Big in a New Light

December 1, 2005 11:29 PM

Remember that Shining trailer from a few weeks back? Now they've done it with Big. (embedded WMV)
posted by adrober (46 comments total)

Not nearly as good.
posted by kenko at 11:32 PM on December 1, 2005

Also: West Side Story and Titanic
posted by Robot Johnny at 11:34 PM on December 1, 2005

I've been searching for some form of a catharsis for my hatered of Big, this may be it.
posted by jeresig at 11:42 PM on December 1, 2005

WHERE IS MY SON?!?!

lol - thanks for the laughs
posted by redteam at 12:36 AM on December 2, 2005

Lovely, cheers.
posted by Rothko at 12:50 AM on December 2, 2005

There was always something disturbing about man/child Tom Hanks shouting "I get to be on top!"
posted by SassHat at 1:56 AM on December 2, 2005

it'sa pritee funneya. thatta tom hanks, he mayka mi laff.
posted by Hat Maui at 2:05 AM on December 2, 2005

Anybody have a link for a direct download? I can't watch embedded wmvs on this computer.
posted by sveskemus at 2:43 AM on December 2, 2005

Holy shit. That West Side Story trailer is genius. Fucking genius.
posted by psmealey at 4:07 AM on December 2, 2005

Can we stop linking to ebaumsworld?
posted by jimmy at 4:43 AM on December 2, 2005

Holy shit. That West Side Story trailer is genius. Fucking genius.

Agreed. It's very very smart - much better than the one for BIG.
posted by Dr. Wu at 5:01 AM on December 2, 2005

Just like Shining, except this one sucks. Is it really the same people?

Plus, yeah, ebaumsworld links should at least have a warning.
posted by TonyRobots at 5:18 AM on December 2, 2005

So I just IMed the Shining link to my co-worker, tagged with Genius! He watched it, then turned to me and said, "This looks alright I guess. It's a real movie right?"

I almost fell out of my chair. He's never seen The Shining.
posted by Witty at 5:24 AM on December 2, 2005

Looks like reconfigured trailers are the new Ha! Ha! Guy. Loved that West Side Story one, though.
posted by The Card Cheat at 5:50 AM on December 2, 2005

A scary trailer for "Titanic" isn't funny. That movie's supposed to be scary. Duh.
posted by fungible at 6:09 AM on December 2, 2005

re. West Side Story: That one breaks what I imagine to be the rules. Such short clips, barely any dialogue, and there are effects added to the original footage. Seems like cheating.
posted by Tubes at 6:15 AM on December 2, 2005

Witty, you know what needs to be done.
posted by RockCorpse at 6:17 AM on December 2, 2005

I'm with Tubes on this one. Shining was brilliant because it used actually creepy scenes overlaid with saccharine music and voice-over. Just running snippets with scary music doesn't strike me as terribly creative--it could be done by anyone for any movie with crowd/dark scenes. While the Big theme wasn't the most original interpretation of the movie, succeeded in using large amounts of the original movie but retold in a completely original way to distort the entire movie's meaning. If anything, it is even less dependent on voice-overs and music to remix the original into something very different.
posted by allan at 6:55 AM on December 2, 2005

jimmy writes "Can we stop linking to ebaumsworld?"

I have to second that motion...its lame that we have no way of finding out who actually did these videos and if there is a better quality version out there (ya know, one without the watermark and that didnt sound like it was recorded by someone walking in the rain talking through a cell phone). Whoever did this work deserves some recognition for something that took a good chunk of their time.
posted by gren at 7:55 AM on December 2, 2005

Credit where credit is due

And from BoingBoing a while back:

the three trailers that are flying around the net were made by three different assistant editors here. The Shining was done by Robert (whom I forwarded your email), West Side Story, me, tom colella, and the Titanic by Dustin Stephens. We posted them for friends and within two days we had almost 300,000 hits. Crazy. They were made for the AICE Trailer Park contest. In fact here's the disclaimer from all the attention we've been getting:
The AICE only intended the trailers to be viewed for a private audience. They had no intentions for internet audience to view them and PS 260 did not intend for these trailers to be made for promotional or monetary reasons. There you have it. Glad you enjoyed them."

posted by Robot Johnny at 8:01 AM on December 2, 2005

And this seems to be the company where the creator(s) work.
posted by Robot Johnny at 8:02 AM on December 2, 2005

Plus, yeah, ebaumsworld links should at least have a warning.

Maybe your Internets have this function.
posted by found missing at 8:02 AM on December 2, 2005

The West Side Story and Titanic ones are not quite up to snuff by comparison with Big and "Shining!".

I do love scrubbing up and down the tabs on the PS260 site navigation "notebook", though.... but then, I'm easily amused lately.
posted by lodurr at 8:16 AM on December 2, 2005

I thought the "Shining" trailer was okay. Kind of grows on you. "West Side Story" cheats too much. "Titanic" is...meh.

"Big" is brilliant, though. The key seems to be to COMPLETELY change the tone of the movie with a trailer. What I'd like to see is something like "Schindler's List" as a slapstick comedy.
posted by ColdChef at 8:20 AM on December 2, 2005

What I'd like to see is something like "Schindler's List" as a slapstick comedy.

Didn't Roberto Benigni already try that?
posted by Dipsomaniac at 8:22 AM on December 2, 2005

How about Charlie and the Chocolate Factory as an acid-fantasy? Oh, wait....
posted by lodurr at 8:30 AM on December 2, 2005

Romance of the Jedi?

