Trailer Treachery
Whether using the popular visages of Jude Law, Johnny Depp and Colin Farrell to promote The Imaginarium of Dr Parnassus or a night vision shot of a movie audience launching its popcorn in the air to demonstrate how terrified everyone will be when they see Paranormal Activity (the new "scariest movie ever"), trailers are there to let you know exactly what you'll be spending your movie ticket money on. So what exactly is going on in the trailer for the new movie version of Cormac McCarthy's The Road?
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Easily FOX's ALIEN 3 trailer- on earth everyone can hear you scream.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYS_XmPOYuc
I've read a lot about the tortured production of alien 3 and early several scripts but i don't ever remember anything about aliens on earth. The consolation is that the people that made all of these terrible decisions lost their jobs and Fight Club was the film that came out of the ashes of it all for Fincher.
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I know you didnt want 'trailers that are just bad', but i had to alert you to the 'teaser' for Soylent Green, whereby the twist is actually revealled in the trailer!!!
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I thought that Antichrist's trailer made it look like another stupid horror movie whereas the film was incredible.
Oldboy's american trailer made it look like a stupid action film and Red Cliff was made to look like yet another chinese war movie - even more ridiculous that they cut the movie down from its orginal runtime!
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I think my most recent problem with trailers has been for Inglorious Basterds (spelling?). The trailer made it look like some crazy, grindhouse-esque action film, however, it turns out to be a lot more in the arthouse category. The first time watching the film I was not mentally prepared, which made me more hostile in creating an opinion for the film. On second viewing I enjoyed it a lot more as I knew better what to expect, although I would still not go so anywhere near calling it a masterpiece. I believe that one must have some basic mental preperation for a film, which trailers should aid.
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Many people may disagree with this, but my experience of watching the Smokin' Aces trailer and watching the actual film were completely different.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJoqt2Mgl-A&feature=related
I went into the theatre expecting a rampaging mixture of crime, torture, explosions, extortion, and tounge in cheek humour. Hell, maybe even some random graphic female nudity. What i got was entirely different. The "action" was rather short and mostly took place in the middle/end section of the film, but before and after that there was just nonsensical planning and illumination of character backstory; in a very Ocean's Twelve kind of way. Also there was a lot of emotional drama that made my friend turn to me and actually ask "did we walk into the right cinema?".
My opinion of the film isn't all bad, but I don't see why they felt they had to market it as if it were Crank 2.0: Revenge of the Frantic Camera.
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Recently it has to be Adventureland. The red band trailer for this film just splices together every moment a naughty word is uttered to make to movie look like just another repugnant teen comedy rather than the genuine, heartfelt story it actually is.
I work in film marketing (although I'm not reponsible for the trailers!) and I'm afraid the reason this happens is down to one thing: money. At the end of the day, making films is an expensive exercise and film distribution is a business, and sadly for 99% of releases the primary objective is to try and make money, or at least recoup your costs. Take the example of The Road: which type of movie is there a bigger audience out there for - A) a fast paced post apocalyptic action movie or B) an unrelentingly bleak drama about the collapse of society? Be honest.
It's depressing and not the way it should be, but that's the way it is! On the plus side, you may trick people into a film they would normally have seen and show them something they really love, broadening their horizons and increasing their chances seeing more challenging, smaller films in future!
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One of my favourite films is Master and Commander, however the trailer made it appear like it was a fast paced action adventure similar to Pirates of the Caribbean. The trailer focused almost entirely on the battle sequences, entirely missing out the friendship between Capt. Jack Aubrey and the ship's surgeon Stephen Maturin, which is a main theme in book and film. When I went to see this I knew what to expect (having family members who had read the book), however I think many people who had only seen the trailer were left disappointed by the lack of action.
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The trailer for the Seth Rogan movie "Observe & Report" made it look like it was a light hearted romp like "knocked up" or "superbad" when it was in fact one of the blackest comedies I have seen in years.
It is one of those movies where you laugh and then think "Oh s*%t that's not right"
It got a lot of bad reviews which I believe were because of the marketing campaign that tried to make it look like the woeful "Paul Blart Mall Cop" when it was more like "The King of Comedy"
It's no classic but its marketing is what caused its problems
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Third line from bottom should read "wouldn't normally have seen"!!
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Easy Peasy.
Tim Burton's 'Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5brXozjbno
^ Makes no reference, nor gives any clue that it's a MUSICAL, and numerous elements of the promotional campaign neglected to mention this.
You should mention Mark though, the upcoming 'The Fourth Kind' which has Milla Jovovich confidently stating that it's based on true events, that witness testimonies exist, she plays a real person and it really happened.....it's rubbish, and all viral marketing (as many movie blogs are showing).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5CaXWph02s
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Hi Dr K
I usually find when I'm at the cinema my head shaking with despair whilst watching the trailers before the main feature. I find many trailers uninspiring and as a consequence I have avoided many films;1012 is the latest big feature film I'll be avoiding.
I usually find trailers uninspiring because editorially they all look and feel the same, for their type of genre, i.e. trailers for horror films look and feel the same, trailers for action movies look and feel same, etc. There's very little in the trailers to make me want to watch one film more than another. This is probably why I'm struggling to think of any films I have watched because of the trailer. So, before deciding to go to the cinema I do the norm of considering the director, the cast and listening out to what critics have to say - mainly yourself and Barry Norman - and friends whose views I trust. I also go on gut instinct.
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How about the teaser trailer to Sam Raimi's "Spider-man"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xNgtWG09TQ
I thought it was an amazing looking scene and great trailer, you didn't know what movie it was for until near the end.
We all know why it was cut but surely it could be reinserted into a director's cut on DVD. The Dark knight then just did the whole bank raid 6 years later and people thought wow this is amazing.
I hate when studios start to interfere and butcher a movie.
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I remember the trailer for My Girl, which made it look like a sappy, happy romantic kiddie flick, the kind my mum and older sister would love. I was a little puzzled, then, when they returned home from seeing it in floods of tears, honking about that 'poor Macauley'.
Also, the trailer for In Bruges nearly put me off seeing it, making it look like some bad-taste, Guy O'Ritchie gangster nonsense. Thankfully, it was a short-lived mistake, but now, when I can I avoid watching trailers all together. There are plenty of other ways to know which films are coming out.
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I do remember watching a trailer at the cinema for the Heath Ledger film "A Knight's Tale" and thinking it's going to be one of those dreadful Hollywood attempts at making a serious historical drama about jousting.
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Two words: In Bruges. Upon looking at the trailer, you'd think it was just a cheap Guy Ritchie imitation with Colin Farrell mugging his way through the material. In fact, it's a beautifully crafted dark comedy made by the great Martin McDonagh, a writer of substance and wit. It also features Farrell's best work to date. I'm convinced it would've been more successful had the trailer represented the film honestly.
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They really fooled me with this trailer for the Shinning
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmkVWuP_sO0
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Bridge to Terabithia
Any film in a foreign language ...
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A trailer that most misrepresents the film it's selling? That's easy - Apocalypse Now Redux. I'm no fan of the redux version, in fact I think it's vastly inferior to the masterpiece original - but the trailer for it has taken the 1979 film and obviously marketed it towards the kids of today. Every shot from the film with an explosion in it is put in, fast paced music is played to the beat of the editing which makes any Michael Bay movie look like a Swedish documentary about turnip farming and there's even a shot of one of the Playboy bunnies dancing for good measure. What is this? Apocalypse Now, the slow-paced and meditative film that's more about the human psyche than war, or Saving Sexy Private Ryan?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qnfbekbSa0
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The one which always sticks in my mind when thinking about misleading trailers is the one for the first Madagascar film. Watching the trailer you'd think the film was both a)funny and b) good. It was neither.
