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July 20, 2018 12:17 AM   Subscribe

 
I thought trailers were ads for movies. Isn't it some sort of false advertising to have stuff in trailers that isn't in the movie?
posted by pracowity at 12:53 AM on July 20, 2018


obligatory
posted by DreamerFi at 1:12 AM on July 20, 2018 [13 favorites]


I LOVE trailers. I insist on getting to the cinema on time to make sure I don't miss any of them. Every few months on a lazy Saturday morning I open up the Apple Trailers app and just binge watch a bunch of them.

Trailers also let me get a taste of movies I would probably never see in the theater. For example, I very rarely see horror films but I'm totally up for watching a trailer for one. And then I'll look up spoilers for it and I feel like I've watched the whole movie.

One thing I miss about watching movies in the cinema in America is the audience vocally reacting to trailers. It's fun to hear gasps and claps and whoots for big films like Harry Potter and Star Wars. You can almost feel the excitement and love in the room. And it's just as fun to join in on jeers and boos for obvious clunkers like the Emoji Movie. I find it makes the cinema going experience a real shared event with strangers. Unfortunately, UK viewers are much too polite to make any sort of noise.
posted by like_neon at 2:23 AM on July 20, 2018 [11 favorites]


Watching a set of six or so trailers in a theater can be so numbing when they all look and sound so much alike. By the third or forth you're not even paying attention to what movie their advertising and just thinking about how this trailer that you're watching is hitting the exact same beats at the exact same time as the last two you were forced to watch.
posted by octothorpe at 5:01 AM on July 20, 2018 [1 favorite]


Do you still have trailers at the movies? Every time I've been to the cinema for a while there've just been ads, with maybe a "featurette" (i.e. the lead actors doing content-free wittering) about some upcoming film that I really don't want to see. I watch trailers on YouTube, these days. As, I assume, does everyone else.
posted by Grangousier at 5:12 AM on July 20, 2018


The only problem being that you end up watching an ad just to earn the pleasure of watching an ad for a product you may or may not turn out to be interested in.
posted by biffa at 5:20 AM on July 20, 2018


Do you still have trailers at the movies?

Usually almost 20 minutes of them. We've switched to only buying reserved seats ahead of time now so we can pop in halfway through the trailers and know that we're not missing anything and still have good seats.
posted by octothorpe at 5:32 AM on July 20, 2018 [2 favorites]


That point in the trailer where you’re maybe interested in the film but it’s gone on a bit long and it seems to be telling you the entire plot.
posted by Artw at 7:25 AM on July 20, 2018 [11 favorites]


Before the scheduled movie start time: local ads, Air Force or Army ads, garbage news/features about pop stars and Hollywood, etc.

At the scheduled movie start time: a blurb promoting the theater you're already in, a Coke ad (probably), trailers, a Chevy ad (usually), and then the movie about 15-20 minutes after the scheduled start time.
posted by Foosnark at 7:28 AM on July 20, 2018 [2 favorites]


When I saw Star Wars last Christmas I swear I saw the same turkey being pulled out of an oven three times in the ads before... Don't mind trailers at the cinema but the ads seem to be real crappy nowadays.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 7:36 AM on July 20, 2018


There is a weekly tv show called "Nothing but Trailers" on a station called AXE (maybe?). It's been on close to 10 years.
posted by The_Vegetables at 7:43 AM on July 20, 2018


We went and saw Solo when it came out, and I remember the string of trailers before the movie. I typically like the trailers, especially on new releases, but all I remember on these trailers is that it was just a 20 minute stream of explosions, car chases, and guns blazing. I can be all about a good action movie... I don't know, I just found it not interesting. Feels like the whole "Hollywood is out of ideas" thing. Which is ironic coming from someone who went to see Solo of all things.
posted by azpenguin at 8:03 AM on July 20, 2018


This video seemed to subtly hint that movie trailers are made by an industry full of hacks, except for this one original guy who actually cares about coming up with new and interesting stuff.
posted by fremen at 8:06 AM on July 20, 2018


The only reason I can't stop watching trailers is because I might miss the beginning of the movie if I walk out or you insist on playing it through the end before I can skip it on Youtube. I do not like trailers and I do not think I am alone.
posted by Pembquist at 8:27 AM on July 20, 2018


fremen: "This video seemed to subtly hint that movie trailers are made by an industry full of hacks, except for this one original guy who actually cares about coming up with new and interesting stuff."

It seems like a new idea comes up every few years and then everyone else copies it until you're sick to death of it.
posted by octothorpe at 8:53 AM on July 20, 2018 [1 favorite]


I’ve been going to the smaller indie theaters that do 2nd runs (and a few of the ones that do 1st runs) and I don’t remember them showing many trailers. However, we went and saw Solo at a big theater (sidebar: holy shit movies are expensive it was basically $40 for my girlfriend and I and then a drink and popcorn on top of that was like an additional $15! I’m way too spoiled hitting up the indie theaters and getting a soda for $2 and a slice of pizza for $2, and then if they are almost out of pizza getting slices for $1. Also pitchers of beer for like $9) and we were running 10 minutes late. We weren’t worried because we figured there would be trailers and...apparently there weren’t any trailers, they were 10 minutes into the movie. It was super strange.
posted by gucci mane at 9:11 AM on July 20, 2018


If I could re-do my career I'd probably get into video editing and make trailers. And music videos (though they are not the big thing they used to be unless you're Beyonce). There's definitely some hackery there, but also some genius in the ways they use editing and sound to manipulate you and I just find it super interesting.
posted by emjaybee at 9:27 AM on July 20, 2018


Interesting bracket for the best trailer since 1990
posted by cashlock at 9:37 AM on July 20, 2018 [1 favorite]


I thought trailers were ads for movies. Isn't it some sort of false advertising to have stuff in trailers that isn't in the movie?

