Movies, Star Wars

The Force Awakens Trailer Debuts at Star Wars Celebration

“Chewie, we’re home.”

With those three words, the internet became the happiest place in the galaxy. For an hour on Thursday, millions of UPFs (ultra passionate fans, as coined by Mark Hamill, himself) around the world tuned in to YouTube to watch a live stream of the eagerly anticipated Force Awakens panel at Star Wars Celebration. And if you stuck around for the whole hour, it did not disappoint as director JJ Abrams and Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy unveiled the second teaser for Episode VII. We should have been working live-tweeted the whole thing. Choice tweets (and the trailer, of course) are after the jump.

The first big reveal of the day was that Star Wars had partnered up with twitter to create automatic emojis when you used special hashtags.

Entertainment Weekly writer Anthony Breznican then brought out Abrams and Kennedy to a resounding ovation. The three discussed what the Star Wars saga meant to them a long time ago, and how creating Episode VII was a dream project for everyone involved.

With the new trilogy, Abrams is going back to basics and abandoning the CGI-heavy approach of the prequels. So for the next 15 minutes or so, everyone was subtweeting George Lucas.

Though to be fair, it was pointed out that The Phantom Menace was actually way more practical than people remember. Still sucked, though.

The first real big bombshell that dropped, I guess, was the realization that the desert planet in all of the promos we’ve seen thus far actually isn’t Tatooine, but a new planet called Jakku.

https://twitter.com/PAPPADEMAS/status/588754918141366272/

Then a couple of fanboys from a previous Celebration took the stage with a couple of the droids you’re looking for. Turns out they were hired to design the droids in the new film after Kennedy witnessed their custom made droids on the con floor! Then a real R2-D2 and not-CGI B-88 took the stage and had a throwdown.

https://twitter.com/mashable/status/588759031352848384/

Then it was time to introduce Star Wars: The Next Generation as stars Oscar Isaac, Daisy Ridley, and John Boyega took the stage, along with new looks at their onscreen characters. And I was reminded how awesome it was that a Black man, a Latino, and a woman are the new faces of the franchise.

https://twitter.com/TheNerdsofColor/status/588758499917725697/

By the by, since Idris Elba took himself out of the running to be the next Bond, how about Boyega as Daniel Craig’s successor? I mean, he’s already got the initials!

Also, my man crush on Boyega only deepened after I learned how much of a fanboy he was. Being a big Star Wars fan — he played The Force Unleashed on his PS3 — he got all of the cast to sign his action figures, including Harrison Ford!

John Boyega: Nerd of Color, ladies and gentlemen.

After a close-up of Daisy Ridley talking about her love of the franchise, I realized that the producers basically cloned Keira Knightley and gave her the opportunity to be in a non-shitty Star Wars movie.

Keira-Daisy

After we got a good look at the new Stormtrooper design, we were treated to a mini reunion of most of the original cast. Anthony Daniel, Carrie Fisher, Peter Mayhew, and Mark Hamill took the stage. I may or may not have shed a tear or two.

https://twitter.com/MildlyAmused/status/588762641302032385/

After a group photo that bridged both generations “Across the Stars,” the the screen faded to black. Then this happened.

And I definitely shed nerd tears. Because Luke Skywalker just narrated a god damn a Star Wars trailer that ended with Han and Chewie coming home!

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