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Worst trailer experience ever has to be, hands down, Secret Window. I remember being extremly disappointed by the movie, not because of the story itself, but because I was expecting a more si-fi story with parallel dimensions and what-not, all relating to this "secret window."
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Probably the Solaris trailer. I really like Solaris but this trailer was not the reason I ever saw it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4sJA-E51bQ
The trailer suggests the film is an actioner or something. it's not that. It's a type of reflective, psychological, sci fi story that works well over all.
Here's a recut that is more honest to the film - gives away the ending a little though...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cElFpfjeflw
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I always partically felt that the reason Fight Club did so poor during it's intial cinema run was becasue trailers for the the film made it look like it was just a film about underground boxing
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Stardust! The trailer made it look like a Lord of the Rings wannabe. Completely editing out any humour or quirkiness that makes it a very enjoyable film.
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The Planes, Trains and Automobiles trailer totally misrepresented the film. I doubt it was neccessarily a bad thing that it made the film look like a zany madcap comedy because in places it is not a million miles from that, but the one thing the trailer does not let the viewer know is that not only are you going to get an hilarious comedy, but probably one of the finest comedies of all time, a genuine masterpiece that is John Hughes finest film, one which takes him out of teen romance territory, instead giving us an adult-themed film but with an appeal to a wide audinece and one which comments on class and the intolerance that breeds from class division, a human film that pulls at the heart strings like no other comedy i have ever seen. No scene better represents this film than the emotional montage when Steve Martin's Neil Paige is finally on his way home and looks back on the fun times he had with John Candy's Del Griffith only to realise he has been a jerk and that Del is a lonely but warm character, inherently sad yet optimistic in the company of his fellow man. The scene is soundtracked with a mournful instrumental from The Dream Academy. That scene sums up the entire film so much better than the "crazy comedy with zany music" that the trailer puts forth. RIP John Hughes
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I just avoid them as best i can these days. Because more often that not now, far too much is given away.
Plus, it's never really a good thing to go into a movie with preconceived notions of what you're about to see in my opinion. Thankfully my Cinema feels the same way most times i visit and only plays those hideously loud extended adverts.
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The Eyes Wide Shut trailer is an interesting case in point: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIAneEiWEJ4
On first viewing, this seems to fit the bill. Looking at this trailer, you'd think it was going to be a racy erotic thriller that would 'excite' audiences, particularly male ones. And then you watch the film, which is two-and-a-half hours long, shot in a dreamy way and whose sex scenes are repulsive.
The first time I saw Eyes Wide Shut I had exactly this reaction. But then I watched it again recently and realised that it made sense. I know Mark hates the film - calling it "the inane ramblings of an old man who needed to get out more" - but stay with me a second.
Kubrick films are all about subverting expectations. You go in expecting one thing, you come out having seen something completely different and feeling the need to talk about it. Take his previous film, Full Metal Jacket. You expect it to be like Platoon, all battles in the Vietcong jungle and lots of people you don't care about getting killed for the sake of spectacle. Instead you get a harrowing insight into dehumanisation, gender and the nature of urban warfare.
Kubrick knew that Eyes Wide Shut would be greatly anticipated, not least because of its two big stars. The film is not about sex or getting laid as some people thought, it's about narcissism and the destructive power of jealousy. He led audiences to believe that the orgy sequences would be titilating (literally), so that it was a bigger and more powerful shock when the audience found the orgy sequence repulsive. In Eyes Wide Shut Kubrick holds up a mirror to our society's love of sex, power and physical pleasure in order to challenge our ability to take our excesses for granted.
It's not Kubrick's best film by a long stroke, but the point is that the trailer serves a purpose, the same purpose as that of the film, namely to offer an unpopular but equally valid view of sex and monogamy which stands against our expectations and the increasing conventions of our society.
That's not to say of course that all attempts at such a device work. I would refer the Good Doctor to his post on Zak and Miri Make a Porno for an example of a failure in this area.
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A number of years ago I was at the cinema and the advert for Saving Private Ryan came on. I vividly recall turning to my friend and saying,
"Oh my god this looks like the cheesiest, most sentimental heap of yankee bilge.".
I avoided it solely because of that advert, despite the press. My flatmate then rented it on DVD the next year. It turns out that it was a piece of stunning, innovative film-making of the magnitude I'd never seen before! That is until about half an hour in, when it slipped into, funny enough, a lot of cheesy, sentimantal bilgery!
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Hi Dr.K
Now that I think of it, the trailer for William Friedkin's Bug builds up to something that is pretty generic for a horror film trailer. Flashy edits, ascending soundtrack, and shallow footage which links many other generic horror film trailers (such as Saw). However, the film (although unsettling) does not have go as madcap as the trailer suggests. The film gradually builds up towards insanity on behalf of the characters, not the "bugs". The horror and the insanity is more psychological than visceral.
The set up of 'they feed on your brain' suggests something more literal, which I think is misleading towards the film itself.
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Bram Stoker’s Dracula has got to be the worse culprit for this.
I love the Dracula movies from the Universal and Hammer days, but the trailer, the film makers and the actors gave the impression that this was a faithful adaptation of the classic novel, which it clearly wasn‘t.
I would have enjoyed the movie more, despite the inconsistencies between the film and the novel, but it’s the wooden performance of Keanu Reeves, who shamelessly slaughters the British accent, and spoils what could have been a fun, and over the top Coppola movie.
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I might be wrong but I seem to remember the trailer for Muriel's Wedding sold it as a very frothy, lightweight, feel-good comedy, when in fact it's one of the most depressing films I've ever seen (maybe because of skewed expectations). Since when did loneliness and callousness and best friend dying of cancer = feel-good??
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The two that jump immediately to mind:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oB55bv4B8LQ - The Village. Sold as a straight horror movie essentially.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=61-GFxjTyV0 - The Wrestler. Doesn't misrepresent the plot, but it makes it appear far more "feel-good" than it was.
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The best example I can think of for a film that's completely different to the trailer is Welles's F For Fake.
And I agree with KubrickandScott that the Eyes Wide Shut trailer is there to purposely mislead to the audience (in a good way).
Cloverfield disappointed me after its promise - I didn't expect to find the characters so annoying based on it.
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I second the In Bruges trailer. In fact that whole marketing campaign was awful, including that woeful DVD cover with Colin Farrell holding that stupid cartoonish pink whippy ice cream. "Ooh, look at the jolly japes as the funny bumbling hitmen prance around with mixed up briefcases and shooting mannequins instead of real people. Well thank heavens my preview of it was through The Culture Show's Andrew McDonagh interview. Turned out to be one of the darkest films of the year - and to its credit it was funny and moving and eventually nail-bitingly tense as well. Shame it didn't pick up the screenplay Oscar.
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The one that got me was Hancock. The first trailer I saw pitched it essentially as a comedy with loads of fun set-pieces & something of a reaction to po-faced superhero movies. The second trailer gave hint to the fact that Hancock is on a road to redemption, but again with a great sense of fun (the clips from later in the movie showing Will Smith in classic one liner mode). When I saw the film however I realised that the funny sequences (eg the whale, landing in the back of the getaway car etc) had all been used in the trailer & were less entertaining the second time round. The more serious overtones that appear in the 2nd half of the film are not signposted in the trailer & when you've gone in expecting a straight-up comedy you do leave somewhat bemused. It wasn't an awful film but the trailers completely mis-sold it.
