Return of Han

In a trailer for the new Star Wars movie, a Harrison Ford who is 30 years older than the Han Solo of my childhood emerges from his ship, the Millennium Falcon, alongside his sidekick Chewbacca (Peter Mayhew). With gun drawn but a cocky smile on his face, Han growls, “Chewie—we’re home,” just before Chewbacca’s signature roar.

I can’t remember when I’ve been so excited.

Trailers have always been marketing tools for films, but now they’re often art in their own right. With only 90 seconds and multiple screens open at once, they had better demand attention. The trailer for The Force Awakens, due out in Decem­ber, delivers delight and nostalgia in equal measure. Fans disappointed with the series reboot in the early 2000s (“George Lucas raped my childhood” was one of the more garish blog memes) have been salivating over these trailers like the geeks we are. Ford, Mark Hamill as Luke Skywalker, and Carrie Fisher as Princess Leia reprise characters last seen in 1983 in Return of the Jedi. “Every­thing’s changed and yet nothing has changed,” says one of the movie’s makers in a promotional film.