Star Wars:The Force Awakens Opens at Midnight

Unless you’ve been living under a rock on the planet Tatooine lately, you’ll probably have noticed that there’s a new Star Wars movie about to open in Australia. Star Wars: The Force Awakens, as the new episode is titled, premiered in Los Angeles yesterday with every last scrap of red carpet pomp and ceremony the Americans could muster. And why not? This must be one of the most highly-anticipated movies of all time.

©Lucasfilm 2015

Event Cinemas reported that after only a few hours, ticket pre-sales for Star Wars: The Force Awakens eclipsed all previous pre-sale records at with 1,200 tickets being sold in the first minute (8.01am) growing to 10,000 tickets in 10 minutes with 30,000 tickets sold by 5pm on the opening day. To put that phenomenon into perspective The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2 had sold 7,726 tickets at the end of the first day and The Avengers entire pre-sales tallied 26, 988 tickets. Star Wars: The Force Awakens exceeded that in 4 hours.

Even after the disappointment of the last 3 chapters in the franchise (all of which still enjoyed huge commercial success), hopes are riding high that this will be the production that fulfils the promise of the earlier stories and give them the follow-up they deserve. Indications even early in production were positive. The director is the experienced and talented JJ Abrams – a lifelong fan of the franchise who also managed to reboot the Star Trek series so brilliantly (though I’m ignoring the trailer for the latest one). The original characters and actors have also been included, thrilling geeky hearts like mine from here to galaxies far, far away. It doesn’t just appear to be a nostalgia-fest however; the two new leads are young, one of them female and one of them of colour, all encouraging signs this movie intends to break new ground as well honour the past.

©Lucasfilm 2015

Certainly the early signs are good. Social media reaction from those leaving the premiere was overwhelmingly positive if unusually coy. Smiles abounded, apparently, and many tweeted their pleasure at the franchise being ‘back to its best’. I honestly cannot wait and will be bringing you a review as soon as I can.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens is being screened at every place you can think of (and most times day and night!). All the major chains (Event Cinemas, Hoyts) as well as independents (Palace Cinemas, Ritz Randwick, ) and the outdoor cinemas ( Moonlight, St George etc etc) are showing it but I have to say my recommendation would be the IMAX Darling Harbour (though I was tempted by Darth Vader playing the organ at the Hayden Orpheum!).

IMAX Darling Harbour has Australia’s only 2D 1570 IMAX film print (1 of only 20 in the world) and director J.J. Abrams has used IMAX cameras to shoot selected scenes which will impressively expand to fill the full height of the IMAX screen – delivering unprecedented crispness, clarity and colour for a truly immersive experience. And with IMAX Darling Harbour possessing the biggest cinema screen in the world, there is no other place on earth that audiences can enjoy the film on such a large scale!

Australia’s only 2D 1570 IMAX film print (1 of only 20 in the world) arriving at IMAX Darling Harbour

Tickets for Star Wars: The Force Awakens may have sold out for the midnight screening but don’t worry, there are still plenty of seats left to catch this movie and my guess is it will be in cinemas for quite some time to come.

STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS