The Wide Angle: The rise of a preview’s preview

Published 5:48 am Saturday, October 26, 2019

I, like so many others earlier this week, watched the new “Star Wars” movie trailer for “The Rise of Skywalker,” but I’m a minimalist. I only watched it a couple times.

It looks entertaining and by all appearances looks to be a fine ending to a movie series that spreads over nine movies, not counting spin-offs and other forms of media. Though I do question space horses, and if you haven’t seen the trailer, check it out. Hopefully, I’m not the only one that questions space horses.

However, I suppose in the grand scheme of things it’s not the most egregious assault on movie fandom when it comes to the “Star Wars” franchise … episodes 1-3.

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I can’t exactly go too far in my criticisms of these movies though, because I’m not a huge “Star Wars” fan in general. I enjoy them, of course, but not like the uberfans who know every little aspect of every little movie no matter how obscure.

But I’m not here today to talk specifically about “The Rise of Skywalker.” Suffice to say, I enjoy the movies, just not enough to camp out to be the first in line, making sure that I’m the first one in the building.

The only time I need to be the first in the building is after three hours on the road and over five cups of coffee. Don’t make me explain this.

Rather, what caught my attention is that now we are previewing movie trailers.

The day before the trailer dropped Monday night, previews of the trailer started popping up. Movie trailers for trailers are now a thing.

It’s not a new thing. There have been trailers for trailers for a while now, mostly for movies executives know will be big or our part of a big series.They want our hype to be strong in the force.

I guess that’s fine and good, but what does this portend? We already have a culture of websites and people that look at every little piece of footage, trying to find that one clue that will tell them everything they need to know about the upcoming movie and whether Rey is a Scorpio.

I remember when the “Independence Day” trailer dropped a long time ago, in a city far, far away. Brookings, South Dakota, to be exact, in a state where everything seems far, far away.

I didn’t rewind it over and over again to see every little detail of the alien ship. Mostly because I didn’t have internet in my home at the time, so there is that very unfortunate indicator that it was a long time ago.

But also, I can remember going to the movies and enjoying the fact that everything was a surprise, like every movie I watch.

So, again I have to come back to the point I’ve made a number of times. Leave it alone, enjoy the experience of not knowing.

Life is a lot more fun sometimes without not knowing something. I remember things were a lot nicer before I knew what lutefisk tasted like.