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Secretary. Seemed like exploitative pablum from the trailer and the box (dear god, the box), but when I finally grabbed a copy of the DVD and took a look, it turned out to be a brilliant piece of cinema.
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Recently, I felt completely lead astray by the cinematic trailer for 'Adventureland', which positioned the film as a kind-of Judd Apatow-esque juvenile comedy, placing far too much emphasis on the brief moments within the film when the dialogue contained crude jokes & adolescent obscenity.
The film was presented as the kind of banal, teen comedy that we've come to expect in the wake of 'Superbad' et al. The tragedy being that the film was in reality a very intelligent, thoughtful piece of work with a great deal more to offer to the viewer than its trailer attempted to suggest.
I came away feeling like I had watched a thoroughly interesting and enjoyable drama with some great moments of comic relief, but simply failed to understand the impetus behind constructing a trailer which presented the film as the latest in a long line of poor teen comedies, which it certainly was not.
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East Is East would be my choice. The trailer made it look like a light-hearted, whacky comedy, when it was really more of a drama with elements of humour. When I first saw it, I hated it because it wasn't at all what I thought it was meant to be. When I saw it again, I actually found it funnier because I understood where it was coming from.
I was working in a cinema when Fight Club came out and they cancelled showing it after a week because literally no-one was turning up. I am sure that this is down to the trailer, which at the time gave everyone the impression that it was a dull and brainless film about a bunch of men having punch-ups for no reason.
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The village is a good answer. How could they interest people for this movie without spoiling it by telling them what it is really about?
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Bridge to Terabithia all the way here. I heard some good things about it from my friends and so decided to go see it - it was a powerful, enchanting, lovely little children's film that most importantly didn't talk down to children like so many children's films do.
When I got home a friend told me to look at the trailer online. The trailer portrays the film, not as the honest story of friendship that it is, but instead by cutting together all 40 or so seconds of fantasy sequences from the film as another generic, uninteresting, cloying kid's fantasy film. I'm very pleased I didn't see the trailer first otherwise I may not have seen the film.
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I recently re-watched the classic film "The Big Sleep", and then I watched the trailer on DVD. The trailer advertises the film almost solely on the backs of Bogart and Bacall - a.k.a. "That Man" and "That Woman". It has some action shots, but not even the slightest hint of a plot.
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I'm sure there are worst ones but a recent one I remember was The Mist (2008). A trailer that played on it being a scarey monster movie that appeals to the people that probably liked Date Movie. I was very surprised to find a film that was actually a well layered movie that I saw as the best movie of 2008!
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Remember the trailers for Hard Candy, it showed absolutely no footage of the film whatsoever... and intrigued me enough to want to see just what it was. I say in that case it was definitely keeping the film from me that influencing my seeing it. Also i am sure you remember the old trailer for the exploitation films of the 70s/early 80s (usually zombie/cannibal flicks where the entire film was basically shown to you with the films title being blared out at half minute intervals in the epic spoiler of a trailer. Did they really ruin the film... or did you already know what was coming.
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Some obscenely bad and misleading trailers for some really great films include.....
The Witchfinder General whose trailer makes it look like some kind of quirky and utterly ridiculous comedy......where as in fact it was perhaps one of the greatest British horror films of the 60's and definitely one of the most grim.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62jRzyWJpOw
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One of the worst ones I have seen is the trailer for "What Lies Beneath". It doesn´t just give away too much of the plot - it manages to reveal the ENTIRE storyline from start to finish. What is the point of going to see a thriller with "murder and mystery" when you already know the mystery as well as the character who´s going to kick the bucket?
Surely the right way to advertise movies such as these is to reveal only snippets from the plot, not by eliminating any sense of surprise you could have had if you hadn´t seen the trailer. A good opposite of this is the trailer for "District 9", which reveals just enough to make you interested in the story, but leaves out all the really important bits that make the movie so enjoyable.
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The trailer for Run Fatboy Run was hilarious. The film was woeful. All the best bits were in the trailer. That is quite common with comedies. As The DOKTOR will agree most comedies get between 5 and 7 laughs. If you laugh 4 times during the trailer there isn't much left for the rest of the movie.
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Slumdog Millionaire and Zombieland, for me. The latter had telly ads that went on about it being 'the feel good film of the decade' and completely missing all the torture and hardship that comes before the happy ending and that Jai Ho end credits dance.
Zombieland, while the poster of the main four characters accurately represents the rock n roll tone of the film, the current trailers I saw on TV just showed mainly zombies, when the film is more a road film with zombies occasionally than zombies throughout its short running time.
Both good films, though.
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Also, I think it's worth checking out, with concern to bad film trailers, Trailer Failure by Distressed Watcher: http://www.thatguywiththeglasses.com/vids2/dw/tf they're long videos, though.
Yes, that is Amazing Atheist from Youtube.
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Danny Boyle has suffered this twice recently: Slumdog Millionaire reimagined as a feel good Bolly fest, and Sunshine mis-sold as yet another end of the world romp, with a premise only slightly less dumb than The Core's. It didn't do Slumdog any harm, but Sunshine, which was at least half a good film, was unfairly dismissed by many.
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The trailer for Once Upon A Time In The West makes it look much more of an action movie than it really is, it is also spoiler-ridden as it shows all the murders in the movie.
Also, I agree with what has been said about the trailer for In Bruges, the trailer woefully misreprents the movie as a silly tarantino-knockoff while the actual movie is not at all silly and is more akin to David Mamet than Quentin Tarantino.
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Easy for me, In Bruges was just about the worst case of misrepresentive marketing that I could think of. A very dark hearted comedy with deep emotional journey at the very core of the film, yet it was portrayed as a light hearted comedy gangster romp almost in the guise of Guy Ritche. The music in the trailer certaintly does it no favours and is really the biggest problem, fast paced rocknroll music over scenes of action suggest a exciting guns blazing shoot up. When in actual fact that is unbelievably far from the truth as it only had one action scene and the fact that they didn't use Carter Burwell's haunting and beautiful original score was crinimal.
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The recut shining trailer is CLASSIC. This one's my favorite:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3bgipCebuI
In regards to the Doc's question, I felt the trailer for The Lookout made it look like a run of the mill heist movie, but I was pleasantly when I rented it on DVD. The trailer definitely kept me (and a lot of other people) out of the theater.
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Uptown Girls. Hands down. The trailer, complete with upbeat music and velvety narration that explicitly featured the word "comedy", promised a lighthearted and innocuous evening's entertainment. My mom and I found it to be a dreary, grinding, bleakly depressing film whose morose march to attempted tear-jerking was only broken up by the one or two "hilarious" pratfalls which featured heavily in the trailer. It rather spoiled the evening.
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Trailers for Wes Anderson movies never work. They always focus solely on the comedy and never convey the sense of melancholy that is so essential to his work.
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I think someone has previously mentioned this but I walked into Sweeney Todd and when he started singing was flaberghasted! They really went to great efforts to hide the fact that it was a musical, probably because they realised the music was not very memorable and thus the reason the film was sub-par.
It would have been better as a regular thriller, that or they needed a better songwriter.
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Bride to Terabithia I never watched because the trailer made it look so bad. I have heard it is actually very moving, but despite having read more about it and hearing good things, my girlfriend at the time still refused to go and see it on the basis of the trailer.
