In the lead up to the release of the new trailer for Star Wars: Episode VII The Force Awakens I came across an article on Forbes, written by Scott Mendelson titled "The New 'Star Wars: The Force Awakens' Trailer Is Not For You." In the article Mendelson argues that the trailer, which debutted during Monday Night Football on ESPN, is not intended for the legions of Star Wars fans that already exist and already have plans to see the movie (myself included - obviously, look around my blog if you can tell I'm a huge Star Wars fanatic than you need your eyes checked!), but rather than it's intended for the people who may not be aware of the film or, more accurately probably, know the film is happening but don't know anything about it.
Mendelson writes,
"You are already onboard and frankly have been since October 31,
2012. And that’s why this new trailer is debuting during a football
game.
Yes, football fans can and do like Star Wars as well,
and yes the demographics for a given prime-time game are somewhat
divided in terms of age and gender. But the audience that Walt Disney
and Lucasfilm are after is the one that just happens to be watching
the New York Giants playing the Philadelphia Eagles at Lincoln Financial
Field and is surprised by the trailer or at least is watching tonight
for the actual football game and not the trailer drop. People like my older brother for instance.
He grew up with Star Wars and was a bigger fan than I was, since he was just old enough to experience Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi in
theaters. But he moved on and is the kind of person that almost never
goes to a movie theater save when he is taking his kids to something
animated or kid-friendly. If he is watching tonight’s game, it will be
for the football and not the new Star Wars trailer. Yet he will probably be somewhat interested in whatever Disney is selling tonight."
I think Mendelson raises some interesting points about who the intended audience is for the trailer. And I think he's right. I loved the trailer. I sat half a football game, a sport I can barely stand to watch during the Super Bowl (hockey and baseball are more my speed) just to have a look at the trailer first. And it did nothing to convince me to buy a ticket. In fact, I had bought me ticket 45 minutes before the trailer aired on ESPN (well, TSN here in Canada but whatever). I was already excited for the film and, sure the trailer made me even more excited, but I already knew I was seeing the film on opening night and had been planning on doing so since I first read the headlines announcing the film on October 30th, 2012.
I think Disney (who owns both Star Wars and ESPN) is doing the right thing by corss-promoting. It would beeasy to live in the echo chamber of internet fandom, where it seems The Force Awakens will not only surpass Avatar as the highest grossing film of all time, but will do so by several billion (yes, billion) dollars. And while Star Wars fandom is certainly larger than most (demand for tickets were so high on Monday multiple ticket selling websites had their servers crash - and the previous trailer set world records for number of views online), but even Star Wars needs to reach beyond it's base to achieve the highs Disney, who paid $4.05 billion for it, want it to.
I am very curious to here what a non-hard core fan thought of the trailer, someone like Mendelson's brother. The trailer was clearly designed with them in mind. Classic characters like Harrison Ford's Han Solo, Carrie Fisher's Princess Leia, and Chewbacca the Wookiee had more of a presnece in this trailer than in the two teasers that had come prior (Solo and Chewie only appeared for one shot at the end of the second trailer and Leia's hand was all that could be seen in an earlier shot). In addition, there seemed to be a focus on the return of iconic vehicles like X-Wings, TIE Fighters, and the Millennium Falcon.
The trailer definitely seemed to be focused on the fans like Mendelson's brother, those who haven't thought about Star Wars much about since the 80s. The question is, did it reach them? Are they going to be in line with me on December 18th? (Or at any subsequent showings of the movie?) Only time will tell.
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