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The new trailer for The Force Awakens is up, let’s re-watch it a hundred times and see how many things we can pick out!

Star Wars Episode VII: “The Force Awakens” Trailer 2

So the new trailer for Star Wars Episode VII “The Force Awakens” dropped today, and we’re ready to obsess about it! From the familiar shots of light sabers, TIE fighters, storm troopers, X-Wings and probably the most exciting… an overweight glob of grease, a scruffy looking nerf herder and his sidekick the big walking carpet. And, while the face of this character is not revealed, can we assume that it’s Luke? It’s the correct hand, and he’s chilling with his old pal Artoo, although it’s not the hand we last seen him with. That could just be chalked up to whatever turmoil the galaxy’s been in for the last 30 years.

We also get a look at the new generation of characters, including Rey (Daisy Ridley), Finn (John Boyega) and Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac), an X-wing pilot on a mission from “a certain princess”.

What’s interesting about their location though, is the fact that we think we’re seeing Tatooine in that shot of a speeder cruising it’s land scape, but it’s actually the planet Jakku. Ridley’s character Rey is a scavenger who lives in one of its ship graveyards (explaining the fallen Star Destroyer). Guessing by what we’ve seen so far, she happens across Finn and eventually they meet Dameron, and so our adventure begins.

While we’re getting a picture of our protagonists, we get a better look at Kylo Ren as well (the dude from the cross guard lightsaber debate). We’re also introduced to this badass looking character here:

Looking like some sort of chromed out, stormtrooopin’ bounty hunter.

Speculation Time!

Click the info tab on the box to find out, or skip to just stay on topic.

This involves rumors surrounding an already confirmed cast member, not really spoiler material but just a heads up in case you’d like to stay completely rumor free.

So there are a few rumors going around that could link this character to a specific cast member. From what we’ve been hearing, The Force Awakens will introduce “the first female storm trooper”. Gwendoline Christie’s name has come up during that speculation and here’s where it makes sense, and where it’s still questionable.

The pros: GC has been rumored to be playing a character by the name of Captain Phasma, an Imperial hunting John Boyega’s character “Finn”. The chrome storm trooper looks like someone of authority. (is that TIE fighter directly targeting Finn @ 1:09 in the trailer?) so this makes a lot of sense.

The questionable: A female storm trooper has already been linked to an actress by the name of Amybeth Hargreaves. It’s listed on her IMDB page and doesn’t support the Gwen Christie theory, but the thing is outside of that one credit, Hargreaves is a complete unknown . Could she have just been a double/stand in for Christie?

Out In left field: Recently, on our fan page, a crew member mentioned the rumor of Gwendoline being “an inquisitor”. Also, in an article from Badass Digest (one that most of these rumors originally stemmed from and built upon), there was information that the actress had been training with a lightsaber. That fit in with my early and wildly speculative theory, that she was actually the dark force character (who turned out to be Kylo Ren) I’m not sure my theory held any weight to begin with, but that’s not why I bring I up. The main point is, I don’t see a lightsaber on our chromed out friend.

If anybody has anything more up to date to add, let us know!

Okay, it’s safe again….

Earlier I mentioned turmoil in the galaxy. This reminds me of something I was just talking about with a fellow fan in terms of the “Star Wars look”. In what brief preview footage, we see a galaxy that is a lot more beat up this time around than it was in the much cleaner prequels. This is something select fans of the originals felt was missing from the prequels, hopefully this will serve to recapture the feeling of desperation in the galaxy during the next installments of the franchise.

At any rate, this was an exciting look at what’s to come later this year, it’s finally becoming more of a “so close you can taste it” type deal. Seriously, in just 8 months we’ll have a brand spanking new Star Wars episode to add to the collection! If there’s anything we missed we’ll update accordingly.

Meanwhile, just for the sheer hilarity of it (whether intentional or not) we’ll leave you with this shot of flying storm troopers!