Seriously does anybody know of a Quicktime 'Big', I can't view this link (I was able to watch Titanic and West Side though. Meh).
posted by dgaicun at 8:32 AM on December 2, 2005

In a similar vein, The Parent Trap.
posted by dgaicun at 8:39 AM on December 2, 2005

Ok, as you may have figured out with the last two links, serious diminishing returns for this genre of Internet entertainment. I found one for Eternal Sunshine, but its too shitty to deserve a link. Ganhi was several times shittier. The one for Cabin Fever by the West Side guy, isn't terrible but it ain't great.
posted by dgaicun at 9:00 AM on December 2, 2005

What I'd like to see is something like "Schindler's List" as a slapstick comedy.

Didn't Roberto Benigni already try that?

Ouch!
posted by SmileyChewtrain at 9:06 AM on December 2, 2005

Agreeing with all, this would have been much better without the theivin ebaum logo, but the angle of child abduction was very funny.

I laughed for weeks over (optimistic announcer's voice) "shining".
posted by Peter H at 9:31 AM on December 2, 2005

I also want to say, as a Something Awful goon, that there really needs to be a ban on posting anything that links to eBaum's World.

eBaum's World: The best of the uncredited Web that originally came from somewhere else.
posted by Mikey-San at 9:47 AM on December 2, 2005

Howbout just, "eBaum's World: A bunch of assholes."
posted by Peter H at 10:14 AM on December 2, 2005

I also want to say, as a Something Awful goon, that there really needs to be a ban on posting anything that links to eBaum's World.

Take it to MeTa, really. This isn't Something Awful (thank god), so its not like snapping out your secret decoder ring does you much good here.

I'm against lifting people's content and rebranding it myself, but especially in this case and especially with SA it doens't carry much weight. "Hey! I took this copyrighted movie and snipped it up and made something (infringing) with it! How DARE someone steal and repackage what I've already stolen and repackaged!!"
posted by Ogre Lawless at 10:28 AM on December 2, 2005

No
posted by Peter H at 10:41 AM on December 2, 2005

The "secret decoder ring" of me mentioning eBaum's World and SA in the same sentence was a reference to the recent chatter on SA regarding EBW that some people might recognize. If you didn't catch it, that's fine, it wasn't meant for you.

Don't get high-and-mighty ("thank god this isn't SA") with me, Mr Hipster Elitist, and tell me to take my comments to another section: I wasn't the first person who mentioned not linking to eBaum's World.
posted by Mikey-San at 10:41 AM on December 2, 2005

Ogre Lawless : "I'm against lifting people's content and rebranding it myself, but especially in this case and especially with SA it doens't carry much weight. 'Hey! I took this copyrighted movie and snipped it up and made something (infringing) with it! How DARE someone steal and repackage what I've already stolen and repackaged!!'"

Well, if you consider all infringement equal, or if you consider SA's type of infringement and EBaum's style of infringement equal, this is true. If you think their infringements are unequal, that isn't necessarily true. As long as we're stating our own opinions as if they were facts, I'll chip in with: In this case, and with SA, it carries weight.
posted by bugbread at 10:53 AM on December 2, 2005

Howbout just, "eBaum's World: A bunch of assholes."

Oh snap.

This isn't Something Awful (thank god)

Someone's a crankypants today.
posted by SassHat at 11:09 AM on December 2, 2005

Ha
posted by Peter H at 11:22 AM on December 2, 2005

I have no affiliation to SA, I just think Ebaum's world steps on toes and steals/profits from other's work, ergo a bunch of assholes.
posted by Peter H at 11:23 AM on December 2, 2005

I'm with the dgaicun and the diminishing-returns crew. Shining was brilliant in the way that it satirized the trailer genre, and WSS and Big are in the second tier of effective recasts that aren't, well, quite as funny but do highlight the technique. The others I've seen are either pointless (scary Titanic? I thought they did two wholly separate advertising campaigns for that film, one aimed at women with the romance angle and the other for general audiences that had more of the "action" -- I suppose one for the young male horror crowd is just one more step) or somehow missing the point.

Recognizing these weren't really done for the same purpose and weren't meant to be judged as public art, what I liked about Shining was its savvy toying with trailer conventions. The last half, especially, where numerous fast cuts with no dialog are papered over with "Solsbury Hill", really shows how the trailer editors can create a minute drama with sleight of hand. But the others don't so much satirize that as revel in it.

I guess it's also funny to imagine Jack Nicholson playing a loving family man instead of his signature badass nutcase. It's just mean to imagine Tom Hanks playing a pedophile.
Then again, Robin Williams tried it.
posted by dhartung at 12:45 PM on December 2, 2005

Shining, best of the bunch. Big, quite good. Cabin Fever, funny (the fake quotes are over the top, though).

WSS and Titanic suck, though. Just goes to show you can make anything seem scary with a lot of sharp cuts and that damned screeching noise.
posted by graventy at 1:50 PM on December 2, 2005

It's just mean to imagine Tom Hanks playing a pedophile.

Fair enough, but do admit, Big was a seriously nasty film. Imagine the Tom Hanks part played by, say, Melanie Griffith, or Jennifer Aniston.
posted by IndigoJones at 6:39 PM on December 2, 2005

Fuck ebaumsworld.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 7:11 PM on December 2, 2005

Imagine the Tom Hanks part played by, say, Melanie Griffith, or Jennifer Aniston.

I hear the original cast was Robert Blake!
posted by Peter H at 8:26 PM on December 2, 2005

Imagine the Tom Hanks part played by, say, Melanie Griffith, or Jennifer Aniston
... or Jennifer Garner!
posted by teg at 9:38 PM on December 2, 2005