Film - The Last Jedi Trailer Analysis

What can we tell about the upcoming Star Wars, The Last Jedi film just from its new trailer? Quite a lot it seems, as we set our young padawan Kraig Taylor-Bryant the task of deciphering what it could all mean...

So now the second Last Jedi trailer has (finally) revealed itself to us and we can finally have a proper look at more events of the film, other than Rey training with Luke. What I thought was interesting about this trailer in particular, is the fact that the more you watch it, the more you notice in it, in terms of setting, iconic props and even costumes.

Let’s have another watch of it before we go on:



So the trailer opens to an officer of sorts standing in front of a window, overlooking a factory or indoor facility. I believe that this is Ren in a new costume as the shadow of his head resembles the hair of Kylo Ren and he is important enough to be overseeing progress of... something (hopefully not another Death Star!). Snoke is also narrating over this saying, “when I found you, I saw war, untamed power, and something truly special”. This sounds a lot like he would be talking to Kylo and therefore it makes sense that it would be showing an image of Kylo to begin with. Snoke couldn’t be talking about Rey as he never actually saw her in The Force Awakens because she escaped before Kylo could bring her to him. I believe in the scene where you hear Snoke say these lines, Kylo is looking for guidance, as we have seen many scenes hinting at either conflict in Kylo or doubt; we’ll get to further points of this in a minute.

Next we see Rey igniting “her” lightsaber (as its now referred to), there’s not really anything to say about that, I don’t believe she’s igniting it to use in battle in this scene as, of course, she wouldn’t have time to be standing around staring at it if this were the case. So I believe she is simply igniting it to start her training. This is then followed by a transition between both an overview of the island that Rey is training on, and a misty/foggy area of sorts with Rey mentioning something that is ‘inside her, that’s always been there’. So it's at this point you wonder what is it that is special about both these characters and what is it that is inside Rey? Is it anger, power or simply is she from some dark heritage? I believe that whatever it is that makes Rey and Kylo special is going to be the Big Reveal for this film that was predicted to be “the next ‘I am your father’” that was predicted for this film, of course it could be something bigger. Anyway the foggy/misty area that we see during this narration by Rey, could be an area that Rey is going to train in or could possibly be looking for something or someone.

We also catch a glimpse of the books with the symbol of the Jedi order on them again, as we saw this in the previous trailer, so we could assume that these books are of some importance in the films and the fact that Rey says “and now it’s awake” when she is referring to something that has always been there, she could in fact, be referring to the knowledge of these books. Or possibly, there is some secret in these books that is revealed to us about the Jedi that made Luke have doubts about the Jedi that led him to state in the previous trailer that its ‘time for the Jedi to end’.

This awakening could also be referring to raw power, war, such traits that Snoke uses to describe Kylo which would lead me to believe that there is a connection between the two, of sorts. The fact that Rey has such raw power and ideologies for war inside her is supported by the fact that in the following shot we see Rey meditating whilst not facing the camera as it pans from the shot of cracks on the ground, the fact that Luke is shocked by this could be because of the First Order arriving and this was done by Kylo. Or this could have been Rey’s work and now Luke is afraid of Rey and what could end up happening again if he continues to train her. As well as meditating, Rey could also be constructing her own lightsaber, however Luke’s old lightsaber has now been referred to as Rey’s as it “called to” her in The Force Awakens so this seems unlikely, which is a shame as I really think a doubled sided lightsaber would have been perfect for her, unless of course, she is doing so, and she just needs the right time to use such a weapon, such as when fighting two opponents at once, which could even be Snoke and Kylo.

This then links well with Luke saying that he’s “seen such raw strength before,” then proceeding to show us Luke's hand digging himself out of a wreckage that it is likely that Kylo caused. This then ties back into the present events as he talks about how Kylo's potential didn’t scare him before, but now such potential does scare him as he sees it in Rey. It would make sense if this happens right after Rey shatters the ground as, of course, this would scare him, as in the flashback we saw that Luke was covered in rubble after Ben turned to the dark side and became Kylo Ren. This again supports my idea that Kylo and Rey are connected in some way as they both display great power in similar ways. It could even mean that they are related, however, I wish this weren’t the case as it would seem a bit cliché as we did already see a major reveal like this in Empire Strikes Back and I have faith that Ryan Johnson can do a better job than that.

