Stop giving away the whole movie in a trailer.

[Parasondox]

Hello again Escapist

Movies, I love them I really do but they need to stop giving us 5 trailers that tell the whole story. Man of Steel did it and look how that turned out, Pacific Rim did it, RoboCop is doing the same. Just enough. I know some will some "well don't watch them". True but I grew up with trailers just giving us teasers NOT the whole movie in 2mins.

What are your examples of trailers just showing too much and ruin the expectation once you finally see that movie?

 

[davidmc1158_v1legacy]

Sadly, the old saying "What goes around comes around" has come true here at least. Take a few minutes and look up some of the trailers for movies released back in the sixties or seventies. The teaser trailer concept is relatively new. The old standard was to lay out the whole film's plot for you unless it was a movie with a twist.

Most trailers don't spoil the movie for me unless it's a trailer that contains ALL of the good scenes in it, leaving teh audience to sit through the stuff that wasn't good enough to be put in the trailer.

Conversely, the trailers that really irritate me are the ones that portray a movie as something completely different than what it actually is. The two that come to mind are the trailers that were made for The Fifth Element and District 9. Both of them portrayed the movies solely as action flicks. While The Fifth Element was more of an action movie than anything else, the trailers really went overboard. As for District 9, it was much more of a character study-style movie than anything else. The trailers lied!

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Conversely, the trailers that really irritate me are the ones that portray a movie as something completely different than what it actually is. The two that come to mind are the trailers that were made for The Fifth Element and District 9. Both of them portrayed the movies solely as action flicks. While The Fifth Element was more of an action movie than anything else, the trailers really went overboard. As for District 9, it was much more of a character study-style movie than anything else. The trailers lied!

I know right? Check out this totally misleading trailer for The Shining. Outrageous!


OT: Worst trailer I ever saw was for the indie/end of the world flick "Last Night". The trailer actually gave away, like, the penultimate moment of the film. The money shot, if you will. It would be like putting out a Sixth Sense trailer with the stupid ghost twist right there in the trailer.

 

[Scarim Coral]

World Wars Z come to mind, seriously the whole zombie anthill scene in the trailer is the only massive horde you will ever see in the entire film (also no the mini horde at the end doesn't count as it was far too short!)! The same can be said with that river of zombie turning over the bus in the trailer aswell. The film never make full used of that effect as far as I know that was the only unquie effect not used in any zombie films and they gave it all in the trailer (in saying so from what I've heard the film was never like the book in the first place).

 

[Rylingo]

I saw the trailer for Rush. I might as well not bother with the movie now. It literally explains all of the plot up to the last race. The only thing left ambiguous was the ending. Everything else is spoiled.

I wasn't pleased with the Elysium advert I watched before watching...Elysium. Rife with spoilers might I add.

Still furious about the Netflix advert which gave away huge chunks of season 4 and 5 of Breaking Bad. They played it in the cinema. I've only seen the first and half of the second season. Thanks Netflix.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

World Wars Z come to mind, seriously the whole zombie anthill scene in the trailer is the only massive horde you will ever see in the entire film (also no the mini horde at the end doesn't count as it was far too short!)! The same can be said with that river of zombie turning over the bus in the trailer aswell. The film never make full used of that effect as far as I know that was the only unquie effect not used in any zombie films and they gave it all in the trailer (in saying so from what I've heard the film was never like the book in the first place).

There's also the fact that the trailer shows Brad Pitt and his family escape via helicopter to the ship. This means the entire first act of the movie, in which Brad, the missus and the two annoying kids is devoid of tension, since you know they'll make it to the ship unscathed.

Actually you think modern day movie trailers are bad, you should check the ones they were making in the 70s and back. They were 2 or 3 times as long, and did in fact give away important scene in the movie.

 

[Mikeyfell]

Naw I got a better one,

Stop putting spoilers in trailers, And stop putting trailers that contain spoilers in the DVD for the thing they're a trailer for!

I'm looking at you SHOWTIME!
Spoiling Dexter for me after I've payed for the DVD's is not an adequate punishment for not paying for your shitty cable station and watching Dexter as it airs.

 

[krazykidd]

Anyone remember ghost rider 2 trailer? It had the ending in it .

But i agree , you can tell the good movies from the bad . The bad movies put all the best parts in the trailer . And to those who say don't watch them , well , i go to the movie every week , before a movie starts , they play previews , which are even longer than most trailers . So i am forced to watch them . I have enire movies spoiled because previews showed too much .

Edit: the other problems with some trailers is when you watched them and have no idea what the movie is about afterwards . That's how you fail at trailer.

 

[senordesol]

I would embrace a trailer that explained the entire plot of the movie over five minutes if it meant I never had to endure the damn 'Bwwaaahhh!!!' sound effect ever again.

 

[Sewa_Yunga]

Thor 2.
I hope there are still some surprises left in that movie, but that scene with the rock golem? Seriously? Stuff like that doesn't belong in a trailer.

 

[Guitarmasterx7]

The trailer for pacific rim only pretty much spoiled the first 5 minutes of exposition. That was something I actually really liked about the movie. But yeah I agree overall. It's games too now. If they make an Uncharted 4 I'm not watching any trailers. The cargo plane from the third one would have been so much more awesome if I hadn't seen it twice before the game was even released.

 

[MeisterKleister]

I rarely watch trailers. I remember reading a review by Roger Ebert where he talked about trailers giving away too much and specifically about the trailer of Cast Away.

As far as I understand, the marketing only cares about getting as many butts into seats as possible and spoiling much of the movie in trailers and showing the best moments apparently has been shown to do just that.

 

[saintdane05]

The new Star Trek was quite good about this. We knew that the villain was a villain, stuff explodes, and Kirk gets yelled at. THe whole shit with Marcus and the Klingons? We saw NOTHING.

 

[Yojoo]

In an effort to make the movie look more action-oriented than it likely will be, half of the Ender's Game trailer involves the climactic scene from the book. Good thing I've read it already.

But yeah, I don't understand why trailers have to be longer than a minute. It's quite possible to edit an entire movie down to roughly four minutes, which some trailers actually do. I can't be the only person to close my eyes, cover my ears, and chant "lalalalala" in theaters when a trailer of a film I'm interested in is played.

 

[porous_shield]

It's pretty common for comedy movies, and especially bad ones, to give away all their best gags in the trailer; many movies that misrepresent themselves especially tend to do that.

The most recent example I can think of is the trailer for Contagion (Soderbergh) giving away one of the movie's surprises.

I try to avoid trailers for games and movies simply because they give too much away but that's hard to do when you're forced to in a movie theatre though I don't go to the movies nearly as much as I used to so I'm not nearly spoiled so often any more.

 

[Spambot 3000]

This one trailer for Warm Bodies. I swear to shit that is the one trailer that showed me so much of the movie it pretty much gave me no incentive whatsoever to go see it.

 

[Gregory McMillan]

I don't usually complain.... But, Ender's Game. What. The. Hell.. The first couple lines is the big reveal near the end of the novel