Our favourite moments from the new Star Wars trailer

In case you hadn’t heard, there’s a new Star Wars: The Force Awakens trailer in town. And now that we’ve all watched it 20-odd times each, it’s certain that you’ve got your own favourite moments; the parts that raise the most questions, excite and intrigue the most, the shot that personally moves you. So here’s our pick of our favourite moments from the new trailer:

Now that’s how you open your trailer. Daisy Ridley’s Rey explores an abandoned star destroyer – probably the one from the beginning of the last trailer – in full adventurer mode. What is she looking for? Spare parts? Something important to the plot (that we still know nothing about)? The vision of this sequence is breathtaking; a once-filled and fully operational vessel for the Empire, now lifeless and deserted. The throwback to the original trilogy isn’t just an obvious one, but an emotionally resonant one, too; it’s as if that entire time has been completely forgotten. Nostalgia is playing an important part in the marketing for this movie; will it also be used as an artful device within it?

Of all the speeding Millennium Falcons, huge explosions, and dramatic lightsaber duels, possibly our favourite shot of the new trailer is of Rey watching a distant starship ascend above the clouds, as she toils on the desert planet Jaaku. The wistful, longing smile that beams across her face tells us so much about this character: like a certain Skywalker before her, she can’t wait for the day she can leave her forsaken rock and fly among the stars. And from what we can tell from the trailer, she gets far more than just that.

When we were all treated to the very first The Force Awakens teaser, when John Boyega’s Finn popped into frame, he was wearing a Stormtrooper uniform. Like Luke and Han before him, it was easy to believe he also was using it as a disguise. But his dialogue ‘I was raised to do one thing… but I’ve got nothing to fight for,’ laid over the image of a TIE Fighter crashing down in the new trailer, pretty much confirms that Finn is a Stormtrooper by profession. It’s great that we’re going to get a fresh perspective.

Our true introduction to the film’s villain, Kylo Ren – played by Adam Driver – shows the black-draped character standing at the bridge of an evil-looking starship. While wallowing over the melted helmet of Darth Vader, promising to ‘finish what you started,’ a JJ Abrams lens flare of epic proportions douses the frame. Is something dastardly being forged before him? Could it be what we assume from the poster is a new type of super weapon – perhaps a new Death Star?

That same creepy red light pops up again in the next section, where we see a close-up of Oscar Isaac’s X-Wing pilot, Poe Dameron, being interrogated Force-wise by Ren. The next shot is of a forest being destroyed by an explosive wave of energy: could this potentially be a planet getting wiped out by a super weapon? Or as the quick-dissolve suggests, could it rather be a vision inside Dameron’s head? Either way, the stakes are planet-sized.

Witnessing the beloved Millennium Falcon on the run is a wonderful sight to behold, and it’s made all the more magical by the inclusion of ‘Han Solo and the Princess’ from The Empire Strikes Back. This sweeping love theme is just part of what makes John Williams’ scores for these films special, and we’re looking forward to the new music he’s composed for The Force Awakens with eager ears.

Nearly 40 years after the first Star Wars movie, these films have taken on a legendary status: not just in their own capacity as culturally significant totems of entertainment, but within their own stories lies the magic of myth-making itself. So when Rey posits to Han Solo – played by Harrison Ford, of course – that ‘there are stories about what happened,’ and getting the reply that ‘it’s true – all of it,’ we’re just a little bit excited about how the legends of the previous two trilogies are going to be portrayed.

Knowing how to construct some superb character moments, JJ Abrams uses his camera to wonderful effect when marking an important relationship beat between Finn and Dameron. Quickly swinging our perspective around from Rebel warrior to ex-Imperalist, we can see a strong friendship will grow between these two. Greater than that, though, it’s a moment where two separate worlds come together to fight a larger evil.

It’s our only shot of Luke Skywalker so far – and even then, we can’t be 100% certain that it is him (although the mechanical hand does give it away) – and it was in the trailer before this, too. Yes, our knowledge of Skywalker’s role in The Force Awakens remains embarrassingly close to zero – all we really know is that he’s friends with R2-D2. But it remains a magnificent image, and a terribly exciting one, too: the very exclusion of Star Wars’ most famous Jedi levels up the mystery to giddy heights.

After finally seeing Carrie Fisher’s Princess Leia in the first true poster for The Force Awakens, we are also treated to a measly flash of her in action in the trailer. Her and Solo are embracing, Leia looking particularly worried: could this be warm, affectionate consolement from a life-long lover, or the nervous embrace between estranged flames? Han and Leia’s ebb-and-flow relationship was one of the best things about the original trilogy: we can’t wait to see how their dyanmic has evolved in the long years since Return of the Jedi.

The prophetic remark ‘just let it in’ is made in reference to the Force. But really, we all know what it really means: let the hype for a new Star Wars movie envelop your very being. Not like it has already, or anything.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens is released December 17, 2015.