Disney's D23 event featured a ton of massive reveals, from the first trailer for A Wrinkle in Time, to the casting of Will Smith as the Genie in Guy Ritchie's live-action remake of Aladdin, to say nothing of the first look at Thanos's Black Order in Avengers: Infinity War. Still, no matter how amazing all these projects may seem, none of them can hold a candle to Star Wars, and the footage shown at D23 this year simply brought the house down. It's not a trailer, but a behind-the-scenes look at some of the sets and practical effects, the actors in-character and out, and brief soundbites from the creative team behind Star Wars: The Last Jedi.

Star Wars remains a cultural cornerstone like nothing else in popular fiction, uniting fans all over the world with its fantasy adventure take on science fiction aesthetics and a timeless "Good vs Evil" story. However, if the footage we saw is any indication, writer/director Rian Johnson (Looper) is keen to turn the franchise on its head and go in the opposite direction from what fans might be expecting.

Rian Johnson: Mover and Shaper

When Star Wars was brought back from the dead, audiences were psyched, but skeptical. While the franchise had never truly gone away, with the divisive Prequel Trilogy, the fantastic Clone Wars cartoon series, and an endless spigot of novels, comics, and video games, the announcement of Star Wars – Episode VII: The Force Awakens was nothing short of a game changer.

If longtime Star Wars fanatics had one central complaint with Episode VII, it's that, in its admirable effort to return the series to its roots and remind audiences why they first fell in love with the franchise all those years ago, it wound up feeling like too much of a rehash/remake of the original film, A New Hope.

This backstage look at The Last Jedi seems deliberately constructed to lay to rest any fears that Episode VIII will similarly follow the path of Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back; in the footage, Daisy Ridley (Rey) says "Rian has written a story that's unexpected," and Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker) says that the film "throws things at me I never could have imagined." John Boyega (Finn) hammers home the point, and says: "Everything is being shifted in the opposite way to what the audience expected after VII. Rian's made Star Wars fresh and new."

Indeed, after both The Force Awakens and Rogue One leaned heavily on A New Hope for inspiration, it will be interesting to see if The Last Jedi truly manages to strike out on its own, forge its own path and give the Star Wars Sequel Trilogy its own identity beyond being a nostalgic and entertaining echo of the past.

Practical Effects

One thing which is being carried over from J.J. Abrams's beloved – if safe – franchise revival is its usage of practical effects. Like The Force Awakens, there will be plenty of CGI movie magic (including Lupita N'yongo returning as Maz Kanata), but only after establishing a baseline with physical sets, animatronic critters, and real world locations.

Some of the sets on display look massive, and the clip opens with a brief look at an expansive cave, a makeshift village with stone houses, and a life-sized version of the fastest hunk of junk in the galaxy, Han Solo's legendary Millennium Falcon. Some underwater action is shown, though the context isn't clear. Perhaps Rey will be exploring a cave on Ahch-To?

Spaceships like Poe Dameron's X-Wing are also full-sized props, and it truly looks capable of flight... Too bad the sleek snubfighter isn't going to survive the film... Elsewhere, the fleeting glimpses of pleasure planet Canto Bight look like a fully-realized casino, even without whatever CGI elements are surely going to be present in the finished film.

One of the must stunning visual effects in the sizzle reel, and what really sells the physicality of Episode VIII, is a short clip of a camera operator shooting a scene, set on Crait, the planet rich in that dazzling red mineral shown in a single shot of The Last Jedi's first trailer. The operator is wearing a hoodie, their camera protected by a plastic covering, and a veritable hailstorm of that mysterious red substance just smashes down upon the scene, completely covering them.

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Horses, Wolves, and Space Puffins

Finally, of course, there are the critters. Star Wars has always been an innovator in the realm of creative alien species/exotic other-worldly animals, from Wookies to Ewoks, Kaminoans, Nautolans, and everything in between. From the looks of things here, The Last Jedi will have no shortage of new creatures, many of which are being created by hand, rather than in the computer.

