Rumor: What to Expect for the Marketing of Star Wars: The Force Awakens.
With new revelations about the latest Star Wars toys inbound, it’s safe to say that the marketing campaign of The Force Awakens is starting to crank up. A little bird of ours told us what to expect on the merchandise front… and offered some clues as to what else to expect a little further down the road.
A quick bit of clarification on our source – they claim to have access from two sources of their own in different fields. One is involved with marketing, and the other actually worked on the film. The marketing for the movie is much easier to predict than the content of the film, so we’ll start with that.
The film is apparently going to be marketed on four thematic principles. All four of these will of course preserve the mystery of the film, but will help clear the picture of going to be shown in the film itself to some extent. The four principles are as follows:
- The Legendary Heroes
- The First Order
- Girl Power
- The New Generation Of Heroes
These aren’t too surprising on their own, but our source offered clarification on further details on to expect from each of them. Here are a few direct quotes (numbers listed above corresponding to the numbers listed below):
- At this point are planning to do a reveal for Luke and Leia. Han will have a thing or two as well, but he kind of had his moment with “we’re home.” They are going to leave some mystery about Luke they want to keep it that way as long as they can, but they want to remind the casual fans that he is indeed in the film.
- They are really going to play up this new generation of evil. They really want them to come off as iconic larger than life. Kylo as you can see through the different things already has been positioned as this generation’s Vader. Expect that to continue. I’ve heard he has a very twisted sense of morality and has less mercy than Vader did. Phasma will get her push as well, not sure if they will play up the girl power angle here, but I’ve been told that there is a possibility that she is revealed to be a woman through promos.
- They are really going to push this hard in the coming months. Expect to see something soon about Rey in her solitude and surviving on her own. Expect to even show a scene where she is rescuing Finn or something. I have talked about this before, but this from what I understand is a mandate from the absolute top down, as evidenced from what [Kathleen Kennedy] has said in some press conferences.
- Already seen this a bit, but Finn, Poe, and Rey will continue to be pushed revealing a bit more about them and showing them to be the new big 3.
The source also has claimed that there will be a huge push for BB-8. In a sense, it sounds like he’s going to be the unofficial mascot of the ad campaign. Speaking of the ad campaign, the source has also claimed that the marketing budget for September and October is twice as big as they expected – so expect a lot of fun stuff throughout the rest of the year.
As for the source’s other informant – one who is working on the movie directly – what’s going on within Lucasfilm is much less clear. The informant has not seen the entire movie – only pieces of it. While the informant discussed a few interesting things, they come across as very uncertain and our own source questions their authenticity – perhaps it would be better to discuss them at another time, if at all.
In any case, this is all a lot of interesting food for thought, and we will most likely be able to confirm its authenticity very soon. Stay tuned to Star Wars 7 News as we see what lies in store for Star Wars at Disney D23.
Grant has been a fan of Star Wars for as long as he can remember, having seen every movie on the big screen. When he’s not hard at work with his college studies, he keeps himself busy by reporting on all kinds of Star Wars news for SWNN and general movie news on the sister site, Movie News Net. He served as a frequent commentator on SWNN’s The Resistance Broadcast.
Cool! force friday is almost here!
What’s the exact day of force Friday?
September 4, 2015.
Is that Thursday at Midnight or Friday at Midnight?
Give me a good look at Luke and i’m good until December.
I don’t get why everyone is so obsessed with Luke in this film. I think he is an awesome character, but I really would rather see new characters than him.
Ummmmm because he is THE most important character in Star Wars ever I don’t get why so many people are disregarding Luke he is the reason I am so excited for this movie!
I’m sorry, but the Movies were about the Skywalkers. First Luke, and then his dad. The only reason to do a movie with the OT actors is to make it the culmination of what happens to Luke. We never truly see his power. By the time he really grasps his ability, it’s over. I fact some would argue we never really seen Luke become a Jedi. I argue that’s not true, being it was called Return of the Jedi. But you know.
