When the first teaser trailer for Star Wars: The Force Awakens played this morning, it provided me with a truly geeky, communal movie experience in a way only Star Wars can. I was lucky enough to be at the Alamo Drafthouse, which was putting on a special event where founder Tim League had assembled a panel of movie nerds, including Movies.com's own John Gholson, to watch the trailer over and over and then talk about it between rewatches.

At first it seemed like we couldn't possibly spend an entire hour talking about 88 seconds. Ninety minutes later and we were still going strong.

And since I was able to stare at freeze frames of this thing in 4K on a huge screen and then debate the meaning and implications of details with nearly 200 friends and strangers, here are some totally spoiler-free observations worth thinking about.

The Awakening

There's a lot of speculation that the voice-over could actually be Benedict Cumberbatch (he has confirmed he visited the set, but hasn't confirmed if he's in the movie), but Andy Serkis seems the much more likely candidate. It's not far from the gravelly, grizzly voice he uses as Caeser in Dawn of the Planet of the Apes.

As for what that voice is saying, there's a bit of self-awareness with the voice-over referring to feeling something awaken, since the trailer is certainly awakening deep nostalgia inside those who are watching it, but its juxtaposition to seeing John Boyega is not accidental. He's panicked, which would make sense if he's just crash-landed, but there's also a look of startled confusion on his face. Has the Force just awakened in him? Has he just done something in the movie using the Force for the first time?

The prevailing theory is that his ship gets shot down, and as we've seen in many Star Wars movies, when a ship gets blasted it tends to either spin out of control or explode. Either way, crashes never end safely. So what if he saved his own life by using a power of the Force he didn't even know he had? Say, for example, he's just used a force push at the last second to stop himself from hitting the ground from a great height at a great speed.

The Ball Droid

This moment really calls to mind the Jar-Jar Binks reveal in the original Phantom Menace trailer where he sticks his head into an energy field and does a sputtering face that makes very young kids giggle. But here we have a super, super kid-friendly design that feels like a real, tactile part of the world. It's a kid element that adults can get giddy over, which is striking the absolute perfect balance.

Also, is that a pod racer engine in the top of the frame?

The Storm Trooper Carrier

Here we're getting very modern shaky cam for the first time in the live-action Star Wars universe and it totally works. You've got to think about the intent, though. The reason to go shaky cam in a movie is to embed the audience with the characters, to make them empathize with the danger and energy whirling all around them. And so we're on the side of the storm troopers in this sequence. It's like they're on a boat at the beginning of Saving Private Ryan, and sympathizing with storm troopers in a scenario like that has never, ever been done in a Star Wars movie.

The Market

What's so great about the shot of Daisey Ridley riding across a desert planet is the restraint Abrams and company used in designing it all. It's so sparse and simple. There's no giant cityscape. There's no orgy of robots and vehicles whirling all around them. We'll probably get that as Ridley's character enters the market (where Abrams filmed the first on-set Star Wars video), but the staging of this shot is very, very New Hope-ish in how little is actually on-screen. And in an age where a filmmaker can do anything, the things they decide not to do become even more important.

And speaking of what's not on-screen being important. Everyone is making the assumption that all of this takes place on Tattooine, because sand equals Tattooine in people's minds. But keep in mind that in neither the Boyega scene, the Ridley scene, or the Falcon scene - which presumably all take place on the same planet - we never actually see the twin suns that are so iconic in the Tattooine skyline. This could very well be a new planet entirely.

Oscar Isaac

This is the one shot that's the most Star Wars-y to me. The Millennium Falcon is great and all, but to me Star Wars has always been about what happens inside the cockpits, not what happens outside the spaceship. So just seeing a rebel fighter flipping his switches (notice his targeting computer is not engaged) inside a cockpit that has wear and tear is geeky bliss. But what I like most about this shot is how you can see that Oscar Isaac's character has been in a fight. He's got a bruise on his lip and an even deeper one under his eye. And on top of that, his pilot's helmet is very scratched and beat up (a crash? an excursion outside of the ship?). It all adds into this lived-in world that permeated the original Star Wars trilogy, was lost a bit in the antiseptic design of the prequels, and is now back in full swing.

Those bruises and the look in his eyes are also exceptionally noteworthy, because they're clearly the result of anger. And we all know what side of the Force anger leads to...

The Sith in Black

There's been so much speculation as to who this is, and while we were in the theater watching the trailer on a loop and then breaking it down frame by frame, the leading theory seemed to be that this was Adam Driver. However, afterward Jacob S. Hall pinned this down as a likely candidate for Domnhall Gleeson. His build is so much leaner than Driver's in real life, and much closer to the agile body we're seeing here.

Also, since this shot is clearly hiding who this character is, might this moment be their reveal in the movie as well?

The Tri-Saber

At first glance, the tri-pointed lightsaber feels like just a way to top the double lightsaber from The Phantom Menace, but there's a real practicality to this design. The handle is long, hinting that it's to be gripped with two hands. The points coming out the side aren't offensive in nature, they're defensive to protect the hands holding it, like a medieval broadsword. Also, there's a home made look to the whole thing, and the light doesn't surge in a steady beam like it does in previously scene sabers, but it courses forth from it. There's even a solar flare-esque moment where a bit of plasma arcs out from the top mini saber. So whoever this person is, they're probably more than a little experienced in the ways of a lightsaber if they're making their own.

The Millennium Falcon

Obviously ending the trailer on a stellar shot of the Millennium Falcon, maneuvering with the in-atmosphere grace of a real bird of prey, is sending it out on such a high note for fans, but this particular shot coming out the end isn't just fan service. It's bookending where the trailer opens. And so if John Boyega's storm trooper is shot out of his ship, is it the Millennium Falcon that does it? And if Boyega is one of our main good guy characters, that would mean that whoever is piloting the Falcon either doesn't know he's a good guy... or maybe they're not so good themselves.

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