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Trailers that basically show the whole movie

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Kickz said:
Batman V Superman is a criminal offender

Bat fights Supes

Supes Bats and WonderW fight doomsday
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I'm giving it the benefit of the doubt but it does seem like it's posed to be a prime example of this phenomenon. I mean, they already had us hooked with Batman fighting Superman, as if they needed to show us the third act with Doomsday and WW too get our asses into the theater. Batman and Superman on the same movie by itself was a big reason to watch this! They didn't need to reveal so much to generate hype!
 
Came in expecting a bunch of BvS replies from people who have not seen it. I leave satisfied.
 
Last trailer I thought was really spoiler-y was for Paper Towns. It's like 5 minutes long and they basically show the premise, conflict, and resolution. I haven't seen the movie, but it sure felt like it.
 
Good Bad Flicks has a video on how trailers have ruined it to this day and it is a shame it keeps happening.

WTF Happened to Movie Trailers?

A lot of examples in this modern hollywood on how not to show your movie with plot holes that spoiled for one the beginning,middle or end.
 
almost every single one of them that is why I don't watch trailers anymore for a few years now it sucks but I loves movie that I go to so much more for them.
 
SlimySnake said:
You have no one but yourself to blame. i have been skipping trailers (epsecially the final or launch trailers) since Matrix Reloaded came out in 2003. the Matrix trailers had spoiled every single cool sequence in the ads before i even saw the film and since then it's been obvious that every single movie trailer is designed to sell you to watch the movie.

not sure how old you are, but it makes sense if you are still in your teens. any older and you should know better by now.
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The original Matrix trailer does a better job of getting across the themes of the movie than the movie itself. Love that trailer.

Sojgat said:
This.

The one semi-interesting plot twist this piece of junk had was completely spoiled in the trailer.
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To be fair, it's not like the main plot twist in Terminator 2 wasn't completely spoiled by the trailers.

It's a thing with the Terminator franchise.
 
Although this isn't really spoiling the whole movie but WHO the fuck thought it was a good idea for the LotR: The Two Towers trailer to show that Gandalf was still alive...
I mean I read the book before the movies were ever made but my friend who I was watching the trailer with was like: "WTF Gandalf is alive????"
 
Nokterian said:
Good Bad Flicks has a video on how trailers have ruined it to this day and it is a shame it keeps happening.

WTF Happened to Movie Trailers?

A lot of examples in this modern hollywood on how not to show your movie with plot holes that spoiled for one the beginning,middle or end.
Click to expand...

Nothing happened to movie trailers, really.

What happened was audiences got super-fucking-sensitive to the idea of spoilers as anathema to their very existence.

Grownups didn't give anywhere near this much of a shit about basic plot points being known ahead of time until like, late '90s.

Right around the time Aint it Cool News more or less coined the term "Spoiler" and then built an entire cottage industry around it.
 
I nominate an independent motion picture released last year, called Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain, directed by Hideo Kojima, produced by Konami Studios.
 
What annoys me when a trailer shows 5 seconds of an elaborate big production scene that doesn't happen til the end. Then the entire lead up to that point is ruined because you know while you are watching what's coming from the scenery/time of day/ect.

I'm trying to think of a good example off the top of my head. Maybe in the Dark Knight when the Semi flips end over end. Seems like Transformers showed off something in the final downtown fight scene that ruined it for me. Something will come to me.
 
The inclusion of Doomsday in the BvS trailer was egregious.

I literally yelled out "WHY?!" when that thing showed up.

The entire plot of the movie immediately played out in my head :/
 
Yeah, I don't think trailers are necessarily getting worse with this sort of thing, but they used to have less of an impact. You'd see a trailer maybe once or twice when actually going to theaters, and that was it. Nowadays people obsess over them on their computers, making GIFs to advertise the movie elsewhere, treating them like conversation pieces, and so on. Combine that with the more formulaic plot structures you tend to see nowadays -- I can't remember the last major film release I saw that didn't have Save the Cat's paw-prints all over it -- and it's a pretty unfortunate situation.

