Page 57 - Star Wars Insider #176

TEASER TRAILERS

episode ONE
THE

PHANTOM

MENACE

T E ASER T R A IL ER, 1998

ack in late 1998, Star Wars
fans developed an unexpected
interest in the fi lms Meet Joe
BBlack, The Waterboy, and
The Siege. Why? Because attached to
the front of these films was a trailer for

the most hotly anticipated film of its

day: The Phantom Menace. Fans were
buying tickets to other movies simply
so that they could watch the Star Wars
teaser before skipping the main feature
to go and discuss what they had seen!
The trailer sells the movie as the
first chapter in a new Star Wars trilogy:

recognizable in some ways, different
in others. The legends “Every journey

has a first step…” and “Every saga
has a beginning…” are intercut with
establishing shots of settings that would
have been impossible to create in the
1970s and ’80s. John Williams’ famous
music plays—and kicks into the main
theme as the visuals give way to a frenzy
of fast cuts. We see tantalizing glimpses
of podracing, Darth Maul, Jar Jar Binks,
and other CGI creatures, intercut with
the return of old friends like C-3PO,
Yoda and a younger Obi-Wan Kenobi.
With new characters largely
unknown, there is an emphasis on
famous faces, as Liam Neeson, Natalie
“Every generation Portman, Ewan McGregor, and Samuel
L Jackson are all in attendance. Thrilling
has a legend…” to existing fans and intriguing to a
whole new generation, it saw the saga
reinvented in the space of two minutes.

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