The wait for Star Wars: The Force Awakens is almost over, and Disney is ramping up the marketing campaign as we come down the home stretch. In the past few weeks, there has been a third and final domestic trailer, character posters, and an international trailer to increase the already fervent anticipation for the new movie.
As the next wave of advertising heats up, it's only logical that Disney would start to unveil some TV spots for the saga's seventh episode. Today, fans got treated to a new 30-second advertisement that reveals some new footage and dialogue from the movie, which will only give moviegoers more to speculate over.
The most intriguing part of the spot is the first half, in which an unidentified character (most likely Lupita Nyong'o's Maz Kanata) says that she has "lived long enough to see the same eyes in different people." From there, the speaker informs somebody that she "knows" their eyes. Since this line is played over a shot of Rey (Daisy Ridley), it's implied that the speaker is talking to her.
What the speaker means by this will be heavily debated until December. It seems to suggest that there's something familiar about one of the new characters, signaling a possible familial connection with an original trilogy hero. Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy has already confirmed that Star Wars 7 continues the Skywalker saga and will serve as a generational tale, something that's seemingly confirmed by the tagline presented in this TV spot (Every generation has a story). At this point, it'd be a greater surprise if none of the youngsters ended up being a Skywalker or Solo, as was reported months prior.
A majority of the footage presented in the spot is recycled from the previous trailers, but viewers do get to see a handful of fresh shots. The juiciest new bit is Han Solo (Harrison Ford) standing on what appears to be the Starkiller base planet (what's his role there?). There's also some alternate looks at action sequences we've previously gotten a taste of (the Millennium Falcon on Jakku; X-wings vs. TIE fighters), but nothing that could be considered an outright spoiler. Disney has done an admirable job keeping all the film's secrets under wraps, so it's nice to see they're continuing that practice with the TV spots (for now, anyway)
With just over a month to go before Star Wars: The Force Awakens is released (at the time of this writing), it will be interesting to see how much more of the film Lucasfilm is willing to share in marketing. As evidenced by the record-breaking ticket sales, Star Wars is a brand that sells itself and there isn't much else Lucasfilm has to do. If they need to make more TV spots, it'd probably be for the best if they simply retooled the footage and dialogue they've put out so far. Companies like Duracell may have other ideas, but it's always been Lucasfilm's intention to preserve the experience for when fans are sitting in the theater.
Star Wars: The Force Awakens hits theaters on December 18th, 2015, followed by Rogue One: A Star Wars Story on December 16th, 2016, Star Wars: Episode VIII on May 26th, 2017, and the Han Solo Star Wars Anthology film on May 25th, 2018. Star Wars: Episode IX is expected to reach theaters in 2019, followed by the third Star Wars Anthology film in 2020.