The Secrets & Easter Eggs in the Star Wars: The Last Jedi Teaser
So you’ve seen the Star Wars: The Last Jedi teaser a few dozen times and think you’ve gleaned all there is to know from those glorious two minutes and thirteen seconds. Think again. With a weekend to watch and re-watch the teaser, the Internet has done its CSI: Teaser Breakdown routine and highlighted every conceivable secret and Easter egg hidden in every frame. We’ve gone ahead and gleaned what we think are the most interesting points from all that collective detective work.
You’re well aware of the larger themes the teaser explored, like the dour Luke (Mark Hamill), Rey (Daisy Ridley) seemingly in Jedi training (that bit where the rocks levitate around her hands was a nice touch), the big space battle, and the resurrected Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) leading a very pissed off First Order. All of this suggested that despite writer/director Rian Johnson’s claim that The Last Jedi wasn’t going to be as dark as The Empire Strikes Back might have been some clever misdirection, as it sure looks like a much more somber, distressing film than J.J. Abrams’ The Force Awakens, just as The Empire Strikes Back was so much more troubling than A New Hope.
Now, some smaller bits you might have missed:
Kylo Ren’s scar
IGN’s Joshua Yehl pointed out that Kylo Ren’s sporting a scar from his losing light saber battle with Rey that looks strikingly similar to Anakin Skywalker’s:
Ren seems like an obvious villain considering what he did in The Force Awakens, but there’s a lot of turmoil within him, and there’s speculation that he could be shocked to find that even after dispatching Han Solo, he’s still struggling with giving himself over completely to the dark side. What we can be sure of is that Ren’s journey is one of the central narrative arcs in the new trilogy, and whatever side of the Force he ends up on will likely have a massive impact on the rest of the characters and the entire story itself.
Angry Luke
The moment everyone is talking about comes at the teaser’s end, when Luke says this: “I only know one true thing. It’s time for the Jedi to end.”
These are some dark thoughts from the man that our heroes in The Force Awakens risked life and limb to find. At the Last Jedi panel at the Star Wars Celebration, Ridley mentioned that part of what we’re seeing is what happens when someone (in this case, Rey) meets her hero and is disappointed in what they find. There’s also a decent chance that Luke, having failed at keeping Kylo Ren from the dark side, feels that as long as he and other Jedi exist, they create the very dark side they’re sworn to defeat. He’s likely not keen on training Rey considering how poorly it went the last time, yet train her he likely must do. There’s that beautiful sequence we see of what appears to be two people, one likely Rey, engaging in some light saber training, which suggests that Luke eventually gets around to making her a proper Jedi.
Or, as we’ll explore in a little bit, perhaps Luke’s training her to be something else.
New Vehicles & Ships
The rickety ships you see racing across a desert landscape towards what appear to be a row of AT-ATs is also a subtle nod towards The Empire Strikes Back, which had a attack scene on Hoth. The ships in The Last Jedi are using flares on the back of their hulls (possibly as a signal to their own forces, or, to blind the AT-ATs), but the issue is that the AT-ATs are much more advanced now, while the Resistance (if these fighters are indeed a part of the Resistance) look to be held together with tape and glue.
The teaser also showed your classic X-Wings and TIE Fighters, but had you paused at just the right time, you’d also have caught A-Wings.
The Jedi Order
At the halfway mark of the teaser, you saw a bookshelf and a book opened to a page that contained the symbol of the old Jedi order. This is the first time we’ve actually seen the symbol on the film. Why? Luke is hiding out in an old Jedi temple (in fact it might be the first Jedi temple ever), so it’s possible this old temple has an old library, which would then likely have books that contain the old symbol. It could be the Journal of the Whills, which was a plot point in Rogue One. The Whills are a mysterious alien race who are bound to the Force, a creation of George Lucas’s from the time of A New Hope. Originally, Lucas had intended the first Star Wars to be told from the perspective of these wise aliens, but eventually ditched the idea. Yet the Whills became a part of Lucas’s massive trove of notes that he used to craft the scripts—which he later called his ‘Journal of the Whills.’ In the world of Star Wars, the Journal is an ancient Jedi source, and it could be a major plot point in The Last Jedi.
The Last Jedi
Thanks to the international market, we now know that the titular Jedi in The Last Jedi is meant to be plural, and thanks to Luke’s dark observation in the teaser, we know that he thinks he should be the last Jedi, period. Even if this turns out to be true, and Luke is indeed the last Jedi, might Rey become the first of a new line of Force-using heroes, perhaps not as beholden, and burdened, by the light and dark sides of the Force? There’s been Gray Jedi (although it’s not canon)—beings that are closer to the middle of the Force—perhaps this is what Rey will become? And perhaps Luke’s protecting the Journal of the Whills and will go on to use it to create a new breed of Force users, starting with the already talented Rey.
Check out ScreenRant’s video that goes into greater detail on all of the above, and let us know what you think.
Star Wars: The Last Jedi will hit theaters December 15, 2017.
Featured image: Rey (Daisy Ridley) in The Last Jedi. Courtesy Lucasfilm/Walt Disney Pictures.