I guess any film like a Wes Anderson film will suffer in the trailer when there aren't any bits you can chop out that are funny out of context or without a big build up. Although it's not quite a trailer, Ghost Town is an example where publicity and TV shows kept showing clips from the film that weren't funny on their own (the bit with the dog mainly), whereas I found the film itself mostly very funny.
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@MarkoosMuse - Well the thing is that Sweeny Todd was an adaptation of the highly acclaimed and multi-award-winning 1979 musical by Stephen Sondheim, so it being a musical was the whole point. I agree that the songs weren't very memorable, although I'm not sure they're supposed to be hit songs exactly.
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The first film that springs into my mind is 'The Hurt Locker'. I saw the trailer in the cinema, which was basically just lots of shots of things blowing up and soldiers swearing and doing other annoyingly macho things, and assumed that it was just another dumb war action film. However, I went to see it after reading all the glowing reviews and (lucky me) it turned out to be a viscerally thrilling and yet intelligent film, based around a wonderfully complex portrait of a man addicted to seeing how close he can get to death and still survive.
Also, MarkoosMuse is having a laugh if he thinks that in Sweeney Todd "the music was not very memorable and thus the reason the film was sub-par." Sondheim is one of the greatest composers and lyricists musical theatre has ever seen, and he is on absolute top form with Sweeney Todd.
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On a slightly different note. Trailers re-edited to look like different movies.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QvNG3BpnhNE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7baCckh-XE
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Star Wars The Phantom Menace. A trailer so exciting that Empire Magazine have just picked it as an era defining piece of celluloid. Before going on to point out what a disappointment the resulting film is.
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You're guilty, too, Doc: the peach gel at the top of this video suggests it was directed by Tony Scott, when surely it wasn't. Surely.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2iwQlAASorQ
This first teaser trailer for the Lord of the Rings made the whole trilogy look like it was coing to be an Americanised piece of run-of-the-mill, fantasy garbage... How wrong is that??
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Just as you should never judge a book by its cover so you should never judge a film by its trailer.
By biggest gripes are: Trailers nowadays dictate that certain scenes have to go in a movie so they can be in the trailer. Something exploding for example, usually with someone running away from it towards the camera. A car crash, a woman screaming, two people struggling and do on.
Often the film would be improved by not having these scenes, but the trailer has to make it appear that the film is exciting.
Films with scenes that don't appear in the final movie are mysterious; occasionally they seem to show the best stunt etc the film could have, so why omit it?
Posters do a similar thing; try and sell a movie as one thing when its another completely. (I'm glad I saw In Bruges; as others have said it wasn't the comedy the advertising made it out to be, though it had its flaws mind.)
Trailers that have all the best bits in their 30 seconds, then you have sit and to endure all the dross in between.
Trailer that make the film look much better than it deserves. e.g. Quantum of Solace.
Why oh why does one guy with a husky voice do 90% of the voiceovers and, apparently, decide how a film should be sold: Ya know :- "Imagine a world where..."
Film makers hire creative people to do costumes, sets, credits and so on, so why does one guy get to do all the voiceovers?
I don't mind so much trailers that tell you the plot in 30 seconds or crucial plot twists. e.g. What lies beneath. It saves me having to see the actual films themselves. To be honest, apart from the occasional Soylent Green it rarely pays to see those films anyway.
Best thing is ignore hype and advertising and see a film anyway and make your own judgement. Having said that if '9' is disappointing then Grrrr; its trailer looks pretty good.
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The trailer for Deep Impact annoyed me intensely. Giant tidal waves, end of the world, fire and brimstone, and ... it lasted about 5 minutes of the entire film, the rest of which was clichéd twaddle. In all honesty, I've stopped watching trailers completely. There's only so much deep voice overs and flashing images someone can take before descending into an epileptic fit.
These days, I only watch films based on certain people's reviews and recommendations (and my own judgement). In fact, all advertising is generally rotten, and should be shoved under Deep Impact's meteorite. That also includes most film posters, which are increasingly throwing ***** (that's stars, not a swear word) all over the poster.
Very often, you can discern the quality of the film by seeing how easy it is to read the name of the publication that gave the aforementioned *****. Another tactic I've noticed is to give two quotes (like "awesome" and "best thing I've ever seen") from the same stupid publication, presented as if it were from two different reviewers. Evil has a face, and its called advertising.
Thank God for the Good Doctor, IMDB, and Rotten Tomatoes, that's all I can say.
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Dr K.
I think this article is exactly what you're looking for, it's a list of 5 things movie trailers need to stop doing, with examples.
http://www.cracked.com/article_17585_5-things-movie-trailers-need-stop-doing.html
#5.Show Scenes That Are Not In The Movie
Superbad and Black Christmas are the two examples here, Black Christmas being a real offender
#4.Use The Same Damn Songs Over And Over Again
We're sick of hearing "Wild Thing" whenever someone's a bit of a bad boy/girl, and "I Feel Good" for comedies
#3.Just Go Ahead And Ruin The Entire Goddamn Movie
Soylent Green showed the scene with the body bags on the conveyor belt in it's trailer. Cast Away's trailer ruins the ending (actually ending the trailer with the final shot of the film, just before the credits rolled)
#2.Lie About Who The Star Is
Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, which heavily features Angelina Jolie in the trailer, when she first meets the main character over an hour into the movie. Star Trek: Generations, which makes it appear Kirk *won't* be killed so quickly he may as well be in a red shirt
Worst of all is definitely Snow Dogs, which used the only dream sequence in the whole film for it's trailer, making it seem like the whole film would star talking dogs with Cuba Gooding Jr being the supporting actor. What tops it all off is that the film opened #1 in the US box office because of it.
#1.Just Completely Lie About What Kind of Movie It Is
ET's trailer made it look like Jaws meets Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Then when that did well, Gremlins was made out to be a tale of a kid and his furry little best friend.
Every serious film starring Robin Williams is made to look like a comedy.
And Kangaroo Jack made out the film would star a sassy rapping kangaroo, attracting all the kids (much like Snow Dogs did) but instead of a family comedy they were tricked them into seeing a raunchy, boob and gay joke-centric action movie.
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Collateral. It made it appear that Tom Cruise was some kind of heroic vigilante. Jamie Foxx barely appeared and during a quick cut of the nightclub shootout I remember the voice-over was something like, "he's taking out the trash"!
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Dear Dr K, There are quite a few that come to mind though most have already been mentioned. "Slumdog millionaire" is the most notable, the trailer made it look like a cheesy rom-com and I was actually put off seeing it for quite a while until friends made it clear that it was quite different to how I expected. "Fight Club",one of my favourite films had an awful trailer marketing it as like a US Guy Richie movie, while "The Village" was marketed as a period horror film rather than the tedious psychological drama it later proved to be.
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Whenever possible, I don't watch 'em; I wait outside till they're finished and those Orange ads are on. I've already decided, either by genre or personnel (or critical reception), what I'm going to watch. If I were in charge of things, it would be The Law that trailers could only be a maximum of one minute long and could not show anything from the last hour of the film. I'm more bothered by spoilers than misrepresentation.
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Despite how much trailers have proven to misrepresentative and wall-to-wall ridden with spoilers, I've somehow never gotten out of the habit of watching them, whenever I hear or read about a movie I find interesting I go on youtube and look at the trailer.
