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No, Rian Johnson DID NOT Say The Last Jedi Trailer Was Too Spoilery!

Yesterday morning Rian Johnson replied to someone on Twitter worried about avoiding spoilers. If you’ve actually left your house any time after Force Friday you’ve probably seen as much as the next trailer will show, but spoiler-phobes are still worried.

He explained in his Tweet that if someone wants to go into The Last Jedi without seeing ANY new footage, then they shouldn’t watch the new trailer. It’s simple logic. The only way to go into a movie completely clean without seeing ANYTHING from it is to not watch the trailer:

Of course writers in the field of ad-driven online media have to get clicks on their stories to maximize their page views so they’re flat out lying about Rian Johnson’s comments.

Neither of those things are what Rian meant with his Tweet, but the internet is lying to people today just to maximize their ad views by exploiting Star Wars fan’s worries about spoilers. They’re the scum of the Earth, and its for things like this that online media needs to go the way of AOL’s AIM…

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Official Press Release: The Last Jedi Trailer & Tickets During Monday Night Football

Lucasfilm has issued the press release this morning OFFICIALLY confirming that the trailer will debut during halftime tomorrow and then the tickets will go on sale afterwards:

STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI TRAILER DEBUTS TOMORROW
DURING HALFTIME ON ESPN’S “MONDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL”

Tickets to Star Wars: The Last Jedi Go on Sale Everywhere Following the Trailer Launch

SAN FRANCISCO, CALIF. (October 8, 2017)—Lucasfilm announced today that the trailer for Star Wars: The Last Jedi will debut on ESPN’s “Monday Night Football” on Monday, October 9, during halftime of the National Football League (NFL) game between the Minnesota Vikings and the Chicago Bears in Chicago. The game starts at 5:15 p.m. PDT/8:15 p.m. EDT.

Following the trailer launch, tickets to the highly anticipated cinematic event will be on sale everywhere movie tickets are sold.

Star Wars: The Last Jedi opens in U.S. theaters on December 15.

ABOUT THE MOVIE:
In Lucasfilm’s Star Wars: The Last Jedi, the Skywalker saga continues as the heroes of The Force Awakens join the galactic legends in an epic adventure that unlocks age-old mysteries of the Force and shocking revelations of the past.

The film stars Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, Adam Driver, Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, Oscar Isaac, Lupita Nyong’o, Andy Serkis, Domhnall Gleeson, Anthony Daniels, Gwendoline Christie, Kelly Marie Tran, Laura Dern and Benicio Del Toro.

Star Wars: The Last Jedi is written and directed by Rian Johnson and produced by Kathleen Kennedy and Ram Bergman. J.J. Abrams, Tom Karnowski and Jason McGatlin are the executive producers.

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UPDATE! Thanks to the Reddit AMC Leak, The Last Jedi Ticket Sales MAY be Delayed

UPDATE!

Received more information about what happened yesterday, and it looks like it’s still 95% sure that tickets WILL go on sale as planned, but here’s what I know now.

After Reddit pulled down the image of the AMC computers there was an internal memo sent out about the leak. As standard procedure, they explained how bad leaking stuff to Reddit is, etc. The big thing was that they were ordered to remove any posted information about The Last Jedi ticketing. They’re also trying to find who posted the image to Reddit.

That’s where the belief that ticketing was delayed comes from. After learning this, I think it’s a safe bet to camp your computer for tickets on Monday.

On Thursday a Reddit user leaked a photo of confidential information from AMC’s computer system that confirmed The Last Jedi tickets would go on sale Monday. That picture was quickly pulled off Reddit via copyright claims, but now that leak may have spoiled everyone’s fun as there’s a slight chance it’ll prevent theaters from going ahead and selling tickets as planned on Monday.

The same source that confirmed to me on Tuesday that tickets would indeed be sold this coming Monday got back to me early this morning and apparently Disney is extremely upset over someone on Reddit leaking classified information for everyone to see. They’re so mad, they may stop tickets from going on sale:

“Theater chains have all been contacted by Disney and Disney is angry as classified info should not have been leaked. They will have more info by tomorrow or Sunday whether they can proceed with sales…They had to remove all showtimes from the system apparently so that there are no further leaks.”

Even worse, one AMC theater in Cleveland, Ohio has already sold tickets to people who asked in person. And the photos of those physical tickets were even removed from Reddit.

I hope this doesn’t happen, but this is why you don’t post pictures of confidential information on the internet. A big company like Disney isn’t something to mess with, and them doing something like this isn’t to punish fans; it’s more about punishing the theater chain for allowing their confidential information to leak onto the internet.

Hopefully we’ll know something concrete before Monday if tickets will end up going on sale or not. If they don’t, that guy in Ohio who bought four is very lucky!

