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Star Wars Promotions
Lincoln wrote in to tell us
the Promotional Campaign for Phantom Menance. He writes "I just received a secret memo from a large media organisation that revealed all of Lucasfilm's promotional plans for Episode One!
It is every Star Wars geek's dream come true:
8 billion Star Wars cans of Pepsi
New 5 minute Trailer coming soon (there's a new version posted at my site as well)
100 million gaming cards
$1 million in cash to be won
Episode One video releasein 2000
Episode One on 3,000 screens" It wouldn't be Star Wars
without mega promotions.
It all sounds pretty cool but I just hope the new Star Wars movies don't end up being one of these (I mean three of these) big promo box office flops... the trailer looked impressive though...
Expect lots of characters that will be perfect action-figures, lots of vehicles that will be on sale at Toys R Us, and a video game treatment of the entire story.
Story? Who needs it. Hype is all we need!
Your forgetting the guy who made this. Lucas had this plot in his head during the first star wars triligy (4-6). The only difference is he now has the technology (and the money) to use extreme graphics etc.
I wasnt around for the first star wars but from what I here there was a lot of hype on them too. People are too skeptical about the movie. Its gonna be big, have a plot, and be very very cool for all the star wars fans and surely create some more fans while its at it.
star wars rules( they may make hype and stuff but the day star wars actually sucks is the day hell freezes over)
doobman
(sorry forgot that nasty passwd again. sigh)
I remember a lot of speculative hype for ROTJ. A few tantalizing pictures, and the trumpeting of Harrison Ford's agreement to play Han Solo again. Other than that, all I remember is pictures of Han captured by Ewoks.
CmdrTaco: Please update your /. code to include the users HOST ADDRESS in the header so we know where people who post foul language, etc are coming from.
I know a few people that work at the local 20 screen theatre and was told that they supposed to destroy all phantom menace posters, etc at some point in the future, but nothing about when they will or any title change. Did they do any of this with the revenge of the jedi?
That is the only important question.
Posted by Jeremy Witt:
Pepsi? What the Hell?
Actually it was the greatJoseph Campbell who pointed at the mythological value of science fiction. Mythological archetypes adapting to our technological age.
Siskel and Ebert might not give it two thumbs up, but I don't think there's any chance this will flop! In the eyes of many fans, it *cannot* be a bad movie. And other studios are so afraid to get steamrolled by this movie that they are avoiding that time period like the plague. If you want to see a scifi/action movie in May 1999, it has to be Star Wars.
In other news, there is another version of the original star wars trailer up on their web site. This one has the black bars at the top and bottom chopped off, and a rez of 480 x 210. There are some mirrors on the page listed in the story.
Also, why would someone who's practically begging for bandwidth submit a link to slashdot?!? It seems like some kind of ritual suicide or something.
I must agree.
I am thankful everyday that "nothing else is a Pepsi",
and I must say that "Coke is it".
(and Pepsi is way too sickeningly sweet,
and there is no worse soda than any variant of "Diet Pepsi")
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
No question about it. There will be fans (and lots of them) lining up to see it.
I have a couple of anecdotes to support this:
1. Here in Washington, D.C. we have a theater called the Uptown. It was constructed in the late 1940s and has not been substantially changed since. It is an old-fashioned movie theater with a single, huge screen. It is THE place to see the "summer blockbuster" type of movie. When Jurassic Park came out, the lines stretched halfway around the block. I think I saw somewhere that people come in from out of town just to see a movie at this theater.
Anyways, when the Star Wars Special Edition rereleases came out, people camped out in front of the theater to secure opening day tickets. The entire first day of shows sold out (with the possible exception of the 12:30 A.M. show, although I guess that technically is the next day.) I went down the next day with a couple of friends to try and get tickets, and there were two lines. One was for the 10 a.m. show only and had about 5 people in it. The other was for all later shows for the day and went halfway around the block. Seems that a lot of people were dropped off to get tickets for later shows. If the turnout for the RERELEASES of the older movies was this big, the new movies should be even bigger. (By the way, it was definitely worth the trouble to see the movies at the Uptown. If you live in the D.C. area, plan to see the new SW movies at this theatre - there is no other place to see them.)
2. When the trailer came out, the local Fox station ran it on their evening news. (This is probably the only quality content, less weather, ever shown by this newscast.) Someone taped it and brought it into school the next day, where a crowd of ten gathered within 5 minutes of the tape's arrival at school in the TV studio to watch the trailer. I think more people saw it after school. If people are like this to see a 60-second preview for a movie (and if the stories of people paying for a movie ticket with the intention of leaving the movie theater after the previews are true) then there is going to be no shortage of audience for the new Star Wars movie, no matter what the reviews say.
We're going to need to set up some sort of mirror network for this trailer. It's going to be huge, both in file size and in demand.
