NEW YORK ¨C There was a great disturbance in the force this past week, as if millions of ¡°Star Wars¡± fans suddenly cried out in joy while trying to read Japanese.
Disney released a new trailer in Japan for the coming film, ¡°The Force Awakens,¡± and the two-minute video included several snippets that had not yet been released in the film¡¯s three preceding previews. For the discerning Japanese filmgoer, Disney saw fit to roll out cinematic space-crash scenery, storm troopers with flame-throwers, new names, more dialogue and a closeup of Chewbacca¡¯s hand (opposable thumb and all). Vast swaths of the Internet occupied by ¡°Star Wars¡± fanatics predictably exploded with .
If you can¡¯t watch the movie and you¡¯ve already watched the trailer, of course you¡¯re going to want to watch someone else watching the trailer.
It¡¯s not unusual for Hollywood to splice different trailers together with footage highlighting scenes of the movie shot in a target market. For franchises such as ¡°Furious¡± and ¡°Transformers,¡± in fact, setting scenes and production all over the world is a savvy exercise in audience building. With all of that exotic footage in the can, editing a host of different regional trailers becomes an exceedingly cheap and effective form of targeted marketing.
But ¡°Star Wars¡± is set, well, a long time ago in a galaxy much further from Los Angeles than Tokyo. Paul Dergarabedian, a senior analyst at Rentrak, said that trickling new footage outside of North America is a subtle way for Disney to signal to international fans that they¡¯re a big part of the distribution strategy ¡ª bigger than ever, in this case. Japan is behind only to the U.S. and China in box-office revenue.
Of course, Disney¡¯s ¡°Star Wars¡± strategy has been an extended burlesque of robot-porn. Every trailer and every new toy ¡ª even advanced ticket sales ¡ª has been a carefully crafted social-media event. The Japanese trailer footage is just the latest part of the runup. And fans are fine with that, according to Dergarabedian: ¡°Star Wars is that rare breed of film that can instill an almost unprecedented amount of anticipation.¡±
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