{"id":1942,"date":"2015-11-01T07:18:10","date_gmt":"2015-11-01T15:18:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wou.edu\/westernjournal\/?p=1942"},"modified":"2015-11-01T07:18:32","modified_gmt":"2015-11-01T15:18:32","slug":"hype-builds-following-new-star-wars-trailer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/hype-builds-following-new-star-wars-trailer\/","title":{"rendered":"Hype builds following new Star Wars trailer"},"content":{"rendered":"
By: Ashton Newton\r\nStaff Writer<\/pre>\n
The theatrical trailer for \u201cStar Wars: The Force Awakens\u201d was released on Monday, Oct. 26, 2015 with advance tickets going on sale immediately after the release.<\/p>\n
I watched the trailer about fifteen times that night, picking through every little detail I could find. I was not alone in doing so; the trailer got 128 million views the first day.<\/p>\n
People took their reactions to Twitter; @elmayimbe tweeted, \u201cMy pops took me to see the original trilogy in theaters. This time I\u2019m going to take him to see #TheForceAwakens.\u201d<\/p>\n
Several large cinema chains who hadn\u2019t fully prepared for such a great influx of fans buying advanced tickets, saw their websites crash soon after the trailer release.<\/p>\n
Alamo Drafthouse theater group CEO Tim League apologized, saying the release is \u201cthe single biggest simultaneous surge for movie tickets our industry has ever seen.\u201d IMAX alone grossed at $8.6 million with presale tickets. Someone in Philadelphia even took his ticket to eBay, selling it for $1000.<\/p>\n
There were those less excited about the new trailer, though.<\/p>\n
The hashtag #BoycottStarWarsVII began trending on social media not long after the trailer hit the web. The hashtag was used by people saying that the new Star Wars is \u201canti-white propaganda\u201d for having an African American as the lead character.<\/p>\n
The boycott was later revealed to have begun as a joke, but the sheer volume of tweets could indicate that some have begun to take it seriously.<\/p>\n
The majority of the use the hashtag got was people reacting to the appallingly racist reason that others were citing as motivation to boycott the movie, including comedian Patton Oswalt who took this opportunity to mock the boycotters.<\/p>\n
JJ Abrams himself responded, saying \u201cWe cannot wait to share the trailer with you tonight. We don\u2019t care if you\u2019re white, black, brown, Jawa, Wookie, Jedi, or Sith. I just hope you like it!\u201d<\/p>\n
In China, Disney had an event tied to the trailer release. 500 Stormtroopers gathered on the Great Wall of China and handed out lightsabers and other souvenirs to fans that came.<\/p>\n
The event was aimed at increasing the fan base for Star Wars in China, which hasn\u2019t been as widely celebrated and watched as it has been in America, so the country is largely unfamiliar with the franchise.<\/p>\n
Disney is pushing for greater Star Wars popularity in China because it is currently the world\u2019s second largest film market.<\/p>\n
Star Wars: The Force Awakens is shaping up to be one of the most popular new movie releases of all time.<\/p>\n
Fandango already released first day ticket sales, stating that they were 700% higher than the previous record holder, and that\u2019s even with their website crashing during the sales.<\/p>\n
The next installment of the Star Wars series is looking like it\u2019s going to break some big box office records.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The theatrical trailer for \u201cStar Wars: The Force Awakens\u201d was released on Monday, Oct. 26, 2015 with advance tickets going on sale immediately after the release. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":825,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1942","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-entertainment"],"modified_by":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1942","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/825"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1942"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1942\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1942"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1942"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1942"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}