Stephen Colbert took a moment of his time to explain the original Star Wars movies to the people of China who are sadly not terribly familiar with the epic franchise. During the brief segment, Colbert does, however, admit, "They may be familiar with the toys." The explanation presented on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert comes after the Wall Street Journal published an article entitled, "New 'Star Wars' Flick Is an Unfamiliar Force in China."
As proof of their unfamiliarity, Colbert quotes from The Wall Street Journal article in which they conduct an interview with Pan Chen, an employ of a company out of Beijing who is unfamiliar with the Star Wars movies, "I can't remember the plot at all... Is there a sword or something that can suddenly light up and turn off for some reason?" Colbert affirms the gentleman's understanding of the plot, but seems befuddled since Chen originally said he couldn't remember what the movie was about.
Colbert goes on to say, "For the less-informed Chinese viewers out there, let me catch you up real quick," and proceeds to do just that. In doing so, he manages to equate R2-D2 to a garbage can and refers to Darth Vader as a handicapped man. Chewbacca is apparently a criminal's --Han Solo-- "screaming dog friend," and Ewoks are teddy bears. While this all seems sacrilege on the one hand, I can't quite bring myself to disagree with any of it, because none of it is entirely untrue.
Colbert also explained to his viewers that the original Star Wars did come out in 1977 when the Chinese government was heavily suppressing pretty much everything from Western media. This means a lot of Chinese people have never had the privelege of finding out just how awesome the movies are. So Colbert took it upon himself and explained exactly what they are missing out on in typical Colbert fashion which basically amounts to a nuts and bolts style summary that still somehow manages to capture the undying spirit that is Star Wars.
According the The Hollywood Reporter, "J.J. Abrams' Star Wars: The Force Awakens shattered numerous box-office records over the weekend, grossing $238 million in North America - the biggest opening of all time, not accounting for inflation - for a global launch of $517 million," and this is just domestically.
It isn't doing too shabby overseas either. Deadline reports, "It scored the 3rd biggest ever overseas debut and the No. 2 ever worldwide launch (which could potentially become the No. 1 of all time when the actuals come in tomorrow),"
Between having the Star Wars movies explained by Stephen Colbert and all of the really neato promotional stunts undertaken in China, --like the one below-- perhaps the movie will not do too bad when it is released there on January 9th.
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