Older thread: Hollywood – Stop spoiling our movies: Today’s trailers reveal every last 'surprising' twist.
ping
They do, because trailers are supposed to generate interest.
However, what I do find interesting is what the trailers tend to show and how it is in context during the movie.
They certainly did with Zoolander. The trailer contained hilarious parts of three scenes I think. So you’re thinking “Should be a very funny movie”, but the 1:30 or whatever that was in the trailer was the only funny 1:30 in the entire movie.
No, they show you the best scenes to make the movie look better than it is. They’re crafted not to give away major plot secrets, though. Okay, you can see somebody shoots somebody in the trailer, but by the time you see the movie you don’t know who shoots whom — if you ever did.
This has been true for some years now. See the trailer and you’ve seen the movie.
The art of the really good teaser trailer seems to have been lost, or at least ignored. Done properly, a trailer reveals almost nothing about the actual plot while reeling you in to go see it. The trailer for the original Alien was a masterpiece of this. Not a single word of dialogue, not a single spoiler, but man alive does it make you take notice!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bEVY_lonKf4
These trailers for The Shining and Magic (must be a horror movie thing, LOL) were also very effective:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lx7smh7YHKg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=piQFD4gz9l8
Movie trailers don’t give away all the best scenes. They give away only the best scenes.
Maybe today they do, but back in the day the trailers for ‘Jaws’ or ‘The Exorcist’ just made you say DAYUM I gotta’ see that!
I add to the discussion with a generous amount of snarkiness: People who don’t watch movies in movie theaters don’t have this problem.
Lately I have observed that many 90-120 minute movies would have been a really good 22 minute TV show. It is as if they have one good idea, but not the several it takes to fill the time. When you have only one good idea, the trailer is bound to give away the whole plot.
The opposite is TV shows like the Simpsons, which can have three fully developed plot ideas in a single 22 minute show, but really could have had their own episode each.
It’s like “hey I have a really good idea for a scene” and that gets stretched into a whole movie.
I used to look forward to the trailers when they’d show about three per film. Now I just enter the theater about 20 minutes after the “start” time to avoid them.
I agree. Once you get there you find out that only good stuff was in the trailers. It makes me feel ripped off to go see a good comedy or something and realize I saw all the funny things already.
What’s really sad is when the editing (especially dialog) in the trailer is better than in the actual movie.
Eh it’s just whining. Being a big rewatcher I think surprises are way over valued by the industry. If your movie can’t stand up once if the “surprise” is known before the movie then your movie can’t stand up. Psycho is just as good a movie once if you know Norman is his mother. Sixth Sense is just as good a movie if you know Bruce Willis is dead. And The Village is just as pathetically boring if you know it’s not in the 19th century.
-PJ
EVERY
ADAM
SANDLER
MOVIE
EVER