Is the 'Star Wars: The Force Awakens' Villain an Ancient Sith Lord who was Awakened?

The new "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" trailer, which released shortly after Thanksgiving Day, is already on track to become the most viewed trailer of all time, with more than 58.2 million views on YouTube.

And although the 88-second trailer had only about 40 seconds of footage from the movie, fans got a glimpse of a new character that appears to be the villain of the movie.

The character is dressed like most Siths in a black cloak, and the trailer showed him walking around with a red lightsaber. Although nothing much is known about the character, fans believe a lot can be deciphered from the characteristics of the lightsaber alone.

For instance, many believe that the weapon's unstable, flickering light and ancient appearance hint that the lightsaber was made at a time when technology wasn't advanced. This, speculates Movie Pilot, would mean that the villain was in a hyper-sleep and he was accidentally awakened.

"Maybe the dude is an ancient Sith Lord who was accidentally awakened by Luke and the lightsaber design is used to represent how old he is. That could be why it isn't as smooth operating and why it looks like an old broad sword," Dustin Bates, a "Star Wars" fan, told the media outlet.

William Carrier, another reader, added: "If you think about it and listen to the narrator, it states specifically of an awakening, perhaps this character was as someone put it awakened and is a Sith mastermind like character. I think whoever he is should have been frozen in carbonite in the era of Bane and had been imprisoned for over a thousand years. That would be pretty BA."

"Star Wars: The Force Awakens" will hit theaters on 18 December 2015, and the story is set approximately 30 years after the defeat of the Empire. The cast is a mix of the old and new and features John Boyega, Daisy Ridley, Adam Driver, Oscar Isaac, Andy Serkis, Lupita Nyong'o and Gwendoline Christie, along with original stars of the saga, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Mark Hamill, Anthony Daniels, Peter Mayhew, and Kenny Baker.

Check out the official trailer below.