Canto Bight, in particular, looks like it will play host to a wide variety of creatures, both local residents and tourists from across the galaxy. Little bug-like creatures appear to serve as employees at the casino, and the diminutive aliens wear tiny suits, complete with vests and cummerbunds. A large, horse-like creature can be seen in a stable, and it looks like a real animal, even though it is apparently a sufficiently-advanced animatronic, and obviously not computer-generated. Real life is always more convincing than CGI; just compare A New Hope's Banthas (literally just elephants with masks) to the CGI herd seen in the Special Edition of Return of the Jedi. There's no debate: the effect in A New Hope is far more convincing. The effort that goes into making these 'fictional real fake facsimiles' is on full display when the sizzle reel shows off the mask-less face of a crystalline white wolf; it's comprised of so many parts, it's so much more complex than something like Yoda's puppet from The Empire Strikes Back, or even the then-impossibly complex Jabba the Hut rig from Return of the Jedi.

One creature in particular stole the show for many, and – while the name isn't 100% official – we're calling them porgs. They live with Luke on his secluded island exile, and they look like a cross between Atlantic puffins (the most adorable animal ever) and baby sea lions (the third most adorable animal ever). Beyond being set decoration for the planet Ahch-To, it's currently unclear how much of a role these cuties will get to play in The Last Jedi, but here's hoping Disney's merchandising machine commits to making a plush version of the cuddly critter.

New Characters and Familiar Faces

Practically every surviving character from The Force Awakens is returning for The Last Jedi, and nearly all of them are shown, even if only for a second or less, in the D23 footage. Domhnall Gleeson returns as the ruthless and bombastic General Hux, though he is only on screen for a single shot, and his face is partially obscured. Poe Dameron appears, rocking an Indiana Jones-style flight jacket, and we also get first looks at Benicio Del Toro and Laura Dern. Del Toro remains as mysterious as ever in his short debut, though he wears a cool black longcoat. Meanwhile, Lara Dern is absolutely stunning with her easter egg hairdo and beautiful dress – cosplayers, take note.

As for returning heroes from Episode VII, all of Rey's appearances here seem to be on Ahch-To with Luke, except for one; Ridley is seen killing time with John Boyega by dancing on a sandy set surrounded by large rocks, possibly planet Crait. She wears an outfit similar to her regular clothes, but with a grey color scheme. Elsewhere, Poe is seen more frequently behind the scenes than in actual footage, though he doesn't provide any interview voiceover for this reel. Hopefully, he will have a larger role to play in The Last Jedi than he did in The Force Awakens, where he was mostly just a plot device to kick things off and then return just before the end.

We're also betting on an expanded role for Gwendoline Christie's Captain Phasma, who might just do more in this three-minute teaser than she did in the entirety of Episode VII. Adam Driver is also shown as Kylo Ren (with a gnarly scar from when Rey gave him a taste of her innate talent with a lightsaber), though his story is being kept under even tighter guard than the rest of the cast. Based on a few backstage shots of fight choreography, though, it's a safe bet to assume that the leader of the Knights of Ren will draw his blade at some point.

An interesting new pairing seems to be John Boyega's Finn and newcomer Kelly Marie Tran, who plays Rose Tico. Her character has been described as a low-level Resistance member, and – one way or another – she seems to find herself on an important mission with Finn, who is seen wearing a First Order outfit, suggesting they're undercover on a mission of either reconnaissance or sabotage. However, given Star Wars's penchant for show-stopping action sequences, they probably won't remain hidden for long.

As for the old guard, Mark Hamill's Luke Skywalker, as mentioned before, is seen exclusively on Ahch-To, where he presumably trains Rey in the ways of the Force. It's unclear if Rey will go straight from Ahch-To to Crait, or if Luke will accompany her. However, one shot of the D23 teaser does show Luke in a different outfit from his Episode VII Jedi robes; it's a snazzy brown number, complete with a satchel. If Luke is not traveling with Rey, then perhaps he's going off in a different direction.

Finally, The Last Jedi sees the late Carrie Fisher reprise her iconic Princess Leia role, and the film will release a year after she tragically passed away in December 2016. She's shown away from the set with Oscar Isaac, and with Mark Hamil, and on set in her spectacularly regal costume, including a brand new hairstyle which is sure to become as instantly iconic as literally every single one of Carrie Fisher's Princess Leia hairstyles. The last word in the sizzle reel goes to Carrie, who sums up the main theme of Star Wars, as well as her perspective on being part of the franchise since the very beginning: "It's about family, and that's what's so powerful about it."

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