J.J. Abrams reveals new Force Awakens teaser, details



On Thursday, J.J. Abrams kicked off a weekend-long Star Wars convention by revealing the second teaser trailer for the upcoming Star Wars: The Force Awakens film, and it included the first reveal of Harrison Ford reprising his role as Han Solo.

"Chewie, we're home!" Ford says with Chewbacca standing behind him to close the teaser, which also included footage of a Millennium Falcon chase, a melted Darth Vader mask, a lightsaber hand-off, and Mark Hamill's speech to Leia from Return of the Jedi, though this time chopped up to sound like he's now saying it to an heir apparent. Stormtroopers, X-Wings, TIE Fighters, new droids, and the sequel's three new leads also feature prominently.

As a lead-up to that teaser reveal, Entertainment Weekly columnist Anthony Breznican hosted a panel with Abrams and Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy, where he asked questions about filming scenes in Abu Dhabi, designing new droids (including new droid "BB8," whose impressive rolling ball design includes a head that swivels on its top), and casting the series' three new lead actors.

Those leads, Daisy Ridley (Rey), John Boyega (Finn), and Oscar Isaac (Poe Dameron), also appeared on stage to give brief descriptions of their characters—admittedly vague stuff about rebellious attitudes and chance encounters. Boyega then admitted that while he was on set, he'd gotten a two-foot-tall figurine of Han Solo in Stormtrooper gear signed by Harrison Ford ("this is weird," Ford apparently said to Boyega). Isaac pantomimed using a lightsaber to recreate how he felt when he'd booked the role in Episode VII.

Carrie Fisher, Mark Hamill, Anthony Daniels, and Peter Mayhew joined the panel toward its end, weirdly standing in front of a line of stoic Stormtroopers. Daniels had fun with the giant gaffe that the event had posted an hour earlier in the form of a misspelled Twitter promotion, introducing himself to the massive crowd as "CP3O." When asked about her classic hair, Fisher told the crowd, "The buns are tired now, so we're probably not going to have futuristic buns, but we'll have an alternate thing that you'll be very into—which is not the metal bikini, I promise!" (Fisher also made an awkward joke about "playing with me when I was plastered.")

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