Star Wars fans are a notoriously devoted bunch. But the latest stunt by one bunch of die-hards may have out-geeked all competition.
Just days after the final trailer for new chapter The Force Awakens dropped – loudly, at half-time during a football game – a new fan-made trailer emerged, cutting the fresh footage with bits from earlier teasers into one complete "super-cut".
The result is a surprisingly coherent, three-and-a-half minute stand-alone primer, which irons out the official trailers’s juddery time-hopping to present scenes in a seemingly natural chronological context.
From what we can tell, material has been sourced from all four officially released spots – the first 88-second teaser from last November, the two minutes debuted at April’s Star Wars Celebration, a 15-second Instagram teaser from August, and the full and final, two minute 35 second trailer which debuted at Monday Night Football last Monday.
The “super-cut” is the work of fresh YouTube channel Science Vs Cinema, and has picked up 1,293,394 views since being posted last Thursday.
We open once again in the Abu Dhabi desert, before the action kicks off in a whirl of whizzing spaceships, jiggling light-sabres and ponderous platitudes (“the force ... it’s calling to you”). Things are tightly edited, and the score has been carefully respected in this jumbled presentation. Material is sensibly ordered to heighten tension – there’s still a visceral sense of surprise when Harrison Ford makes an appearance, even though we know he’s coming.
Overall, this works – it’s cogent, exciting, and more comprehensive than the official trailers. And if you haven’t fallen for the hype and seen any of the spots yet, then this offers the perfect way to catch-up.
I'm by no stretch a Star Wars convert, but by the end of the 220 seconds I was left, for the time, actually wanting to see the film. Which is the point of any trailer, after all.
rgarratt@thenational.ae
