This movie is not what I expected it to be

[TriPolar]

@Bijou_Drains

yes but he came to fame mostly based on his standup work and Mork and Mindy. And the only movie I saw him in prior to Dead Poets Society was Good Morning Vietnam. One of the funniest movies I have ever seen even now 32 years later.

I hope you learned your lesson after Dead Poets.

[Bijou_Drains]

I certainly expect the rest of his career to be dramatic roles.

[sps49sd]

@Alessan

Quentin Tarrantino’s* Inglorious Basterds*. Based on its advertising, I assumed it was an action movie about Jewish soldiers fighting Nazis. In fact, the movie had virtually no action, and the soldiers in question were almost incidental to the plot, constantly being sidelined in favor of non-Jewish characters.

I thought it was a remake of The Inglorious Bastards.

Nope.

[Just_Asking_Questions]

@Little_Nemo

Early Man: The trailers made it look like it was a comedy about cavemen (which it was) while trying to minimize the fact that it was also a sports movie. I think the issue was that the sport was soccer and the marketing people were afraid that this would turn away American viewers.

It did me.

Well, it wasn’t just the soccer. The trailer made it look stupid.

[xizor]

@Bijou_Drains

I saw no ads but I assumed it was a comedy because Williams was the star.

Even if you saw the trailer you would have thought it to be a comedy because that is how it was marketed.

[commasense]

@xizor

Dead Poets Society was advertised as a Robin Williams comedy, with the trailer showing the 5 funny lines Robin has in the whole movie. So I rented it expecting to laugh.
A great movie to be sure, but definitely not a comedy.

@Spoons

Robin Williams did a few such movies, where the first half was a side-splittingly funny comedy, and the second half was a drama, usually with a dark ending. In addition to Dead Poets Society, I think Good Morning Vietnam and Patch Adams fit this mold. As I recall, the trailers for those also showed the funny parts, and left out the sad drama.

@AlsoNamedBort

Same with *Jack. * Trailer: Robin Williams being silly playing a 10 year old. Actual movie: 10 year old coming to grips with the fact that he’s probably going to die in another 10 years.

@commasense

Here’s what I posted in a similar thread a few years ago (slightly edited):

The trailers for Bicentennial Man (1999) made it look like a stupid futuristic comedy with Robin Williams as a robot. I gave it a miss in theaters and it wasn’t until I saw it on cable years later that I realized it was based on an Isaac Asimov story* I had read*. I hadn’t made the connection to the title.

In fact, the film was a fairly accurate and thoughtful adaptation of the story, about the struggle of a robot to understand what being human means, and ultimately to become human. It was nicely written and acted, and the ending was quite moving.

But the moron marketing people positioned it as a comedy by excerpting just about the only 30 seconds of the film with any laughs. In so doing they drew in people looking for a comedy and undoubtedly disappointed most of them, since they probably weren’t expecting a 130-minute inquiry on human nature. At the same time, the marketing also kept away the Asimov fans and others interested in the serious theme of the film.

Thus, many of the people who saw the film didn’t like it, and many who would have liked it didn’t see it. Brilliant.

@Bijou_Drains

yes but he came to fame mostly based on his standup work and Mork and Mindy. And the only movie I saw him in prior to Dead Poets Society was Good Morning Vietnam. One of the funniest movies I have ever seen even now 32 years later.

@xizor

Even if you saw the trailer you would have thought it to be a comedy because that is how it was marketed.

Clearly Hollywood had a hard time marketing Robin Williams.

However, after watching the Dead Poets Society trailer, which IMHO does not misrepresent the film quite as much as xizor implies, I found the trailer for Bicentennial Man that I referenced above. I see that it, too, is more balanced and accurate in portraying the theme of the film than I remembered.

However, the pattern seems clear: for most of the serious films Williams made, the trailers highlighted virtually every laugh in the picture, trying to draw in fans of Mork and Mindy and his standup, even if the film wasn’t going to deliver on the promise of a Robin Williams comedy.

Good marketing or deception? (Or is that redundant?)