The trailers are made long before the films are edited so there's no way for the them to know what's going to be in the final cut.
posted by octothorpe at 9:38 AM on July 20, 2018 [1 favorite]


That point in the trailer where you’re maybe interested in the film but it’s gone on a bit long and it seems to be telling you the entire plot.

... being that point where I make a mental note, "good, another movie I don't need to see."
posted by philip-random at 9:53 AM on July 20, 2018


Isn't it some sort of false advertising to have stuff in trailers that isn't in the movie?

The first time I heard the pumped up remix of Clint Mansell's Lux Aeterna was via a trailer for the second Lord of the Rings movie The Two Towers, a movie in which it did not appear. In fact, it was originally composed for Requiem for a Dream, but the version used there was more muted as I recall.

Now, of course, it seems to be everywhere. Pop just keeps on Eating Itself.
posted by philip-random at 10:07 AM on July 20, 2018 [2 favorites]


I very rarely see horror films but I'm totally up for watching a trailer for one. And then I'll look up spoilers for it and I feel like I've watched the whole movie.

My people. I have found you!

(I still have to watch the trailer through my fingers though)
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 10:17 AM on July 20, 2018


I just want someone to explain to me why they're called 'trailers' when they come before the movie.
posted by Atom Eyes at 10:31 AM on July 20, 2018


They were originally after the film.
posted by octothorpe at 10:34 AM on July 20, 2018 [2 favorites]


A-HAH! So these are the unimaginative bastards responsible for the bullshit circle jerk that trailers have become! Death to them all!

Everything they said - the rising voices, the BWAAAAAHHH, the bass drop, etc. has had all impact sucked from it in the typical American fashion (that is: find A Really Good Idea and keep doing the Idea [or the joke or the concept etc.] over and over and over So. Many. Times. that you're left with a corpse of what it used to be).
posted by Zack_Replica at 10:38 AM on July 20, 2018 [2 favorites]


so these are the unimaginative bastards responsible for the bullshit circle jerk that trailers have become! Death to them all!

yeah, these are smug annoying, ultimately doltish people. I suppose you can liken it all to porn where most of the foreplay is skipped, most of the orgasms aren't. Fun for a while. But pretty much all wrong in the end.
posted by philip-random at 11:40 AM on July 20, 2018 [2 favorites]


The thing I used to hate most about trailers was the 'cram the entire movie arc into the trailer' aspect that was spoiler filled.

Now I hate the micro-trailer, for the trailer, jammed at the front end of the trailer; as it seems to point to our increasing inability to focus as a society.

As an antidote here's my favorite trailer.
posted by CheapB at 11:43 AM on July 20, 2018 [3 favorites]


At the risk of being that guy -- I stopped watching trailers almost entirely a few years ago and I feel like it has really enhanced my movie-watching experience. At first it was just avoiding trailers for movies that are easily spoiled, for example Triangle (2009) is a lot of fun to go into totally cold and the trailer basically ruins it. (Even the poster has spoilers.) But for almost any movie, the key story beats and some of the best scenes end up in the trailer, and I feel like watching them in advance takes away from the enjoyment I would have in watching the movie itself. At worst they lay out the entire plot and telegraph anything that would otherwise be a pleasant surprise; at best they give me a mental checklist of things to expect and I'll be unable to watch the final film without mentally ticking them off as I go.

tl;dr - if you love movies, consider skipping trailers. Just try it with a few, and if you enjoy the movies more, boom, now you've increased your movie enjoyment by 10% with this One Weird Trick and saved yourself a few minutes on YouTube to boot.
posted by Two unicycles and some duct tape at 12:23 PM on July 20, 2018 [1 favorite]


It's hard to skip them totally without risking missing the beginning of movies.
posted by octothorpe at 12:51 PM on July 20, 2018 [1 favorite]


One very specific request I have is for trailers on DVD or Bluray is I wish they would show the title of the movie at the start. So then, if it's actually something I haven't heard of but it looks interesting, I could decide part way through, "I'm convinced, I'm going to watch that," and skip the remainder. As long as they insist on only putting the title at the end, then I'm placed in the dilemma of spoiling it for me or never learning the name of the movie.
posted by RobotHero at 1:07 PM on July 20, 2018


As an antidote here's my favorite trailer

mine

... and previously.
posted by philip-random at 1:15 PM on July 20, 2018 [1 favorite]


I've been saying for a while that, generally speaking, movies seem to exist these days only to be trailers. As if once the film is released, the hype is over or at least drastically reduced.
posted by Liquidwolf at 1:18 PM on July 20, 2018


As an antidote here's my favorite trailer

mine


Now THAT'S a trailer!
posted by Liquidwolf at 1:24 PM on July 20, 2018


I only watch trailers for movies I don't want to see, kinda like reading the CliffsNotes, and I purposely avoid having my chosen movie experiences spoiled by the industry's own marketing.

Now that I can reserve seats at many theaters I don't even have to show up early and be forced to sit through trailers with my eyes closed and my fingers in my ears.
posted by Revvy at 1:32 PM on July 20, 2018


I stopped seeking out trailers a few years ago. I'm not very spoiler sensitive, but I hate when a good joke is ruined. And...the jokes are always ruined, because the Marvel-ization of our movie-going experience means that Hollywood thinks every movie has to prove it will have comic relief before it hits theaters. When there's about three jokes in a movie, and you've just seen the punchline for two of them in a TV ad six hours earlier, it can be deflating.
posted by grandiloquiet at 9:37 AM on July 21, 2018


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