5 Things Movie Trailers Need to Stop Doing
At a movie studio, once the pesky task of actually making a movie is out of the way the guys in the suits go to work. Their job is to bend and manipulate the movie footage into a short trailer that will tell you exactly what they think you want to hear. And it should be noted at the outset, they think you're retarded.
Here are five things we'd ask them to kindly stop doing, and why we know they never will.
#5.
Show Scenes That Are Not In The Movie
Superbad's 30 second trailer promised that "Every generation has one iconic movie that is... quoted non-stop... Superbad is that film." That's high praise for movie producers; while we might mutter "douchebag" when a grown man emerges from a public restroom, fans his crotch and says, "Do not go in there!" in his best Jim Carrey inflection, the marketing community considers that shit free advertising.
What makes less sense is why, in a movie that's chock full of quotable nuggets, they chose "McLovin, sounds like a sexy hamburger!" to be the one line that turned up in the trailer that bragged about quotability. You know, since that line was so memorable that the filmmakers left it out of the movie altogether.
It didn't matter that the line was in no way quotable since it was a response to a name that doesn't exist anywhere outside of the movie, nor did it matter that both Jonah Hill and Michael Cera had funnier TV-friendly lines that were actually in the film. The studio wanted a line by Seth Rogen since he was in the previous summer's "once in a generation" quotable movie, Knocked Up. So the suits rifled through the footage left on the cutting room floor until they found a Seth Rogen line that didn't contain the word fuck, and we got a preview that did a great job hiding the fact that Superbad was actually pretty funny.
"This is a line in a movie!"
But what happens when marketing folks don't have an over abundance of good material to discard in favor of a deleted scene? The trailer for Black Christmas got around that problem by featuring a few moments that were shot just for the trailer. And by a few moments, we mean just about everything you see in the trailer was shot just for the trailer.
According to the IMDB page, the list includes:
An unknown caller saying, "All is calm, all is bright, who is in my house tonight?"
A woman rubbing the snow off her car and a hand reaching through it.
A woman falling off the roof tangled in Christmas lights.
A woman being dragged through the snow by a Christmas lights machine.
Melissa in the hallway with a flashlight while Billy is on the ceiling ready to strike with an axe.
For all of the actual film footage the trailer shows us, Black Christmas very well could be a remake of A Miracle on 34th Street starring Danny Glover and Webster.
#4.
Use The Same Damn Songs Over And Over Again
Soon after it was released in 1989, Ton Loc's "Wild Thing" was put to use in the trailer for Uncle Buck, which actually made sense because the movie was about a wild man played by John Candy, and also because it was still 1989.
Since that time, Mr. Loc's anthem has been used in trailers for every fish out of water comedy that has been released in the last 19 years, including Undercover Brother, Garfield: The Movie, Bedazzled and the Rob Schneider vehicle, The Animal.
So why continue to use a song that had quickly become shorthand for "No matter how low your expectations, get ready to lower them!" Well, Hollywood thinks you need to be told exactly what sort of movie you're going to be getting. When you need to communicate that the main character is a live wire, why use cliched dialogue when you can use a cliched Ton Loc song instead?
The voice of several generations, apparently.
If the comedy has a big enough budget, they might even go with the nuclear option: Smash Mouth. Hollywood loves the shit out of some Smash Mouth; presumably because their songs are genetically engineered to get stuck in your head like some sort of incurable mind-AIDS. Also, they all sound the same, so instead of using that "All-Star" song like Shrek (and Mystery Men, Inspector Gadget, Shrek 2 and Shrek 3), you can get the exact same effect by using one of their many other identical-sounding songs; like in Made of Honor, Can't Hardly Wait, the two shittier Dr. Suess Movies and the shittiest Austin Powers.
In fact, every comedy genre has a preset approved-for-trailer list that runs about two songs deep. Romantic comedies get The Cranberries "Dreams" or the Spencer Davis Group's "Gimme Some Lovin.'" Feel good comedies almost always use "Walking on Sunshine" or the most overused song in movie trailer history.
Yes, the only way to communicate that your film is the "feel good comedy of the summer" is to play James Brown's "I Feel Good." Apparently, Hollywood believes that you not only need to be trained like a Pavlovian dog to know what kind of movie to expect, you need the lyrics to literally tell you how to feel.
#3.