(sorry forgot that nasty passwd again. sigh)
So, a) USE A COOKIE; or b) CHANGE THE PASSWORD TO SOMETHING YOU CAN REMEMBER.
Either of those two options should take you less time than it took for you to type the apology above.
Wasn't Beowulf Old (pre-Norman) English?
The concept of maketing tie-ins and product placement has been around for a long time (probably since the first traveling acting company of Neandrethal man), but they really exploded with Star Wars. IIRC the joint marketing with the fast food companies, and the pre-marketing with the toy companies, was perfected with ROTJ.
That's why you don't remember much from the Star Wars time - it wasn't happening (in any great amount) yet, and in any event SW was a small time movie from an unknown director in an unprofitable genre. After Star Wars, of course, things were a little different.
sPh
"I think LUCAS can handle the advertisement without this site. The crossover ISN'T THERE at all. Why do people assume (incorrectly) that people that are at all invovled with computers automatically want to see Star Wars? This is a stupid assumption"
Unless you were in any way involved in computer science or system administration from ~1980 to ~1990. Then you might have seen just a little crossover. And a Star Destroyer is just a little bit larger than a NASA Orbiter, too.
sPh
Is this Slashdot or TheForce.Net?
Hey, I'm a huge Star Wars geek. I'm sure there's lots of crossover between Star Wars and computer users. I can see where certain "events" like the release of the Episode 1 trailer are if not strictly appropriate, at least "close enough" to report.
But don't you think the Episode 1 marketing machine goes a bit beyond the computer-geeky this site represents?
after I heard him talk about elements of mythology in common with other cultural myths like Gilgamesh and Beowulf, in a video he made for the National Air&Space Museum's Star Wars exhibit last year. He certainly seems to take this stuff very seriously...
The Babylonians had Gilgamesh, the French The Song of Roland, the Danes Beowulf, the English everything Tolkien ever wrote (that was his goal in starting the whole thing! really!), and we Americans have Star Wars. I wouldn't say we did half bad, neither.
Make one deal with one corporation and get merchandising deals involving all of the above. Pepsico used to own the three restaurants mentioned until 1997 - now they have some sort of weird relationship that doesn't involve direct ownership. Whatever it is, Pepsico and the three junk food emporiums definitely have some sort of business arrangement. It makes things real convenient for movie tie-ins.
Coke sucks anyway - it used to be good until they stopped using real sugar as a sweetener. What do they use now, corn syrup?
L. Ron
Given that 20th-Century Fox is releasing the new Star Wars movie, and since Fox is also broadcasting the Super Bowl this year (cries of "Go Vikings! Go Broncos! and Go J-E-T-S! Jets! Jets! Jets!" in the background ^_^), do NOT be surprised that the world premiere of that 5-minute trailer happens just before the Super Bowl game starts.
Raymond in Mountain View, CA
Star Wars and the whole epic, not just Episodes 4,5 and 6 (which wasnt the greates one), you would see the significance of these first three. Now I know not everyone is a SW nut like myself. But just the mere thought of having the story of Vader and the Clone Wars is phenomenal.
I've read a couple reviews by people who have the actual script. They are very critical and overprotective about Star Wars and how the story will develope. These people were not dissapointed.
As for the graphics and cinematography, George Lucas is nothing short of a genius. He employs some of the most creative and talented people in the world. This won't be some lame-ass FX movie with a lacking plot. ALl the time and effort put in FX is equally distributed into the plot and storyline. You have to remember, Star Wars is another world. Not just some 2 hour natural disaster/amazing animal blah blah blah type thing.
I've read some of the spoilers here and there. But nothing that is obvious to a Star Wars geek. I'll tell you what, these movies will be more complex. But the beauty part is, all of the intracacy is woven very neatly behind the main plot. The other tilogy currently out was complex, but Lucas made them simplistic, and only the more detailed viewer would catch onto sub-plots and clues to origins of the characters and so forth.
The tricky part with these types of movies is satisfying the typical movie-goer and the fanatic.
This I would beleive would be no easy task for any director/producer. G. Lucas did it w/ the Episode 4, and his successors did it w/ 5 and (well, maybe) 6. Rumors have it Lucas will dirst all three of these new movies. For sure of course the first one, but will have alot of control in the next two if he doesn't direct them.
But I can sit here and ramble on and on, but the true test is when you sit your butt in the chair with some popcorn and coke and watch it, and make the decision for yourself. I am just conveying (and hopefully calming some anxiety)that Star Wars is far from Deep Impact or Mighty Joe Young.
Show the IPs of Anonymous users to moderators-only. If someone keeps doing the same annoying thing over and over again, block their IP from the slashdot pages.
The Star Wars 5 min trailer will be released on Jan. 24. I read this no starwars.com
Could it really be possible for me and some friends to star as extras in Episodes 2 & 3...?