Return to a galaxy far, far away in the second teaser trailer for “Star Wars: The Force Awakens,” which lands in theaters on December 18, 2015.
It's no surprise that Adam Driver is on the dark side.
Driver plays Kylo Ren in "Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens," and on Wednesday, Entertainment Weekly gave fans a better look at the actor's character on the cover of its Fall Movie Preview issue (out Friday). The magazine, which also shares new photos from the set, is keeping other details under wraps.
Director J.J. Abrams, meanwhile, is debunking rumors that a new trailer for "The Force Awakens" will debut this weekend at Disney's D23 fan convention in Anaheim, Calif. "It is true: We are showing no footage, behind the scenes or otherwise," he confirms. "In the fall, there'll be a trailer.
"We're thrilled to go to D23 and meet the fans, but it's a tricky thing to try and rush [footage] for a convention or preexisting event that would, of course, be fun to show something at," Abrams explains.
"I'm still editing and we're working on refining the cut, but it's incredibly fun to see the movie come together," Abrams adds. "You realize certain things that you don't need, certain things you can pull out."
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U.S. & World
Agreeing to direct "Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens" was no easy decision. In fact, Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy recalls, "In the context of talking about story and laying out what we were thinking, I said one thing to him: 'Who is Luke Skywalker?' He said, 'Oh my God, I just got the chills. I'm in.' I mean, it really was almost that quickly." Kennedy adds, "The themes and ideas that we all continue to talk about are the themes and ideas that were the inherent in the original movies. We're looking, obviously, for aspiration, for characters who are conflicted between good and evil, dark and light."
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Carrie Fisher, Harrison Ford and Mark Hamill agreed to reprise their roles as Princess Leia, Han Solo and Luke Skywalker, respectively, from the original trilogy. "Any good story has conflict," Abrams says. "And if all were rosy 30-some years post-Jedi, we would be hard-pressed to find an interesting story to tell."
That challenge fell largely on screenwriter Lawrence Kasdan's shoulders. "I thought, 'Wow, OK, these people have lived–they're in a different place in their lives, Han and Leia and so on. They've lived the same 30 years I have. What would that be like? How would you see things differently?' And I was trying to figure out how I saw things differently, and one of the surprises is that you don't learn all that much," he says. "You haven't become much wiser than you were, and things are not clearer to you, and the world is just as confusing as it always was–and that's a kind of lovely thing to get to write about again."
Kasdan adds, "Age does not necessarily bring wisdom; it just brings experience."
"Star Wars: The Force Awakens" is in theaters Dec. 18.
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