What happened to movie trailers?

[Ultron-5]

Movie trailers nowadays are all the same! Dark and gritty, the music always sounds similar, and they show too much! Now there's trailers for trailers. Will trailers ever go back to what they were before? Teasing you and keeping things a secret instead of giving away the majority of the plot!

 

[MadVillainy]

It's whatever. I say just don't watch them.
I just made a rule for myself that if Im really looking forward to the movie, then I'll only watch the 1st maybe 2nd trailer.
I used to watch all the trailers but then just not watch TV spots, but Im switching it up

I went into Interstellar barely knowing the plot, barely knowing the settings, and even forgetting certain actors were in the movie and I loved that. I tried with Inception and it didnt work out.

And there are still some great trailers released nowadays. The one for American Sniper is extremely good

 

[Greens]

Trailers have been spoiling entire plots since the dawn of motion pictures. Hell, they used to be a lot worse.

 

[Lord]

Yeah, trailers are just getting more exciting, though nowaday they're getting way too flashy, and that also has to do with the films getting "bigger" with action and explosions. The problem is that the more these trailers do this, the less people will be accostumed or have patience for slower trailers.

Trailers themselves are becoming an art, i think a good trailer should be apreciated, though i also find teasers for full trailers to be ridiculous.

 

[MrMaooz]

Trailers back then spoiled a lot of s***. Go watch them. Trailers have been spoiling things for a while.

 

[Octoberist]

Yes, MrMaooz is right. Watch any retro trailer, and wow, they give almost everything away. So it's nothing new.

I think what I'm tired is, the same style of editing that current trailers go by - the same tempo, the same beats.

 

[Quasimod0]

I just recently watched a retro Star Wars trailer, and it pretty much gave the whole movie away.

 

[jmc]

They are all pretty much interchangeable these days.

 

[Visualiza]

Movie trailers nowadays are all the same! Dark and gritty, the music always sounds similar, and they show too much! Now there's trailers for trailers. Will trailers ever go back to what they were before? Teasing you and keeping things a secret instead of giving away the majority of the plot!

Eh...spoilers don't bother me at all, and most of the stuff that's revealed in trailers is kinda necessary to let you know what you're getting into anyway. How can a studio sell you on a movie without certain details to hook you? I guess I'm the outlier; I'd rather not go in completely blind, although I will do so for movies recommended by friends, colleagues, and family.

The only thing I really object to these days is what's in bold. That is some exceedingly obnoxious bullcrap. On another note, I don't really subscribe to the "everything was always better back in the day" shtick. It's usually overstated, or flat out untrue. Some things were better then, some things are better now.

Viral marketing is pretty cool though, when done well.

 

[R_Hythlodeus]

they found a formula that worked and most stick to that

 

[Black Narcissus]

I give Nolan credit for his trailers.

 

[Heretic]

I definitely think that BRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHMMMMM

 

[Broseph44]

Here's the bottom line. Don't watch trailers anymore if they bother you so much hahaha. That way you won't be spoiled or anything. Just leave it be when a trailer comes out. And if you're in the theater during the trailers go buy your snacks. Problem solved. What a thread.

 

[Heretic]

Here's the bottom line. Don't watch trailers anymore if they bother you so much hahaha. That way you won't be spoiled or anything. Just leave it be when a trailer comes out. And if you're in the theater during the trailers go buy your snacks. Problem solved. What a thread.

I actually have kind of taken this advice! I get so frustrated after watching a trailer and realizing that I now know the entire film, 6 months before its released, that I now watch the initial teaser trailer and then nothing else after that (unless I'm sitting in a theater and the trailer is run). It still isn't perfect...I think that the Age of Ultron teaser should not have shown a single frame of the actual fight between Hulk and Hulkbuster...make me pay to see that...but the less I see the better.

 

[DarkKnight88]

You think trailers are bad now with giving everything away, go check out some from the 70s and 80s. Much worse. I don't know what world you thought trailer showed less before?

For me, trailers are their own art form. Really good ones are sometimes better than the movie itself. I love collecting and watching trailers even after the movie is released. It's a blast from the past and are fascinating in themselves.

 

[Guts]

Movie trailers today show less than the ones that were made years ago.
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[Broseph44]

Thread fail.

 

[Heretic]

The thing is...all of us were younger in the past (goes without saying) so when I was a kid, the Star Wars trailer or whatever wouldn't have sunk into my brain the way it would now. Kids today probably dont notice it either.

Also...as a kid I couldnt afford to go to the movies very often and there was no internet...so I wasn't exposed to trailers nearly as much as I am today.

 

[CFE]

A lot of people have already made note of it but yeah, trailers today actually feel quite modest compared to what they used to be.

The think to keep in mind with a trailer is that it's in essence a promotional/sizzle reel for the film. Though it might establish plot points, trust in the fact that there's no way you actually have the full context of the film. So often, they'll splice lines of dialog together or put dialog from one scene in a voice over on top of a completely different scene.

Context is only fully gained with the film itself.

But yeah, older trailers were far more liberal. Check out the original trailer for John Carpenter's "Halloween" for an excellent example.

 

[Heretic]

My go-to example is Riddick.

Riddick is stranded on a planet, struggling to survive.
Mercenaries show up to capture him.
He kills some of them, but gets captured.
A monstrous threat shows up that the mercenaries are not prepared for, so they set Riddick free.
Riddick is able to fight the new threat in the dark.

Not shown in the trailer, but it can be assumed that more of the mercenaries are killed to up the body count, and Riddick survives since his name is in the title of the franchise.

The End.

I am now ready to watch the next Riddick film without ever bothering to watch the one described in the trailer.