The creation of trailers for popular franchises is becoming essentially a film genre of it’s own. Marketing teams carefully choose which select moments will be making it into the trailers, and the trailers themselves are purposefully released to make sure that hype for the film continues to grow until it hits theaters. One of the franchises to best utilize the purposeful few seconds in trailers is Star Wars, specifically the newest addition, The Force Awakens. Fans of the series eagerly awaited the return of the galaxy far, far away and ate up every moment of footage leading up to Episode VII’s release.
Actress Daisy Ridley, aka our new hero Rey, recently opened up in an interview, where she claimed that things might be a bit different with Episode VIII’s promotional material.
I think Rian actually wants to be a bit cheekier with the little tidbits of information that come out. You can see, even with the way Mark and Carrie posted pictures with their chairs, it's a little bit freer.
This statement, which comes to us from ET, makes complete sense. At this point, director Rian Johnson knows that we know the universe of the current Star Wars trilogy. Luke is a Jedi recluse, Leia is a General, Han Solo is… well you know.
Part of what made the marketing around The Force Awakens so successful was the mystery behind the plot. We had no idea who or what we’d be seeing in the film, besides knowing which cast members were returning and that there would be a scary dude with a cool red lightsaber. Other than that, we examined the frames of the footage and tried to surmise who was good, who was bad, and where the hell Luke Skywalker was.
I have mixed feelings about the "cheeky" approach to footage for the untitled Episode VIII. In some ways I’m excited, because I had watched the Force Awakens trailers about a million times before I finally saw the movie. I want all my bases covered for the new film: I want to see the original cast, the new heroes, as well as intriguing side characters like Maz Kanata.
On the other hand, knowing so little about the film going in made The Force Awakens a great moviegoing experience. I got to look at the film with fresh eyes, only knowing all of the information from the past 6 Star Wars films. It’s a common complaint that movie trailers show too much of their films, so it would be a shame for the magic of Star Wars to be ruined by giving us too much too soon.
We’ll continue to update you as more information regarding Episode VIII becomes public.
