Official trailer airs for first time during NFL broadcast, but director says he is ‘legitimately torn’ about fans seeing it

Hold on to your lightsabers: the official trailer for Star Wars: The Last Jedi has been released.

The trailer, which premiered on ESPN during halftime of the Monday night football game between the Minnesota Vikings and the Chicago Bears, offers the first extended glimpse of the sequel to 2015’s The Force Awakens after a teaser trailer whetted appetites early this year.

Picking up from the final scene in The Force Awakens, in which Rey (Daisy Ridley) and Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) came face-to-face on a mountaintop by the ocean, the new trailer shows Rey wielding a lightsaber, seemingly under Luke’s instruction, and Luke uttering ominous concerns about the “raw strength” he’s seen only once before: “It didn’t scare me enough then. It does now.”

Meanwhile, Leia (the late Carrie Fisher) stands in the control room of a spaceship with a worried expression on her face, Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) looks pensively at a very Darth Vader-esque mask, Stormtroopers amass, and the Millennium Falcon tears through space piloted by a roaring Chewbacca and his bird-like sidekick. The trailer also includes glimpses of Finn (John Boyega) and Poe (Oscar Isaac), as a showdown between forces of good and evil appears imminent.

The trailer’s release attracted considerable excitement on social media. A new poster for the film was also revealed a few hours before the trailer aired.



Star Wars (@starwars) Check out the brand new poster for Star Wars: #TheLastJedi and watch the trailer tonight. pic.twitter.com/A4UGpYqoeW

Before the trailer’s release Last Jedi director Rian Johnson took the unusual step of advising those who did not want to see spoilers to avoid watching it. “I am legitimately torn,” he wrote on Twitter in response to a fan who had asked whether or not to watch the trailer. “If you want to come in clean, absolutely avoid it.”



Rian Johnson (@rianjohnson) I a legitimately torn. If you want to come in clean, absolutely avoid it.



But it’s gooooood..... https://t.co/Y29K5yz8i4

Tickets for the film, which is released in cinemas around the world on 15 December, were scheduled to go on sale immediately after the trailer aired, though many fans reported purchasing them before the trailer’s release.

