Bad Rey and Good Kylo: Star Wars trailers have gone to Dark Side
The plot nuance from the previous Star Wars trailer looks like we’re heading for a good v evil showdown with another redemption story playing out for the “final” film in the Skywalker saga. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, writes Duncan Lay.
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Well that was a dramatic backflip, so good that even seasoned politicians could only watch and applaud.
The new Star Wars trailer for the “final” film in the Skywalker saga dropped this week and seemingly used The Force to run away from the last trailer faster than Han Solo fleeing from that army of Stormtroopers.
You see, the previous trailer showed Rey (Daisy Ridley) apparently going to the Dark Side, a vision that broke the hearts of her millions of young female fans and outraged their parents.
It also left Disney terrified that nobody was going to buy the new range of toys.
So this one has no signs of Rey going bad. Instead, she’s very much the heroine. Meanwhile, it does show us Rey and her nemesis Kylo Ren (Adam Driver), who is not-so-secretly Ben Solo, teaming up to destroy what looks like a statue to Darth Vader.
Rey also faces down what looks horribly like a resurrected Emperor Palpatine, last seen being hurled down an exhaust shaft by Vader waaaay back in Return Of The Jedi.
So, the plot nuance from the previous trailer has been lightsabred to death and instead it looks like we’re heading for a good v evil showdown with another redemption story playing out.
That’s not necessarily a bad thing.
But there is a growing fear that the “end” of the Star Wars saga is merely going to lightly reheat most of the bits that have already been used in previous films. What we are going to get is Return Of The Jedi with better special effects and fewer small children dressed in giant teddy bear suits.
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Obviously there is a reason MasterChef contestants don’t say the most valuable piece of kitchen equipment is the microwave. Things don’t taste better after being mixed up in a bowl and then zapped for 60 seconds.
If Kylo Ren is going to be Darth Vader, Rey is going to be Luke, Luke is going to be Obi-wan and Palpatine is going to be … Palpatine, why have we bothered with the new set of films?
Sure, there’s been a lot of buzz about the finale providing the ending fans want and fulfilling the wishes of those who have been watching these films since the 1970s.
And, as Game Of Thrones proved, if you give people a shocking ending that nobody predicted, that doesn’t always make them happy.
Although the answer to all of those questions could be found in a snippet of other news.
The new trailer was also the signal that you can pre-purchase tickets to the movie.
And boy, did fans purchase tickets. Pre-sales were up 45 per cent on Avengers Endgame — the movie that just became the highest-grossing film of all time.
So it seems the trailer was all about plucking on the heartstrings of fans while it secretly rummaged around in their purses and wallets.
Still, perhaps it will manage to achieve what everyone wants. The fans get the comforting, satisfying ending they want and Disney gets what it wants — so much cash flooding into their coffers that not even Yoda’s Force powers could lift it.
Originally published as Bad Rey and Good Kylo: Star Wars trailers have gone to Dark Side