[dorvann]

I thought the 1999 film Wild Wild West was going to be about forty seven dead beats living in the back street; north, east, west, south, all in the same house; sitting in a back room, waiting for the big boom. Instead it was some crappy sci fi western starring Will Smith.

[Czarcasm]

@dorvann

I thought the 1999 film Wild Wild West was going to be about forty seven dead beats living in the back street; north, east, west, south, all in the same house; sitting in a back room, waiting for the big boom. Instead it was some crappy sci fi western starring Will Smith.

You were disappointed? The rest of us thought it would be about that TV series starring Robert Conrad and Ross Martin.

[Moriarty]

I saw “Riding In Cars With Boys”, starring Drew Barrymore, while dating a girl who wanted to see it. It sounded dumb, but turned out to be a really good movie about a woman surviving, and thriving, despite coming from a tough upbringing. Surprisingly good.

[Just_Asking_Questions]

@Czarcasm

You were disappointed? The rest of us thought it would be about that TV series starring Robert Conrad and Ross Martin.

Yea, that’s what I thought it was going to be about.

The worst day of torture I ever spent was 12 hours in an overcrowded emergency room with my mom and hundreds of complaining people, and Wild Fucking West was on the communal TV. We went outside with the smokers. It wasn’t as offensive.

[Dingbang]

Slumdog Millionaire

Everyone was talking about how great it was and the trailers looked fun. Wife and I rented it from Blockbuster thinking it would be a fun Bollywood-style romp about a guy who goes on a game show and gets rich.

Nope. The first part has little poor kids getting beaten and their eyes burned with hot spoons. Not at all what we’d bargained for, especially since we’d had our first kid recently and were in that phase where you are super sensitive to anything like that.

Turned it off after 15 minutes. Still my hallmark for “misleading movie promotions.”

[Biggirl]

Go.

Even after seeing some trailers I thought it was going to be a teen Rom-Com. It kinda sorta is but it’s really a teen Pulp Fiction.

[Tzigone]

Renaissance Man with Danny DiVito. Never saw a trailer, but it was listed in guide as a comedy. Still is on IMDB (comedy/drama). Not a comedy. I don’t recall any funny lines at all, but it has been a long time since I saw it. Didn’t agree with a character’s interpretation of Hamlet at the end, but I didn’t like Hamlet and may well have been misremembering parts about it when I watched movie. Movie was okay, if I recall correctly.

[elfkin477]

@TriPolar

Pan’s Labyrinth

It’s a very dark violent movie. It was presented as a fantastical story that despite an R rating seemed suitable for young children. I enjoyed it but I know several people who were disturbed by what they saw, not really the content itself, but the expecting a more upbeat feel good movie.

@clairobscur

I love Pan’s labyrinth. An excellent movie, dark indeed. I had to watch the trailer, to see if you could actually think it would be suitable for young children, and honestly I don’t think it gives this impression. Even though you could have expected something less dark from it, indeed. The name of the director, however, should have been a hint.

Yeah…having already been a fan of The Devil’s Backbone, it was almost exactly what I expected.

The Boy and Shut In’s trailers were misleading in the same way

they looked like haunted house movies. They are not haunted house movies

[Kent_Clark]

@CalMeacham

The movie that I saw that was most completely misrepresented was Arachnophobia. One trailer seemed to be composed entirely of John Goodman appearances, and gave the impression that this was a John Goodman comedy. In reality, he’s only in a very few scenes, and most of the movie has nothing to do with him. You could actually cut out his scenes and still have a coherent story.

I remember the exact scene when my wife got off the couch, turned off the VCR, and said “I’m not watching this anymore.”

[mbh]

Daddy’s Dyin’ . . . Who’s Got the Will? is allegedly a comedy-drama. Judge Reinhold appears prominently on the poster.

I remember lots of drama, but no comedy whatsoever. And Judge Reinhold’s character is a minor supporting role.
Mark of the Vampire is possibly the least-scary horror movie I have ever seen. And, in the end, they are not even real vampires.