Not too long ago — this past week in fact — in a galaxy not so far away, the annual Star Wars Celebration came to Anaheim, Calif.
The convention, which began back in 1999, serves as a platform to announce some of the biggest Star Wars news this side of the galaxy, as well as to provide a gathering ground for longtime fans and newcomers alike.
Among the highlights of the convention was, of course, a reveal of the second official teaser trailer for the upcoming “The Force Awakens,” which is the seventh installment in the beloved sci-fi franchise.
Before I delve further, let me apologize for the amount of Star Wars centric names and terms that I am about to throw your way; hopefully you’re up to speed on your Star Wars lingo, but if not, take some time to brush up in preparation for the new film!
Anyways, the new trailer opens with an impressive wide-angle shot of a desert planet that is not the familiar Tatooine overshadowed by the remains of a downed Imperial Star Destroyer.
We get to see a new Sith villain and get a better look at the new stormtrooper armor design before the trailer closes with a reveal of an elderly Han Solo accompanied by his faithful sidekick Chewbacca.
The trailer certainly manages to capture the grand scale, the menace and the heroics that Star Wars is known for, but what it does best is manipulate fan nostalgia through the inclusion of original characters and space vehicles, accompanied by John Williams’ sweeping score.
Perhaps the biggest surprise of the week however was a look at the first Star Wars spin-off film titled “Rogue One: Anthology.” Set in between “Revenge of the Sith” and “A New Hope,” the film will follow a group of resistance fighters in their attempt to steal the plans to the Death Star.
It will be interesting to see not only how this spin-off attempts to connect itself to past Star Wars canon, but whether it will be received well by fans and stay true to the series’s original tone and style.
Another highlight of the convention was the reveal trailer for the “Star Wars: Battlefront” videogame.
In delayed production for nearly a decade, a trailer to the third installment of the “Battlefront” video game series was without a doubt a welcomed and much-anticipated sight to deprived fans of the series.
Although it lacks a single-player campaign and space battles, developer DICE has promised that “Battlefront” will have a variety of highly polished co-op missions as well as expansive multiplayer matches when it launches this November.
This week’s Star Wars Celebration served as homage to the original Star Wars trilogy and showed enough promising footage to assure fans that the saga will continue to move into the future and evolve to attract younger generations, while simultaneously staying true to those that have been with Star Wars from the beginning.
