Why People (Including Me) Freaked Out Over The New Star Wars Trailer

I won’t mention names, but a friend of mine (a guy) who saw the new Star Wars trailer that was released said, “I’ll be honest. My nipples got hard.”

Such was one of the reactions to the second teaser trailer for ‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens’ that hit the Internet yesterday. Here it is:

I admit when I first saw it, I sat there transfixed and when I heard, “Chewy….” and then saw the clip of Han Solo saying, “….we’re home”, I reacted like a young child on Christmas morning opening his favorite present.

Some people are wondering why there has been such a visceral reaction and that’s fair. Here are three reasons:

1. Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace

2. Star Wars Episode II: The Attack Of The Clones

3. Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of The Sith

Star Wars fans like myself had such great expectations for those movies and most of us were sorely disappointed. Lucas put nearly everything he had into CGI and forgot that it was the characters we fell in love with episodes IV to VI. Yes, the special effects in the late 70′s and early 80′s we were treated to were amazing but it just rounded out the stories and the characters. For George Lucas, the writing, acting and characters all took a back seat to creating these new green screen “worlds” that would look great on a big screen.

George Lucas took the franchise so many enjoyed and turned it into a laughing stock. 

When LucasFilm was acquired by Disney in 2012, chatter immediately started about creating a new Star Wars franchise that takes place after the events of Return of The Jedi. There was trepidation among fans that Disney would make things worse, but when details started to trickle out about what was going on, fans started to get excited.

First, JJ Abrams was brought aboard to direct. I know there are Star Trek fans that didn’t like his Trek reboots, but this is not a reboot and Abrams is a good director. The biggest move however, was bringing Lawrence Kasdan on board to help write the screenplay and from what I have read, they scrapped a lot of nonsense Lucas put in there and stripped it down.

Bringing back a bunch of the original cast was a great move as well. Fans are connected to those characters, especially Han Solo and Chewbacca. Whoever cut the trailer wasn’t a dummy. They knew how fans would react to seeing the Millennium Falcon.

Another nice touch from Disney was the re-release of the original three movies, minus all the goofy changes Lucas made including restoring the scene where Han Solo takes out Greedo and eliminates the “Greedo shot first” silliness. (Update – it appears that this is not true    http://screencrush.com/rumor-buster-disney-star-wars-original-releases-dvd/ )

Return Of The Jedi came out in 1983. That was 30 years ago.

Fans have waited a long time to see something new in that franchise that they can cheer for again.

The second teaser trailer was a great start. Expectations are very high. I really hope we’re not disappointed.