Star Wars: The Last Jedi Teaser - 5 Similarities And 3 Big Differences To The Force Awakens

3 Big Differences

3. The Endings

Star Wars The Last Jedi Trailer Luke Skywalker
Lucasfilm

The way The Last Jedi's teaser ends could not be further away from the ending of the last movie's teaser if it tried.

The former ends with a dark - quite literally - shot of Luke stood in an alcove, with the ominous line "The Jedi must end" running over the top.

It then cuts to the blood-red "Star Wars" title text as the music swells to a moody, almost depressing crescendo, ending on a bleak note that's far from the bright (again, literally), hopeful trailer ending we were treated to over two years ago...

Star Wars The Force Awakens Millenium Falcon
Lucasfilm

Kylo Ren actor Adam Driver once publicly compared The Last Jedi to The Empire Strikes back, arguably the darkest movie in the entire saga.

Based on this first trailer alone, that's an apt comparison; things just got worse for Leia, Han and the gang in that second movie, and pretty much every shot in this teaser paints a dire picture for Rey, Poe, Luke and The Resistance.

It's completely at odds with the relatively upbeat teaser for The Force Awakens, and this difference also highlights the decision behind LucasFilm's director choices for Episode 7, and Episode 8.

They got blockbuster aficionado J.J. Abrams to safely reintroduce the franchise to the masses with a polished, enjoyable adventure with The Force Awakens, and storytelling whiz Rian Johnson to craft a more nuanced character study with The Last Jedi, that, like Empire, will have to go darker to fully explore each character and their flaws.

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Danny has been with WhatCulture for over ten years, and is currently Doctor Who Editor and WhoCulture Channel Manager, overseeing all of WhatCulture's Whoniverse coverage. In 2022, he took charge of WhoCulture and has grown it into the biggest Doctor Who channel on YouTube, and one of the biggest Doctor Who communities on the web full-stop. He has been writing and video editing since his early teens, and first got a taste for content creation after making his own Doctor Who trailers, off the back of a burning obsession with the Matt Smith era of the show. Like many his age, he first got into Doctor Who with the 2005 revival, but has since gone back and fallen in love with the classic years too. If you need someone to recite every Doctor Who episode in order, or to give you a random factoid about the making of Gridlock, Danny is the person to ask!