7 ms·

One more reason never to watch any trailers

by yread 4y ago

jjbinx007 4y ago
I now NEVER watch any trailers at all. I watched Terminator Genisys and while it wasn't a brilliant movie I did gasp a little at the reveal part way through the movie. I asked my brother what his reaction was and he said he already knew going in as the trailer had revealed it. I don't get the point of trailers any more. Most of them just show you the whole movie in 2 minutes. Saying that, probably the best trailer of recent times was for one of the Godzilla films, which actually gave away very little and just gave you enough of a vibe to make you want to watch it.
- toast0 4y ago
  Yeah, the Genisys trailer was pretty bad. The twist was pretty predictable, but I rember watching the trailer and thinking oh, [the reveal], and then they showed the reveal and I was like ... well, I guess I don't need to watch that. Although, I didn't remember that that was inline with the franchise trailer history. I think the most deceptive trailer ever was for The Fountain. You see the trailer and think oh, here's some cool stuff, but it's kind of disjointed, but it's a trailer; but then you watch the movie and it's just as disjointed.
  - TeMPOraL 4y ago
    I took my then-girlfriend to cinema for Prometheus, convinced by the "TED 2023" trailer that it's going to be a nice transhumanist sci-fi. I didn't lose the girfriend that day, but I did lose my sci-fi cred - the name of the speaker in that trailer, Peter Weyland, should have rung a bell. (For those who, like me then, don't know the reference - that's Weyland as in Weyland-Yutani, the evil megacorp that sent the ill-fated crew of the Nostromo to their deaths in the movie Alien. Yes, Prometheus turned out to be an Alien prequel.)
t-writescode 4y ago
About 15 years ago, my family watched a movie without seeing the trailers. Then, we happened to see the trailers, and the trailer revealed *the* major plot twist in the movie (it was a thriller). We all loudly agreed that we were grateful we didn't see the trailer. As a result, for any movie that I really care about watching, I now actively avoid almost all trailers. YouTube and TikTok make avoiding spoilers quite difficult, though. Thankfully, some movies have started to recognize the importance of hiding details, and don't reveal everything in the trailers anymore. Specific examples include Marvel changing the contents of the scenes to hide important details, like which Infinity Stones Thanos had at a given point.
- delecti 4y ago
  In addition to Marvel, the last decade of Star Wars movies applies too. The trailers feel like they're spoiling things, but then you watch the movie and realize they're only showing things from the first ~1/3 of the movie, or entirely removed from context. I try to avoid trailers these days, but I've never regretted watching too many Marvel or Star Wars trailers.
  - Retric 4y ago
    I do appreciate the effort, but Big reveals reframe the films narrative in some important way. The recent Marvel and Star Wars films have been such a mess they didn’t have much to hide this way. Ray’s family doesn’t really matter narratively, while Luke’s father killing / becoming Darth Vader shifts it away from a story of revenge. Contact is a great example of how subtle this can be with static on the recording vs hours of static on the recording.
    - ghaff 4y ago
      >Luke’s father killing / becoming Darth Vader shifts it away from a story of revenge At the risk of dating myself, when Empire came out the question of whether Darth Vader was telling the truth was a matter of considerable debate. That summer, at one point, someone at the AI Lab printed out the discussion (from rec.arts.sf-lovers) on the lab's doubtless hugely expensive laser printer and bound it. I was just reminded up this because a memory popped up on my Facebook feed about totally confusing one of my editors because I apparently made some reference to this in something I wrote and she had never known this was a topic of debate.
cloudking 4y ago
So true. Good trailers should reveal very little about the movie, but give you enough to get you interested.
tiborsaas 4y ago
I'm with you, the Prometheus trailed spoiled the whole movie by revealing a major action from the last 5 minutes of the movie, I was so angry. On the other hand, there's a hilarious counter example where Alfred Hitchcock "spoils" the whole movie in a 6 minute trailer and I would still want to see the whole movie. It would be awesome to see trailers like this for a recent movie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTJQfFQ40lI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTJQfFQ40lI
- TeMPOraL 4y ago
  > the Prometheus trailed spoiled the whole movie by revealing a major action from the last 5 minutes of the movie Which one? If we're talking about the same trailer (TED 2023), it spoiled nothing for me, leading to a rather awkward cinema date. More details elsewhere in the thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34315367 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34315367.
  - tiborsaas 4y ago
    Good for you, and cool story :) That TED viral clip was awesome, indeed not a spoiler. I referred to the cinematic trailer.
AtlasBarfed 4y ago
There's been lots of trailers where I wondered"huh, maybe the plot will be X or Y, but the actual movie was seemingly more boring. Of course I forget my unassailably genius alternative plot by the time I leave the theater. But I always thought it would be fun to get plot projections from smart / creatives from trailers. The phantom menace trailer in particular. Man that could have been a great movie. What if the pod racer was for navigating a dangerous raider filled section of tattooine rather than the dumpster fire race. The phantom menace has all the elements of the first John Carter film plot (yes I know that series underpins most of star wars anyway), but if the phantom menace was some pulp film where the crash landed Jedi had to make their way through a dangerous unfamiliar land while rallying forces to t heir side and encountering Anakin along the way...