Good rule of thumb I follow is just to skip trailers on movies I already know I want to see. It really does make the eventual viewing process more enjoyable.
 
Bobby Roberts said:
Nothing happened to movie trailers, really.

What happened was audiences got super-fucking-sensitive to the idea of spoilers as anathema to their very existence.
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I love how this issue couched as some kind of nostalgia bullshit, when trailers back in the good old days were arguably way worse. Were there some cool mysterious trailers way back when? Sure. That Alien trailer is kind of a classic.

But there were also hundreds of trailers that not only detailed every plot point, but had this hamfisted narrator who literally told you every plot point.

It also seems weird to me that when people complain about trailer spoilers, it's often about genre films that tend to have incredibly predictable plot structures.
 
border said:
I love how this issue couched as some kind of nostalgia bullshit, when trailers back in the good old days were arguably way worse. Were there some cool mysterious trailers way back when? Sure. That Alien trailer is kind of a classic.

But there were also hundreds of trailers that not only detailed every plot point, but had this hamfisted narrator who literally told you every plot point.

It also seems weird to me that when people complain about trailer spoilers, it's often about genre films that tend to have incredibly predictable plot structures.
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Does the fact that only recently backlash towards this type of marketing pitch has gained steam dismiss the validity of it?

Like, I get it, I get why companies do it.. It fucking works! But there is no real defense for it other then from a monetary perspective.

If you love movies and want the best experience possible, there is no rational reason to defend such practices. Especially in films where plot points are key pillars of the experience.
 
border said:
It also seems weird to me that when people complain about trailer spoilers, it's often about genre films that tend to have incredibly predictable plot structures.
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Yeah, that's absolutely the other thing that trips me out about this constant complaining about trailers "giving everything away" (even though those same people help elevate the trailer to an event almost parallel in importance to the actual film release)

The people who complain the loudest about the big trailers "giving away too much" are almost always complaining about movies that have the most basic plotting. Half of em aren't even trying to hide any real "twists," and the twists they are hiding are such that through the course of watching the film anyway you can easily guess at how the plot is going to lay out, because there's only so many plots and big tentpoles really only tend to go a few given ways with the ones they do choose to use.

Of course, if you don't overvalue plotting to the detriment of every other aspect of the storytelling, then you're not concerned when the commercial shows you a thing you already guessed was going to be in it. What you're concerned with is whether they earn the moment that's been telegraphed.
 
Movies get too many trailers, and show too much. Trailers should be a teaser with the set up and nothing more. 30-60 seconds is all you need.

Problem is now movies get 2-3 trailers and need fill up 7-10 minutes. Cannot fill that without ruining scenes or worse, the entire structure.
 
The greatest (worst?) example of this in my eyes in years, if not of all time, is the trailer for the not too long released Rikki and the Flash...

https://youtu.be/x8PVK6Hky2A

It is so blatant, and spoils the entire film beat by beat all the way up to the "big" ending, that it's offensive. My wife and I saw the trailer, instantly went online to seek out the spoilers of the film. Just as we expected, it pretty much described the trailer. We never saw the movie, and wrote it off for good. Ugh.

Not that the movie was any good, that's not the point here.
 
Huh? I watched every Star Wars trailer at least 732 times and had no fucking clue what was going to happen when I was sitting in that theatre.

Civil War, heroes fight, spider man is in it. Who didn't know that? I have no idea how all of those unrelated scenes in the trailer connect. You really know the whole movie based on that? I sure don't.

Batman and Superman fight?! And then team up in the third act against a mutual enemy??? Holy shit, id be shocked if I hadn't ever seen a movie before.
 
Jonm1010 said:
Does the fact that only recently backlash towards this type of marketing pitch has gained steam dismiss the validity of it?

Like, I get it, I get why companies do it.. It fucking works! But there is no real defense for it other then from a monetary perspective.