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How Lucasfilm Announced The Force Awakens Final Trailer in 2015

With the final trailer and tickets expected for The Last Jedi on Monday, a lot of people are trying to remember how they revealed the final trailer for The Force Awakens two years ago.

While the trailer debuted on Monday Night Football at the beginning of halftime on October 19, 2015 Lucasfilm revealed both the trailer date and the final theatrical poster the day before on October 18th.

At 9:00am they sent out a Tweet with the final theatrical poster and the announcement to watch Monday Night Football the next day for the trailer:

So I’d turn on Twitter notifications for the official Star Wars account this weekend if I were you…

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The Last Jedi Ticket Sales Begin October 9th

Tuesday night I received rock solid confirmation that ticket sales for The Last Jedi will begin on Monday, October 9th. If they follow the schedule they did with The Force Awakens in 2015, online ticketing will begin around 7:00pm Pacific after the trailer airs during Monday Night Football (although some ticketing sites put theirs on sale two hours earlier).

Back in 2015 one of the dumbest things I saw people do to try to debunk the spoiler of “Cameo Luke” was demand proof be posted. Random people posting anonymously on internet forums don’t quite get that posting confidential stuff in public isn’t the smartest thing to do. That’s why (right now) it isn’t smart for me to post an image of the 100% rock solid evidence I’ve seen to prove tickets are going on sale on Monday.

But I can describe it in-depth and explain why it’s legitimate.

The major theater chains have internal computer systems where bulletins from the corporate office can be relayed to the theaters around the country. Most places do, even retailers.

This week the biggest theater chains in the US posted a bulletin on their systems giving theater managers instructions on how to program showtimes for The Last Jedi as well as the important dates for the movie. These were Oct 2nd (for programming showtimes), Oct 9th (ticket sales), Dec 14th (opening night events), and the December 15th opening.

These bulletins aren’t written by Star Wars fanboys, they’re very professional from a corporate office only concerned about getting things in line for a big movie release that will cause their employees a lot of headaches in a couple of months.

That was a big thing that came up as a red flag as this being legitimate and not someone just faking an internal company bulletin. The language used was that of a corporate office using terms that an average hoaxer on the internet wouldn’t know. There was one thing in particular, which is unique to one of the theater chains, and is something not even the average concession stand worker would know about. That being there was a big seal on the legitimacy of the information.

Then IMAX happened.

It appears as if IMAX is testing their website for traffic in preparation for ticket sales to go online. In addition to now displaying showtimes for one IMAX theater near San Diego, CA, the site now lists The Last Jedi as offering Advance Tickets. On the IMAX site if a movie doesn’t offer Advance Tickets the wording just says “More Info”, but The Last Jedi has now been changed from “More Info” to “Advance Tickets”.

With what is going on with the official IMAX site and the other evidence I’ve seen this week, I’m very confident we’ll be buying our tickets for The Last Jedi sometime Monday evening.

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Sony Screws Over PSVR Owners

If you paid $500 for Sony’s PlayStation VR headset like me, and you own a 4K TV, you probably know that the Processor Box for the VR headset isn’t compatible with HDR pass-through. That means if you want to use HDR content on your PS4 Pro, you have to unhook the PSVR every time you want to play a normal game and connect the system directly to the TV. It’s a huge inconvenience that Sony should’ve fixed for the people who gave them $500, but now they decided to screw everyone over.

Sony announced a new version of the PSVR Headset that allows stereo headphones to plug directly into the headset (solving a cabling annoyance), and as part of the new release they have finally fixed the HDR passthrough on the Processor Box. This is great you might think, those who have the broken Processor Box from the original PSVR can finally get a replacement.

Not so fast. Sony has decided to make the new Processor Box incompatible with the current PSVR, which means you’re stuck with a broken device and no fix:

If I already own a PS VR, can I swap out my old Processor Unit with the updated one?
Because the cables of CUH-ZVR1 and CUH-ZVR2 are different, you cannot swap the Processor Units.

Before you rush to White Knight and defend Sony and claim this is just a peril of early adoption, this has absolutely nothing in common with a new console or iPhone. The original Processor Box was essentially broken due to a hardware oversight. This is like Microsoft releasing consoles they knew would eventually red-ring, but not offering any sort of repair or replacement. Sony’s solution for their broken Processor Box is to have people buy a new $500 headset.

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The Last Jedi Trailer IS Coming October 9th

Today StarWarsNewsNet tweeted this:

And yes, from all indications that’s the date. I don’t know who their long time source is, but I checked with someone who would know and it looks very good that we’re getting the trailer that day.

Someone screwed up. Big time. So that’s the day.