I think the Jedi the title referenced was Vader/Anakin, to be honest… To return, one must first go away. Luke didn’t disappear or go away, either as a Jedi or otherwise. Only Anakin, who disappeared as a Jedi, returned as a Jedi in the last moments of his life.
wow less mercy than vader. thats ruthless
In some cases Vader was pretty reasonable. There’s a couple scenes where his lower rank imperial comrads like legit debate with him and he lets it slide.
Is it me or does it feel as though r2d2 and c3po have been neglected a lot
Out with the old, in with the new.
I’m sure they’ll be around through Episode IX, but it feels like they’ll be taking the back seat.
Makes sense. I just wish they would have gotten some more spotlight in promoting the movie
I hope not too much. Granted, there’s only so much you can do with 3PO and R2 that hasn’t been done at this point, but they still need to have their day.
I doubt it, but they it doesn’t make sense they continue after this trilogy. The new heroes need a new droid. R2 and 3CPO will probably share as much quality time as ever. They are iconic. I bet the new droids will get less, but will progressively gain more screen time as the trilogy unfolds.
“perhaps it would be better to discuss them at another time, if at all”
…or we could discuss them now?
I said “for another time” for a reason. We are already on LFL’s nerves after leaking that Luke photo. We are on good terms with them otherwise, but revealing too much too soon is not the best thing for our relationship… and that could potentially put an end to ANY exclusives.
And again, our source wasn’t completely solid on the story-related info.
I have faith that the staff at SW7N will make the right decisions moving forward. You have been great thus far. Thanks for all that you have given us to date. I for one wouldn’t want you to jeopardize your relationship with LFL.
I ACCIDENTALLY REPORTED YOUR COMMENT! I’m very sorry.
Are marketing types still using the phrase “girl power”? I feel like I’m back in the 90s…
turtle power;)
No, it’s grrrl power.
https://youtu.be/4mmCMUPCNgE
“They are going to leave some mystery about Luke they want to keep it that way as long as they can, but they want to remind the casual fans that he is indeed in the film.”
Either Luke has a larger role than we think, or they’re setting up a potential disaster.
Girl Power is lame! And sexist!
You’re back!?
Rey’s going to kick a female villain and say, “You give women a baaad name!”
Bon Jovi’s going to kick C3P0 and say “You give love… a bad name.”
someone’s getting kicked in the muht in this trilogy. imagine a gender-flipped version of Los Locos from Short Circuit II.
Gotta say. The girl power stuff really irks me. Has me worried.
I’m all for women’s rights. At least women having the same rights as men. no more. no less. I support minorities having a larger voice in Hollywood too. But a lot of studios are getting really cringey with the way they pull this stuff off. *cough* Fant4stic Four! *cough*
TFA has alot of varied characters, horray! No need to overdo it by shoving it down our throats. You don’t need to pander to everyone. Most people are for this kind of stuff automatically.
Thankfully, many things that JJ and the cast have said have put alot of my worries to rest. But Kathleen and Co just need to be careful is all. All it takes is making Obi Wan black for Star Wars to begin a new era of bullshit. Please don’t screw this up. I don’t want to see Finn being a bumbling neckbeardy twat the entire time and have Rey always save the day. Let’s see some true equality.
“TFA has alot of varied characters, horray! No need to overdo it by shoving it down our throats. You don’t need to pander to everyone. Most people are for this kind of stuff automatically.”
How exactly do you overdo it? If anything, Hollywood goes out of its way to over-represent white men in movies when they only make up 1/3 of America. Funny how you people never have a problem with that.
So, because most people are already into Star Wars, we have to stick with the outdated mentality of under-representing women and minorities? No, thanks.
Star Wars should reflect diversity, not white male dominance.
Wow. That is not what I said at all haha. Read what I said again.
There IS such thing as over compensating, contrary to what you believe. And I agree, there have historically been a majority of white men in film.
All I am saying is use minority and female character when appropriate instead of shoehorning them into already fleshed out characters. And to not say “Look at how progressive we are!” every 5 minutes.
By your reply I’d assume you’re the very type of person that I despise so I won’t waste too much time defending my reasonable argument until you come up with something better than that.
You know very well what I meant.
Also what do you mean by “you people”? Are you making the base assumption that I am white?