The trailers I like the most are those that don't show little or no footage from the movie at all, such as the trailers for Citizen Kane and Psycho, and also the teaser for Kathryn Bigelow's Strange Days.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0zaqWQiXG8
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Inglourious Bedsteads takes the biscuit for me - the trailer really pushed the 'Dirty Dozen' angle, suggesting that the film would be, well, almost anything other than what it was - a bloated ocean of dialogue that drowned out pretty much everything else. I'm not saying there weren't things of merit in there, but thanks to the trailer I wasn't in the right mood to swallow them. So to speak.
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This topic alone could fill a volume.
One movie that isn't out yet that seems to fit the bill is the new Clive Owen film The Boys Are Back. The trailer is horrific, but all of the early reviews pretty much say "it isn't as bad as it looks."
In Bruges was advertised as a shoot-em-up dark comedy.
Adventureland was put up as another Superbad type movie, even though it had real heart.
Bridge to Terebithia was more than the trailer's CGI of a magical forest.
Pretty much any movie that mixes a genre, ie horror with comedy etc, romance with action...
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The earliest film I remember spoiled by a trailer was Total Recall. It was pitched as the most spectacular sci-fi film at the time. They virtually threw all the big effects in the trailer. The film felt like deja vu. Mind you, I still go into hysterics at the eyeballs on stalks scene when I watch it again.
It's a shame the Blair Witch trailer didn't tell you how boring the film would be. Only the last scene saved it.
And another thing...ads before films. Just before Quantum of Solace they showed load ad with clips of the movie in it. Including some from the car chase at the start. Though the film certain problems with it, all those clips ruined the viewing for me, and I had to wait to see it on dvd to get a proper measure of it. Still clunkily structured.
PS What drove you to teetering on the edge of a rooftop, Dr K? Have you found 10 worst movies than Bride Wars?
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The Gran Torino trailer made it look like an action film.
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Actually for me it was Vanilla Sky!
What looked like a slick, contemporary thriller about Tom Cruise in a deadly love triangle with Diaz and Cruz ultimately left out the pretentious, tacked on, futuristic, wannabe twist, explanation for simple minds ending!
I thought, here is the Jerry Maguire team trying something new with their tried and tested leading man Tom Cruise. The car crash looked fantastic and the party scenes with Lee, Cruz, Diaz and Tom looked very interesting. I was hoping for a great soundtrack too given Crowe's background in music.
What followed was an ugly film epitomized by that mask Cruise wears (which is neither funny, haunting or even scary). Then you have all this sickening Penelope Cruz worship that Cruise is leading. When you find out she is a promising young actress who also dances you want to choke yourself!
It is basically two hours or so of filmic proof that Cameron Crowe cannot handle this kind of material despite having all the elements in place for a great sexy thriller.
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For me, it was the trailer for The Orphanage, which I know was a highlight of 2008 for you.
Don't get me wrong, I really enjoyed the film, but I was expecting, judging from the trailer, a real scare-a-minute horror movie, perhaps not as deliberately fun and knockabout as Drag Me To Hull, but a real spine-chiller.
What I got was a superb, creepy, supernatural thriller (with a heart-breaking coda) that delivered no real 'jumps', but instead relied on its pervasively creepy atmosphere rather too many scary goings-on, and reminded me in that respect of The Shining, which I love, but am unsure of your opinion on.
As it is, I loved The Orphanage, but would still like to see the Spanish-language Drag Me To Hell I'd been looking forward to.
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The trailer for Existenz made it look like a slick Sci-fi action thriller, a kind of commercial Videodrome. As a long standing Cronenberg fan I would have gone to see the film regardless. Unfortunately the trailer worked in attracting a large audience of "yoofs" who would have been better served by the (then) forthcoming Star Wars TPM or the Matrix. To say they made the screening a misery would be an understatement. I suffered a similar fate when watching A History of Violence, but strangely enough they didn't go for Spider...
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Most mis-representative trailer must be the one for the new "Sherlock Holmes" film which isn't out yet.
The trailer makes it seem like it might be worth watching...
but it's a Guy Ritchie film.
[Did you think about entitling this blog entry "Trailer Trash?"]
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For me, I've always taken issue with the trailers for Independence Day and The Fifth Element. Both of which managed to avoid pointing out that the films were actually very silly and full of lame comedy. I went to both expecting straight, serious sci-fi flicks.
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For me one of the most deceiving trailers was for the Robin Willaims film "Man Of The Year" in which in the trailer makes it look like a Comedy when in fact it was a thriller. It's almost like they looked at the film and realised the film didnt know what it wanted to be and tryed to appeal to a wider audiance by making it look like a comedy. Not once in the trailer did it show that their was any thriller aspects in the film what so ever. Had anyone else seen the trailer and then the film and was suprised and confused by what the film actually was?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tX4tvZnnmt8
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Dr K,
I would like to submit the trailer for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ny-iSX2hteQ
This trailer is the perfect example of trailer treachery. I genuinely believe that you'll be hard pushed to find a trailer that trivializes and dumbs down a movie to such an extent. This 2.03 piece of misrepresentation portrays the film as your common or garden Rom Com fodder (albeit with a touch of high concept), rather than the poignant and thought provoking original piece of cinema it movie really is. If it wasn't for the fact that I saw Charlie Kauffman's name in the credits I would have avoided this gem at the cinema. And on DVD. And on TV.
One could also argue that Focus Features could be the actual ground zero and subsequently responsible for the current You Tube phenomena of recutting trailers; The Shining trailer reedited to make it look like a Rom Com been a notable example.
And if I have to hear Mr. Blue Sky in another trailer there will be blood!
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The village and lady in the water were totally misleading.
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I was really disappointed about the movie
Intolerable Cruelty
The trailer was really funny, but that wa the funny part of the whole movie, the movie in total was really disappointing, I watched it with my uncle in a cinema (it was the only time I chose the film) and I felt really bad after watching it with my uncle, because I chose such a bad movie.
Another one was:
Pirates of the Carribbean
I thought this was a horror movie and so I didn't go to see it. In school everyone said it was a great movie, but I was too scared to watch it. Because I normally don't watch horror movies. Weeks after the DVD release I watched it after being at the cemetery, so I had the opportunity to leave the room at any moment it became too scary. Well surprise, surprise, it was a really funny movie and my fear was arbitrary. Now it's one of my favourites and I regret not having seen it in the cinema.
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Apologies to Mr. Charlie Kaufman for the misspelling of you surname. Cursed spellchecker!
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I can think of a couple:
Serenity. Classic example of a trailer that gathers together lots of similar moments, like a squirrel collecting acorns, and plays them one after another. In this case, it was all the funny one-liners, which are nice, but Serenity is a lot more than just a goofy Spaceballs spin-off.
And also, does anyone remember the trailer for The Exorcism of Emily Rose? It made it look really exciting, REALLY demonic and frightening. While in fact, although those bits were in there, the majority of the film was a slightly dry, court-room drama type affair. A little bit of a let-down at the time (but at least they made Requiem afterwards).
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I'm actually a big fan of trailers, but I think the problem is that the competition between movies is so fierce that they have to put all the best scenes in the trailer just to make the film look appealing. You can trace this back to Independence Day really, and ever since, trailer editors have tried to top one another, at risk to the film themselves.
The trailers for Surrogates takes spoiling to whole new level by just plain showing the whole movie: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGwQ74cH5O0
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The trailer for The Deer Hunter is the worst I've ever seen. Ironic that the film will always be at number 6 in my top 10 favourite movies of all time!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vw-Tyr6Rb6I
More recently, the one for the completely overrated Slumdog Millionaire.