If you love movies and want the best experience possible, there is no rational reason to defend such practices. Especially in films where plot points are key pillars of the experience.
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I generally just dislike "It was better back in the good old days" arguments that conveniently cherry-pick good examples from the past and ignore all the examples that would shatter any nostalgia googles.

Do some trailers give away too much? Maybe, though plenty of them leave a lot of mystery.

There's also the problem that many people are very anal about spoilers, to the point where even fairly restrained efforts like The Force Awakens trailers get criticized. If merely seeing Doomsday or Wonder Woman in a trailer is a spoiler for you, then at some point it becomes your responsibility to just avoid the trailers. Yet, most of the people watching them actively chose to do so by clicking on a YouTube link.

There's additionally the problem that the more obsessively you follow a particular franchise the more all the small details in a trailer become spoilers. Objects or figures in the background that are meaningless to normal people get poured over and analyzed intensely.....every frame is scanned for information. Suddenly revelations that might have gone over your head just watching the trailer in a theatre end up being common knowledge on the internet.
 
lesson: don't watch lower budget blockbusters (deadpool, ender's game, etc) trailers... they stick all the expensive shit in the trailer even if it's the ending of the film.
 
border said:
There's also the problem that many people are very anal about spoilers, to the point where even fairly restrained efforts like The Force Awakens trailers get criticized. If merely seeing Doomsday or Wonder Woman in a trailer is a spoiler for you, then at some point it becomes your responsibility to just avoid the trailers. Yet, most of the people watching them actively chose to do so by clicking on a YouTube link.
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Do you know how I discovered Spiderman in the new Cap trailer, or WW in BvS?

It was over every single fucking site that prints news, not to mention social media. It really doesn't matter if you avoid trailers, unless you avoid the entire internet you're gonna know what is in them, and even then you'll probably get some pillock who is on the web blab it to you.
 
I feel like this has actually been less of a problem lately than in decades past. Trailers used to literally walk you through the entire movie

casinoman921 said:
Back to the Future 3 "teaser"

Basically a summary of the movie in less than a minute. Even shows the present day from the ending for a second.
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Like this one

Edit
border said:
I love how this issue couched as some kind of nostalgia bullshit, when trailers back in the good old days were arguably way worse. Were there some cool mysterious trailers way back when? Sure. That Alien trailer is kind of a classic.

But there were also hundreds of trailers that not only detailed every plot point, but had this hamfisted narrator who literally told you every plot point.

It also seems weird to me that when people complain about trailer spoilers, it's often about genre films that tend to have incredibly predictable plot structures.
Click to expand...

Border remembers
 
casinoman921 said:
Back to the Future 3 "teaser"

Basically a summary of the movie in less than a minute. Even shows the present day from the ending for a second.
Click to expand...

Great thing about this trailer is it mixes up the order of every scene, there is no talking giving away the goals of characters and every scene is so short it's hard to put anything together.

It doesn't tell you anything about the film except Marty travels back to that period in time. Doesn't even show any 1955 scenes.

echoshifting said:
I feel like this has actually been less of a problem lately than in decades past. Trailers used to literally walk you through the entire movie



Like this one
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Except it doesn't walk you through the movie at all.

No 1955
No Doc is gonna die by Tannen
No Time Machine lacking fuel
No Doc falling in love
No Train hijack to hit 88MPH (we see a 1-2 clip of them on a train, gives away nothing).

Plus everything is out of order.
 
Stallion Dan said:
Do you know how I discovered Spiderman in the new Cap trailer, or WW in BvS?

It was over every single fucking site that prints news, not to mention social media. It really doesn't matter if you avoid trailers, unless you avoid the entire internet you're gonna know what is in them, and even then you'll probably get some pillock who is on the web blab it to you.
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Spider Man appearing in Civil War has been openly known for the better part of the year. Gal Gadot's casting in BvS was contested and discussed from the day it was announced. These were not secrets to be spoiled, honestly. The likelihood of you not learning about their presence prior to release was always going to be really low just because those characters were always going to be a centerpiece of marketing efforts (even if those films had been made in the 70's or 80's or whatever).

