I know there used to be a lot of low-budget straight to video trailers that spoon fed you the entire plot, but the most memorable I can think of was for some piece of trash called In Gold We Trust.
Never had any interest in seeing the movie, but the interminable video trailer that spelt out every little detail of the plot (including a voiceover to describe the ending) made me feel like I already had.
YouTube only has this - not the same trailer I saw, but at least you can see how bad the movie looks
Same here. It made me sad that the scene was cut. The quick shot of the alien saying “We just want to go home.” turned me on to the movie. It showed the movie wasn’t going to be another “Aliens visit Earth and we go to war.” movie that’s been done a million times.
The trailer (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUw2zNR5Dzc) AND the regularly played commercial for fantastic horror movie from last year, Quarantine, featured the last climactic moments of the movie. Admittedly the journey to that moment was a good one, but knowing how it ends from seeing it advertised was a huge turnoff.
Given that it was based on a true story and the guy who was stranded was all over the place promoting it, I figured he survivied. The question was whether his wife/girlfriedn waited for him.
The winner in this category is Regarding Henry, the 1991 movie starring Harrison Ford. The trailer is, literally, a condensed summary of the entire plot.
Actually, with Cast Away, the title alone gives away the whole plot. The point of the movie is that he was ‘cast away’ by his friends and family back home who had written him off as dead and moved on. That is why the title is two words instead of the commpound word “castaway”.
Most of the trailers ruin the movie as they always show the best scenes at the best part. No surprises in that movie now. only the mundane parts are left unseen.
This goes for the stuff they show before the movie plays on DVDs too.
I watched the trailer for The Princess Bride on the DVD and seriously, the guy who cut the trailer needs to be flogged. It gives away so much for no reason. And it’s terrible. Arrgh!
The long trailer for “Avatar” I just saw on television pretty much tells the whole story. The only thing missing is, who wins the climatic battle? The evil soldiers or the kindly blue people? Being a mass-marketed American movie, my money’s on the kindly blue people.
Yep, I forgot about this one. I really hope there’s more to the plot than evil humans want to exploit found planet for it’s resources, having problems because indigenous peeps are resisting, evil humans turn one of their own into one of the peeps to infiltrate, plan backfires as “the avatar” sides with the indigenous peeps and even falls in love with one of them, final battle ensues.
There must be some market research somewhere that supports the idea that people are more likely to go see a movie if they think they already know the whole story. Look at trailers for old movies. They weren’t mini-versions of the film, start to finish, like we often see today.
I’m surprised the “Avatar” trailer doesn’t start with the, “In a world…” voiceover. I guess maybe they’ve retired that since the guy who always read it died.
Yeah, this isn’t a modern phenomenom. AMC shows old movie trailers and I saw the one for “Escape from the Planet of the Apes”… it basically said “And then this happens… and then this happens… and then finally… this happens.”
Also, not a trailer, but I’ll vent about this here:
When the remade Planet of the Apes movie came out, someone re-released the DVD of the original film with a picture of the ruined Statue of Liberty on the box!
I mean, I know its an old movie and most people know the ending, but still. Mind as well put the Skywalker family tree on the cover of Empire Strikes Back.
No it wasn’t. What are you talking about?