New Star Wars trailer has been released

A new trailer for the forthcoming Star Wars: The Force Awakens has been released.

The clip, which runs for nearly two-and-a-half-minutes, was released during the halftime show of the Philadelphia Eagles v New York Giants American football game.

The film reunites three key characters from George Lucas's original trilogy: Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill ), Han Solo (Harrison Ford) and Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher).

The trailer also features lightsaber battles, dogfights between TIE and X-Wing fighters and a starring role for the Millennium Falcon.

Tickets for the film, which is released in the UK on December 18, went on sale on Monday morning.

The demand for tickets quickly led to websites crashing.