Star Wars: The Force Awakens trailer has fans split over new lightsabre

Star Wars fans got their first glimpse of the space saga's long-awaited new film - including a controversial new-look lightsabre - but still have to wait a year for the movie itself.

"There has been an awakening. Have you felt it?" a gravel-voiced narrator intones in the brief trailer released on Friday, before a squad of Stormtroopers is seen prepping for action.

Studio giant Disney revealed the name of the new episode, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, earlier this month, saying filming had been completed on the movie, which is due in cinemas on December 18 next year.

"The dark side … and the light," the voiceover continues, as a cloaked figure - perhaps a dark Sith Lord - brandishes his lightsabre in a snowy forest, before John Williams' stirring theme plays. Many fans, who immediately took to the internet with comments and speculation, seemed split about the new design of the lightsabre, which had flaming beams coming out of the handle in what looked like some sort of handguard.

The seventh movie in the Star Wars franchise - launched more than 35 years ago - benefits from far superior visual effects than those seen in the first films, but the original battleships are back.

The Millennium Falcon, the famed spaceship of smuggler Han Solo (Harrison Ford) and his hairy first mate Chewbacca, is seen looping and skimming a planet, preparing for combat with the Empire's TIE fighters.