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Do Trailers Give Away Too Much?

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Cowboys & Aliens trailer is good.

Another one that's decent was Spiderman 3.

Had me excited for the movie for sure...until I saw it.
 
Games do this to an even worse degree. With some games if you watched all the video previews you would probably have seen the entire game, or at least all the major environments and levels.

I sometimes wonder how much better CoD: Modern Warfare would've been if I hadn't known you were going to get caught in a nuke going off at some point thanks to the trailers.
 
Satchwar said:
The worst offender ever for me is the trailer to the movie that Tobey McGuire was in where he was a soldier, came back home, and his wife was sleeping with some other dude (was it his brother or something?).
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JGS said:
I could have sworn the movie was actually named Borthers, but that doesn't sound right.
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Yeah, it's called Brothers.

I haven't seen the trailer but that doesn't sound like it ruins too much, she never actually slept with the brother. Still, I think it's best not knowing anything about that movie going in... a lot of the tension in the middle third is thinking Tobey's character is dead or going to get killed. Knowing he comes back home at all isn't ideal. That being said I thought the movie was good regardless.
 
I remember the Matrix trailer ruined all the great special effects scenes (except the ending) but it didn't ruin the story at all. I went to see it in the theatre and I had no idea what I was about to see.
 
KernelPanic said:
I remember the Matrix trailer ruined all the great special effects scenes (except the ending) but it didn't ruin the story at all. I went to see it in the theatre and I had no idea what I was about to see.
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You were about to see something that would blow your 17 year old mind. The fact of which you're still embarrassed about today.
 
JGS said:
Cowboys & Aliens trailer is good.

Another one that's decent was Spiderman 3.

Had me excited for the movie for sure...until I saw it.
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The trailer of Spider-Man 3 didn't spoil the story, because there was nothing to spoil.
 
Karakand said:
You can't spoil something that's over 250 years old.
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Passion of the Christ obviously spoiled the story, but didn't spoiled what everyone went to see it : the bloooood and goooore

While Gulliver spoiled the reason why everyone would go see it : Jack Black being Jack Black =P
 
Stumpokapow said:
Roger Ebert:



(from his larger article on how embarrassing Hollywood and Sequelitis is in 2011; worth reading if only because he comes dangerously close to admitting that cable television is better than film when it comes to mature, well-written content)
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I wish I was home right now to find that Onion video where movie goers criticized the move to make a movie out of a trailer and how they preferred the movie trailer and their actors.

Thanks for the link though, will definitely have to read later.
 
Master Milk said:
Yes. No film ever gets it right. All trailers suck.
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Nope. There are some good trailers. The first that comes to mind is A Single Man.

Another recent film I saw "Never Let Me Go" didn't really give anything away in the 20 second commercial (which I'd seen on TV). it was just enough to pique your interest without telling you anything. After seeing the movie I watched the trailer and it ruins a lot of the movie.
 
I thought the trailer for Star Wars Episode I spoiled the best part of the movie... Darth Maul's double edged light saber would have been an "oh shit!" moment if you didn't know it was coming.

A good trailer reveals only the tail of the elephant, leaving you wondering about the rest. I think the Super 8 trailer does this. It leaves you curious and none of the movie is revealed beforehand. If the epic moments are cut into a trailer, it feels like they're trying too hard and have no faith in people going to see the movie, so they blow their load on the trailer.
 
Eggo said:
I thought the trailer for Star Wars Episode I spoiled the best part of the movie... Darth Maul's double edged light saber would have been an "oh shit!" moment if you didn't know it was coming.

A good trailer reveals only the tail of the elephant, leaving you wondering about the rest. I think the Super 8 trailer does this. It leaves you curious and none of the movie is revealed beforehand. If the epic moments are cut into a trailer, it feels like they're trying too hard and have no faith in people going to see the movie, so they blow their load on the trailer.
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great point, been honest I think horror films are better when you don't fully see the monster in the closet, like the first Alien film, you see the dinner scene, then after that you only see quick glimpses of the alien until the end. someone at a test screening told Ridley Scott that they liked how the alien got bigger every time they saw it, but in fact it was the same guy in the same suit and the size never changed.
 
I think its unforgivable when its already an established property and they still give away the whole movie, because those trailers don't largely need to say what happens in the story, so much as 'this is the new premise'.

With original properties its a balancing act.

If you remember the reactions to the teaser of AVATAR which had one line of dialogue in it versus the studio's response to that reaction - a huge 3.5 minute spoilery theatrical trailer that had to spell it out for audiences, you can see why they pull this shit. The reaction to the theatrical trailer was a complete 180 from the teasers response.
 
In comedy yes. They tend to reveal the biggest laughs in the trailer for obvious reasons but in the end it does more harm than good.

In action I would say they have it right. With the quick cuts that they tend to possess, the scenes always lack context and the movie experience brings everything together. In the transformer trailer for instance, there's a scene where Optimus is on the street fucking shit up and I cant wait to see that in its entirety. Ive tried avoiding action movie trailers as to not spoil any of the bigger set pieces but every time Ive done that, I end up not enjoying the film as much because Im not really looking forward to anything. Id rather see snippets of the action and then get the full experience later.

I know Im alone in this but this is just what has happened for me in the past.
 
i dont know if you know the point of a trailer.

the point of a trailer is to make people pay money to get their ass in seats in your theater.

WHAT THE FUCK DOES IT MATTER AFTER THE SALE? That's the REASON for a trailer. To advertise a movie and to make you want to pay for it. If it does that, then it does its job.

Its an advertising vehicle. Its a commercial. What do commercials do? SELL.
 
Metroid Killer said:
The trailer for Alien was fucking amazing.
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I came in to post this. Undoubtably the best trailer ever.

And, yes, trailers give too much away. But that's by design.

Studios have found that audiences do not like to be surprised. When they buy a ticket, they want to know exactly what they'll be getting. There are mountains and mountains of market research that tell them this.

You may not like it and I may not like it, but they don't care.

Now, it's possible to create a marketing campaign that sells the film without spoiling everything, but that takes talent. Just like there are ad firms that do good work, there are ad firms that are hacks.
 
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