Star Wars: The Force Awakens trailer shows Abu Dhabi desert, prompts diverse reactions

In this image released by Disney, a scene is shown from the upcoming film, Star Wars: The Force Awakens. AP

So we finally got our first glance at Star Wars: The Force Awakens over the weekend, when an 88-second teaser trailer went on release at selected US cinemas and websites.

What did we learn?

Well, not too much to be honest, certainly in terms of plot. We learned that there’s been an ‘awakening,’ but we could probably have deduced that from the title. Abu Dhabi’s desert is the very first thing we see, which is never a bad thing in terms of ‘cast in order of appearance’, and it seems to be doing a sterling job of playing Luke Skywalker’s desert home Tatooine, which also appears to now be home to a strange little football-playing droid. John Boyega appears first, running through said desert, and seems to be playing a storm trooper, which the internet forums have been predicting for a while. However he’s taken his helmet off and looks rather scared, which is unusual behaviour for the empire’s fearless crack troops, so it’s safe to assume all is not straightforward.

Daisy Ridley has the look of a goodie about her as she hotfoots it across the desert on a hover bike, and there’s an evil-looking hooded man in a very cold-looking place with an awesome three-bladed lightsabre that is almost a hybrid of a Claymore from Highlander and a quasi-religious piece of Sith/Jedi lore. From the glimpses we get from behind, he does seem to have the stature to be Adam Driver, the film’s rumoured baddie, but with all the other rumours about Luke Skywalker having turned to the dark side in the movie, could it be him? We don’t know.

The Millennium Falcon, meanwhile, looks majestic battling TIE Fighters over the dunes of either Abu Dhabi, or Disney’s CGI department. They’re not the only spacecraft carried over from the original trilogy either – the rebels (or whatever they are now, having defeated the empire 35 or so years ago, so presumably not technically being rebels anymore) are still flying X-Wings and wearing the same jaunty orange jump suits from the very first time they set out to destroy the Death Star. Neither fashion nor spacecraft technology move too quickly in the post-imperial universe, it would appear, which will doubtless keep the fans happy.

Overall, it looks very promising and the internet reactions have been pretty positive so far (although the nitpicking began immediately when some well-informed geeks noted that a TIE fighter wouldn't be able to engage in combat at the low altitudes depicted in the trailer. Honestly.) That said – do you remember The Phantom Menace trailer? That looked great too, and we all know how that turned out. I guess we'll just have to wait until December 18, 2015 to find out for sure, but for good measure, here are some of our favourite social media reactions so far:

* Mission Impossible and Star Trek: Into Darkness Star Simon Pegg has sadly deleted his Twitter account. His namesake Simon Pegg (simon_pegg) however, who was recently contacted by both the BBC and the Guardian over a £4.50 (25AED) debt to a Bristol video store apparently owed by the real Simon, decided to play on his new found accidental fame by tweeting to his newly swelled following about the most anticipated trailer of the year – Shaun the Sheep, the kids animation from Bristol Studio Aardman Animation.

* None other than William Shatner (@WilliamShatner) Captain Kirk in the seminal Star Trek TV series and subsequent films noted that the new Storm Troopers look happier with their slightly smiley helmets. He has a point.

* Dave Prowse, Darth Vader in the original trilogy (and The Green Cross Code Man, for Brits of a certain age), was keeping his own opinions close to his chest, but he did ask his followers what they thought. The response was almost universal acclaim, with one fan noting that “those 88 seconds were better than the three prequels put together”.

* Underground movie and culture site Indiewire was a little cynical about the lack of anything actually happening in the trailer. While noting that it hinted at good things to come, it added: “Star Wars only needs to suggest the barest details to justify its existence. Despite the sheer scale and volume of anticipation, the teaser contains a mere eight shots and a pithy whispered voiceover.”

* Judging by the reactions of posters on the starwars7news.com, Daisy Ridley looks set to steal the hearts of a new generation of geeks just as Carrie Fisher did in the original trilogy. Elsewere, mostly positive, but still some disappointment at the lack of plot hints. “Absolutely no plot given away though? Storm Troopers, droid, girl in desert, X-Wings, bad guy, Falcon. That’s about what they gave out, and unless you’ve read some spoilers, nothing can really be made of it,” says Craytoez. Well, it is a trailer.

* The purists seemed happy. Twitter user @saxifridge noted that "So many scenes from that #StarWars trailer were a [original Star Wars designer Ralph] McQuarrie piece come to life. Can't wait."

*And of course, the internet memes have started already. If you have a spare five minutes for Googling, the new lightsabre has already been turned into a host of Christmas decorations, while Ridley’s hover bike does bear an uncanny resemblance to a Magnum Ice Cream.