Just Go Ahead And Ruin The Entire Goddamn Movie
When they're not lying to audiences, trailers are telling them too much. Hollywood has been known to treat films with a unique plot, or a surprising twist ending with all the delicacy of Lenny in Of Mice and Men.
"I see dead people...wink."
Take, for instance, one of the first genuine twist endings in the history of Hollywood cinema. The studio knew they had a twist that would leave audiences head spinning if they could just get them to watch it. The whole trailer teases you with the mystery at the heart of the film's mind blowing ending, asking "What is the secret of Soylent Green?"
You'd just have to watch the movie to find out. Or, you know, keep your eyes open for the part of the trailer where Charlton Heston breaks into the factory and sees all the bodies moving down the conveyor belt. If you caught that, then don't worry about showing up, you can probably put it together from there.
With time, this became common place. The trailer for Ransom was geared around a dramatic scene in which Mel Gibson's character announces that he is offering his own ransom as a bounty on the kidnapper's head, a plot twist that kills any suspense you might have felt during the first half of the movie. The trailer for Wild Things ruined the first half of that movie by giving away the fact that the sexual harassment suit against Matt Dillon is a hoax.
A sexy hoax.
And of course there's Cast Away's trailer that shows the plane crash that lands Tom Hanks on the island...
Tom Hanks battling the elements, and then Tom Hanks being rescued by his friends who tell him, "You've been gone for four years."
They actually end the trailer with the final shot of the film, but commendably show the restraint to cut things off before the credits start to roll.
the line from superbad was in the unrated version
ReplyYou forgot Staying Alive for overused trailer songs; usually in any movie they want to market as a fun, rambunctious action comedy.
ReplyI completely second #5, it drives me nuts when they stick a scene in the trailer for a nice soundbite, then when the time comes it's a completely different take. A good example I remember is the Joker scene in The Dark Knight when he gives his opening speech at the mob gathering.
In relation to #5 I wish there was a rule that they couldn't put anything in the trailer from beyond the 30 minute point of the movie. It lets you enjoy the rest of the movie without expecting or spoiling anything. And, really, If you can't sell your movie with anything from the first 30 minutes it's either s**t you're trying to be misleading. Like The Prestige: 'A friendship that became a rivalry'??
I just lost like half an hour of my Life trying to figure out if I was insane or not and it turns out I'm not...
Replyf**k TONE LOC FOR STEALING THE NAME OF A KICK ASS SONG!!!
Not one mention of the constant fades to black?
ReplyConrad Schickedanz doesn't get out much, if he thinks Soylent Green, in freaking 1973, was the first movie with a twist ending. He's never heard of Planet of the Apes (1968)? or Psycho (1960)? but Hollywood, and outside Hollywood as well, were doing twist endings since forever; some of the best were in the 1950s, like Witness for the Prosecution (1957) and Les Diaboliques (1955). Really, the end of Citizen Kane (1941) was a twist ending, for audiences in 1942, just like the ending of 42nd street was a twist for audiences in 1933. There were silent films with twist endings, believe it or not. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920), and London after Midnight (1927) have what may seem like hackneyed endings now, but back then, no one had done them before. The very first time [SPOILER] someone woke up and found out it had all been a dream, it was a legitimate suprise twist.
ReplyOh, and the "twist" at the ending of The Sixth Sense, which I couldn't believe people didn't see coming, was totally ripped off of Carnival of Souls (1962).
#5- The Ring, where Samara's psych ward tape features the creepy line "Everyone will suffer." Matter of fact, chalk up #3 to that one as well. The longer it took for this mysterious little girl to show up, the better the odds it is indeed her behind all this. Probably the worst spoiler I've seen in a trailer would be for When A Stranger Calls. Tracing a legitimately threatening call only to have the operator panicking about it coming from inside the house? That makes for good suspense. Fortunately for the movie they had enough trailer time to snatch the one ounce of thrills it had, allowing it to be the worthless pile of monkey waste it always wanted to be.
Replythe "sexy hamburger" quote was most definitely in the movie. In fact I'm pretty sure it was only in the theatrical version and taken out of the unrated version for some reason.
ReplyPan's Labyrinth will forever go down as the worse marketed film for me. It's really good after you realize it's not about Pan...or a Labyrinth.
ReplyFor #2: Executive Decision and Steven Seagal.
ReplyI kinda thought that was a clever piece of filmaking - Have the supposed lead die before the action starts.
