Star Wars (1977)

The Star Wars teaser trailer, the very first look the world got at that galaxy far, far away, is a fascinating little artifact. The first thing a modern eye (or ear) will notice is that Star Wars without John Williams is a creature shambling straight out of the Uncanny Valley. When 20th Century Fox assembled this two-minute hype reel in late 1976, the film was waist-deep in its infamously troubled postproduction. Williams hadn’t recorded a single note, the fledgling Industrial Light and Magic crew was straining to churn out effects, and Marcia Lucas had not yet swooped in to help reshape the footage into the dynamic rhythm that would win an Oscar for Best Film Editing.

The teaser is stiff, clunky, and barely resembles the thrilling tone of the finished product. A strangely spooky ambient score pulses under a voiceover that sounds desperate to convince audiences that Star Wars will be worth their time. “It’s a big, sprawling space saga of rebellion and romance,” the trailer promises, before ratcheting up to the absurd claim that it’s “a billion years in the making.” The film is also described as “the story of a boy, a girl, and a universe,” which sounds like an intriguing polyamorous sci-fi love story.

What it does have is a peek into the world being conjured by George Lucas (“the man who brought you American Graffiti,” the trailer reminds us). Some ships fly, some lasers are fired, and there’s a tantalizing glimpse at some lightsaber action. To moviegoers of 1976, it was likely a thrilling invitation to the kind of high fantasy they had only dreamed of. To us, four decades later, it’s an intriguing remnant of a bygone time before Star Wars had any kind of brand identity, and was just a project a garage full of nerds hoped people would care about.

- Andrew Ihla