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The most obvious example i can think of is The Phantom Menace. After seeing the trailer, I thought the movie was going to be GOOD!
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'in bruges' again like everyone completely put off by the trailer and ignored people who told me the film was great-watched it loved it
1970's horror films trailers such as cannibal holocaust are about five minutes long and show violence and nudity in them
there's a ten minute trailer of the new version of 'the prisoner'
those recut trailers featuring the brokeback mountain music and insinuating romance between the two male leads are great especially the 'he-man' one
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As a rule I generally don't pay much heed to trailers, but one that stuck in my mind was for The Mothman Prophecies - the trailer made it seem like a strange, mysterious thriller about dark threatening angel-like figures. They left out all the bits about how tedious and cliched the whole thing was.
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Watch the documentary about The Mothman on the dvd, it's sooooooooooo funny....
"We though it came from outer space or something".
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Two trailers spring instantly to mind. First of all, Fight Club. It made it seem like the actual Fight Club was the central focus of the movie. Anyone who has seen the movie, however, knows that an awful lot more happens that that. It's not focussed on a small group of people in a small amateur boxing club at all. It's strange, considering the content of the actual movie, that they thought a bunch of sweaty men beating each other up would appeal.
The other trailer is the film "A Beautiful Mind" where the trailer suggested that it was a horrifically mushy chick flick. The line added into the trailer which cannot be found in the actual movie has Russell Crowe saying "it may be a great thing to have a beautiful mind, but greater still to possess a beautiful heart" *throws up*. The very idea that "A Beautiful Minds" was a biopic about one of the great minds in the field of economics is never mentioned.
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In response to TheWhitePaperPlate I had exactly the opposite experience. For me, the Intolerable Cruelty trailer felt like a typical chick flick and, not realising that it was a Coen Brothers movie, I was disinclined to watch it. The trailer seemed devoid of any real humour.
When I later came to watch it I was quite shocked to find myself in hysterics for most of the movie. There is some quite subtle humour alongside the slapstick and the part where the priest at the wedding is singing "I wish I were a kellogs cornflake" is a typical example of the Coen Brothers' trademark surrealism. Awesome! :)
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In response to arthurjcrabtree I fail to see what is wrong with that trailer for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. After all, what a trailers supposed to do other than simplify the movie they are representing. The trailer doesn't misrepresent the movie and it doesn't reveal too much of the plot. What more do you want? Sure, it's not a work of art, but that's what the actual movie is for...
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The trailer for Il Postino completely misrepresented it, especially the deep voiced American narrator.
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I believe Universal's marketing for Hulk was a misrepresentation of the actual film.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0RQOT14lck
They marketed the film as a typical summer blockbuster, focussing heavily on the action sequences (including the Hulk-throwing-the-tank money shot) in an attempt to appeal to a large audience, clearly hoping to achieve the success that Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man did the previous year.
Unfortunately, the film was very different from the trailer, focussing on the psychological aspects of the character, rather than just the mindless action that audiences were expecting from the film.
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The trailer to 'Mortal Kombat: Annihilation' didn't necessarily sucker me in but it did get my hopes up for a somewhat watchable film. How wrong was I? It shows nothing but second long clips of people fighting without giving us a glimpse of the terrible acting, dialogue and effects that plague it.
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You gotta give Mortal Kombat: Annihilation credit for what is perhaps the best tagline ever: Destroy Your Expectations!
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I don't know about bad trailers, but the one I saw for Transformers 2 was Oscar worthy compared to what I was put through when forced to watch the actual movie by my son.
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I haven't seen too many trailers, but I did come across a most unrepresentative one of Edward Scissorhands. It is one of my favorite Tim Burton films, and I truly think it's a pristine work of art, touching and I dare say, incisive. But in the trailer they make it sound like just some quirky -and cookie!- comedy.
Here's the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWFa8zfWfeA
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District 9 is the only movie I've seen where I thought I had been flat-out lied to by the advertising. I thought this film would be entirely from the perspective of the diagetic cameras (ie Blair Witch, Cloverfield). I got that for the first twenty-something minutes, but after that it suddenly switched to your usual normal narrative. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but I felt like I had been cheated by the marketing of this film.
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I thought the trailer for Deathproof made it look like a fun film to watch on a friday night when there's nothing else to do but it turned out to be one of the most annoying and boring excuse for a movie i have seen in a long time...
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If I had seen the trailer for "I've Loved You So Long", I wouldn't have seen it because it looks just like another of those European films. It is a film that really benefits from you knowing as little about it as possible because of the way the story is told through the film.
I knew enough about the plot from a New York Times review to interest me but probably even that was too much. To Mark's great credit he gave away even less about the film when he reviewed it but I had already seen it by then.
Fellow cineastes, I urge you to see this film if you have not already done so.
And here's the trailer, so that you won't
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AlMPS_qcRaM
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Personally, I really enjoy trailers. I'm quite surprised so many people refuse to watch them!
The Soylent Green example is probably the most irksome though. A bit OT, but along the same lines: My mum and I bought the film "Valentine" (Spoilers ahead, if you care), which included on the back of the DVD "a small-town killer (David Boreanaz)...", when it turns out you weren't supposed to know it was him til the end. Luckily the film was completely m'eh, so we didn't care much either way.
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After you've seen it, you could say "That marks the re-birth of narrative cinema!" ;-)
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I remember the trailer for Dead Poets Society being incredibly misleading. I ended up thoroughly enjoying the film but what was marketed was a zany Robin Williams comedy full of crazy high school hi-jinks rather than the more sober coming-of-age drama that we ended up with. Great film though.
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The trailer for watchmen was a complete misrepresentation as it was made up of practically all action sequences from the film, totally betraying the nature and pacing of the story. I had already read Watchmen, but my excitement over the trailer somehow caused me to unwittingly disregard what I already knew, until it started to dawn on me during the film. Possibly my own fault?
I'd just like to say that one of my biggest pet peeves is 20 second TV trailers. They often tell you absolutely nothing about the plot and instead splice together as many indecipherable, plot-dependent jokes from the film (a film that usually features Paul Rudd or Seth Rogen) as possible.
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I think that The fountain is a classic example of a film having a completely misleading trailer. It is a interesting film but rarely a action film, as largely depicted in the trailer.
What I hate much more are films where the good bits are all in the trailer, which is what often happens, especially with bad comedies where the one or two lines that work are shown.
Personally I think the two best trailers of recent have been from the same director 300 and watchmen. which manage to build up the film and have good music.
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The one that really stands out is Seven or Se7en. It looks nothing like how the film is - makes it looks very much like a action movie. It doesn't spoil the movie by showing***SPOILER ALERT***...................Brad's and Gwenth's apartment is next to s train line. Did you think I was going to spoil something else?????
From Head in the Box......
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It comes down to the fact that the marketing departments don't trust us to go and see films that are outside the "typical" range of multiplex offerings. Their job is to put bums in seats, after all you don't get your money back because you didn't like the film. My daughter wanted to go and see Beverly Hills Chihuaha because she liked the singing dogs. Thankfully there was very little footage of singing dogs and it actually had a plot and some decent acting. Based on the trailer my daughter had to work awfully hard to earn enough brownie points to make me go see it and it turned out not to be so bad.