So, following Luke saying that such strength scares him now and what we see is him turning away, we then see a shot of Rey at a distance on a ledge of sorts, this could be a sign of Luke abandoning her or her training through this order of shots.

So what’s next is what really interests me, the fact that we hear Ren overlaying events with his voice saying to “let the parents die” or “let the past die” whilst throwing his helmet. This could link in a way such as Kylo losing faith in his family in general as before he relied on his strength from being a descendant of Vader, but now he has possibly lost faith in Vader after realising that Vader turned to the light side. What I find most interesting about the quote he used is the fact that he said “parents” and not “parent”, this implies that he cannot be talking about his own parents as he already killed his father, so what I’ve started to believe is that Ren is talking to Rey and is convincing her to join him as we don’t know what happened to Rey’s parents and they could still be alive. This could simply be Ren telling Rey to let her parents die for abandoning her as he himself knows how this feels as he may feel as if he was abandoned in some way, which could in fact, be a big reveal for this film which would definitely be better than a “I am your father” cliché type thing in my opinion as it could change our ideas about Leia and Han throughout the whole saga and possibly see them differently.

We then see a shot of Kylo in what was confirmed to be his own version of a Tie Fighter with the quote from him saying simply to “kill it”, this could simply be Ren ordering his ships to destroy Leia’s ship, or he could be at this point, also giving Rey advice on possibly killing the light inside her or maybe killing a life form of sorts to begin a journey towards the dark side. So we also see in this shot that Kylo is trying to kill Leia and this appears to be his main ambition for this film as well as obviously, turning Rey to the dark side, or killing her if necessary.

The fact that we then hear him say ‘if you have to’ is interesting as you could say that this defies what I said about Ren ordering Rey to kill something but this could have simply been clever editing from different parts of the film and instead be from a scene of him ordering his troops to kill Leia ‘if they have to’. But this could, in fact, be Ren simply advising Rey to only kill if she has to and it could actually be the case that it is Kylo that means to turn to the light side after realising its potential over the dark side when he finds out that Vader turned to the light side (if this is in fact what leads Kylo to lose the helmet). What we see next is actually really interesting as we see hesitation in Kylo when it comes to attacking his mother, clearly there is still light in him, as Leia said in The Force Awakens, so it could be possible that it can only be Leia that can turn her son to the light side, much like how, in the original trilogy, it could only be Vader’s son that could turn him back to the light side. So it could be this that leads Rey and Kylo to reach a mutual understanding. What I find most interesting however, is the theory that Rey will become a Grey Jedi, the Last Jedi, which I think would be a good way for Kylo and Rey to reach an accord and meet at middle ground, in a sense. This would definitely be unexpected and, if we see them join together to destroy Snoke and Luke, it would be astonishing, but of course it definitely wouldn’t be an ending that everyone would agree with.

So the next line in the trailer is Ren telling someone (probably Rey) that this is “the only way you can become what you were meant to be”, this is really starting to sound like its Ren that’s training Rey now. This supports my theory that they somehow join forces but of course this could simply be him giving her advice or turning to the light side if Leia succeeds in redeeming him in this film. But the fact that before this line, Ren uses the verb “die”, I’m going to assume that this isn’t the case. But what I said about Ren continue her training could still be the case and it could even be the fact that Ren has turned Rey to the dark side as we, later on, see Snoke doing something to her, but we’ll get to that shortly.

So of course we then get to see the iconic Millennium Falcon being flown by Chewie and what appears to be a friend that he has picked up that has confirmed to be called a “porg” - I assume this is the species and not the name as the various “memes” I have heard have hinted at this but of course I could be wrong. The fact that this being copies the sound that Chewie makes, definitely adds an extra comical effect for kids in this film which is nice as it shows that, despite how dark this film will be, fans can still watch it with their families and therefore, it’s still Star Wars. We see Resistance ships being destroyed and Poe witnessing this so it’s again obvious that we’re going to see an interesting space battle of sorts in this film. What may be interesting about this one though, is that it’s possible that Poe Dameron, the Resistance’s best pilot, may not be able to help as we saw, in one of the teaser trailers, that his x-wing gets destroyed. This leads me to think that he may get trapped in the capital ship for the duration of the battle, giving Kylo and the First Order an advantage.