EDIT: Also I’m not sure if I got my point across. I like that there are tons of minorities in TFA. I just don’t find it classy how they feel they need to SAY there are. Feel me?
We get it. You don’t like seeing minorities and/or women.
Nice meme :^)
The race and gender pandering is for stupid people. You can tell by the replies here. Unfortunately, the average person is stupid enough to precieve the pandering as “equality”. It’s not. It’s more racism and sexism.
Intelligent well balanced people are fine with people of different races and sexes being featured in all sorts of aspects of life. Forcing it down people’s throat and trying to over compensate with things like “girl power” as a marketing theme, is sexist in and of itself. It’s sexist because the driving force behind it and it’s motives are derived in the elevation of one sex (girls) over another (boys), which is just as immoral as the kind if discrimination it claims to be combating.
Precisely. I failed to say it as gracefully as you haha. Thanks 😀
Anon @ 04:20 AM
“The race and gender pandering is for stupid people. You can tell by the replies here. Unfortunately, the average person is stupid enough to precieve the pandering as “equality”. It’s not. It’s more racism and sexism.”
What a nonsense comment. How is it sexist and racist to be inclusive towards people who aren’t white men? And it’s not about equality. We’re already equal. It’s about representation.
“Intelligent well balanced people are fine with people of different races and sexes being featured in all sorts of aspects of life. Forcing it down people’s throat and trying to over compensate with things like “girl power” as a marketing theme, is sexist in and of itself.”
Wrong. Women aren’t being elevated over men. They’re just getting more of the representation they should’ve had before.
you’re either a moron or a fantastic troll. good on you, sir/madam.
Anon @ 02:36 AM
“There IS such thing as over compensating, contrary to what you believe.”
And how do you make that determination?
“All I am saying is use minority and female character when appropriate instead of shoehorning them into already fleshed out characters. And to not say “Look at how progressive we are!” every 5 minutes.”
There’s nothing about Johnny Storm’s character that says he has to be a white guy. You’re just going off of tradition. Plus, what does this have to do with the diversity in TFA?
“By your reply I’d assume you’re the very type of person that I despise so I won’t waste too much time defending my reasonable argument until you come up with something better than that.”
Try not to hurt yourself patting your back. I don’t care if you assume to despise me. Just make sense.
“You know very well what I meant.”
Not really. Lots of fans complain all the time about diversity being shoved down their throats, but that’s subjective. When is it natural to YOU, and when isn’t it? Why?
“Also what do you mean by “you people”? Are you making the base assumption that I am white?”
Nope. I based it off you being one of those “quit shoving x down my throat” people.
“EDIT: Also I’m not sure if I got my point across. I like that there are tons of minorities in TFA. I just don’t find it classy how they feel they need to SAY there are. Feel me?”
I don’t feel you. Where is anyone in Lucasfilm going on and on about diversity?
It’s not diversity that I have a problem with. It’s their need to shout it from the roof tops as if being white and male is a crime.
And the feelings you expressed towards me for even thinking I was white and calling me “you people”, were of the racist sort, regardless of if you’d like to believe so or not.
Why debate so harshly on semantics anyway? We both like equality in our Star Wars. Might it be because you hate white people? Or maybe my opinion differs from yours so you feel threatened. Please enlighten me. I’m curious now.
“There’s nothing about Johnny Storm’s character that says he must be white”
^^ Spoken like a person with no respect for the characters whatsoever. Guessing you’re in the 8% that LOVED Trank’s FF and agreed with Michael B Jordan that all the “racist” fans would see it anyway. If you change Johnny, you at least also need to change Sue’s race, but the movie didn’t even care enough to be consistent. It was like the family in Date Movie.
Why give them blue costumes? Why does the Human Torch have to fly? Why does there have to be four of them? Why’s Superman have to have a red cape? Because that’s what the characters are. In a visual driven medium especially, the aesthetic and look of a thing is every bit as important as how it acts and what it does. If you commit a crime, and police give a description looking for you, and you have brown hair and are 6 ft tall, isn’t it essential to include this, and not just make up whatever you feel like in place of it? So it also is when casting for a character where the creator has a specific vision in mind.
