UPDATE: I wasn’t aware of the following Tweet when I wrote this post yesterday:
so we won’t have to endure camera phone footage after all!
The original post is as follows:
The Force Awakens still hasn’t grown on me as a title yet, but give it time. It took ten years for me to admit that The Phantom Menace is not only a thing, it’s canon. I have a feeling JJ’s movie is going to stick quicker than that one did. And to be fair, I’m glad Phantom exists, if only because it gave us Qui-Gon Jinn, a dual lightsaber, and the podrace scene, which is one of my favorite big audio moments in all of movie history. The only thing I truly dislike about the prequel trilogy is the fact some misguided parents show it to their kids before showing them the real trilogy.
Speaking of the podrace, do you know what other sounds I love? The sounds of dinosaurs in Jurassic Park movies, specifically at a theater which isn’t afraid to kick up the decibels. That sound is chilling, man. So the first decent Jurassic World trailer dropped yesterday and, in case you haven’t seen it, here it is:
I loved Chris Pratt in Guardians of the Galaxy, but this trailer doesn’t exactly do him justice. It sounds like the acting in a made-for-Youtube movie. “Hey, watch out. This thing can kill you. You hear what I’m saying? And genetic modifying is bad, ‘kay?” He kind of looks confused about where he’s at. And I’m not sure how driving with the velociraptors works unless they’re all being chased by something big and bad. But if that’s the case why doesn’t Pratt look at all worried?
Remember how they fed cattle to the dinosaurs in the original film? And how you don’t actually see the dinosaurs responsible for shredding up the cow’s harness until later? That’s Jaws awesomeness right there. Or when the kids realize the goats are gone. That was brilliant.
So in the trailer above it was great to see there would be a new dinosaur who eats sharks. That’s exciting. What’s not exciting is the trailer blows its load and shows us the dinosaur in full. Why does promotional material screw surprises up so badly? I would have gone to see the movie just to see what kind of dinosaur eats sharks.
I digress. As you know, Bob, Disney is showing the first trailer for Star Wars: The Force Awakens this Friday, which certainly makes sense: it’s historically one of the biggest days at the box office, the day after Thanksgiving, otherwise known as the day idiots feel justified in going bonkers at Target. You think, “Well, obviously Disney wants as many people as possible to see it, so that’s why they’re releasing it that day.” But then you hear they’re only releasing it in thirty American theaters (originally it was reportedly nine) and you remember why you hated Disney in the first place.
Because Disney is run by assholes. That’s why.
Seriously. The leaked trailer is going to end up online faster than the speed of light and it won’t even look as good as the first time we saw The Phantom Menace trailer on shitty-ass Real Player at 56 kbit/s. As for all of us who are pretending we’re not going to watch it… well, we’re assholes too, because we’ll be the very first who do. We won’t hear a thing above the nerds’ applause and the tapping of plastic lightsabers, and we won’t be able to see shit other than the fact it appears to have been shot by a Parkison’s victim. But we’ll watch it a million times and Walt Disney’s corpse will be laughing its ass off from a cryogenic grave.
I’m still holding out hope that Disney has a surprise (UPDATE: They did!!!) that turns out to be a little more palatable than all this, but so far this decision sounds like pure corporate bureaucracy. They already know what happened when they tried to restrictthe Age of Ultron trailer. Short of disabling all the electronics in the audience with an EM pulse, how are they going to keep this one from leaking, too? Perhaps they don’t care if it leaks, but wouldn’t it be better if we all saw it properly?
If I had to guess, the trailer will be officially streaming by Monday. And in case you’re wondering: No, I don’t blame a corporation for trying to make money with this, but again, couldn’t they make more of that money if they showed it in more than thirty theaters? It’s just such an odd decision in the internet age.
I love characters who punch their problems in the face, movies that "normal" people think are stupid, cheap coffee, and plain T-shirts. In case you're wondering why I'm cranky, I haven't smoked a cigarette since September 12th, 2015.
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