Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker 4K Trailer Breakdown

It's time to take a look at the "final" Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker trailer scene-by-scene, 4K shot-by-shot. This article is going to contain some information you may want to skip over if you're not interested in getting spoiled before the movie is released. This article will not contain spoilers before the first image, but after that – it's basically spoiler city. So here, and now, this is your final warning: if you're hoping to avoid Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker SPOILERS, it's time to turn back now!

Before we go much further, I'd like to mention that we're making some liberal use of the podcast over at Making Star Wars. That's called "Now, This Is Podcasting!" and it's a podcast with the title "The Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Trailer shots explained!" It's a good listen, if you're more in the mood for a bit of audio while you're in the car heading to work, anything like that, go for it. This article should serve as a good companion to that, too, with all the big fat images.

Above you'll see the trailer itself. This trailer is up-scaled – this means it's not NATIVE 4K, but intelligently expanded using details in-place with the original highest-quality press copy available. The jump from DVD-quality "PRORES" 1080i FHD+ to 1440 4K isn't massive, especially when the original file (nearly 4GB total) is so incredibly sharp. The images we're using come from the downloaded "PRORES" copy, rather than the 4K slightly-upscaled version from YouTube above.

The helmet above was worn by Rey until she tossed it aside. We see her block a bolt from an object that's only really visible for a frame. That's almost certainly a "Remote" like we see used by Luke Skywalker and Obi-Wan in A New Hope. Given their access to the Millennium Falcon, there's a pretty good chance that they're implying it's literally the same device.

While the above pair of clips appears to have Rey jump from one environment to the next, this apparently does NOT happen in the movie. This is just a happy accident/really well-done edit. In the process, we see that Rey jumps one whole heck of a lot.

The Resistance needs to muster up for the umpteenth time here, ready for the ultimate final battle we'll see again in the clip later in the trailer with more ships than can fit on a single screen. There's too many of them!

Rose is, indeed, in this film. She's gotta take charge with one of those four-legged beasts we see below! You'll see another one in the background here – blurry time!

Should we find some old-style Rebellion ships and bring em back into the sky so we can fight the old-style Star Destroyers we'll see later in the film? Sure, why not? Chewie, Finn, and Poe stick together for the majority of this film – Rey comes along with their part of the action quite a bit as well.

At some point, Rey leaves the group and takes a strange skiff-boat thing to see the Death Star II. This is a point at which we see her meet up with Kylo Ren – again. Their relationship changes significantly throughout this film.

More evidence that what you see above is the Death Star II near the end of this gallery – right near the end of the trailer. There's a whole lot of Death Star II out in this raging sea, it would seem. Far more than the explosion in Return of the Jedi would have had you believe.

The ice base can be seen in the image above. Here you'll see a bunch of TIE fighters, too – but the important part to note is the fact that this is literally just a hunk of ice in space. This base will be a the meeting ground for the team aboard the Falcon gaining knowledge about the whereabouts of Kylo Ren and the "Sith Fleet."

Above is one of two "throne" sorts of things we see in the film. This has a very Ralph McQuarrie look to it – see early sketches of said throne done for Return of the Jedi. The other "throne" is more of a medical chair – you see that a tiny bit in a later clip.

Below you'll see a Star Destroyer rise from under solid ground. This is one of a fleet of Star Destroyers that's been hidden by The Emperor for the past several decades – surprise!

There's one big battle in the mix here – and it'll likely attempt to be more visually spectacular than any other space battle seen in any other Star Wars film to date. So get your viewing goggles out – and probably your taste for close angles followed by big drops, Revenge of the Sith style.

The massive number of ships you see above looks like it's probably part of wave 2 of the big battle in space. You wouldn't want this many ships in one frame if you didn't want to end the movie soon after.

Above may be part of the Super Star Destroyer attack we see below (General Pryde's Super Star Destroyer), but it may be earlier in the film. It'd make more sense for it to be part of the Ice Base deal – but we'll see!

A collection of sequences in the trailers we've seen so far show Rey doing some training. This is all part of Rey's continued Jedi Training at the aid of Leia. Here we see Leia and Rey saying farewell to one another.

Above you'll see some blasting action aboard the Pasaana Speeder (see our LEGO review) with some brightly colored dust explosion courtesy of BB-8!

Above and below are part of the same space battle. There'll be two "waves" of battle, one before a lighting storm (of sorts), and another right after the Millennium Falcon brings some reinforcements.

There's a mega-battle coming on, if that weren't already apparent. The Resistance Fighters in the images above are literally riding out during a space battle. This is going to get weird – space lightning weird!

The image above takes place in the Throne Room on the Death Star II from Return of the Jedi. If nothing else confirmed that the other bits you've seen with metal bits in thrashing waters were the Death Star II, this should do it.

Above you'll see a battle that takes place in Kylo Ren's quarters – that's likely Darth Vader's helmet we see there, getting trashed in the battle. This is likely part of a battle in the mind – not necessarily in-person.

Above you'll see the Emperor in his big scary moving machine throne moving toward Rey – this is just before he attacks both Rey and Kylo. This is on a planet called Exogol. Below you'll see Rey realizing Kylo Ren (Ben) is sorta on her side, joining her to face The Emperor.

At this point we've got pretty much the whole basic plot in place, a couple months before the release of the movie. If what we've got listed here goes as we're expecting, this movie should be one spectacular vision to behold. We can't wait! Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker will be released to theaters on December 19, 2019.