Darth Fanboy helmet (Which is what i'm going to be calling it from this day on forth). He could be talking about his time as an agent for the light side, or this could be a potential scene beginning a redemption arc for Ben where he tears away from his Kylo Ren persona. But then again, a redemption arc wouldn't be that fun when you can just kill the character before that happens in the slightest....or just have him evil, you know, because evil apparently isn't cool anymore, everything has to be "tragic and misunderstood"...AGAIN, I digress. Then comes a starship battle, and boy HOWDY is Ben one hell of a pilot. He says the line "Kill it, if you have to", which is in relation to the previous line of "Let the past die"...and then at one minute and fifteen seconds, we see General Leia....which basically is an "oh fuck" moment because I'm basically just calling it that she's gonna kick the bucket HARD in this movie, and the news of her playing a "pivotal role" is highly exaggerated.

One minute, seventeen seconds: Mommy senses baby through force, and vice versa...or IS IT? My whole thing about how the trailer is edited is weird, because there are some obvious weaving techniques being put in here to deceive the audience. So how I think this scene is going to play out is that Ben is ordered to destroy the Resistance base on that particular ship, which he does. But you know, since Snoke's whole thing is manipulation of Ben, and losing his mother (since it was explained in the last movie that his bond with Leia was far stronger than his bond with Han) would essentially put him in a state of darkness, making Snokes job WAY EASIER. So Snoke tells Ben "Hey, I don't like this Resistance ship. Blow it up." to which Ben replies "Alright, you've not really sent me astray before, why would you do it now? It's not like you're a manipulative dickbag that looks like a scrotum wrapped in one of Hugh Hefner's robes.". But then Snoke "fails" to mention that Leia is on that ship. She senses him, but since he's STILL not mature enough in the ways of the force (and sometimes this series throws continuity into the wind like Nana's ashes on a late summer evening), He doesn't sense her until it's too late. He doesn't sense her persay...but he senses a lack of her. He feels that classic disturbance in the force. He doesn't know why until later...and he doesn't know that he had just killed his own mother, a woman he loved so dearly, and the reason he was so conflicted about going fully dark side. But now that she's gone...Snoke can take him, and Ben is so distraught...that he listens, and fully accepts his role as not Ben Solo, but Kylo Ren.

BUT THAT'S JUST HOW I WANT THE SCENE TO GO DOWN, I DON'T THINK THE WRITERS ARE GONNA BE CLEVER ENOUGH TO DO IT THAT WAY.

One minute and thirty three seconds...Porg.

One minute, thirty seven seconds, Poe Dameron vs Ben Solo dogfight which is no doubt gonna be really cool. One minute, forty seconds, Finn vs. Brienne of Tarth in a giant Aluminum onsie...I mean Captain Phasma. Probably gonna be really cool, I just want more character growth in Finn since he had a pretty weak arc in Episode Seven (well, at least it was stronger than Rey's).

There's some more lines said by Luke which are pretty uninteresting, but at one minute and fifty-seven seconds, we see our first look at Snoke, and boy was I accurate in my description. You guys remember that scene in Deadpool where they basically just let TJ Miller riff at Ryan Reynolds for three uninterrupted minutes? Yeah, that. But my sister did raise a pretty good theory for this scene earlier, and she said that Rey might be experiencing one of Ben's memories...even though she's probably not.

Two minutes and three seconds, black screen with Rey's dialogue leading us into the most misleading part of the trailer which has the #Reylo shippers up in arms. We hear Rey say the words "I need someone to show me my place in all of this." and then we see Ben raise a hand towards the camera. Now upon first glance, we assume he's offering to take Rey under his wing...but these two shots aren't even in the same scene. The lighting is all wrong for this to be possible for one thing, two the tones of each shot are different as well. The light that is facing Rey camera left is pure, and unobstructed. She's in the temple tree on Ahch-To, presumably talking to Luke and convincing him to train her. But when the camera is on Ben, he's obviously in the tail end of a battle sequence. He COULD still be talking to Rey, but no, the line given is in a completely different scene. So no #Reylo shippers, your beloved character parallel fetish fodder is not canon yet, keep writing your fanfiction. Now that last paragraph could potentially label me as Anti-Reylo, but then again not only do I not care if I am labelled as such, I just don't care about the delicious death threats i'm BOUND to get from subsequently posting this analysis on Tumblr once i'm done posting it to Facebook.

Anyways, the credits roll three seconds after that, we're promised a film on December 15th, and the first week of tickets are probably already sold out as i'm writing this. But overall it was a decent trailer as far as analytical material goes, and I don't really think we need another since the movie is two months off.

So yeah, weeee Star Wars...I think the internet is just RUINING this new trilogy for me.