I do respect that it's harder than ever to go on "media blackouts", particularly when Facebook seems to do an incredible job of guessing what your tastes are and starts showing you trending stories in those fields. I've expressed very little interest in video games on Facebook, yet every time I log in there's at least a couple Trending stories related to gaming.
 
That boat movie with Casey Affleck.

The trailer gave away everything and made me not want to watch it.

After reading some reviews though ill have it give it a go.
 
Sometimes you just can't avoid trailers. So if you see someone head down, eyes screwed shut, singing LA LA LA during a trailer ... that's me.

For me every trailer gives away enough to spoil a movie. Plot points, or action sequences, especially jokes; if you see a trailer for a comedy you can be certain that out of the 3 funniest moments 2 will be in the trailer.
 
border said:
Spider Man appearing in Civil War has been openly known for the better part of the year. Gal Gadot's casting in BvS was contested and discussed from the day it was announced. These were not secrets to be spoiled, honestly. The likelihood of you not learning about their presence prior to release was always going to be really low just because those characters were always going to be a centerpiece of marketing efforts (even if those films had been made in the 70's or 80's or whatever).

I do respect that it's harder than ever to go on "media blackouts", particularly when Facebook seems to do an incredible job of guessing what your tastes are and starts showing you trending stories in those fields. I've expressed very little interest in video games on Facebook, yet every time I log in there's at least a couple Trending stories related to gaming.
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I didn't have to know he was on Stark's side. Even if they needed put him in the trailer, could have avoided that, let people wonder.
 
Stallion Dan said:
I didn't have to know he was on Stark's side. Even if they needed put him in the trailer, could have avoided that, let people wonder.
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News sites were openly trotting out the fact that he's on Stark's side? Or is that a detail you had to watch the trailer to get that detail? It seems like kind of a weird detail to put into a difficult-to-avoid social media headline.

Why is Spider-Man's allegiance more of a spoiler than any other characters'? Is it equally distressing to know that Black Widow sides with Captain?
 
I think I understand where OP is coming from with TFA. Sure, it showed almost no story beats, but the most memorable shots from all the trailers were from the climax of the film which is a spoiler in itself because you know where the characters will end up. Another trailer that did this was District 9. They filled half of the trailer with stuff from the last twenty minutes of the film.
 
Bobby Roberts said:
So far as this forum tends to be concerned,

all of them.

Which is silly. You have 2 1/2 minutes to sell a 90-120 minute movie, even Zemeckis' most wikipedia-esque plot synopsized trailer isn't gonna 'basically show you the whole movie.'

It'll show you the plot skeleton. And if all you really value about a film is its plot, maybe that's disappointing. But if you value things like

Acting
Directing
Editing
Cinematography
Score
Atmosphere

then there isn't a single trailer in the history of ever (not even the 5-6 minute jobbies that used to be pretty common anywhere between the 30s-70s) that's "basically shown the whole movie"

A more interesting question would be "how many people whined that they'd had the whole movie spoiled for them, then saw it, only to never mention the fact that they didn't really have shit spoiled for them, and whatever they saw in the trailer ultimately wasn't even that important."

I mean, people bringing up The Force Awakens in here - think about how many people flipped their fucking shit at the mere possibility the trailers were spoiling them on shit. And then it turned out they were tripping on nothing.
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How about Rocky IV trailer?
 
I've never seen a trailer that showed the entire movie.

There are, however, comedy trailers that have revealed every funny gag in the movie, those do tick me off.
 
border said:
News sites were openly trotting out the fact that he's on Stark's side? Or is that a detail you had to watch the trailer to get that detail? It seems like kind of a weird detail to put into a difficult-to-avoid social media headline.

Why is Spider-Man's allegiance more of a spoiler than any other characters'? Is it equally distressing to know that Black Widow sides with Captain?
Click to expand...

It isn't, they're all bad spoilers.
 
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