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Star Wars teaser trailer: Does it leave too much to the imagination?

Disney released the teaser for Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens, the seventh installment of the wildly popular space opera, on Friday.

  • By Lisa Suhay Correspondent

One of the first things fans may notice about the teaser trailer from Disney and Lucasfilm for "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" is that it starts off like a parody.

The first face seen is that of John Boyega, star of the British horror/comedy Attack the Block, who pops up from the bottom of the frame like a sweaty, terrified Stormtrooper-in-the-box. 

“I genuinely thought it was a spoof. Was listening out for canned laughter. I actually do like the trailer tho,” tweeted Chris Blundell, writer/director of the animated comedy movie "The Hit Squad".

That’s the price that secretive filmmakers pay. Play the details too close to your vest, and the fake trailers and parodies will proliferate. Even Rolling Stone magazine got taken in, running a story on one of the fake trailers as though it were the real thing.  

Still, the Hollywood's now-familiar burlesque routine  – start with still images via Instagram and Twitter and then slowly dribble out trailers that reveal more and more details – didn't arise accidentally. Every time a new scrap of information drops, whether its with Star Wars or the upcoming "Batman vs. Superman," fans around the world, at least its online parts, tend to go wild.

Batman fans have to make due for the meantime with still images of the car and the suit. But Star Wars fans can now have a whole minute and eight seconds of actual visual satisfaction, before the credits roll the teaser trailer released Friday.

In that brief span, aside from a lot of jokes about how confused they were about whether or not the trailer was a spoof, fans got their first look at a red, Excalibur-like, lightsaber – more accurately a lightclaymore – of a new Sith character.

There was also a droid that looked like it was riding on a soccer ball, and a young woman racing across a dunescape on a speeder bike that bears an uncanny resemblance to a Dove bar.

Some fans, like Mark Critch, took the opportunity in the early hours after the release to bait fans about its content.

Twitter fans pointed out that even the media got a bit confused this time around. Gabriel Malor tweeted that a Fox News talking head made a “Live long and prosper” quip in reference to the new Star Wars trailer and was instantly lambasted online for the gaffe.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens opens in movie theaters on December 18, 2015.

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