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Info Wanted: Which trailers accompanied the actual Star Wars movies?

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 (Edited)

I thought this might be fun. It maybe, sort of, fits into historical preservation.

Starting when I saw The Force Awakens, I’ve noted which trailers accompanied the Star Wars movies in the theaters. Maybe some day, if someone was really feeling nostalgic, you could watch those trailers, followed by your favorite theatrical version of Star Wars. It adds a little bit of historical context.

I have the trailers which accompanied The Force Awakens, Rogue One and The Last Jedi.
Online, I found a list which accompanied The Phantom Menace.
Does anyone know, or can it be determined, which trailers accompanied Star Wars (original theatrical run), The Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi (the original THX intro), Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith? The Clone Wars animated movie?

For fun:

The Phantom Menace (I found this online and vaguely from memory, not from my own notes):
Fight Club
Titan A.E.
Anna and the King
The Beach

The Force Awakens trailers (3D IMAX screening):
Kung Fu Panda 3
Warcraft
Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice
The 5th Wave
Independence Day: Resurgence
X-Men: Apocalypse
The Jungle Book (live action)
Kubo and the Two Strings
The Finest Hours
Star Trek Beyond (this trailer drew funny a comment and laughs from our crowd during the motorcycle stunt scene, though the movie itself wasn’t bad)
Captain America: Civil War

Rogue One trailers (3D IMAX showing):
Dunkirk
Transformers: The Last Knight
Logan
Fast & Furious 8
IMAX (put on your 3D glasses now)
Spider-man: Homecoming
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales
Guardians of the Galaxy, vol. 2
IMAX (get ready to watch a movie)
DLP

Rogue One (2D viewing):
War for the Planet of the Apes
Kong: Skull Island
Guardians of the Galaxy, vol. 2

The Last Jedi (IMAX opening night fan event):
Jurassic World 2
Angel
Alita: Battle Angel
Ready Player One
Incredibles 2
Avengers: Infinity War
Coca Cola commercial
The Last Jedi Opening Night

  • interview with Rian Johnson
  • John Williams conducting the score
    IMAX countdown

The Last Jedi (2D showing):
Rampage
Avengers: Infinity War

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TPM had trailers for American Pie and Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, both of which mentioned Star Wars. Fox put together a “sizzle reel” of three short trailers for Anna and the King, Fight Club, and Titan AE. There was a news story several days earlier IIRC that Lucasfilm had actually demanded the total runtime of trailers in front of TPM not exceed ten minutes or so (maybe it was more like 15 minutes, can’t remember now, it was almost 19 years ago).

The trailer for Like Mike played in front of my opening day screening of AotC. I only remember that because a friend joked as we were leaving the theater during the end credits that AotC had no chance of beating its box office.

The first teaser for the Matrix sequels was also in front of AotC. I had just seen the official upload online the night before in what must’ve been tiny quicktime, but I remember my friend sitting next to me going “Zion!” when they showed that wide shot of all the people assembled in the cave.

I can’t for the life of me remember what played in front of RotS. If I had to guess, I’d say Batman Begins and Fantastic Four were probably among them.

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Let’s see, for AotC I remember seeing trailers for Minority Report, Austin Powers in Goldmember, Men In Black II, Die Another Day, and Like Mike.

For RotS, I remember trailers for Mr and Mrs Smith, Batman Begins, The Island, and Fantastic Four.

I know I’m forgetting some but it’s been a while!

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For TLJ I also remember a trailer for this film I think was called A wrinkle in time or something. All I remember is it had dramatic slowed down “Sweet dreams are made of these…”

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I saw Eps 2 and 3 on opening night, and I honestly couldn’t tell you a single one of the trailers =) Even hearing you guys list some of them, none of it’s ringing any bells.

I want to say that maybe there was a LotR trailer, but I’m sure it was the other way around (Star Wars trailer before LotR).

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Asaki said:

I saw Eps 2 and 3 on opening night, and I honestly couldn’t tell you a single one of the trailers =) Even hearing you guys list some of them, none of it’s ringing any bells.

I want to say that maybe there was a LotR trailer, but I’m sure it was the other way around (Star Wars trailer before LotR).

Attack of the Clones had a preview for Two Towers.

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I don’t remember any trailers, but I did see a double feature at my local drive in with TPM and A Knight’s Tale.

