Star Wars fans, did you hear? The new trailer for The Force Awakens is debuting tonight! Can you guess where? YouTube? Facebook? During a marathon of the Star Wars saga on ABC Family?
Nope, during a football game. ESPN's Monday Night Football, to be precise. Because nothing says epic sci-fi adventure like the New York Giants playing the Philadelphia Eagles, right?
Yeah, this is kind of weird. Why did they do this?
The obvious answer is that ESPN and Lucasfilm are both part of the Disney family, so this is just corporate synergy! Oh, and also, millions and millions and millions of people watch Monday Night Football games, so it's a good time to get lots of eyes on your new trailer.
However, did Disney really think needed an audience like this to get people to watch the new trailer? Fans are foaming at the mouth to see anything related to Episode VII, so Disney could have released the footage at 3 a.m. on a website that makes you watch Heidi Montag's terrible music video 50 times before showing you the trailer and it still would be viewed by a crazy amount of people.
So now Star Wars fans might have to endure a football game for the first time in their lives just to see the trailer for The Force Awakens. And if you've never watched an NFL game in your life, that's a pretty steep requirement if you want to see new footage at the very moment it's released. Sure, you could wait until directly after MNF debut to watch it on YouTube, but will any Star Wars fans actually do that?! Hell, no! They're taping three hours of football just so they can see a 90-second movie ad.
It's a good thing Disney announced the Monday Night Football placement for the Star Wars trailer a few days ago, because fans need time to talk themselves into watching an NFL game:
Basically, the choice to debut the trailer during Monday Night Football is both a logical choice and a not-so-logical choice. It's kind of like the choice to alter the scene from A New Hope to make it look like Greedo shot first.
JUST KIDDING THAT WILL ALWAYS BE A TERRIBLE CHOICE, GEORGE!
Oh, and don't forget that tickets for Episode VII go on sale directly after the trailer is release! But we didn't need to tell you that, did we? You already knew. See you on opening night, nerds!