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There is No New Last Jedi Trailer at Hascon, in Japan, or on 9/11

With all the frenzy over people wanting a new trailer for The Last Jedi, there’s a lot of bogus news out there about the trailer arriving earlier than it really will.

The current hysteria going around claims that Lucasfilm will debut it at Hasbro’s little convention in Rhode Island this Friday and then will premiere it for everyone else on 9/11. While Hascon originally said they’d have a room for people to watch a Last Jedi trailer, it seems like it’s going to be the same one from April (or a shorter version of it). Not the new trailer people are expecting.

Another thing going on this weekend is a fan event in Japan that people think will debut a new trailer. Unfortunately almost the exact same event was recently held in Los Angeles (it was for fan group leaders and select bloggers) and they showed absolutely nothing there. The thing going on in Japan this Sunday seems to be the same version of this recent event, only in Japan.

Both versions of these false trailer stories end with the trailer premiering for everyone on 9/11. That’s not exactly the day Lucasfilm would want to use to promote their new Star Wars movie.

The thing many people don’t want to accept is that Lucasfilm is following the same marketing schedule they did with The Force Awakens in 2015, which means we’ll probably need to wait until October for the final trailer (and poster) before release.

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The Trailer For The Last Jedi is Likely to Arrive Around October 16th, 2017

With Force Friday II now in the past, some Star Wars fans are upset that they didn’t get a new trailer for The Last Jedi with the new toys. Despite the initial belief that they would be copying the Rogue One schedule, it now looks like we’ll be waiting for October as they are going along with the schedule The Force Awakens followed:

April: Teaser
May: Vanity Fair Cover
July: Behind the Scenes
August: Entertainment Weekly Cover
October: Final poster, trailer, and ticket sales.

NOTE: Lucasfilm doesn’t count the 2014 announcement teaser for TFA in this schedule. That was a special thing done outside the normal marketing schedule.

The final trailer for The Force Awakens arrived on October 19, 2015 during a Monday Night Football game on Disney-owned ESPN. It’s now looking very likely that history will repeat itself this October.

Monday, October 16th, is another Monday Night Football game. It’s not the greatest match-up for ratings (Colts vs. Titans), but Lucasfilm has something else planned for that night.

Just today they revealed that Season 4 of Star Wars Rebels will also premiere on Monday, October 16th. Why is this a big deal? For the last year Star Wars Rebels aired on Saturday, and right now there’s been no official mention of the series moving to Monday nights on Disney XD.

The most logical explanation for a Monday night premiere on October 16th is that Lucasfilm plans a massive marketing push for The Last Jedi that night. They’ll premiere the trailer across all Disney-owned networks. GMA will likely tease it that morning and get people hyped and then they’ll show the trailer during Monday Night Football and the Season 4 premiere of Star Wars Rebels all while Fandango crashes under the load of people trying to buy advanced tickets.

I’m not making a concrete prediction that October 16th is the date, but right now that’s the most realistic and likely day we’re going to see the final trailer for The Last Jedi

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Shocking Truth: You Can Like DC AND Marvel

With so much of the movie blogging community wanting to spark some stupid war among DC and Marvel fans by fueling stupid tribalism with their idiotic bias against DC, most are failing to realize that many people are fans of both comic universes.

I’ve been reading comics for more than thirty years. I remember the four individual issues of The Dark Knight Returns as among the first comics I ever bought. But I also remember Marvel’s Star line and the Silverhawks comic, the resurgence of new talent in Marvel’s superhero line, and the rise of both Valiant and Image in the 90s. I read it all. Everything was different and had totally different tones.

Marvel was set in the real world, in real cities. Its characters are (mostly) normal people thrust into the world of super powers and the stories largely deal with that angle. On the other hand, DC is usually a bit more escapist set in fictional cities with god-like heroes. Both have a different tone and feel, and demanding one conform to the other would take away that which makes Marvel or DC what they are.

That’s why the people demanding DC movies copy Marvel are clueless idiots who shouldn’t be talking about comic book movies.

In the comics right now DC is going through something of a new golden age or renaissance with Rebirth. Marvel has had some issues in recent years, but they’re trying to fix it with their Legacy reboot (which is basically a copy of Rebirth). I still read both Marvel and DC, for the same reasons I have for over thirty years. I like DC for what makes it DC, and I like Marvel for what makes it Marvel.

Marvel’s movies have been doing such a great job at being “Marvel” that a friend of mine doesn’t even read the comics anymore, the MCU is his Marvel now. Likewise the DC movies feel like DC comics, especially the recent New 52 era, and those wanting it to just be a copy of the Marvel tone miss what makes DC what it is.

It’s entirely possible to like DC and Marvel, and it’s not necessary to flat out lie about one company to beat it down because you’ve sold your mindset to another.