[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=plwVRYEQG_I]

Since the only law actually passed by Congress this year requires the entire internet to comment on the trailer for Star Wars: The Force Awakens, I’ll say what I have to say about it. It looks very much like a teaser trailer, which is to say there isn’t much apart from a voiceover warning that the dark side is rising, which, if memory serves, doesn’t separate it much from the trailers for The Phantom Menace. There’s also a robed Sith carrying an impractical looking lightsaber, which, again, is a lot like what we saw in the trailers for The Phantom Menace. There’s a cute robot, which is presumably J.J. Abrams fulfilling a genre obligation while simultaneously reminding us of the Bad Robot logo. The trailer does what is required of it, I guess, in reminding us that we’re getting another Star Wars movie next year and that J.J. Abrams is directing it.

Does it make me excited to see the movie? Not much more than I was before. I’m sure Abrams will do fine. He’s adept at making light, zippy pictures, which is what Disney needs the Star Wars franchise to consist of. And Abrams once again has the benefit of working on a franchise that was driven into the ground by previous management, so expectations will be nice and low. I may check it out, but I can’t claim great excitement,  because the trailer makes similar promises to those I’ve seen before, because I know who’s making the promises this time, and most of all, because I stopped being six years old in 1978.