We’ve reached the point in the Star Wars: The Force Awakens marketing cycle where a lot of you will probably be tuning out. It’s the right move. I can’t speak for the other CHUD contributors, but I think this will be my last news post when it comes to this stuff. Barring some monumental development (i.e. our first glimpse at Luke or confirmation that Andy Serkis’ character Supreme Leader Snoke is actually a cyborg Jar Jar Binks), I’m going to go into lockout mode with the rest of you. This Disney Channel “behind the scenes” clip (it’s not a behind the scenes clip. This is baby’s first trailer, trying to get across the movie to a much younger audience) does have two interesting points to discuss though.
1) I believe this is the first footage we’ve seen of Domhnall Gleeson’s General Hux. Seeing as how The Force Awakens is taking a lot of its cues from the original Star Wars, it stands to reason that he’s our Grand Moff Tarkin this time around. When he was first announced, his visage made people speculate that he was Luke’s son. That’s certainly not off the table, but I won’t put my money on it.
2) The mention of BB-8 being “mysterious.” I guess I haven’t really thought about it at all until this moment: who the hell is BB-8? I’d assumed it was Rey’s desert companion, but this and the Japanese trailer show that Rey doesn’t know where BB-8 came from. Could it (I’m declaring BB-8 gender neutral until I see what’s under that ball) have been sent by Luke? I’m now betting that BB-8 has a much bigger role to play in this drama than just being the blueprint for the best-selling toy of Xmas 2015.
If you’re interested, I’ve embedded a supercut containing all the footage that’s been released up to this point. This will probably be obsolete in a day or two, but if you want as much to mull over as possible, it’s at your disposal. I’ll be burying my head in the sands of Jakku for the next few weeks.