ratpack1961 said:

I can't bring myself to go watch a movie just to see a JJ Abrams trailer. I did that in 1998 for Episode 1 directed by George Lucas. It was fun, theater hopping across multiple theaters to see the trailer and then leaving without bothering with the movie (it was The Waterboy).

Also later that same day the Episode 1 teaser was on the internet and ready to download thanks to cam copies. Anyways I know the new trailer is Star Wars but its just not the same for me.

Also, they showed it on ET the night before, so if you knew about it in advance you could just set your vcr to record it. Sure, it was cropped a little to fill up more of the 4:3 TV frame just as most movie trailers and ads were in those days, but it was the highest quality you could watch it in short of seeing it in the theater.

Was the TPM teaser officially uploaded the same day it hit theaters with Meet Joe Black or did Lucasfilm wait until later? I was technologically illiterate back in those days and probably wasn't even aware of the concept of downloading movie trailers. The irony is that we had a 180 MHz Mac Performa (from '96) and a dial-up connection, so I probably could've QuickTime downloaded it if I knew what I was doing. It probably would've taken forever though, and I was busy with 8th grade. TV was much more "immediate."