We can, though, believe that he will still be in a fighter at some point in this film as we see him in his helmet in one of the following shots, whilst he is saying that “we are the spark that will light the fire, to bring the First Order down”. What I find most interesting about this is the fact that it sounds a lot like an inspiring speech to the Resistance that also has a dark element to it through the term “bring the First Order down.” This almost sounds like they won’t let the First Order surrender like they did with the Empire, or what remained of it, which leads me to think that a significant character will have to die to make him say this. It is confirmed that a new character known as Rose will be introduced in the film so this could be her that is sacrificed, however I don’t believe that we would be introduced to one character in this film, to then have them killed off in the same film, however, the introduction of another character could mean that another main character will need to die to reduced the overcrowded central cast members that appear to be building up.

So let’s get onto the next shot, we now see an epic view of Finn fighting Captain Phasma amongst what appears to be the wreckage of a First Order base, as confirmed by the number of walkers in the background. I don’t believe that the first order would be desperate enough to kill a traitor that they would send 3 or 4 walkers and their best captain after one man. What I also found interesting about this shot is the fact that Finn appears to be dressed in some type of First Order uniform so it’s possible that he was on some kind of mission which required him to take up some form of disguise. We can obviously assume that he either gets discovered anyway or that he escapes capture from them being spotted earlier, this is backed up by the fact that we see a shot of Finn being guarded and taken away by First Order stormtroopers. Regardless, this epic confrontation between Phasma and Finn is definitely something that I’m looking forward to.

There are more scenes of space battles, the following one features BB8 getting damaged during this fight. It’s during this scene that I think that Poe will join the fight as it seems clear that BB8 would only really fly with Poe, or there could be some circumstance that separates them, although I hope not as they already did that in The Force Awakens. So we then see continuous events of dogfight action and we hear Luke say that “this is not going to go how you think” and what’s interesting about this is the fact that Luke is laying down in this shot which leads me to believe that he is injured and, judging by the weather and the typical pathetic fallacy of weather creating a dark mood, I can only assume that in this seen Luke is confronted by Kylo or maybe even a dark side Rey.

We then see a shot of Luke in dark robes and Rey in new robes, and it feels like this is later on in the film. The fact that Rey is looking up at Luke could be in fear and, so, if this is not later on in the film and simply a lot of time passes throughout this film, then this could be Luke choosing to train Rey and she is simply going to meet him.

Finn is captured by the First Order, in what we assumed to be his disguise, and we see a hangar of a First Order base featuring an army of troops and walkers, so hopefully we can expect a thrilling ground assault fight as well as in the air.

The rest of the trailer is really not worth commenting on, apart from the final two scenes. One of these being when Snoke finishes saying “fulfil your destiny” throughout certain events, we see Rey by forced upward and it appears that she is being tortured or maybe even converted to the dark side by a different means? What’s also interesting in this shot is the new robes that Snoke is wearing. It could be said that these are a uniform of some kind for whatever Snoke really is and an order of sorts that he may follow.

In the final scene Rey is talking to Kylo and Rey is telling him that she ‘needs someone to show her her place in all of this.’ So we then see Kylo respond by extending his hand out to Rey which obviously is the most interesting part of the trailer as it signifies some sort of allegiance between them in the film which could be through the light side or the dark side. The trailer ends with the lines of “Star Wars the last Jedi” and the trailer closes to the dark screen, to symbolise a dark film.

So the film in general is going to be epic in my opinion. It’s definitely got a lot of action and what’s interesting is the fact that by just analysing the trailer alone, I’ve learned that the film is going to be long, not just because of the confirmed run-time, but due to the fact that by just analysing this trailer alone has taken up 5 pages on my word document! I really think that’s a good thing though, as we need a lot of events as, in the end, the more we see, the less likely we are to have a film where we don’t see anything new. And that’s why I think this is going to be one of Disney’s best films.

Follow Kraig on Twitter @Kraigandhismac

Images - Lucas Film, all rights reserved.