Bridge to Terabithia would be in the #1 category as well. Those of us who hadn't read the book were duped into thinking this was something akin to PeterPan/Narnia/whatever fantasy world ... when in fact the whole trailer was mostly a graphical representation of the kids imagination. However, it seems they did it because they had to target the movie to people who didn't know about the book.
ReplySee, the main reason that I *didn't* see that movie was because the trailer made it look like the film had completely missed the point of the book. It made it look as though Terabithia was a real place.
i found Soylent Green to be a very dull movie, except with the suicide chamber and the ending. great idea, poorly executed.
ReplyYou missed 2: Trailers that don;t tell you jack s**t about the movie, & comedy trailers that play ALL of the jokes that are actually funny from the movie; the trailers play them again & again, so not only are the jokes not funny at all when you see them on the big screen, but the jokes you didn't see in the trailer were worse.
ReplyI think the jokes one goes under the "trailers that tell you too much" category
Whoever writes these articles has obviously never seen the movie Jack (staring Robin Williams) all the way to the end. Someone (I'm guessing that it's the same person) keeps referencing the kid's death. The original theatrical version of the movie Jack ends with him graduating from high school at the age of 18 (and looking 72) with the same friends he made in 4th grade. Jack doesn't die. It's just a little nitpick I know but if you're going to point out plot holes you should probably at least know the plot of the movie.
Reply Hide All See All 3 RepliesHe's going to die. That is obviously implied when he is a decrepit old man at the age of 18 during his funeral, you massive thundercunt. HE DIES. HE DIES UNTIL HE'S DEAD.
It's because it's eerily similar to a real disease which people don't generally live through.
Google: Progeria.
trailers show scenes that arent in the movie because they don't want to spoil a good part of the movie. Pixar does this for almost all their movies and i don't get wh it's a problem
Reply Hide All See All 3 RepliesPixar makes [mostly] good movies
But then they go on and spoil the entire f*****g movie anyway. It does seem to have been worse for some movies during the 70's ... most of those trailers where very very long (5 minutes? 7 minutes?) like the Soylent Green one, or the Omen one which shows half of the shocking death scenes, INCLUDING the one where the nanny hangs herself thus removing the shock you would get if you hadn't watched the trailer!
Because the way that Pixar does its trailers, you don't get the feeling that they're showing you scenes that are going to be in the movie. Ratatouille's, for instance, was the main character pretty much introducing himself and talking about himself a little. It didn't show a montage of things that never happen.
I would really, really, really like if trailers would stop doing the "quiet...quiet...silence...LOUD MUSICAL STING!!!1!" Please. Please. Just... let it go.
ReplyAnother movie that would fall under #1 is that Will Ferrel movie Stranger Than Fiction. Totally thought that movie was a comedy from the trailer but then I wanted to slit my wrists halfway through the actual film.
ReplySame here I had no idea-plus Will Ferrell starred, so wasn't jumping to any conclusions other than comedy. Good movie.
Seth Rogan was great in Superbad because he wasn't starring in it. He can't really carry a whole movie, and I don't know why he keeps getting the main roles. His appeal is his chubby underdog nature, but that's not funny after the first 10 jokes about girls having sex with him that are better looking than he is, and those are the only jokes hes got. Sidenote: I think Daniel Tosh would have been EPIC in Knocked Up.
ReplySecond this side note.
Daniel Tosh sucks dick.
Yeah really. It's always some type of trickery. A 10 second cameo of a name actor to sell it, all the good parts then there's nothing left, fancy cover art, etc. Why not just leave the audience in suspense? And oh, you NEVER show the "monster" in a scary movie trailer.
ReplyI was thinking of the Bicentennial Man trailer while reading this. Not only did it misrepresent the film, it also gave away a lot of it. It stuck with me, how they managed to ruin parts of the plot while lying about what kind of movie it was.
ReplyThe trailer for the Rise of the Planet of the Apes was so bad that it looked like complete s**t and I had no desire to see the movie. Then I was dragged to see it and loved it. Their promo team should be flogged.
ReplyI can't speak for Planet of the Apes, but I had the exact same reaction when I first saw the trailer for Shaun of the Dead. I thought it was going to be a crappy comedy along the lines of the execrable Meet the Spartans, when instead I saw the best romantic-comedy with zombies ever.