Last Sunday, the Shanghai International Film Festival had a viewing of the original Star Wars trilogy. Based on Google, the English-speaking world thought this was kind of a big deal.
Don't get us wrong: die-hard fans are very excited for the epic space opera, to meet Darth Vader, and to watch the movies.
And they definitely got hyped over a recorded message from The Force Awakens director J.J. Abrams.
But saying that “Star Wars to screen in China for first time ever” basically implies Chinese are still the same group of people who just woke up from the Cultural Revolution 40 years ago.
Granted, the space epic's delayed official premieres are milestone-ish in China, but there's a few reasons not to think The Force has just started to be with them.
The official Chinese-version posters of the Star Wars prequels.
1. The whole six-part Star Wars series is not premiering in China for the first time.
Although all six parts of the Star Wars series to date were shown on the big screen at the Shanghai Film Festival, only the original trilogy was premiered for the first time, according to the official film festival site.
The movies that make up the "prequel trilogy — "The Phantom Menace," "Attack of the Clones," and "Revenge of the Sith" — were all publicly screened in China in 1999, 2002 and 2005 respectively, according to an 2005 Sina News report — exactly the same year each of them premiered in the U.S.
2. Even the original trilogy "premiering" is still arguable, according to die-hard fans. The very first film even, "A New Hope", was screened in 1984 in an event called American Movie Week in several Chinese cities.
And the memory is so vivid that many are still recounting the sweet details.
3. The movies that are being shown on the big-screen for the first time(ish) are not a part of a nationwide — or even citywide — premiere.
4. And let's be clear: if you wanted to see Star Wars in China, there have always been ways. On one Chinese piracy site, the series has been downloaded over eight million times.
5. Only the hardcore fans really cared about the premieres — but even the most hardcore of the hardcore fans had a tough time getting tickets.
6. tl;dr: China probably has already watched all the six episodes of the epic, so everyone needs to take a deep, Vader-like breath.
