Star Wars: Episode 7

Well...not really. But, David Letterman couldn't help but bust Oscar Isaac's chops.

Your mission if you choose to accept it: save ‘Mission: Impossible 5’ from being trampled by ‘Star Wars: Episode 7’ at the box office. Mission complete. While ‘Mission: Impossible 5’ was originally set to open this Christmas, just one week after the juggernaut that is ‘Star Wars’, Paramount has wisely thought this over and moved the new Ethan Hunt adventure up to this July.

When Disney bought George Lucas’ company, they got more than the buildings, computers, droids, and the ‘Star Wars’ intellectual property. They also got George Lucas’ unused ideas for future ‘Star Wars’ movies. Though Lucas had insisted for years that ‘Revenge of the Sith’ was his final ‘Star Wars’ film, that didn’t stop him from brainstorming a few other potential stories that could be set after the events of ‘Return of the Jedi’ (and, I assume, mostly involve Jar-Jar Binks wandering the universe and getting into “hilarious” misadventures).

Last month, George Lucas was asked if he had seen the ‘Star Wars: Episode 7’ trailer, and what his reaction was. He said he hadn’t watched the ‘Force Awakens’ trailer, had no plans to and was “not really” interested in the movie. We made him sad, we wrote at the time. But, maybe it wasn’t us that made him sad. While out promoting his new animated movie ‘Strange Magic’, Lucas reveals that he himself wanted to direct ‘Star Wars: Episode 7’.

With all of his projects, J.J. Abrams has shown extraordinary good taste in casting and ‘Star Wars: Episode 7’ is no different. Forget about the old-timers returning to the saga and think about John Boyega, Adam Driver, Gwendoline Christie and the other terrific thespians being given the biggest spotlight of their careers. Abrams, more than most working filmmakers, knows how to showcase an actor or actress in a way that makes us wonder why they weren’t movie stars before he cast them. Anyway, this is just a longwinded way of getting around to saying that Abrams’ impeccable taste is once again on display since a trio of actors from ‘The Raid’ and ‘The Raid 2’ are apparently in ‘The Force Awakens.’

Did you know that in 'Empire Strikes Back' they used potatoes to stand-in for asteroids? Or, that Sir Alec Guinness was paid millions of dollars for five hours of work as Obi-Wan Kenobi? Well, now you can test your 'Star Wars' knowledge with the latest entry in our video series "You Think You Know Movies?"

Last week saw the official announcement of some of the new 'Star Wars: Episode 7' characters' names. There was Kylo Ren, Finn, Rey, BB-8, and who could forget Poe Dameron. But, there's one more new 'Star Wars' character whose name has been revealed and if you thought "Kylo Ren" sounded silly, wait until you hear this: Captain Phasma.

J.J. Abrams is famous for keeping secrets. His whole schtick as a director is the “mystery box”—finding pleasure in the unknown, and in the tease of that uncertainty. He didn’t show the monster in the trailer for ‘Cloverfield’; hell he didn’t even show the title of the movie in the trailer for ‘Cloverfield.’ If J.J. Abrams could release a movie without telling you anything about it, he probably would.

Pretty much everyone has seen the 'Star Wars: Episode 7' trailer at this point. It was the most-viewed trailer of 2014 and is on track to become the most-viewed trailer of the internet age. It has been viewed over 72 million times and has spawned countless parodies and memes but, there's still one person who hasn't seen it: George Lucas. The man who created the franchise says that he hasn't seen the 'Force Awakens' trailer and has no plans to. In fact, he's not even that interested at all.

Trailers are a huge part of the fabric of movies. They play before every film shown in theaters, and on every movie website around the world. They’re commercials, obviously, but they’re also more than that; miniature works of art that utilize the core elements of cinema—image, sound, music, action, editing—at their most pure and refined. And today at ScreenCrush we’re celebrating movie trailers by saluting the best sneak previews of 2014.