The Star Wars channel on YouTube has uploaded a two-minute D23 (Disney Expo) Special Look trailer with presumably new footage from Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker.
The first half of the trailer is a look back at key moments from the history of previous Star Wars films but then starts to reveal images from the upcoming finale that wasn’t offered in the recent teaser trailer.
A few things to look for: C-3PO with red eyes; Rey slicing down trees with her lightsaber; and a mass celebration in the desert that looks like either Coachella or Burning Man. There is an incredible shot though of Rey dueling with Kylo amidst a turbulent ocean that alone might be worth waiting for in theaters.
The video is getting a large percentage of “thumbs down” from YouTube viewers. At the time of posting this article the D23 Special Look has 151K thumbs up and 8.7K thumbs down. Are fans upset it’s a look back at all the previous eight films? Or are they just downvoting the entire Star Wars franchise at this point?
Some comments questioned whether Disney gave too much away towards the end of the trailer, or whether or not the epic footage mentioned above was a “fake out” or just inserted to sell tickets. But spoilers, if any, seem to be minimal.
The trailer closes with a ghostly-looking Rey displaying a new lightsaber feature we haven’t seen in previous films before; that is, it a dual saber that flips into a double-sided saber much like the Sith’s. YouTube user “vijak suman” hilariously comments:
Samsung : we got folding smart phones
Star wars : we got folding lightsabers
Other theories suggest Rey may be a clone in this scene, or somehow reincarnated the way Luke came back in the last film.
Whether Disney can close one of the most successful movie franchise of all time with a decent script is still up for grabs. We’ll have to wait until Dec. 20 to find out.
