So, that new Star Wars trailer launched last night. Here it is again.
Mixing a little of the old with the new, this look gives us a lot more behind the conflict and how it’s going to play out (big, epic battles), with new characters, Rey and Finn, asking Han Solo about ye olden days: “it’s true,” Han says. “All of it.”
Speaking of ye olden days, that used to involve standing in line for hours to secure tickets. Last night, Star Wars fans flocked to the Internets and found many theater sites, including Cinerama and Fandango, had temporarily crashed from the traffic.
You saw that coming, right? That’s like making a run for the 520 at rush hour and thinking you’ll make it to Bellevue in five.
According to Wired, the launch of The Force Awakens trailer around 7:48 p.m. during Monday Night Football amounted to a collective scream on the Internets: “#TheForceAwakens was mentioned 390,000 times on Twitter. At the minute the trailer started airing the tweets-per-minute were streaming in at 3,800 and then quickly crescendoed to 17,000 just three minutes later. (That’s 283 freak-outs per second.),” they reported.
Of course, I woke up to a few Facebook posts about giving up on the Web and physically heading to the theater to buy tickets — which may have been one of the best strategies all along.
Update: Facebook had fun with the premiere, too, watching its traffic skyrocket. A representative tells us via email that 1.3 million people engaged in 2.1 million interactions via the social network within the first hour of the trailer airing. So far, Facebook has over 7.7 million views and more than 367,000 shares that are Star Wars related.
Did you get your tickets? Don’t panic. A quick look at a few Seattle sites, including Cinerama, show that tickets are still available on opening day. We have a feeling that there are going to be a lot of people calling in sick on Dec. 18. Go ahead. The Force would want you to do it.
Update from Cinerama via email: “The Rebel Alliance has fended off Imperial forces after a long and arduous battle. We were vulnerable during the attack, but systems are once again operational. Tickets for Star Wars: The Force Awakens now available at www.cinerama.com.”
