The Big Tease Is Here Now

Relax, “Star Wars” fans. The trailer is with you.

A two-minute peek at “Star Wars: Episode 1 The Phantom Menace,” the newest addition to the hugely popular science-fiction series, debuted at theaters nationwide Friday, attracting all the attention of a blockbuster feature. The trailer’s theatrical release provided a preview for all the hoopla expected to surround the arrival of the actual movie in May.

TV news and entertainment programs hyped the movie preview and broadcast it in full on Thursday, a day after it was announced with great fanfare and made available on the movie’s official Web site. But all of this was too late for die-hard fans, who rushed theaters offering advance screenings Tuesday to experience an unusual movie moment--a sneak preview of a preview.

They couldn’t wait for an initial glimpse in a real theater of the first new “Star Wars” movie since “Return of the Jedi” in 1983. For millions of fans, seeing “Star Wars” was a seminal movie experience and one that’s left them almost desperate for more.

“When the curtain went up, there was a huge cheer. And when the preview played there was instant silence. I’ve never seen anything like it,” says William Lorton, 28, an independent filmmaker who caught a late showing Tuesday at Westwood’s Mann Village theater. “My first thought when I saw it was, ‘It’s true, it’s true, this isn’t another hoax.’ ”

After paying full price for the theater’s main attraction, Fox’s “The Siege,” many “Star Wars” fans left the theater after the preview, much like kids tearing into a cereal box for the prize and then tossing the flakes. No one felt cheated.

“I would have paid $50 to see the trailer,” says Robert Burnett, a Culver City filmmaker who readily admits to being a “Star Wars” fanatic. “It’s something that I’ve dreamed about but thought would never happen. I just had to go.”

The buzz generated by the movie “teaser trailer,” six months ahead of the film’s scheduled premiere, demonstrates the otherworldly appeal of the George Lucas series. “Phantom” is the first of three scheduled “Star Wars” prequels that will tell the story of Anakin Skywalker’s transformation into the sinister Darth Vader. The preview begins with ominous music and brief images of figures emerging from a sand-colored mist, an isolated spaceship, a cityscape and a palace interior. An opening title reads: “EVERY GENERATION HAS A LEGEND.”

“You could hear a pin drop in the theater,” Burnett says. “Everyone wanted to soak up every last nuance.” The preview finishes with a flourish as the movie’s familiar theme music pipes in during a sequence of quick-cut action shots. There are galactic battle scenes and snippets of well-known characters, including a less-wrinkled Yoda, a skeletal C-3PO and a youthful Obi Wan Kenobi.

When Liam Neeson, as a bohemian-looking Jedi guru, presents Jake Lloyd to Ewan McGregor and says, “Anakin Skywalker, meet Obi Wan Kenobi,” the Westwood crowd erupted in applause and cheers. Afterward, Burnett was ecstatic. ‘This just restores my faith in mankind,” he said. He added that Samuel Jackson as a Jedi “just rocks.”

Twentieth Century Fox, which is distributing the Lucasfilm production, offered the Tuesday advance screenings in select theaters in 26 states and Canada as a nod to the exuberant loyalty of “Star Wars” fans. The preview was shown twice--before and after the feature.

“We have the luxury of enjoying ourselves because people know ‘Star Wars,’ ” says Tom Sherak, a Fox executive overseeing the film’s distribution. “It’s hard to fumble this, but you still have to be a shepherd, and that’s what we’re doing.”

Sherak says that the response to the early screenings was dramatic around the country. “One guy said, ‘I’ve been waiting so long for this I cried,’ ” Sherak says. “It’s amazing how it affects people.” Also gushing were theater owners, who clamored for the rights to book the trailer. Advertisers came calling as well, seeking promotional tie-ins with preview screenings.

Sherak said that after the initial excitement he expects the trailer to come back to Earth and be treated like, well, a trailer. He says it will be shown before all kinds of movies, from “Meet Joe Black” to the new “Babe” film (both from Universal).

A long time ago, in a movie galaxy far away, it wasn’t always this way for film previews. When has anyone ever talked about the box-office clout of a coming attractions clip? “It’s unbelievable,” says Sandy Baker, marketing vice president for Mann Theaters.

She said that the advance screenings of the “Phantom” preview in Westwood Tuesday drew more than 2,000 moviegoers. That’s a whopping 85% jump from the previous day’s ticket sales when “The Siege” played without the benefit of the “Star Wars” crowd. “We’re getting inquiries from people all over the world. There’s a lot of buzz out there,” Baker says.

Fueling the “Star Wars” craze is a mega-industry that stretches from book publishing to toy stores, and includes computer games, collector edition videos and scores of Internet chat rooms and fan magazines. There’s even been a tribute to “Star Wars” at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum.

Now fans have a taste of what that will feel like come May. In the meantime, moviegoers can savor the trailer until it’s pulled from circulation after Christmas. Then everyone can look forward in early spring not to the movie, but to yet another highly anticipated--and more detailed--trailer.