Today (Sunday) is the official 2-month mark in the lead-up to the so-highly-anticipated-it-isn’t-even-worth-trying-to-be-pithy-anymore release of Lucasfilm and Disney’s first collaboration, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, is released on December 18. This week, we’d gotten murmurings that a new poster and trailer were going to be released for the movie, which hasn’t had much in the way of images or footage shown beyond two short teasers, an even shorter teaser, a thing in Korea, and that awesome Drew Struzan poster from D23. Which I guess is a lot. But we want mooooooore!
True to their word, the official Star Wars Twitter account has tweeted the brand new poster along with news that the trailer we’ve been looking for will premiere Monday night, October 19, sometime during ESPN’s Monday Night Football telecast. Do NFL games and Star Wars really go together? Not especially, but Disney does own that network. Synergy!
Check out the new official poster! Tune in to @ESPN’s Monday Night Football for a new look at #TheForceAwakens. pic.twitter.com/NTRWLlVyID
— Star Wars (@starwars) October 18, 2015
And now, for what we’ve all been waiting for — have a gander at the new poster.
The poster definitely hews a lot closer to the posters for the prequels in style and coloring, although this doesn’t appear to be drawn by Struzan the way the others were. Still, holy crap! Look at it. It’s got everything. It’s got our first look at Carrie Fisher as Leia, complete with a new ridiculous hairstyle, it’s got the First Order looking ominous with our fave Captain Phasma right in the middle, and it’s got Daisy Ridley’s Rey smack in the middle of Adam Driver’s Kylo Ren and John Boyega’s Funn, both of whom have the lightsabers we’ve seen before.
Two things of extra note: Off to the top right, it looks like we’ve got a new massive, planet-devastating weapon to replace the Death Star. Or it could be a close-up of a buzz droid (though I very much doubt that). The other is the noticeable lack of Mark Hamill’s Luke Skywalker on the poster. As of yet, we’ve only seen him (or what we assume is him) in a hood with his robotic hand touching R2-D2. Could it be that Luke’s very appearance will be some kind of spoiler? Or is this film a search for him?
Feel free to speculate away in the comments below, and be sure to come back here on Monday, October 19, because we’re sure as shootin’ gonna post the trailer when it arrives. Yay, Star Wars!!
—
Image: Lucasfilm/Disney
Kyle Anderson is the Weekend Editor and a film and TV critic for Nerdist.com. Follow him on Twitter!
