The State Of Today's Movie Trailers
I had an epiphany about the way our nerd culture works these days ... We are similar to kids who love to rummage through their parents closets before Christmas to find presents.
With just a week to go until my midnight release of "The Dark Knight Rises," I find myself in a conflict of the ages: The never-ending fight against the nefarious spoiler. Typically, summer blockbusters are the cash cows of the movie industry, but it's getting to a point where movie marketing is batardizing the work of a film. Allow me to explain beginning with this video....
That was the trailer to the Liam Neeson 'Taken' meets 'Call of the Wild' film, "The Grey." By the way it's marketed, Liam Neeson is going to go CIA on those mother-flipping wolves to defend his fellow plane-crash comrades who are caught in the same terrible elements that he is. Now, fast-forward two hours later after watching the film, and you'll immediately start to yell at the screen during the credits, "Where's my frickin Wolf-Punching?!?!"
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| These tools only have a 5 second use to them |
If you haven't watched "The Grey," and don't mind me spoiling a few things (this movie came out months ago, seriously, get on it) -- you'll notice a very different film than what was marketed to you, and that's not a knock on the film. After my initial uproar over what had just happened, I settled down for about 10 minutes, and reflected on the film itself, rather than the marketed garbage that was put on TV and the Internet. Sure, I found a movie that was about a group of plane-crash survivors trying to avoid being turned into wolf-shit on the Alaskan mountains, but if you dig a little deeper, you'll find a very well-acted, thematic film, that touches upon a very core fear many men face: Do you have the will to live when pitted against sure-death? Suffice to say, this film isn't an action fest featuring Liam Neeson ripping the jugulars out of the four-legged beasts, but is instead about how a man at the end of his rope copes with the realization that he wants to live. It's a fantastic film on its own merit, but many people scolded it because of the marketing...and this is what really got me thinking.
I started to analyze the way film's are marketed to us. In the case of "The Grey," audiences were duped into thinking they were going to watch a feral slugfest between Neeson and CGI wolves. WRONG! Many people left the film unhappy, when it was (in my opinion) a very powerful film dealing with the way men deal with their mortality. The point is, Hollywood falsely marketed the film from what it really was. You can't deny it. They show Neeson running up to the wolf, with his cracked mini-vodka bottles taped to his hand like he's a 6'5" Wolverine, and you're expecting to see an epic battle. But it was not to be. And that's not a fault of the film, but rather, the marketing. It led you to believe this was an action set-piece just so they could get your ass into the movie-theater. I understand the need to fill the lines at the box office, but there needs to be a sense of trust between movie-goers and Hollywood. I had the same reaction so many other people had to the film: pissed off that I didn't get my wolf-punching ... but since I'm the type of person who loves to reflect on film I just watched, I was able to come away with the bigger picture and ended up enjoying it. I can't tell you how many people I know who will simply brush off a movie because their initial reaction was simply "it sucked."
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| Hollywood insists on ruining what will surely be a surprise performance by Tom Hardy as Bane |
This leads me to my next point. Hollywood marketing is becoming way too invasive and revealing. Gone are the days where you would watch the trailer, get a taste for what's to come, and wait until the film is released. Instead, we now have four 2-minute trailers, five TV Spots, a full 13-minute behind the scenes featurette, online publication 'set visits,' even entire prologue sequences being released. The only way I can personify the problem is that Hollywood is becoming that douchebag frat guy who is inviting you to the party of the century, but he bombards you with daily, unnecessary, facebook updates.
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| Wanna know how I got these scars? Watching too many trailers |
Going back to my battle now with "The Dark Knight Rises." Ask anyone and they will attest to you how flippin' excited I am about this movie. The Chris Nolan Batman reboot has been astonishing for the past 7 years, and I'll be sad to see it all end on July 20th. However, I ran into a pitfall in my excitement for Nolan's 2nd Bat-outing, "The Dark Knight." There was similar hype to that film, and with it, came the endless churning of new trailers, clips, featurettes, and hell, even the release of an entire 5-minute prologue sequence that featured a tense bank-robbery sequence (which clearly pays homage to Al Pacino's "Heat") revealing Heath Ledger as the Joker. I naively watched all of these things before the film. Unfortunately, I feel it had a negative effect on my movie-watching experience because I don't think I enjoyed "The Dark Knight" as much as I could have....
That's not to say I didn't love the movie. The point is, being inundated with clips, trailers, previews, featurettes, TV Spots, and so on and so forth allows your audience to piece together the major story beats of your film. Here's what I mean (using Dark Knight as an example). Almost everyone watched the Bank-heist prologue...great stuff. Then, watching the trailers, you can start to see the semblance of plot points. Joker says stuff like "Evening Commissioner" so you know Gordon becomes Commissioner somehow. Worse yet, they spoiled his iconic line of "Why So Serious?" Then, if you're someone like me, you start reading the online articles interviewing cast and crew of the film, and they start to talk about the direction, their stunts, and so forth. By the time you get to the TV Spots, you've pretty much got a good chunk of the movie ruined for you. Not to mention as you're in the process of watching your film, you'll have that moment where you say "Oh wait, that part from the trailers hasn't come up yet."
The point of that rant is ... why spoil the fun? Just enjoy the anticipation and go along for the ride. I know that's what happened to me when I watched "Batman Begins" way back in 2005. I maybe only watched the main 3 trailers, and because of that, I was able to overlook some of the film's major shortcomings. (I'm looking at you Katie Holmes and unnecessary Batman horse-voice)
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| Hulk is actually whispering in Iron-Man's ear |
Of course, this marketing fiasco isn't just happening with select films. I'm sure by now you've all seen "Avengers." If you re-watch the trailers, you'll notice clips that didn't even make it into the final cut of the film, or didn't play out the way they were advertised. (Look at the part with RDJ telling Cap "Genius, Billionaire, Playboy, Philanthropist" and it plays out differently) There's also a point in the trailers that spoils how the Hulk saves a free-falling Iron-Man, when in the movie, it was meant to play out as an emotional climax to the New York City battle. As I watched it I knew Hulk was going to save him because I saw it in the trailers.
Perhaps even a bigger crime was committed with movie trailers in recent days. I just watched the trailer to the new Judge Dredd movie and while it looks interesting, it looks like they gave away a major plot point with the possible killing of the film's alleged central-villain. See below for yourself...
Hollywood needs to stop harassing audiences to watch their movies. Advertisement is necessary, but you don't want to over-saturate us with your product to the point we're sick of it. Also, can we PLEASE stop revealing major plot points and action set pieces. If we can't come to a compromise, then I'll need to continue adopting my simple method of preparing for a film. Watch the film's official teaser trailer ... and THAT'S IT! Avoid online articles, turn your head when you see a TV spot, and flip the bird to any online trolls who want to spoil the film to you, which may or may not include clips of the film.
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| You just got trolled America |
