Wow what a week! With no warning we got not one but two new looks at The Force Awakens footage and a slew of small news pieces. We are now just under 6 weeks from The Force Awakens! Lets get started on the news:
1) The International Trailer
mazlow01: OK so that was great! It might be better than the first full trailer, I can’t decide. I noticed the dialog that Rey has with BB-8 doesn’t actually match. It seems like a conversation but when she says “My Family” the sound quality and background noise seems different. I’m not sure the lines follow each other like we think. I love the new shots. My favorite was Rey on her knees with Kylo’s lightsaber at her neck showing yet another scene MSW got right. Loved the introduction of Rey and Finn too.
davestrr: This was a great surprise. A lot of good new shots in here. I love this opening shot better than the US trailer both visually and musically. We got a little more confirmation about Rey waiting for her Family, supporting the idea that she was left on Jakku by her family. I think this is yet another point that MakingStarWars was right on. We also got the interaction between Rey and Finn where they give each other’s names. There is definite hesitation by Finn, suggesting that he is making up the name based on his StormTrooper ID, further confirming the rumor that Finn is an orphan and his StormTrooper ID is his name. The sunset shot with the TIE fighters is great. It is very reminiscent of the helicopters in Apocalypse Now (shown in the right):
2) The TV Spot
mazlow01: I loved Maz’s castle it looks like old concept art of Vader’s castle from early ANH development. Maz is more and more becoming the character I can’t wait to see on screen. Snoke who? And the great shot of Kylo deflecting the blaster bolt is awesome. And if you pay attention you’ll notice the scene where Rey helps Finn up has been cleaned up a few things moved and BB-8 added in. And finally that shot of the Falcon crash landing? Amazing looking,
davestrr: Again, a really nice surprise. The footage keeps coming! The new shot of the approach of the Millennium Falcon to Maz’s castle on Takodana. In addition we have what is certainly a new recording of Maz Kanata. There was a recent post on EW.com by Anthony Breznican theorizing about Maz and her goggles and that they may hold some sort of power. I think it is interesting that they go to a shot of Han right after the line “I have lived long enough to see the same eyes in different people”. This might be a 
suggestion of a familial relationship between Han and Rey, to whom she is speaking. Other points is it looks like we get a bigger shot of the flags in front of Maz’s castle. At the top center, there is a flag not seen in the first trailer that looks like the “Broken horn” symbol seen here. We also get some great action shots of Rey. The first shows he taking out some thug with her staff on Jakku. The second is her shooting blaster shots at Kylo Ren, who deflects them expertly. We also have a shot of what looks like Rey throttling the Millennium Falcon controls, possibly punching it into hyperspace.
3) Toy with new Rey dialog (MakingStarWars.net)
mazlow01: I like the new dialog, it confirms to me that the Kylo Ren toy has actual dialog too.
davestrr: A few little details there. We have Rey saying “I’m just a scavenger”, echoing what Kylo Ren had said to her in another toy. My guess is this is Rey later repeating what Kylo had said in order to feign ignorance on something she is hiding.
4) TFA concept art became Rebels character
mazlow01: I think this was early Snoke concept art that was re-purposed. It makes me wonder what direction they went with Snoke.
davestrr: Certainly makes this guy look more Vader-like. This is so similar to the Fifth brother, I assume this is an early draft of this character, but hard to tell. Why did the dials need to be right over his nipples? This is Wat Tambor all over again.
5) Daisy (Rey) and John (Finn) had several interviews released this week. AOL, Entertainment Tonight, The Hollywood Reporter, CNet, and ASOS
mazlow01: We didn’t learn much but I just love their attitude. They seem so much more excited than the cast of TPM did.
davestrr: Some good stuff. Although we didn’t really learn much about the movie, we do get to see some of the chemistry between John and Daisy, which is pretty good. Hopefully that shines through in the movie. One thing that caught my attention was the guy in the CNet interview quotes Boyega as saying “Finn is on a journey that will make him a super hero”. When I heard this I felt this was the most concrete evidence that we have that Finn will become a Jedi. Yeah, I know he wields a lightsaber in the trailer, but I’m talking the Jedi super-powers that warrant the term “super hero”. It has seemed that we don’t have hard evidence of Force-powers until now, but this quote supports this idea.
mazlow01: Dude very cool shots again and they are really pushing Finn with the lightsaber. The casual fan won’t know about Rey until the movie.
davestrr: Interesting that we have all of them covering up their right eye. The only one that isn’t looking straight on is Leia for some reason. However, I’m not going to read too much into that since it could have just been a better take. Other than that, these look great. The shot of Rey is amazing. Actually everybody looks amazing in these shots and look sufficiently “bad ass”.
7) New Leak of Maz Kanata Lego figure:
mazlow01: The glasses confuse me. As does her general appearance, I’m not sure if she is a Jedi or not. Did she learn from Luke? Does she have a lightsaber? Still she sounds so cool in the trailers so I am still excited about her.
davestrr: This definitely looks like the poster character. This looks a little older than the poster, and possibly more like ET.
Very interesting. This isn’t very much like I would have imagined at all, and I imagined something more like Alf or Station from Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey. This was in part based on rumors that I had read, but with that said, this was back when all we had were leaks of concept art.
It is interesting what purposes if any do her goggles serve. The back of her head is new. We haven’t seen this in any detail yet. However, it looks like her goggles are somehow attached to her hat/headgear. Could be just as simple as corrective lenses, but could be something more.
8) Finally we got a couple of pieces from children’s books posted at Jedibibliothek (Found via MSW). Of particular interest is this “Look and Find” cover, showing Max Von Sydow’s character in the lower right. We get two shots of the Rebel base, and one of Maz’s cantina.
