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Breaking down of all the hidden clues from the latest Star Wars: The Last Jedi trailer

Breaking down of all the hidden clues from the latest Star Wars: The Last Jedi trailer

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‘This is not going to go the way you think’

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The second trailer for Star Wars: The Last Jedi is finally here, and it’s a doozy. There are some impressive battles and visuals, but what stands out the most is how this trailer shows off the tension that both Kylo Ren and Rey have with their respective mentors, and it’s clearly terrifying to Luke.

Like we did with the first trailer from earlier this year, let’s take a close look and see what we can learn about the next film. Be warned, there’s quite a bit of speculation about what the scenes mean regarding The Last Jedi’s story.

Our first image is an ominous one of Kylo Ren, looking out over a First Order hangar, sans helmet. It’s a massive hangar, and it houses a number of walkers. “When I found you,” Supreme Leader Snoke says, “I saw raw, untamed power.”

Next up: a line of walkers advance on the Resistance stronghold on Crait, which we know is a remote, uncharted planet that plays a key role in the film.

Kylo Ren leads a group of troopers into a room. The rocks on the side look very much like Luke Skywalker’s home on Ahch-To, but this could be a continuation of the invasion.

“And beyond that,” Snoke continues, “something truly special.” This feels very much like a pep talk for Kylo Ren / Ben Solo, who killed his father in the last film, and who we know is still wavering on that edge.

Another shot from the red room. It’s worth pointing out just how pretty this is: the two colors contrast nicely.

We shift over to Rey’s perspective and her training on Ahch-To with Luke Skywalker. There’s a quick sequence of shots of this training that we’ve seen before.

“Something, something inside me has always been there,” Rey says as Luke receives his former lightsaber. The robotic hand is a nice touch, given that he lost it at the same time he lost that saber.

It looks like this scene picks up immediately after The Force Awakens ends. Luke’s face suggests that he’s not entirely happy to see Rey or his lightsaber. We know that she’s going to be significantly let down by him.

A dark and gloomy shot from Ahch-To, and some sort of tree. I’m getting the feeling that Rey’s going to be faced with some sort of similar test that Luke faced on Dagobah, when he trained with Yoda.

This is a familiar shot from the first trailer: a handful of books that have been rumored to be the Journal of the Whills, an important tome in the Star Wars universe.

There’s another couple of quick shots with Rey training with her lightsaber, ending with a suitably badass shot. “But now it’s awake,” she says, “and I need help.”

Cut to the shot from the first trailer of all the rocks rising up into the air, and then to another where she ends up cracking the rock all around her, which prompts a startled look from Luke.

“I’ve seen this raw strength only once before,” Luke says. He’s got a really horrified and outright scared look on his face.

There are a few shots of Luke coming out from under some splintered wood after the destruction of his Jedi temple. This is probably why that raw power scares him. “It didn’t scare me enough then. It does now.”

We’re left with Rey looking concerned and upset. Training doesn’t appear to be going well.

Back to Kylo Ren, now with his mask.

That doesn’t last long, though: he smashes his mask against a wall. Clearly, he still has some issues to work out about being Kylo Ren.

There’s a glimpse of his face with some sort of first order bandage. “Let the past die,” he says.

Cut to a couple of space battles, where Kylo Ren is flying his personal TIE Silencer. “Kill it,” he continues, “if you have to.”

We see General Leia Organa on the bridge of a ship, presumably the one that Kylo Ren is targeting.

There’s a back-and-forth between Kylo Ren and Leia, and the latter hesitates before firing. “That’s the only way to become what you were meant to be.”

Killing his father was certainly one thing that he did to become something new, but it looks like killing his mother is another thing altogether for him, and he’s not ready to make that step just yet.

There’s a new shot with the Millennium Falcon flying through a crazy crystal cave of some sort, followed by a couple of TIE Fighters.

Chewie roars, and the camera pans over to his companion, a tiny porg who gives off a roar of its own. There have been rumors that one of these creatures would stow away on the Falcon, and while they annoy Chewie, he’s clearly begun to tolerate this little guy.

Poe Dameron is up next, saying, “We are the spark that will light the fire that will burn the first order down,” as we take in several shots from a battle and him flying around. One shot includes his upgraded X-Wing fighter, an Incom-FreiTek T-70 codenamed Black One, which has a booster to help him evade enemy fire.

Finn appears next in a First Order uniform, facing off against Captain Phasma, who has a pike that extends out of her hand. Finn’s equipped with a riot baton, and they’re clearly spoiling for a rematch after their encounter in The Force Awakens.

Then, there’s more space battle, with Resistance fighters facing off against a First Order Dreadnought. BB-8 gets zapped.

We’re back to Luke, who’s lying on the ground, telling someone, “This is not going to go the way you think.” That certainly seems to be the mantra for this movie.

Another new creature, this time on Crait, is what looks like a glass fox. We saw a brief glimpse of these in the behind-the-scenes reel from earlier this summer.

The scene shifts to the interior of the hanger, where Leia stands by herself, looking upset. This looks as though it’s taking place right before that big battle on the planet, and I’d bet that she realizes that Kylo Ren is among the forces coming for the base.

“Fulfill your destiny!” Snoke says. We see a couple shots of the First Order with Finn, assembled troopers, and the Crait invasion.

Here’s a good look at our non-hologram Snoke, wearing the golden robes that he’s wearing in the various toys that have already been released. It looks like he was talking to Rey as he said that, which would be an interesting twist.

It’s not clear who Snoke is talking to, but the next shot is of Rey screaming. It looks like Snoke is torturing her, and we’re in a red room that looks an awful lot like the one Kylo Ren was in earlier in the trailer.

Then we cut to Rey: “I need someone to show me my place in all this.” This looks at first like she could be talking to Luke, but the next shot smashes that expectation pretty quickly:

She’s talking to Kylo Ren, who offers her his hand. Judging from the healed scar on his face, this is a bit later in the film.

Much of what we’ve heard from Lucasfilm or seen in the trailers has shown that there will be a lot of surprises in this film: in the behind-the-scenes reel, Daisy Ridley described it as “unexpected but right” with some surprising turns; Mark Hamill has said that he’s been surprised by what’s in it.

When she was introduced in The Force Awakens, Rey had spent her life searching for some sort of meaning, and sought out Luke to try and find that. But that doesn’t really look like it’ll go well, judging from her plea to Kylo Ren at the end of the trailer. At the same time, Kylo is looking for some sort of pillar in his life as well: Snoke seems to have attracted him with the promise of power, but at a great, conflicting cost.

The big takeaway that I have from this trailer is that the relationship between Kylo and Rey’s respective mentors is troubling to both of them, and coupled with Luke’s statement that the Jedi must end makes me think that both are trying to figure out a different path that’s not the Jedi or the Sith that we’ve seen in the Prequel and Original trilogies.

Missing from this film? Finn and Rose, who we’ve seen in the other promo material. They are apparently headed off to the Casino world of Canto Bight. Even Poe doesn’t get a ton of time here.

How does this all turn out? We’ll find out on December 15th, when The Last Jedi opens in theaters.