Monday Morning Quarterback
By BOP Staff
December 23, 2015
Michael Lynderey: This opening is entirely appropriate, because it was Star Wars: the Phantom Menace that gave birth to what I used to call Decade of the Fanboy, a term that is now essentially irrelevant, because it's becoming Century of the Fanboy. From Phantom Menace's May 1999 opening until now, Hollywood studios learned that fans eagerly anticipating their favorite genre property's arrival or return to the big screen on message boards everywhere would absolutely turn out, often in droves, if the studios were to just finally go ahead and make the films. So we got a new Star Wars trilogy, which was huge at the time, and Freddy vs. Jason, and a Batman prequel (that's what Batman Begins was billed as at the time, though no one calls it that anymore), and a Watchmen adaptation, and a Star Trek reboot, and Iron Man and Thor and the Hulk sharing the screen! It's what their many fans had dreamed about for decades, and, as opposed to appealing only to a niche element of the movie-going population, most of these films turned out to be more profitable than I suspect many studios had previously thought.
Most recently, we've seen big numbers for nostalgia movies like Creed and Jurassic World, and when it comes to nostalgia, no one takes the cake higher than Star Wars. Of course, the Phantom Menace was massively anticipated as a return to this world, but what I suspect fans really wanted to see are those three actors - Carrie Fisher, Harrison Ford, and Mark Hamill - on screen again, playing the same roles like nothing had changed at all in 32 years. During the prequel years and up to the (underrated) Revenge of the Sith, their dream seemed to be gone and done. But the Disney purchase of Lucasfilm and the subsequent production of this film brought that fan fantasy back to life, and putting Han Solo and Chewbacca in one of the first big teasers sent the message that the filmmakers had heard the call of fans everywhere.
The Force Awakens was released six years to the day of Avatar's opening, which is also appropriate because it'll probably be the biggest movie of the decade, all time, etc. Sorry, Jurassic World. You gave it the old college try. But the force awakened.
Edwin Davies: The brilliance of Disney's marketing effort cannot be underestimated here. The first trailer debuted a year ago and immediately dominated the discussion by showing almost nothing of the plot, but showing everything when it came to tone and feel. Rewatching that first teaser now, it's striking how well it managed to suggest the feeling of the old Star Wars films, while only introducing the new characters. The subsequent advertising brought in the old guard and hit people in their nostalgic pleasure centers, but I think part of what was key to the success was that it promised something old and something new at the same time, while also revealing very little about the actual plot until very late in the game.
That sense of mystery - which reached fever pitch in the last few weeks as people started asking why Luke Skywalker was absent from the poster and the ads - is unique to blockbuster filmmaking these days, and I think that fueled the excitement. Anecdotally speaking, everyone I work with was planning to see it this weekend, with many going on Thursday because they did not want it to be spoiled. That desire to experience the film fresh without anything ruining it drove the rush, and so made it even more essential for people to see it as soon as possible before they accidentally found out details of the plot, either online or (as happened to my dad) by having someone just blurt out a major plot point while they were at work. Spoilerphobia has been a big part of Internet culture for a while now, but the idea of having the first new Star Wars movie in a decade (and the first one in three decades that wasn't just filling in backstory) ruined may have added some urgency to the usual fanboy rush.
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