Movie Trailers and Spoilers

[Cmndr J Crichton]

Why do movie trailer makers feel the need to spoil the whole movie? A recent trailer could be Iron Man 2, showing off some tech that should have not been shown in the trailer. We already are gonna see the movie. Iron Man 1 sold us on future sequels. What if they showed the Death Star explode in the original Star Wars trailer when the movie was new? Or showed Vader revealing his connection to Luke in Empire? Notice they still didn't show that in the Special Edition trailer.

I just watched Paranormal Activity. It was creepy good. Right up till I realized they blew a major revelation in the freakin' trailer. It somehow lost the impact it could have had on me if I wasn't shown that before I saw the movie. (I don't know how to do spoiler tag, so I won't ruin it for others who haven't seen it yet.)

What other movies had the ending, or some kind of surprise ruined for you because you saw a trailer? I did watch the teaser for Tron Legacy. That's all I wanna see till the movie comes out! I don't want to know what Flynn's role is in the movie, or any other character till December 17th.

 

[Aragorn]

The Star Trek III trailer showed the destruction of the Enterprise!

One director, Robert Zemeckis, actually compared going to the movies to going to McDonald's in that people wanted to know exactly what they're getting. Two of his movies, Cast Away and What Lies Beneath, gave away major spoilers and he was onboard with it!

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vm4Fw2QElA4[/yt]

The Office Space trailer showed where the third act was going.

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5AVUrUoROo[/yt]

Arlington Road had no suspense or surprises whatsoever (until the ending) because the trailer killed it all.

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F747WM_0-0o[/yt]

What didn't the Snake Eyes trailer give away?

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bWfTC3pBN0[/yt]

 

[Cmndr J Crichton]

Dude! What if they left Ford's true motives out of the trailers for What Lies Beneath? It would have been the ultimate shocker to learn who the real bad guy was. We don't even realize it till the last 10 minutes, but they still have to give it away in the trailer.

 

[RJCvanVeen]

One film which immediately came to mind when I saw the thread title: ‘The Island’. The trailer completely explained what the island was, why people were living there and what the purpose of Ewan McGregor’s and Scarlett Johansson’s characters was. It killed all my interest in the movie in about 2 minutes.

Personally, a trailer which kept the island covered in shadows would have worked much better: a ‘lottery’ determines which people are sent away to a mysterious island, from which no one ever returns. Why is that? What goes on there? Why do some people seem to fight going to the island and literally have to be dragged away? Why aren’t Ewan and Scarlett supposed to get romantically involved?

 

[Cmndr J Crichton]

Don't they blow the whole cloning secret in that trailer as well?

 

[Kirkman1987]

The Trailer For Shane shows Shane blasting all the main villians and then a few second later shows the final shot of him riding off with joey calling his name.

 

[T'Baio]

The Ransom trailer was terrible. You spend the first 45 minutes waiting for the act two climax where he offers the ransom up as a reward.

 

[melancholymecha]

Dude! What if they left Ford's true motives out of the trailers for What Lies Beneath? It would have been the ultimate shocker to learn who the real bad guy was. We don't even realize it till the last 10 minutes, but they still have to give it away in the trailer.

Im so glad I saw the movie at home & hadnt seen any of the trailers! the reveal totally blew me away!

btw somewhat related to the OP, I saw the oddest trailer while watching Alice in Wonderland on Imax today, it was for How to Train your Dragon, Dreamworks newest cgi film, & it featured NONE of the below:
toilet humor
pop music
pop culture jokes
celebrity voice name dropping

I was shocked! this is a Dreamworks film? it actually focused on the heartwarming moments, story & action! I had seen a previous trailer for it that was more a typical DW style yuckfest, & I was ready to write off the film as yet another typical Shrek-like hackwork but the trailer actually made me want to watch the film in theaters. It also helped that they didnt have the teen lead talking. Whoever they got for his voice, ugh!

of course now Im worried if the trailer might be misleading, & it actually is another Shrek-like hackwork!

 

[Nardpuncher]

I thought this was only a recent thing but yeah, I was watching the trailer for "Beneath The Planet of the Apes" and they basically give a rundown of the whole movie.

 

[RJCvanVeen]

Don't they blow the whole cloning secret in that trailer as well?

Exactly.

 

[Brikar99]

I thought the theatrical trailer for 'Avatar' was pretty much just a Cliffs Notes version of the movie (not that the movie itself wasn't entirely predictable anyway).

 

[Aragorn]

The only thing the Armored trailer is missing is how the hero will be picking off the bad guys one by one (actually, if you've seen the movie, three death scenes ARE in the trailer).

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMEDFFyIKmY[/yt]

The TV ads were worse, revealing one major plot point the bad guys use to gain leverage on the hero.

 

[RJCvanVeen]

One more example springs to mind: Duplicity. I saw the movie without any knowledge about its content. The trio of Julia Roberts, Clive Owen and writer-director Tony Gilroy lured me in. It was an incredibly nice film experience, with plot twists appearing all over the place and trying to keep track who was on whose side, etc.

Then, a few weeks later, I saw the trailer for the first time. It totally spoiled all the plot twists, told us straightforward what Julia's en Clive's plans were all along. Who would still want to see the movie after that trailer?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkx2vYNE9V0

 

[Aragorn]

The Italian Job remake trailer shows who dies at the beginning, who betrays the team, and the money shot for how the good guys get their loot back. And the funny thing is in the trailer Edward Norton talks about blowing the element of surprise!

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvj9vhA8ixY[/yt]

 

[Candlelight]

The trailer for Star Trek showed the destruction of Spock's Jellyfish ship smashing into Nero's vessel.

It also showed the three people skydiving to the platform but only two fighting on it. Kinda showed where Mr Redshirt was gonna go...

 

[The Evil Dead]

I'm at the point where if I've already made up my mind about a movie, I will not watch the trailer. I haven't seen the trailers for the Nightmare on Elm Street remake, Iron Man 2, Predators, Toy Story 3, Kick Ass and Inception cause well, I know I'm going to see them. I don't need to be sold on these movies and would like to avoid any money shots or plot twists being let out of the bag.

 

[Nardpuncher]

I'm at the point where if I've already made up my mind about a movie, I will not watch the trailer. I haven't seen the trailers for the Nightmare on Elm Street remake, Iron Man 2, Predators, Toy Story 3, Kick Ass and Inception cause well, I know I'm going to see them. I don't need to be sold on these movies and would like to avoid any money shots or plot twists being let out of the bag.

You sir, are stronger than I.
Seriously...I'm going to start doing this too.