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Rise of Skywalker’s previews

Free Guy
Wonder Woman 1984
Black Widow
Onward
Mulan Remake

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IMAX in New Zealand

Bad Boys for life
1917 (in 1.9:1)
Tenet (Prologue in full 1.44:1)
Mulan Remake

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IMAX here in addition to what’s already mentioned:

  • No time to die
  • Harrison Ford’s CGI dog movie
  • Daniel Craig’s other movie

And in the time of greatest despair, there shall come a savior, and he shall be known as the Son of the Suns.

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Yes, I took notes at Rise of Skywalker last night.
At an AMC IMAX in Indiana my trailers were as follows:

Sprite
AMC Stubs
The Call of the Wild (Harrison Ford)
IMAX at AMC
James Bond - No Time to Die
Doolittle
Bad Boys for Life
Top Gun Maverick
IMAX films to the fullest
3D gear up
Onward (Pixar)
the following in 3D
Black Widow
Mulan
AMC Prime Pre show Coca Cola
IMAX Countdown

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I remember Free Guy, Mulan, No Time to Die, Onward, Tenet, Black Widow, Bad Bois 4 Lyfe, My Spy, and a couple others.

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In a Cinemark theater, there were wayyyy more trailers than you guys are mentioning. My girlfriend and her dad were joking about how many trailers there were, like double the normal amount. Although Barb & Star is the only one I remember that wasn’t mentioned. If I see it again with my dad or something, I’ll write down what trailers I saw.

Reading R + L ≠ J theories

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I forgot, Dolittle was included in my bunch, too.

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For IX (in my theater):

-Wonder Woman 1984
-Free Guy
-Call of The Wild

That’s all I could remember.

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SparkySywer said:

In a Cinemark theater, there were wayyyy more trailers than you guys are mentioning. My girlfriend and her dad were joking about how many trailers there were, like double the normal amount. Although Barb & Star is the only one I remember that wasn’t mentioned. If I see it again with my dad or something, I’ll write down what trailers I saw.

Same here: a Full 32 minutes of Trailers - I haven’t been to the cinema in a while, I can’t even remember the last film I went to see before Episode IX - it may have been Last Jedi, but I’ve never seen so many trailers and ads before a film. And yet none of them really appealed to me so I guess I won’t be back any time soon. Well, perhaps for Top Gun. I was hoping to see the new Bond trailer, but it was not to be.

A Quiet Place 2 Teaser
Wonder Woman '84
Onward
Tenet
Barb & Star
Free Guy
Black Widow
Dolittle
Top Gun Maverick
Mulan

That’s all I can remember, but I think there were more!

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In IMAX theatre in Canada. Not that many.

  1. Top Gun Maverick
  2. Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (not sure if you’d consider this a trailer or just one of the commercials)
  3. Mulan
  4. Black Widow
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Regal in Southern California

Dolittle
Wonder Woman 84
Barb and Star
Free Guy
Top Gun Maverick
Tenet (wasn’t shown when I saw it opening night)
Onward
Google Pixel 4: Stars Included (for some reason)
Black Widow
Mulan
Regal schtuff

After being beaten and battered by prequel hate, I promise not to be that to the next generation.

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For AOTC special trailers (for DTS and/or THX) it turns out that it was most likely this DTSSONIC and perhaps instead or also one called vaguely DTS (need to look into this DTS labelled one more):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PT0jRA4b78s

And the THX trailers would have most likely been one or more of:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSi0n4nDVDY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9idIJ_LMn0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05COcAUq3Z4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOgWbjzFgj4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGo8Sg0VDEY

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The AOTC feature itself has Minority Report directly on Reel 1 itself at the start.
The Cinema DTS disc for it also lists:
sandrew (not sure if this is a trailer for a movie or something else, the other stuff all looked to be THX/DTS/various cinema snipes and stuff, maybe this is too)
lkmktrla
minrtrlc

So it seems that all proper showings of it on opening day were to show Like Mike trailer ‘A’ and Minority Report trailer ‘C’ and then perhaps sandrew (if that is a movie trailer). And then beyond that I guess various other things they felt like attaching like various ones mentioned above.

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I saw Star Wars about 25 times in the same theater first run, and the two previews for all of those viewings are burned into my memory: The World’s Greatest Lover and Damnation Alley, 100% those showed before SW in its initial run in at least one theater in '77-'78.

LightWave = fun times with gfx for me 😃