This year's Comic-Con taking place at San Diego has just wrapped up, and there were some big moments at the different panels that were really exciting. Unfortunately, many of the videos have not been officially released to fans who couldn't make it to Comic-Con. One of our favourite panels this year was by the Star Wars team - you can find it on the YouTube channels of various sites - and new photos from the show revealed a lot about the upcoming movie, which releases in December. But the best part for us was definitely the Comic-Con reel that was officially released to YouTube, and is a must-watch.
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The movie releases in less than six months, and as you can see from the clips below, things are looking bombastic and exciting. The reel suggests there's going to be a good mix of nostalgia and quality space opera. Director J J Abrams felt a little out of place in the Star Trek universe in our opinion, but seems a much better fit here.
We saw some shots that might have been from the interior of Millennium Falcon, and got a look at R2 D2 and some stormtroopers - there's also a shot of some strange looking aliens and a crashed up TIE fighter.
The reel also makes it a point to state that these are real sets and practical effects, not just green screen. That's something that went wrong with the prequel films - the excessive use of green screen and computer generated imagery made the films hard to connect with, compared to the gritty and lived-in Universe of the original films.
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The Comic-Con reel has a small clip featuring Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker) and when he talks about keeping one foot in the pre-digital world, you know that the fans are going to cheer and be excited.
After the disaster that was the prequel trilogy, we're honestly scared to get too excited about this film, but so far at least, this reel is hitting all the right notes.
The classic music, the old cast, and the use of real people inside real suits - instead of creatures entirely made out of CGI - are all things that the fans want. The catch is that the trailers for the prequels also looked good until you saw everything in context.
Is the Force Awakens going to bring Star Wars back on track or will it be another disaster? We'll know for sure in December.
Catch the latest from the Consumer Electronics Show on Gadgets 360, at our CES 2026 hub.