You thought they were done releasing snifters of new Star Wars footage in endless trailers and TV spots, now that we’re just a week away from the release of The Force Awakens. Well, think again! A new international Chinese trailer has hit the web, and it’s positively filled with new snippets.
You can check out the full trailer below, introduced on the Chinese video service Youku by teen idol star Lu Han late last night:
There’s some surprising new bits in there—extra dialogue between Kylo Ren and Supreme Leader Snoke about crushing the Resistance and yadda yadda Dark Side, while Han gets a cheeky little line in about the Falcon. Plus, lots of fun spaceship action! Glorious shots of X-Wings sweeping into attack formations, travelling (alongside the Falcon) to a planet, and a pretty nasty looking crash landing for the Falcon itself at the end.
But aside from the new footage, it’s interesting to see that the most dazzling new shots we’ve seen of The Force Awakens so far have all been found first in footage intended for international audiences. There’s a good reason for it, too—here in the West, where Star Wars is deeply ingrained into our popular culture, Disney has been fine to rely on nostalgia plays, the sights of X-Wings and Tie Fighters, and the sounds of familiar music for a marketing plan that has shown significantly less of the movie than your average blockbuster does in the run up to release.
To us, Star Wars markets itself simply by the virtue of being Star Wars. To audiences abroad, where it’s growing in popularity but nowhere near on the same level as it is here, there needs to be something a little more to it: hence, more plot tidbits and new footage for us to pump into our veins for speculative enjoyment.
Star Wars: The Force Awakens hits theaters December 18th. As if you needed reminding at this point.