One more reason never to watch any trailers

by yread 4y ago

One more reason never to watch any trailers

I now NEVER watch any trailers at all. I watched Terminator Genisys and while it wasn't a brilliant movie I did gasp a little at the reveal part way through the movie. I asked my brother what his reaction was and he said he already knew going in as the trailer had revealed it. I don't get the point of trailers any more. Most of them just show you the whole movie in 2 minutes. Saying that, probably the best trailer of recent times was for one of the Godzilla films, which actually gave away very little and just gave you enough of a vibe to make you want to watch it.

toast0 4y ago
Yeah, the Genisys trailer was pretty bad. The twist was pretty predictable, but I rember watching the trailer and thinking oh, [the reveal], and then they showed the reveal and I was like ... well, I guess I don't need to watch that. Although, I didn't remember that that was inline with the franchise trailer history. I think the most deceptive trailer ever was for The Fountain. You see the trailer and think oh, here's some cool stuff, but it's kind of disjointed, but it's a trailer; but then you watch the movie and it's just as disjointed.
- TeMPOraL 4y ago
  I took my then-girlfriend to cinema for Prometheus, convinced by the "TED 2023" trailer that it's going to be a nice transhumanist sci-fi. I didn't lose the girfriend that day, but I did lose my sci-fi cred - the name of the speaker in that trailer, Peter Weyland, should have rung a bell. (For those who, like me then, don't know the reference - that's Weyland as in Weyland-Yutani, the evil megacorp that sent the ill-fated crew of the Nostromo to their deaths in the movie Alien. Yes, Prometheus turned out to be an Alien prequel.)

t-writescode 4y ago

About 15 years ago, my family watched a movie without seeing the trailers. Then, we happened to see the trailers, and the trailer revealed *the* major plot twist in the movie (it was a thriller). We all loudly agreed that we were grateful we didn't see the trailer. As a result, for any movie that I really care about watching, I now actively avoid almost all trailers. YouTube and TikTok make avoiding spoilers quite difficult, though. Thankfully, some movies have started to recognize the importance of hiding details, and don't reveal everything in the trailers anymore. Specific examples include Marvel changing the contents of the scenes to hide important details, like which Infinity Stones Thanos had at a given point.

delecti 4y ago
In addition to Marvel, the last decade of Star Wars movies applies too. The trailers feel like they're spoiling things, but then you watch the movie and realize they're only showing things from the first ~1/3 of the movie, or entirely removed from context. I try to avoid trailers these days, but I've never regretted watching too many Marvel or Star Wars trailers.
- Retric 4y ago
  I do appreciate the effort, but Big reveals reframe the films narrative in some important way. The recent Marvel and Star Wars films have been such a mess they didn’t have much to hide this way. Ray’s family doesn’t really matter narratively, while Luke’s father killing / becoming Darth Vader shifts it away from a story of revenge. Contact is a great example of how subtle this can be with static on the recording vs hours of static on the recording.
  - ghaff 4y ago
    >Luke’s father killing / becoming Darth Vader shifts it away from a story of revenge At the risk of dating myself, when Empire came out the question of whether Darth Vader was telling the truth was a matter of considerable debate. That summer, at one point, someone at the AI Lab printed out the discussion (from rec.arts.sf-lovers) on the lab's doubtless hugely expensive laser printer and bound it. I was just reminded up this because a memory popped up on my Facebook feed about totally confusing one of my editors because I apparently made some reference to this in something I wrote and she had never known this was a topic of debate.

cloudking 4y ago

So true. Good trailers should reveal very little about the movie, but give you enough to get you interested.

tiborsaas 4y ago

I'm with you, the Prometheus trailed spoiled the whole movie by revealing a major action from the last 5 minutes of the movie, I was so angry. On the other hand, there's a hilarious counter example where Alfred Hitchcock "spoils" the whole movie in a 6 minute trailer and I would still want to see the whole movie. It would be awesome to see trailers like this for a recent movie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTJQfFQ40lI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTJQfFQ40lI

TeMPOraL 4y ago
> the Prometheus trailed spoiled the whole movie by revealing a major action from the last 5 minutes of the movie Which one? If we're talking about the same trailer (TED 2023), it spoiled nothing for me, leading to a rather awkward cinema date. More details elsewhere in the thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34315367 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34315367.
- tiborsaas 4y ago
  Good for you, and cool story :) That TED viral clip was awesome, indeed not a spoiler. I referred to the cinematic trailer.

AtlasBarfed 4y ago

There's been lots of trailers where I wondered"huh, maybe the plot will be X or Y, but the actual movie was seemingly more boring. Of course I forget my unassailably genius alternative plot by the time I leave the theater. But I always thought it would be fun to get plot projections from smart / creatives from trailers. The phantom menace trailer in particular. Man that could have been a great movie. What if the pod racer was for navigating a dangerous raider filled section of tattooine rather than the dumpster fire race. The phantom menace has all the elements of the first John Carter film plot (yes I know that series underpins most of star wars anyway), but if the phantom menace was some pulp film where the crash landed Jedi had to make their way through a dangerous unfamiliar land while rallying forces to t heir side and encountering Anakin along the way...