Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (Final Trailer)

The trailer begins with a mysterious descending melodic motif in D, with two minor thirds separated by a semitone, slipping between the parallel minor and major keys on the outline of the minor sixth and the major third. Underneath, strings subtly outline a tonic-dominant chord progression as the initial motif stays the course.

As brass enter and the orchestration steadily builds, Emperor Palpatine’s voice takes centre stage (Ian McDiarmid), being as the longtime series villain has been away for two instalments in the series, somewhat unexpectedly making a return.

At 1:28 with the date card (“This Christmas”) we get probably the main musical feature of this trailer, which in most other contexts would read as horribly overdone—even here, it’s possibly a bit much. Still, if there was ever a time and place to reharmonize the main Star Wars theme in a major key, the final trailer for the final film of three trilogies is probably the time and place to do it. The progression is unabashedly pure, containing nothing harmonically unexpected and contrasting favourably to the mysterious melodies unfolding in the first half.

After an extended dominant chords in tandem with the image of Rey facing Palpatine, the music cuts out to focus again on dialogue—this time, of Luke (Mark Hamill) and Leia (Carrie Fisher)—Leia’s extra word being subtle but unmistakable in its differentiated timbre.

The primary Star Wars motif plays one more time in a rhythmically augmented form, even ending—literally as much as figuratively—on a high note, the home note of the key.

In summary, it’s a two part trailer that is aware of two contexts that help differentiate it from any other Star Wars trailer. Firstly, it leverages its identifiable and even iconic voiceovers and dialogue—especially that of the returning Palpatine. Secondly, it thrusts the main Star Wars theme in a new light thanks to it unapologetically shiny, major key-inflected chord progression that infuses the melody with a firm sense of finality unlike any other rendition we’ve yet heard.

— Curtis Perry