Darth Vader wears black suit. Superman is a white guy with dark hair. Michael Holt is black. Smallville is in Kansas. Mickey Mouse is a f*cking mouse. And the Human Torch is white.
And this whole “girl power” thing is a joke. Not only is it alienating to boys, but why is it women can only be “empowered” if they are acting and doing things men stereotypically do? Why is it a shameful thing for a woman to do things a woman stereotypically does? It seems the only people who are really ashamed of being women and want to de-feminize women are the radical third wave feminists, the same people that tell men that the only way to attract a girl is by acting as much like one as possible. Then “nice guys” wonder why women reject them and only go for “bad boys”, well it’s because they’re the only ones who still exemplify even the slightest of masculine traits. Then women wonder why all the men they dare are “jerks”.
Seems to me that the only time it’s okay to be a woman anymore is if you’re a man, and vice versa.
It’s funny: feminazis wouldn’t even allow a film like the original Star Wars to be released today, they’d call Han Solo a misogynist for his comments about Leia: “If we can avoid anymore FEMALE advice” *GASP!!!* sounds the SJW alarm! They’d claim he “objectified” her, call the original films “racist” because there’s no major non white role in it — discounting the fact that everyone LOVED the movie, and the Chinese especially loved the movie and sat in silence in awe over their first screening, even tried to buy the movie — yet they weren’t angry there wasn’t a Chinese lead. Nobody cared about all this faux-racism/sexism crap until whiney internet pundit p*ssies “educated”/told them to.
I don’t know about you, but my level of enjoyment of a movie doesn’t revolve around me doing a head count and tallying how many whites to blacks, men to women, etc, what ratio there is, and then checking to see if that ratio matches up with the politically correct diversity quota like it’s Captain Planet or something.
What a non empathetic and psychopathic generation we’ve become being taught you can only like and identify with a character who looks and acts just like you, and that everyone in the audience must have someone who looks and acts just like them in order to enjoy the movie and identify with the lead. No more is this done off of a character’s struggles and story, now what denotes “relatability” and quality is whether or not the characters look and pee like you and whether there’s enough “diversity”, affirmative action casting or not Pretty sickening.
When I was a kid, I loved Fresh Prince Of Bel Air because of the characters. I never gave a thought that they were black. That wasn’t the crux of the show for me. It was funny and entertaining, I didn’t need to look and act just like the lead to love the show. Political correctness is killing humanity as well as promoting division within us, and ruining literally everything.
“There’s nothing about Johnny Storm’s character that says he must be white”
^^ Spoken like a person with no respect for the characters whatsoever. Guessing you’re in the 8% that LOVED Trank’s FF and agreed with Michael B Jordan that all the “racist” fans would see it anyway. If you change Johnny, you at least also need to change Sue’s race, but the movie didn’t even care enough to be consistent. It was like the family in Date Movie.
Why give then blue costumes? Why does the Human Torch have to fly? Why does there have to be four of them? Why’s Superman have to have a red cape? Because that’s what the characters are. In a visual driven medium especially, the aesthetic and look of a thing is every bit as important as how it acts and what it does. If you commit a crime, and police give a description looking for you, and you have brown hair and are 6 ft tall, isn’t it essential to include this, and not just make up whatever you feel like in place of it?
Darth Vader wears black suit. Superman is a white guy with dark hair. Smallville is in Kansas. Mickey Mouse is a f*cking mouse. And the Human Torch is white.
And this whole “girl power” thing is a joke. Not only is it alienating to boys, but why is it women can only be “empowered” if they are acting and doing things men stereotypically do? Why is it a shameful thing for a woman to do things a woman stereotypically does? It seems the only people who are really ashamed of being women and want to de-feminize women are the radical third wave feminists, the same people that tell men that the only way to attract a girl is by acting as much like one as possible. Then “nice” men wonder why women reject them and only go for “bad boys”, well it’s because they’re the only ones who still exemplify even the slightest of masculine traits. Then women wonder why all the men they dare are “jerks”. .
