Decoding the first teaser for Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker

Mystery

The first teaser for Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker has arrived by raising even more questions than it answers. For one: Which Skywalker does it mean? Luke? Vader? Someone else? We try to answer what we can...

Breathless

It begins with a callback to The Force Awakens, which featured John Boyega's Finn gasping against the desert backdrop of Jakku. This time it's Daisy Ridley's Rey, but...

Control

...she's calming herself, not panicking. She knows what's coming, and she's ready. Here we see a familiar object. Anakin Skywalker's lightsaber, then Luke's...now it belongs to her.

Ignite

In The Last Jedi, the artifact was ripped in two in a clash of wills between Force-wielders Rey and Kylo Ren. She has clearly restored it. "The lightsaber Rey inherited from Luke Skywalker lives," Ridley said in the Celebration panel Friday. She's also packing Han Solo's blaster.

Screaming

Kylo Ren's starfighter in The Last Jedi was called the TIE Silencer, which is funny given the shrieking noise it makes cutting across the desert toward her. This isn't the same ship. His had a spider-like cockpit, while this is more a traditional TIE with the Silencer wings.

Faceless

We don't see Kylo Ren's face, just his hands, piloting the dart-shaped craft toward her. We know what he looks like, but there's something ominous in not seeing him. (If it is him.)

Exposed

In contrast, Rey is unarmored, without a mask or helmet, and seemingly alone.

Sprint

She starts to run, but not in fear. She's building speed... ready to literaly walk through the air ...

Flight

...for a daredevil leap over the cockpit of the razorblade ship. We don't see what happens next, but based on the angle she is in a great position to slice off the right foil of that TIE Silencer — silencing it for good.

Cloudy

It's too hard even to discern the type of ship, but it looks very similar to the one Rey saw in her vision from The Force Awakens, abandoning her on the planet Jakku.

Betrayal

This crimson forest has a storybook feel, but there are no happy endings to be found. Stormtroopers are in the background, and it looks like Kylo Ren is slashing down one of the Knights of Ren.

Restoration

Kylo Ren smashed his helmet in a rage in The Last Jedi, but some creature with furry, claw-like hands is repairing it although it will remain covered in red scars — just like his actual face.

Watchmen

Boyega's Finn and Oscar Isaac's Poe Dameron stand watch on a rocky outcropping. Hard to know what's happening here, but Finn is now armed with Rey's staff.

Pals

BB-8 has a sidekick, the wheelie droid D/O. There's a big brother/little brother thing happening between these two, and less of an All About Eve robot rivalry.

Hyperspace

Lando is back in the cockpit of his old ship. The Millennium Falcon and Billy Dee Williams both have a lot of years on them, but it doesn't appear to be slowing them down.

Smooth

Read the joy on Lando's face. The yellow shirt and black cape Williams is wearing harkens back to Donald Glover's wardrobe as the character in Solo. Still looks good.

Chase

A Stormtrooper goes flying through the dust on a rocket pack in this race through a desert. What are the mechanical arrays scattered through this landscape?

Shotgun

Poe Dameron pilots this new speeder, which has a kind of tank tread on the front of it, plowing through the desert dunes like a jet ski blasting through ocean waves. Finn and C-3PO hang on in the back.

Honor

One of the medals given to either Luke or Han at the end of 1977's original Star Wars in the Yavin temple scene. It appears to be Carrie Fisher's Leia holding it.

Embrace

Abrams added the late Fisher to the film by way of deleted sequences from The Force Awakens that they never used. Here, Rey and Leia share a moment in the woods.

Tears

Yeah. The audience feels this one, too.

Heroes

Three droids. Three humans. And one badass Wookiee. Abrams revealed this film won't keep the central characters separated. They're on this quest together.

Ruins

The focal lens of a destroyed Death Star rises from the ocean of an alien world. Is this the first one, or the second from Return of the Jedi. And what are they seeking here? As we hear the cackle of Emperor Palpatine, Luke says "No one is ever really gone." That goes for the bad guys, too.

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker is out Dec. 20.