The new "Star Wars" trailer

Star Wars has been about toy marketing since 1977.

 

Hell, Lucas is often lauded as a genius keeping the rights to the merchandising. It's how he built his vast fortune.

 

Was "Star Wars" the first movie to merchandise in this way?

 

First I can remember but I was also 7 when Star Wars came our and eagerly looked forward to the Sears catalog to see what new toys were coming out.

Also, here's the link to the Jar Jar is super evil theory.

[Theory] Jar Jar Binks was a trained Force user, knowing Sith collaborator, and will play a central role in The Force Awakens • /r/StarWars

 

I haven't clicked the link (and probably won't since these fan "theories" are usually pretty stupid and never actually real), but from the title, anyone who thinks Jar Jar Binks will play a central role in TFA is a fucking moron.

 

That actually made me want to go back and watch those movies again to check that out.

So maybe Jar Jar can control minds!

 

This touches on your question: ‘Star Wars’ turns 35, reminds us how much it made us need action figures

But misses some key points that I am trying to find proof of. Small action figures didn't exist before 1977. You had 12 to-15 inch items like GI Joe, Planet of the Apes, SWAT, Lone Ranger, but Star Wars broke the mold on how toys were sold. They shrunk them to a size (3 3/4 inches) that soon everyone was copying. Lucas did produce 15-inch versions of Luke, Leia, etc. but I never saw a kid in my little world of parochial school with them. (Note, Space 1999, I think may have produce some smaller toys prior to Star Wars, but they didn't catch on)

The video on this one stinks, but it basically told kids how to play with these new toys. I remember as the commercials got more sophisticated in the 1980s, my friends and I would mimic them...ie using the AT-AT to crush paper cups, stealing dialogue, etc. A new star wars commercial was a big deal when I was a kid. The Christmas catalog was a huge event.

I have wondered what other properties really blew their opportunity pre-Star wars....ie could Planet of the Apes been cooler small play sets? 2001

 

Star Wars toys? What about makeup? Just saw a commercial for the Star Wars Cover Girl collection.

 

Because some Star Wars fans still have way too much free time, here is a 14-minute clip from Return of the Jedi, but with two of the voices replaced. Somebody dubbed in lines from Mark Hamill as the Joker in place of Emperor Palpatine and Tom Hardy as Bane in place of Darth Vader. It gets old fairly quickly, but it is funny for a bit.

 

I've been re-watching the original trilogy, and as much as I respect J.J. Abrams, I have a hard time understanding how the new trilogy is going to be good. I hope I'm wrong. Even if the prequels were poorly executed, the story arcs still wrap up very tightly by the end of "Jedi." It's the journey of two characters, a father and a son. And although the screen writing certainly isn't flawless, the Han Solo character, expressing skepticism about the Force and all the other Star Wars universe gobbledy-gook, really keeps the movies grounded.

It's just hard to fathom what kind of journey Rey is supposed to go on, for three movies, that is going to break any new ground. I hope I'm wrong.

 

Screen Junkies does an Honest Trailer for "Star Wars: The First One." (Complete with refusal to call it a New Hope and obligatory comment about who shot first.)

 

I saw the trailer (one of the trailers?) in the theater for the first time last night. Seems to me that Mark Hamill/Luke Skywalker is narrating the thing. So I don't know where the suspicion comes from that he's not included in the film/trilogy.