Seems to me that the only time it’s okay to be a woman anymore is if you’re a man, and vice versa.
It’s funny: feminazis wouldn’t even allow a film like the original Star Wars to be released today, they’d call Han Solo a misogynist for his comments about Leia “if we can avoid anymore FEMALE advice” *GASP!!!* sounds the SJW alarm! They’d claim he “objectified” her, call the original films “racist” because there’s no major non white role in it — discounting the fact that everyone LOVED the movie, and the Chinese especially loved the movie and sat in silence in awe over their first screening, even tried to buy the movie — yet they weren’t angry there wasn’t a Chinese lead. Nobody cared about all this faux-racism/sexism crap until whiney internet pundit p*ssies “educated”/ told them to.
I don’t know about you, but my level of enjoyment of a movie doesn’t revolve around me doing a head count and tallying how many whites to blacks, men to women, etc, what ratio there is, and then checking to see if that ratio matches up with the politically correct diversity quota like it’s Captain Planet or something.
What a non empathetic and psychopathic generation we’ve become being taught you can only like and identify with a character who looks and acts just like you, and that everyone in the audience just have someone who looks and acts just like them in order to enjoy the movie and identify with the lead. No more is this done off of a character’s struggles and story, now what denotes “relatability” is whether or not the characters look and pee like you. Pretty sickening.
When I read a kid, I loved Fresh Prince Of Bel Air because of the characters. I never gave a thought that they were black. That wasn’t the crux of the show for me. It was funny and entertaining, I didn’t need to look and act just like the lead to love the show. Political correctness is killing humanity as well as promoting division within us.
Shit, I accidentally reported this when I went to edit it for typos when it froze out on me mid-edit…..so I reposted it error free above.
Sorry, mods.
What to really expect from Star Wars merchandising. Star Wars everywhere
I just want my exclusive TFA 7-eleven cups like the ones I got from TPM
So when is this marketing stuff going to kick in because so far I have not seen any of this?
My guess is starting Force Friday (9/4).
That’s exactly when it’s going to start.
I’m excited to see that women will get significant focus in the marketing this fall! xD I hope TFA represents women well, both in number and in quality of characters.
“Expect to even show a scene where she is rescuing Finn or something”
This I want to see 🙂
All those who obsess over sex, race, and politics completely miss the point, and the magic of Star Wars.
I don’t think you will be half as immersed into this when it comes out, you’ll be to preoccupied thinking up things to whinge and whine about!
Me……. I will be somewhere a long time ago in a galaxy far far away, the likes of some of you “politically correct brigade” – I truly believe don’t have the capacity to get Star Wars –
Over analyse and paralyse – shame……
I feel sorry for you – just shut up and enjoy the movie
And I feel sorry for anyone sitting next to you in the cinema this December – moan – moan – moan.
Don’t feel sorry for me. I love Star Wars and diversity. The world is diverse, not white washed. I’ll be in ecstacy this December.
Well, that’s wrong, obviously. Number one obviously is whining as much as possible about practical effects.
It’s not women and minorities that are being criticized and rejected when you get right down to the heart of the argument. Its the squeaky, whiny, social justice hate mongering warriors that keep stirring up the controversy in every dad gum discussion on this board that is being rejected and criticized.
Open your eyes. It’s not the SJWs who are hating.
Actually it is the SJW types.
Tell me, has anyone in the comments said they hate black people? Or that they want less women in Star Wars? Mmmm no.
But someone did say some pretty racist shit about white people.
I think you need to open your eyes 🙂
Absolutely apparent. Even in these comments. That one guy called a commenter “those people” i.e “white people” just because said person had another opinion about diversity in film.
I want Rey to kick ass.
I want Finn to kick ass.
I don’t want Rey to help poor Finn because he’s a male shitlord.
Please Disney… pls
I love women, but number 3 can feck right off.
The Star Wars universe is filled with powerful villains of all shapes and sizes including Sith Lords, bounty hunters, and gangsters. Lucasfilm may have gone Order 66 on the Star Wars Expanded Universe but here s why Clone Wars and Rebels are must-see shows in preparation for Episode 7.