Teaser Analysis: The Snark Awakens

I have been asked for my thoughts about the new Star Wars trailer. 


My first reactions are these:

• cute droid is far better than cute animals.  That this teaser featured a cute droid is fine with me, as people forget that the comic relief/silliness from the first three movies were droid centric.  Heaps and heaps of silliness from C3PO and a bit from R2-D2.  So, a swift droid that moves like a soccer ball?  That's fine.   Plus given that our old droids are in the new movie, this new droid could just be ... bait.  That is, it could get nailed in the first scenes and no one would care that much.  Plus JJ may have learned the fundamental Star Wars lesson: more merch is more merch.
• A black stormtrooper?  Dudes, John Boyega was cast a while back, so black stormtrooper or black Jedi or a black Red Squadron pilot or whatever.  Oy.  Racists be racists.  Anyhow, it will be interesting to see if he is a stormtrooper or an Alliance guy dressed as one a la Luke and Han in the original Star Wars movie.
• Potential Han/Leia daughter on a new/old kind of speeder?  Yes, please!
• X-Wings attacking along an river or lake or ocean or fjord?  Yes, pretty please!  This looks like a really cool sequence.  Nice to see Rogue/Red Squadron back in action.  Where is Red 5 when we need him?
• The Sith with the funky lightsaber?  Anyone complaining about that needs to talk to Stephen Colbert who had an excellent take on it. 
• The Millennium Falcon dodging, diving, dipping, docking and dodging?  Outstanding!  
• Plus the music?  Fantastic!

Of course, as a teaser, it gives us no hint about the characters, the plot or anything really.  We just get to see a couple of the key new characters--kid Solo (Jaina?) and John Boyega'--with absolutely no context.

All we know for certain is that the effects look great, the music still works so very well, and the future is bright.  Could JJ screw up the plot and the characters?  Have you seen the recent Star Trek movie?  So, yeah, things can go awry.  But what little we can see looks mighty, mighty good.  Anger, fear?  These are of the dark side.  I prefer to live in the light, with hope and joy.