Better late than never. I have received feedback from several people that they just don’t see the overwhelming similarities between The Last Jedi’s trailer, and the Force Awakens trailer that came out at the same time in 2015.

Let’s look at some commonalities between the two trailers, in no particular order:

  • Both trailers begin with Luke Skywalker voice over
  • A partially destroyed Darth Vader/Kylo Ren mask appears
  • Wide shot of a planet surface with Rey in the distance
  • Crescendo the Luke words into a This Christmas banner as the music swells
  • Christmas banner cuts to ships flying in formation low to the surface of a planet
  • Finn gets his own individual frame, albeit in a coma rather than sweating. Sweating Finn was a mainstay of all the Force Awakens advertising
  • Rey is shown running
  • A ship’s hangar comes under fire and explosions ensue
  • Captain Phasma is featured walking with a blaster in hand
  • A presumably Luke Skywalker cloaked figure appears at night by a fire with R2D2
  • The Millenium Falcon flies with TIE Fighters in pursuit
  • The trailer ends with a familiar character from the original trilogy giving the final line before the Title card

Yea maybe they are right. I don’t see the how they are similar.

I still loved the new trailer, but you can bet there will be a post this year about diminishing returns for this franchise. First evidence, a lack of the chills/tears factor from this newest showing. There is still no reason to have less hope that the quality of the movie will be good.