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This may not be answering your question, but since we are on the topic of trailers, makes for interesting viewing nonetheless.
http://www.ifc.com/news/2009/06/50-greatest-trailers.php
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Actually for a reverse of the question Cloverfield was an infinitely better trailer then film
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What Women Want:
The trailer pretended it was funny.
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Also:
X-men: The Last Stand.
Great exciting trailer. Film ended up being an overly long "trailer" consisting of disconnected scenes crudely put together.
Very disappointing after the brilliant X-men 2.
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A friend of mine was just talking about how much he loved Michael Bay's mighty Armageddon, I responded by paraphrasing Roger Ebert, saying "come on, that movie was a 150 minute trailer."
After a short pause my friend exclaimed "yeah. Best Trailer EVER!"
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It’s been touched on briefly above, but the Fight Club trailer was hopeless at conveying the intelligence and dark humour of the film.
Your thoughts on trailers has got me thinking about whether a 30 or 45 second trailer is the appropriate way to sell more intelligent high concept movies such as Fight Club, Solaris , 2001 or Synecdoche. Would it not be better to show a minute or two of contiguous film from a scene that captures part of the essence of a movie, rather than a 30 second montage of clips that are open to interpretation?
In effect, if film companies continue to make misrepresentative trailers then the opinions of the viewing public and professional critics becomes evermore important.
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After watching Donnie Darko I had great expectations about his next movie: Southland Tales.
Saw the trailer in the internet. Looked great for me! Liked it very much. Finally the film was released only on DVD in Germany (a thing which normally isn't a good sign) - what a disappoinment.
One of the most unsatisfying piles of crap i have ever seen.
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The most misleading trailer of all time has to be this piece of work for the movie THE BIG LEBOWSKI:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fyEWm3x5ulE
Totally misrepresents the film.
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Having just seen the new trailer for 'Avatar' (Looks like Jim Cameron's greatest hits + Dances with Wolves + added awesome) I have to say that the first teaser was one of the worst ever. Even a long time Cameron fan like myself felt completely underwhelmed by it.
Of course, the new one has just put excitement levels back through the roof. Time will tell.
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Hi Dr Mark,
How about a trailer putting you off the film you've gone to see!
Quite some time ago I went to see the film 'Kentucky Fried Movie', just before it started the trailer for the forthcoming film 'Airplane' was shown.
This spoilt the viewing of the main feature purely because the trailer for 'Airplane' was a thousand time more funnier than the whole of 'Kentucky Fried Movie'.
It felt like I'd been mugged having just paid to watch that dross, and then being shown what I was missing.
In this case the trailer wasn't lying, on the contrary, it was highlighting the bare truth of how bad the main film actually was.
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I remember feeling completely mislead by the trailer for Darren Aronofsky's The Fountain. The trailer makes it seem as though the movie is a fantasy tale following a couple who have drunk from the fountain of youth and have attained immortality. Intrigue would presumably follow... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDp-F3Y97ZQ
I ended up hating the movie because of this misrepresentation and now refer to The Wrestler as "The Redemption of Darren Aronofsky" instead of the oft-quoted "Resurrection of Mickey Rourke."
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there's literally no way to market TIODP apart from word of mouth, any publicity just makes it look a bit crap...
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There’s also an issue with trailers failing to let audiences know that the advertised film is subtitled. The trailers for Pan’s Labyrinth, Che and The Orphanage are good examples of this practice. The cheesy voiceovers for Pan’s Labyrinth and The Orphanage are also particularly grating, and the studios are clearly doing everything in their power to disguise the fact that the movies aren’t in English.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EqYiSlkvRuw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Fjn4fjGk_4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=trL-n4PzcIk
There are many people who do not like watching subtitled films (have a look at the one-star reviews of Pan’s Labyrinth on LoveFilm for further evidence!). Although I feel they are missing out on some fantastic movies, it’s their loss, and doesn’t stop those with the inclination from enjoying world cinema. People should not be tricked into spending money at the cinema on films they are unlikely to enjoy, especially as this often leads to restless behaviour during such screenings, which spoils the film for the rest of the audience.
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Justin Lin's "Annapolis". A movie the audiences think is going to be about a Navel Academy and how a down and out James Franco is going to adjust to the new, navel environment turns into a poor-poor man's boxing film that wants to be in the same ballpark of Million Dollar Baby but ends up being a wooden nickel in the world of cinema.
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Perhaps it was just me, but I found the trailer for the 2008 Art House film Peur du Noir (Fears of the Dark) to be tremendously misleading in terms of pacing. The trailer was quick, exciting, dramatic and beautiful. It was lovingly crafted and was backed by a marvellous soundtrack. Having a very limited release in Ireland, I waited impatiently for the DVD release. Cracking it out one night I couldn’t have been more disappointed. It was long and trawled through it’s 85 minute run time. Practically every terrifying jump moment was revealed through the trailer and that wonderful score I heard turned out to be the only score recorded for the film. The trailer is a condensed version.
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RE: Morgan_Stack...surely you knew the film was a series of animated shorts? I only really wanted to see Charles Burns' one, I may borrow it off a friend sometime.
I was really looking forward to John Hillcoat's The Road, which I heard about after reading the book, and made me finally rent The Proposition, which was great. Nick Cave & Warren Ellis' soundtrack was also brilliant. But when the trailer was released, I was quite disappointed. I immediately hoped it was just some dodgy Weinstein-fuelled editing screw-around...and I still stand by that. I'll still go and see it, even if Charlize Theron's in it. The ingredients are right, we'll just have to see what it's like when it's released.
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I remember watching the very first teaser trailer for Bay's infamous PEARL HARBOR in movie theaters back in 2000 and being blown away: it made the film look like a very serious, epic war film and it didn't have a single shot indicating that a repugnant love triangle would take center stage from what the film ultimately should have been about.
Trailer can be viewed here - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qqv9-_TqTUk
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I remember when I took a girl I had been seeing to see Sweeney Todd. We had both seen the trailer together before another film, anyway, the film started, the singing started... she turned to me and said "this is a musical...WTF???" There was singing in the trailer, but it was only a snippet and it got me thinking; had I no prior knowledge of the film, except for seeing the trailer, would I too have failed to spot it was a musical?
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The Golden Compass rates a mention. I remember my brother getting himself into a frenzy over what he saw in the trailer, and infecting me with that same optimism. Having seen it twice, it's simply nothing like what the ads suggested, i.e. the next fantasy franchise to carry The Lord of the Rings' torch. It's one of those movies that are so dull that their home video release is a death sentence; it vaporises from the public consciousness never to be discussed seriously in public again, except on movie criticism blogs.
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P.S: Here's an interesting little video segment on the very same topic by Australian film critic Marc Fennell:
http://bit.ly/jokQx
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I saw the trailer for In Bruges after seing the film and was totally bewildered by the way they were marketing the film. From the trailer it seems like a screwball brit flick in the mould of Guy Ritchie (snatch era) rather than what it is, a quite beautifully executed and witty thriller from a great playwright. Slumdog Millionaire did the same I thought, I wasn't crazy about the film, and the fact that the posters all said 'the feel good film of the decade' confused me - it seemed to be trying to be three films at once, and the trailer just picked the strand which would sit best on the poster.
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Recently? Drag Me to Hell's trailer entirely misrepresented the film. Using David Arnold's "Kasuf Returns" for Stargate's OST did it no favors either. Made it appear to be more of an epic horror film than the homage Sam Raimi made for himself.
