The new Star Wars trailer debuted at halftime during ESPN's Monday Night Football, and immediately became a force to be reckoned with both on social media and ticket sites that crashed during presales for its Dec. 18 opening. Fandango and Movie Tickets both had issues after offering tickets even before the trailer aired for the JJ Abrams-directed The Force Awakens, the Hollywood Reporter notes. Fandango users got hit with a "site maintenance" message, while Movie Tickets customers received an error warning. Imax, meanwhile, waited patiently until after the halftime show to start its selling spree, but also had problems and had to funnel people to the other two sites.
Meanwhile, buzz about the movie was one for the cosmos, making it hard to find a non-Star Wars-related tweet for a couple of hours after the trailer aired. The clip—which Business Insider called "glorious" and the San Jose Mercury News deemed "spectacular with surprises"—blasted plenty of computer-generated special effects off the screen, as well as close-ups of newbies John Boyega as Finn, the franchise's new hero, and Daisy Ridley as female scavenger Rey (Ridley got emotional herself watching the trailer). And, to everyone's great pleasure, there was a Han Solo-Chewie appearance, as well as a rumor-busting interaction between Solo and Princess Leia, the Mercury News notes. See the full trailer below. (This couple should have made Dec. 18 their wedding date.)
,
uBlock 
,
and
Ghostery 
)
