Star Wars fans in China get historic viewing opportunity leading up to The Force Awakens

By Stephanie Topacio Long May 26, 2015

Best Star Wars home theaters — Image used with permission by copyright holder

While we’re still crying alongside Matthew McConaughey over the latest teaser trailer for Star Wars: The Force Awakens, fans in China have a whole new reason to celebrate. For the first time ever, the original trilogy is being brought to Chinese theaters. Organizers for the Shanghai International Film Festival and Walt Disney Pictures announced Monday that the complete six-movie saga (so far) will be screened at the festival, which runs June 13-21.

With The Force Awakens set to open on December 18, excitement is undeniably high, especially as new photos and a teaser trailer have recently hit the Internet. SIFF organizers and Walt Disney Pictures definitely had the right idea adding the six Star Wars episodes to the lineup at the 18^th edition of the event. The festival will provide fans in China with an exciting new way to experience long-time favorite movies, which is very fitting given that the seventh film in the series will be a mix of the old and the new. Set 30 years from where Star Wars: Episode VI – Return of the Jedi left off, The Force Awakens will feature veteran cast members alongside newcomers.

While the big screen viewing experience is of course special, those who can’t make it to China for SIFF can always host their own home viewing of the entire saga – or maybe just the original trilogy, if you prefer – in preparation for the J.J. Abrams-directed The Force Awakens. After all, there’s no reason to wait till December to see original cast members Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, and Carrie Fisher together on screen.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics

Stephanie Topacio Long

Contributor

Stephanie Topacio Long is a writer and editor whose writing interests range from business to books. She also contributes to…

Entertainment

Most powerful Star Wars heroes ever, ranked

Ewan McGregor as Obi-Wan Kenobi in the 2022 Disney+ series.

Over the course of the sprawling history of Star Wars, the audience has been introduced to its fair share of heroes. Some have been tempted or even succumbed to the Dark Side, while others fought hard to stay in the light. None of the heroes are infallible, but it's undeniable that some are far more powerful than others.

The very best heroes in the history of Star Wars are great not just because of what they are capable of, but because of how they decided to use their skills. This list is, at the end of the day, all about raw power, though, even though it's based on some speculation. We see a lot of powerful heroes across the galaxy, but these ones rose to the top.
10. Ki-Adi-Mundi

Entertainment

Is the fan-made Obi-Wan Kenobi movie better than the Disney+ Star Wars series?

Hayden Christensen and Ewan McGregor in Obi-Wan Kenobi

Obi-Wan Kenobi launched this spring in a flurry of excitement that included breathless articles suddenly proclaiming the merits of the prequels. Fans not only hoped to see Obi-Wan and Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader again -- the protagonists turned adversaries of Star Wars Episodes I-III -- but they were also psyched to see them played by the original actors, Ewan McGregor and Hayden Christensen. As such, many were thrilled when the show debuted. Then, slowly, the realization that comes with almost every Star Wars project dawned … this isn’t that great, is it?

This is why every Star Wars show and movie has been recut, rewritten, restaged, reconceptualized, and regurgitated by online fans -- to make better quality Star Wars. The most recent fan remix to attain wider attention -- even getting a write-up in Variety -- is Kai Patterson's compression of the show's six episodes into a feature-length film of two and a half hours, which Patterson created to fix things "that were easily fixable in the script and in the edit."

Entertainment

Are the Star Wars prequels actually good?

Anakin fights Obi-Wan in Revenge of the Sith.

Ten years ago, great jubilation arose among the Star Wars faithful when Disney acquired Lucasfilm and subsequently announced Star Wars sequels featuring the original trilogy characters. Finally, we could move past the sins of the prequel trilogy -- Episodes I, II, and III, all written and directed by George Lucas -- with "real" Star Wars movies that would eclipse our blighted memories of Lucas' miscalculations. Sure enough, when The Force Awakens debuted in 2015, fans and casual viewers alike proclaimed its fidelity to the holy trinity of original Star Wars movies. It might be a little derivative, but doggone it, it looked like original Star Wars. More importantly, it felt like original Star Wars.

It didn't take long for folks to change their tune. Now the sequels -- The Force Awakens, The Last Jedi, and The Rise of Skywalker -- are much maligned for their lack of cohesive vision and their reliance on tired material. Meanwhile, the prequels have undergone fresh appraisal, and the excitement among fans is off the charts for prequel-related shows like Obi-Wan Kenobi. After suffering two decades of derision, are the prequels suddenly considered good now? How did that happen?