'Star Wars' trailer narrator is not who you think

Hopefully you already figured out the gravelly voice narrating the Star Wars: The Force Awakens trailer is not Benedict Cumberbatch. The Black Friday launch of the 88-second teaser had fans re-booting rumors that the increasingly omnipresent Cumberbatch was in the film given the voice sounded so much like the The Hobbit actor’s voice for the dragon Smaug.

Based on the online comments, the most popular assumption by far was that the voice was done by Adam Driver, who co-stars in The Force Awakens as a rumored Darth Vader-esque villain and might also be the cloaked figure with the enviable triple-bladed lightsaber.

Turns out that’s not right either. A source close to the film confirms the voice belongs to an actor who, like Cumberbatch, is in The Hobbit—motion-capture master Andy Serkis (a.k.a. Gollum in LOTR and Caesar in the Planet of the Apes franchise). Serkis plays a mysterious role in the new Star Wars film and it’s fair to assume his character is up to no good.

The first trailer for the seventh Star Wars film has been viewed more than 42 million times on YouTube alone so far. (Disney has not yet released an official tally, but if it does, it will likely include iTunes and other platforms.) It’s also inspired more than a few parodies, including this “George Lucas special edition” below.

For more analysis of the trailer, here are our seven takeaways and deep-dive analysis.