In a YouTube video released this morning, Star Wars sequel director J.J. Abrams talks about some boring thing to benefit kids or whatever, but more importantly, he stands in front of a pretend spaceship that might be in his upcoming motion picture. As Abrams rests his hand on a full-scale X-wing model and maybe mentions UNICEF at some point, viewers are treated to a detailed, close-up view of weathering on the ship’s hull. The wear and tear suggests that this craft has been through at least one star war, and possibly multiple star wars. What a terrible thing it must be to exist in a war-torn world. That poor spaceship.
Later, Abrams holds up a T-shirt that momentarily obstructs the view of the spaceship. Then, thankfully, he lowers the T-shirt as the camera pulls back to reveal that the X-wing’s S-foils are locked in the closed position. But of course they’re in the closed position. To depict the S-foils in the attack position here would have been a significant blunder—one that would have distracted from the real issue at hand in Abrams’ video, which is the ship’s blue trim. As all well-informed viewers are aware, the most iconic X-wing images—as seen in A New Hope’s depiction of the Battle Of Yavin—feature red trim. The limitations of chroma-key technology prevented blue trim, George Lucas’ original preference, from being a practical choice. So by going with blue here, Abrams honors the past while signaling his desire to make a real difference in the world—to shake fans out of their complacency and bring hope to the long-suffering Star Wars franchise.
While viewers continue admiring the ship, Abrams says something about a private screening if you give money to that children thing and so forth. But then a fellow walks across the screen and gets into the X-wing! This sequence confirms that the X-wing hatch will have both “open” and “close” capabilities in the upcoming seventh Star Wars film.
Finally, Abrams concludes with a heartfelt plea for viewers to notice the lovable robot scurrying under the spaceship. Because in the end, isn’t it all about the adorable robots? No, it’s not. It’s about the X-wing, which is blue.