Star Wars: The Force Awakens new TV spot decoded, shot by shot

The new TV spot for Star Wars: The Force Awakens is narrated by Lupita Nyong’o’s alien character Maz Kanata, and so it’s fitting that it opens on her home – a castle on the planet Takodana. Director J.J. Abrams calls this her “watering hole.” We’ve only seen her on the poster – a smallish figure with black goggles. Her eyes are covered because they hold a secret power. That’s why her narration is significant: “I have lived long enough to see the same eyes in different people. I see your eyes. I know your eyes.”

Whose eyes does Maz recognize in Rey? This goes back to the obvious question of who are Rey’s parents, the ones who cast her away on this junkyard desert planet? But maybe a better question is who are her grandparents? I maintain there’s something very “Old Ben” about her lifestyle. There’s a lot of Rey in this TV spot, and although we don’t see her with a saber, we do see her unleash some fire from a trusty blaster. 

Adam Driver’s Kylo Ren deflects her blasts easily with his crossguard lightsaber. We haven’t yet seen his eyes, but I have to wonder what Maz Kanata might recognize in them. Kylo Ren, remember, is the name J.J. Abrams says he was given after joining the Knights of Ren. So his actual name and origin have yet to be revealed.

Here’s Harrison Ford as Han Solo, looking rugged on a snowy world. (Side note: I want that coat.) John Boyega’s Finn is dressed in the jacket he apparently lifted from Oscar Isaac’s captive X-Wing pilot Poe Dameron. This looks like the surface of The First Order’s Starkiller Base, so our heroes are in the belly of the beast. Maz’s line here, “same eyes in different people,” suggests the passage of time, how a person changes with age, but remains the same. But …

This is an image we’ve already seen: Poe and Finn doing a hail-fellow-well-met at the Resistance base. Finn has always looked more troubled than relieved or happy to see Poe, and Poe’s expression seems a bit hard. This has me thinking: conspiracy theory. (And it’s just a theory.) What if the line “same eyes in different people” applies literally here? What if Poe … isn’t Poe?

We’ve been wondering about the capabilities of Rey’s staff for a while. It seems to have some lightsaber-y elements built into it, and a character named Darth Plagueis (who trained Emperor Palpatine in the ways of the Sith) carried a similar staff-saber. Whether or not that turns out to be true, it’s clearly good for clobbering, too.

Rey again, this time at the controls of the Millennium Falcon, apparently by herself. Where are Han and Chewie, captured or … killed? I seriously doubt that, although fans are worried about Han’s fate. More likely they are going to get reacquainted with the Falcon later in the “Chewie, we’re home” scene. For now, Rey’s in trouble and on her own, but she’s used to that. 

The Falcon bursts out of a treeline. We’ve seen this forest before in the Oct. 19 trailer, being torn apart by a massive blast against the backdrop of a red sky. It looks fairly apocalyptic, and when planets (or solar systems) die, they probably vanish in a similar red hue, unleashed by The First Order’s Starkiller Base. In another trailer, we saw Kylo Ren watching such a glow from afar aboard a starship. These shots are puzzle pieces, but for now we can only guess at how they match up.