The latest STAR WARS trailer for episode VIII, THE LAST JEDI, has just dropped and it is a master at disguising its true intentions – just like Palpatine…
While the trailer gives away a lot of action that will be happening – round 2 between Kylo and Rey, Luke training Rey – these situations were highly expected even before the trailer released. What the trailer did expertly was to not just hide plot details, but to dress them up as something else and misdirect the audience.
Here’s just a few examples
Raw power…
Both Luke and Snoke mention the massive, raw power of an individual. Luke says “I’ve seen this strength only once before. It didn’t scare me enough then… it does now.” Snoke says something very similar at the start of the trailer. The way the trailer sets these lines up makes the audience immediately think that Kylo Ren is the common factor here. However, this is just jumping to conclusions. They could both be referencing Luke himself – what the trailer does brilliantly is to make us think one way so that our expectations are subverted when we see the actual film.- Family reunion?
There’s a little moment between Kylo and Leia in the trailer… only it doesn’t happen. There’s an intercutting of the shots to make it appear like a “shot-reverse shot” technique, giving the illusion the scene we see are connected. But, of course, they’re almost certainly not. Is it possible those scenes are connected? Possibly, but there’s ambiguity and a lack of certainty that we can’t be sure about. Just like… - Finding a Rey of hope…
A line uttered to what the trailer makes us believe to be Kylo. This is amplified by Kylo offering a hand to Rey – or so we think. Again, the trailer has been edited to make us believe that Rey is speaking to Kylo and that it Kylo is offering his hand to Rey. How sure are you of both of those things? Rey could be speaking to Luke, Leia, or even Snoke. The hand could be Luke’s or Kylo’s. That hand may have no relation there at all.
What this trailer has done is offer so much to audiences and nothing at the same time. Fans can now theorize on what will happen based on the trailer and based on its misdirects. There are so many doors Episode VIII could go down.
Both Mark Hamill and director Rian Johnson initially urged fans to stay away from promotional material for the film, assumedly because it would give too much away. But having watched the trailer it’s really given us the best of both worlds. It gives us a feeling of what we can expect, it hypes up certain interactions and duels while giving away very little.
Just remember, “This is not going to go the way you think.”
© WriteMovies 2017. Exclusive to WriteMovies – To syndicate this content for your own publication, contact ian (at) writemovies dot-com.