I love trailers. I could sit through 20 minutes of them before a movie starts and not even blink. But something started happening a few years ago that really tick me off… trailers that give the whole movie away.
The first trailer I can remember that gave all the main plot points away was The Negotiator starring Samuel L. Jackson and Kevin Spacey. I still remember how surprised I was that right there on the screen, in a span of 90 seconds I was just presented with an outline of the whole movie. Jackson is a hostage negotiator for the police, now Jackson gets set up, Jackson himself TAKES hostages, Spacey is another police negotiator that is brought in to negotiate with Jackson, Spacey starts to believe Jackson, Spacey starts working WITH Jackson… they win… the end. Sure enough when i finally saw the film (which was pretty good by the way) that’s exactly how it all played out.
Now comes Paparazzi. The trailer had me interested for about the first 30 seconds… but then I realized it was giving me way too much. Guy becomes celebrity, guy starts getting hounded by paparazzi, guy gets tricked by paparazzi into hitting him just to get the pictures, guy gets convicted for it, paparazzi keep hounding guy until they harm the guy’s family, now guy gets really pissed and starts hunting the paparazzi. Ummm… is there any reason left for me to head to the theater and sit through this one? I now know EVERTHING that happens in the film!
Ok, that’s my little rant for the day. If you can think of other trailers that do this mention them in the comments section below.
The biggest offending trainer I’ve seen is for Swimfan. I felt absolutely no need to go see the movie after seeing the preview. What’s more, the trailer for this movie seemed to run for many months before the movie came out…perhaps the movie release was delayed because they were trying to re-eidt a bad movie. The latest offender is the one for the movie Darkness…every scary scene seems to be covered in the trailer.
I think what’s happening is that the people that make these trailers have started thinking that this is THEIR little movie. They want to display every major scene in the movie for their own sense of “artistic” fulfillment OR the corporate offices of the movie studios are just full of idiots that are asking for this or going along with it because they don’t know any better.
These people should be strung up and forced to watch Showgirls and Batman 3 till they repent.
Collateral belongs right there in the mix. The minute I saw Jada on screen, I knew the ending because of what I knew from the trailers. Big bummer…much better movie if I hadn’t known anything going in.
Accidentally caught a behind the scenes thing on Paparazzi on E the other day. If you think the trailers gave away a lot, just watch that special.
Or how about comedies where *all* the good jokes are in the trailer, like Bruce Almighty?
DIE ANOTHER DAY!The trailer! The plane getting blown up and say that they will go down together in the helecopter.It showed what the huge badass thing was. And had most of the action!!
Cellular!(WHAT I AM SAYING IS ALL IN THE TRAILER, NOT THE MOVIE) You see what happens to her and her son. You see her make the phone, you see her call someone, he picks phone up, cops in mess, see good car chase, see him get mad, see him how he got into mess, bad guy walks around, they have fight.
“Joe Dirt”……Horrible movie, the trailer had all the funny parts in it….I felt used, didn’t even get a reach-around…
Sure, tell me who’s in it, who directed it and whether or not there’s boobs and then I’ll decide.
trailers for s.w.a.t. and the recruit went above and beyond too to spoil the movie.
Hey “G”, I’m ALWAYS enticed by boobs and alcohol…..Guess that rules out the trailers for Dreamworks Animation and Pixar though, huh? He he he he he….
I rented From Dusk Til Dawn several years after the release and was completely surprised when everyone turned into a vampire, then I saw the trailer which gave that away. I really hate and don’t want to see trailers anymore. They need to have something else to entice.
DOUBLE JEOPARDY was another film with a give-it-all-away trailer. You see every single plot point… guy and girl happily married, guy winds up dead, girl gets convicted of his murder, girl goes to prison, girl learns in prison she can’t be convicted of the same crime twice, girl breaks out, cop chases her down, girl finds out husband faked death, cop finds girl, cop believes girl’s story about husband, girl tracks down guy with cop’s help, girl has gun pointed at guy with the cop in the same room…
It’s REALLY gotten ridiculous. It’s especially annoying to watch a trailer for any “event” movie, because every money shot is normally spent.
I thought Italian Job was a terrible trailer. As soon as I saw the trailer I was mad because they showed everything, including the best part when they blow out the road and the armoured car falls through to the level below, right after Edward Norton is talking about how they can’t get the money from him. I refused to see the movie for many, many months because of that. It was a good show, but I was never in suspense since I’d seen the trailer and knew what would happen.
One other thing. The rule of thumb on this is that a film that has to give everything away in its trailer will suck. On the flip side. A movie that is good, or highly original is hard to condense into a 2 minute format, so it stands a much better chance to be good.
Trailers which sucked (or were confusing), but backed great films:
Fight Club. (sucked)
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. (confusing)
Three Kings. (sucked)
Hero. (Confusing and wrong)
Triplettes of Belville. (confusing)
and I hope
I Heart Huckabees
Kinsey
Closer
Other films with trailers spoiling the film:
Arlington Road. Makes everything that happens in the movie obvious. Hence makes one not want to see the film
Deep Impact. Well, i guess the title gives it away too, but to show the world being hit takes a lot of the questioning nature away from the movie.
What Lies Beneath. Agree with poster that mentioned above.
The Life of David Gale. The story becomes pretty transparent both from the trailer and Spaceys usual choice of scripts.
The Recruit. See reasons for Paparazzi.
AvsP. OK I had no interest in seeing this film anyway, but the trailer ensured that i got pretty much the entire story from beginning to end.
Identity. Gives a heck of a lot away in the ad. Not everything, but enough to convice many never to bother with the film.
maybe its a move for people who couldnt normally tell from a trailer if they like / wanna see the film? i know someone who says they cant tell from a trailer if they want to see a film : hence, sees a trailer and wants to see a bad film… personally, i can tell if i wanna see a film from discussion about it…
What Lies Beneath.
The big second act plot twist was ruined because you know Harrison Ford’s character had an affair with the girl from the trailer.
Heck, when you include Castaway and Gump in the mix Zemeckis’s flicks are some of the biggest offenders.
SUSPECT ZERO — Why go to the theater, just watch the trailer.
Sixth Sense. Not only the trailer but every freakin’ 15-second TV spot. When I finally bothered to see the movie, I was all the more enraged — a huge chunk of the movie is supposed to be spent wondering what the kid’s problem is. Not wondering when Bruce Willis will figure the problem out.
I’m still angry about how much better the movie would have been if I had gone in knowing nothing. At least they didn’t give away the final twist.
I agree 100 percent. I avoided seeing Castaway for about two years because the trailer gave away the whole story.
It showed, in sequence, Hanks taking off, crashing, surviving the island, building a raft, sailing away and literally showing up at Helen Hunt’s door.
Yeah, the movie was okay. But the trailer went above and beyond.