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P.S.S: People, if you're going to suggest a movie, at least acknowledge it if it's been brought up already. Ctrl + F is your friend. It's just courteous not to ignore other people, is all I'm saying.
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I think the trailer for The Village by M Shamawhatshisface was very misleading. The trailer tried to sell it as a spooky horror and having seen the film that couldn't be further from the truth.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oB55bv4B8LQ
I remember sitting in the cinema and within ten minutes became aware that the trailer had cheapened the film experience for me... perhaps a second viewing is in order!
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Dammit just seen The Village has been posted loads. Grrr
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Amazed that no one posted "The Avengers". The trailer made me want to see it as a cool Bond-style action movie. The movie was just wierd.
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First time poster....
Without a doubt it was "The Mexican" starring Brad Pitt and Julia Roberts. A fairly vicious and violent movie (in that kind of talky, throwaway and apparently humourous way) that was fairly popular in the nineties. It was presented as a romantic comedy / roadtrip. I know for me and others I have spoken to, it totally killed an otherwise jolly evening.
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Ok,just watched the trailer for "The Prestige" and it made one of the cleverest and most mind-and-moral-boggling thriller/drama/whateveritis look like a cheap horror/thriller! A disgrace!
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Alien 3 The Director's Cut to me is a masterpiece..It's so underated..Better than Aliens in my view as we don't have annoying yanks blowing up Aliens, maybe that is why it is not liked so much...
Paranormal Activity as a trailer makes the film look good..It's pathetic...trying to be Blair Witch...The film is as scary as The Exorcist 2...
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Wasn't too keen on seeing Enchanted in the first place but the trailer led me to believe there was going to be no singing so I gave it a shot. The trailer showed the main characters starting to sing and then something interrupting them and I was very annoyed to find out this was not the case.
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I very rarely decide to go to a movie based on a trailer. It's usually because I've read about it beforehand & then I avoid the trailer in the cinema so as not to spoil anything. One of the few exceptions for this was District 9. I went to see it because the trailer looked good. It's one of the worst movies I've ever seen.
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Roland Emmerich doesn't make films, he makes garbage. While everyone stares open mouthed at his latest "end-of-the-world-a-thon" I'm sure they will be easily distracted by the pixel porn going on in front of them while not actually realizing just how poor the narrative, acting, dialogue etc etc truly is. So to help out and inform... here's a trailer for 2012 that gives us a true representation of exactly what you will be seeing....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iX6cfzDpd_o
minus the "Special Effects"
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re:needley_1978. Yes! Alien 3 Director's Cut definitely needs reclaiming from the scrapheap. If Last Action Hero and Fire Walk With Me can be re-evaluated and redeemed on this site, then so must Alien 3.
Oh, and The Two Jakes as well, if it's no bother...
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Some of the best cinematic experiences I have had over the last couple of years has been down to misleading trailers/marketing including many of the negative-to-positive examples already cited in this thread.
I find it thrilling when my low expectations of a film are given the 360, I'm sure it actually makes the enjoyment of that film more pleasurable. Which poses a couple of conundrums:
1. Is my critical response/opinion to a film tainted by the attitude of "well it was much better than the trailer/marketing suggested", potentially sneaking films into my top favorites when, from an objective perspective, they are not actually deserving of that privilege.
2. It seems I enjoy good films more, the less I know about them. But at the same time, I want trailers/marketing to give me all the information I need to make a judgement as to whether I want to see it or not, so as to avoid the bad films. Hmmm....
Perhaps I should give up trailers all together, turn down the volume on Simon and Mark's youtube reviews, and simply judge based on the good Doctors facial expressions...????
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I made the mistake of watching the High Sierra trailer before the DVD. The end scene is used in the trailer suggesting its the main focus of the film. I was sat there, constantly looking at my watch, wondering how long the movie was because we hadn't even got into the mountains yet...
Was one of Bogart’s worst movies anyway so its not like it ruined anything important.
Now ‘Avatar’, (although this is not really trailer related it is, however, about the representation of an un-launched movie) it seems, has been reported in the media to be a ‘CGI film’. My understanding is that it is a half and half CGI/live footage movie. The amount of comments I’ve heard about "the CGI is amazing, just look at the shot where he smiles" (watch the trailer and you'll see a lovely live footage smile) is driving me insane.
Maybe I’m just wrong though; maybe it will turn out to be an exhilarating and exciting film with a complex and interesting plot, full of high concepts and taxing philosophical debate; and maybe Gordon the Gopher is really my dad.
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I remember seeing the trailer years ago for a film called Feast, which included a guy saying "I'm the guy who's gonna save your ass" before getting grabbed by a monster. Clearly in the film this was meant to be a big joke but they kind of threw it away by including it in the trailer so it would no longer be a suprise.
Also, check out the trailer on the DVD of the original Italian Job, you don't need to watch the film as the trailer includes all the key moments in the film.
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My favourite ever trailer, which intentionally sets out to mislead was for Wes Craven's "Red Eye".
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TAFDHyH8buQ
Looks like a rom-com, turns into psychological thriller. Unfortunately, the trailer was much better than the average film!
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I remember being amazed by just how good THE VANISHING was --- a truly disturbing and brilliant thriller from Holland (or France?) back in 1988. It got a lot of its power from the simple fact of the audience not knowing what happened to the vanished person, until the last 5 minutes of the film. THen in the early 90s we got an American remake. In the trailer for that movie, they made darn sure you knew what happened to the vanished girl. Silly silly silly.
BTW -- not exactly relevant but anyway, Dr. K has made his dislike of Michael Bay evident in so many ways over the years, but he has been outdone by David Denby -- Denby has called him the "stunningly, almost viciously, untalented Michael Bay". Hard to beat that.
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re illustriousJonsey --- in fairness to the Coen brothers (sometimes really really good, sometimes really bad), that youtube trailer for Big Lebowski is a parody (of a trailer) , and not a bad one either. The ending title is a "A Film by the Cates Brothers"
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The curious case of Benjamin Button and The young Victoria's trailers told way too much about the film, i hate when you feel like you've already seen a movie after you've watched the trailer.
Synechdoche New York's trailer was awesome and couldn't wait to see the movie but it was just ridiculous,i dunno if i'm ignorant or not but still don't know why the house had to be on fire ??!! enlighten me please. i still love the trailer though.
And mark you probably wont like this one but Marley and Me trailer was a poor representation of the film. I went in thinking id see just another ' Mathew McConahuey ' movie but i was pleasantly surprised. I can't help thinking that maybe if you hadn't of read the press release outline of the film you may have enjoyed it more? You went in expecting to see a family growing together and thats what you got. Being pleasantly surprised can go along way.
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Dear Mark
I don't know if you ever saw the trailer for 'triangle'. but when I did I immediately assumed it to be another poor mainstream horror flick ('Adrift' meets 'The Amatyville Horror' remake)
How wrong I was
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"East Is East" - the trailer made it out to be an absolute scream, but when you actually got into the film, it was quite a serious piece. I don't have anything against the film as such (I enjoyed it more when I viewed it for the second time), but I went into the cinema in the mood for and expecting a comedy. Moral of the story - don't believe the trailer!!
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"147. At 7:59pm on 08 Nov 2009, jerome OCallaghan wrote:
re illustriousJonsey --- in fairness to the Coen brothers (sometimes really really good, sometimes really bad), that youtube trailer for Big Lebowski is a parody (of a trailer) , and not a bad one either. The ending title is a "A Film by the Cates Brothers""
I know. I was joking, too.
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