Like anything, it’s totally subjective (although that doesn’t stop some folks from commenting as if they’re bringing stone tablets down the mountain). I watch trailers unless it’s for a movie I am interested in and would like to preserve as much of the viewing experience as I can (like Inception, which, so far, I’ve been able to avoid even learning what it’s actually about).
Trailers on the front of DVDs put titles in front of my eyes that I might otherwise never have learned about: Oh, that movie with Ricky Gervais playing a dentist; never heard of it but it looks fun, I’ll put it on our Ziplist. But, for me, many trailers overplay their hand, showing too much of the plot.
My favourite trailer of the past few years was for A Single Man: gorgeous to look at, beautifully modulated, and told me almost nothing about the movie except it’s aesthetic. Lovely.
Since I never weighed in on this: I don’t mind watching the occasional trailer for something I doubt I’ll be interested in, but if it’s something that I have any remote interest in seeing, I don’t want to see the trailer at all. The more excited I am about the movie, the more strongly I will avoid it.
Case in point: I saw Alice in Wonderland in IMAX at a crowded theater, so I was stuck in the middle of the row when the trailer started for TRON Legacy. I couldn’t easily leave, so I had to sit there with my eyes closed, like Indiana Jones at the end of Raiders. “Don’t look Marion! Keep your eyes shut!” I already know too much about the movie, and I don’t want to know any more!
My wife will buy a book, start reading it…then flip ahead and read the last four five pages, just to find out how it ends. You have no idea how much that drives me insane.
A good trailer will give you a feel for the movie, without giving away anything about the plot. As such, I prefer teasers to actual trailers (if I watch at all). But I realized a long time ago that trailers generally show the most exciting parts of the movie, including parts near the end of the film. And since I have a great visual memory, I find myself sitting in the movie, waiting for a particular scene to happen. So I figure out almost subconsciously what happens to many of the characters. And if the scene isn’t in the movie (i.e. Adrien Brody with all those Predator targets on him), then I end up let down at the end.
This is a perfect example of the kind of trailer I hate. SPOILER ALERT for anyone who hasn’t see the preview for Catch With My Dead Brother, but here’s what I found out from the trailer:
Zac Efron has a brother who he plays catch with every day.
The brother dies.
The brother reappears as a ghost so his brother can keep playing catch with him.
Zac Efron meets a girl and starts spending time with her.
The more time he spends with her, the more his brother starts fading away.
The girl is going to sail around the world, and invites Zac Efron to join her.
He refuses so he can spend time with his brother.
The girl goes missing on her sailing trip.
Zac Efron is not sure if he should go after her.
The brother says he should go rescue her.
So at this point, every major plot point has been covered until probably the last five minutes of the film. Maybe it’s a good movie, but all surprise value of those plot points is now gone. I go to movies for the experience, not to find out the answer to one question from the end.
There are many great movie twists that were ruined by finding them out in advance (for example, Terminator 2). I would love to see Audition without knowing anything about it in advance. I loved The Fifth Element because I knew nothing about it, and the plot took a sharp left turn every fifteen minutes or so. Barring severe head trauma, you only get one chance to be surprised by a movie. I would rather have that experience than ruin it in advance.
Andy.
P.S. I saw Moon after obsessively avoiding spoilers, and I enjoyed it much more as a result.
There is absolutely no chance of it being a good movie, that’s why you’re allowed to watch it. But yeah, for the most part it’s trailers like the one for Zac Efron’s Girlfriend vs Ghost: Dead Brother Catch that make me avoid them altogether.
Also: why doesn’t Zac Efron just call the Coast Guard and go back to playing catch? He can see the girl when she gets home. He’s supposed to be just-going-to-college age, right? Maybe all of the other boats except his were destroyed in The Great Zombie Alien War. They didn’t put that in the trailer. Now you want to see it, don’t you?
I thinkDark City is one of my favorite examples of a good trailer. I don’t think a trailer had ever had such an impact on me, before or since. I knew nothing about that movie before seeing that but I’d never wanted to see a movie more than I did after watching that.
Sin City and Brick both had quite an impact on me as well.
It’s interesting watching back, because there were so many iconic scenes that made it in the trailer, but it didn’t matter. That movie pulled you in and you forgot what snippets you’d already seen. The trailer had just enough newness, awesome music, a good narrative, everything a solid trailer needs.
I’ve also stopped watching trailers for movies I actually intend on watching. They seriously tell you exactly what all the plot points are going to be… Like reading a Wikipedia plot synopsis before watching the movie itself. You know whats going to happen and there is no suspense left…
Teaser trailers are enough to give you a taste of what the mood and style of the film will be like. One great example was the original Unbreakable trailer that set the scene and left the rest open.
Bad trailer examples?
Hmm… Pretty much all of them. Just watched the Avatar trailer and thats as good an example as any. The whole plot is there point for point. There are NO major surprises left. I’m so glad I went to see that movie blind…
I would hate to give up the pleasures of trailers, they more than anything else are what gets me fired up to see a movie. But some of them are just pure evil, no doubt about it. The first one I recall that truly was just a minute and a half recap of the movie was this one for The Negotiator. If you haven’t seen it yet, it’s almost a perfect synopsis.
Even then, it still gave a lot of surprises away. How cool would it have been to see the double-lightsaber reveal in the movie itself?! The world will never know.
To answer the original question, I don’t watch trailers because those who make them have a bad habit of giving away the plot. For much the same reason, I don’t read many reviews. One of the things about Roger Ebert that I appreciate is that he is scrupulous to avoid spoilers.
He is usually pretty good about it, but I remember him spoiling the end of Spider-Man. I emailed to complain, and he admitted that he did it just so he could make a joke about the characters.
It’s an interesting approach to trailers, but I found it a little dull to be honest. I only watched the first few minutes, untill we were inside the house, and he mentions the second murder. It was only one-third done!
So, one of the dilemmas of not watching trailers is that since I only watch about 5 movies in the theater each year, some years even less than that, (I think it was only 2 movies in 2013 for example) it becomes much more important to me that the few movies I do go see are ones that I will enjoy. As you can imagine, that becomes harder when you have no exposure to trailers.
One of the perks of watching such few movies each year is that my exposure to trailers is extremely low. So when I do watch a movie nowadays, whether it’s in a rare theater viewing or a rare Red Box viewing or a rare Netflix Instant Watch viewing, I’m not only surprised by the movie itself, but also sometimes at who stars in the movie. For example, a famous actor shows up in the movie Jumper later in the movie, and it was a complete surprise. Similarly, I was looking forward to seeing the latest Christopher Nolan movie Interstellar, knowing nothing about it except the name. Unfortunately, a trailer for the movie came on during Sunday Night Football and I now know one of the stars in the film. Damn it. That would have been a very pleasant surprise.
So maybe those of us can use this thread to tip off others like ourselves about good movies worth seeing if you only watch 10 movies or so a year? And not have to bear ridicule people from the other threads about what we consider spoilers since we didn’t see the trailer or the poster, or follow news about the movie’s casting beforehand.
So, one of the dilemmas of not watching trailers is that since I only watch about 5 movies in the theater each year, some years even less than that, (I think it was only 2 movies in 2013 for example) it becomes much more important to me that the few movies I do go see are ones that I will enjoy. As you can imagine, that becomes harder when you have no exposure to trailers.
I don’t find this true at all. It’s impossible to judge the quality of a movie from the trailers these days.
