Why make trailers that show the entire movie?

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Cause the marketing departments are retarded?

The latest Quarantine trailer is the absolute worst trailer I've ever seen. The
final shot of it is the final shot of the movie
 
There was a theory put forward awhile ago by some guy i've long forgotten that related this issue to a McDonalds menu. He said that if the audience knows exactly what they're getting, then they’ll be less concerned about it and therefore spent more money.

edit: or what Ninja Kn1ght said.
 
I remember that Hulk trailer that basically told the entire story in it.

The last half of the trailer showed Banner saying goodbye to Betsy, then jumping out, then becoming Hulk and starting to fight Abomination. I almost wanted to sneak in to the theater and watch the last 5 minutes as that was the only part I was missing out on.
 
That "Christine" rip-off "The Car" is probably my favorite trailer for revealing the entire film. Lots of older films were like that though.
 
Slightly OT but anyone notice how the trailer for Quarantine shows
the very last scene of REC
so I guess they changed the ending for the American remake.
 
worldrunover said:
The Italian Job was basically completely shown in the trailer.
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And that's why i didn't see that or Hancock.

It's a real bugbear if you go to the cinema or are like us guys a watch trailers etc by the time the movie comes out we know all the jokes,the action scenes,and sometimes even twists.
 
worldrunover said:
The Italian Job was basically completely shown in the trailer.
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It kind of sucks.
I bought the Italian Job on DVD to watch for th first time. And for shits and giggles decided to watch the trailer before hand on the disc. Bad Bad Bad decision.

As I was just waiting for the plot points to go through the cycle from the trailer. :(
 
I hate this. I don't go to theaters frequently, so doing so a few times recently reminded me of this particular negative.

Of course, the risk of going into a movie fresh on DVD/Blu-ray is that they'll have some convoluted pre-menu sequence that goes through various movie sequences.
 
The twist for The Deniro, Norton, Brando flick, The Score was given away in the trailer I think. Always irked me
 
That's why I don't watch trailers of movies I really want to see.

Yes, that means closing my eyes and put my finger in my ears when I'm in the cinema.
 
Wall-E did an awesome job with it's trailers. I had almost no idea what I was getting into before I saw it.
 
worldrunover said:
The Italian Job was basically completely shown in the trailer.
Click to expand...

Same with Castaway. I remember reading articles on Speilberg having control over the trailers for Crystal Skull because he didn't like how most trailers would give away parts so much so, you already knew how major plot lines will play out.

I remember seeing a movie with a friend, and the Italian Job trailer came on. As it's going through, my friend is narrating the movie from start to finish. I didn't think much of it at the time, but when I saw the movie, he was, quite literally, 100% accurate. And that movie was good enough where I didn't want it to be spoiled.

Costanza said:
Cause the marketing departments are retarded?
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I would put money on it that those marketing people have meetings like this:
Marketer 1: Okay, trailer time!
Marketer 2: Our data for this target audience shows they want to see the whole plot in 2 minutes and if we're lucky they'll still plunk down cash to see this thing.
Director: That ruins the movie experience!
Marketer 1: Shut up, we're execs and we know this business, you art fart.
Marketer 2: Let's grab lunch.
 
Wii too said:
Same with Castaway.
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Zemekis is the absolute worst for this. The first hour of What Lies Beneath is inert because
you know the neighbor isn't dead
. Zemekis cuts his own trailers, so you can't blame the studio suits. From wiki: "Director Zemeckis stated to Roger Ebert that he believed audiences wanted to know everything about a movie before they saw it, which is why the trailers for his year 2000 movies What Lies Beneath and Cast Away both revealed fundamental "spoilers" for the films."
 
Another thing is that initial trailers don't reveal much but after the opening weekend or the first couple weeks at the box office, they release a spoiler-filled trailer. First time I noticed this was shortly after I saw Attack of the Clones opening weekend. A few weeks later, they had a trailer showing nearly a quarter of the fight between Yoda and Dooku. Pretty much the only cool and unexpected part of the movie.
 
Castaway was probably the first movie I remember them doing this for. Though I guess you could assume he was going to get off the island because who wants an unhappy ending.
 
Ceres said:
Castaway was probably the first movie I remember them doing this for. Though I guess you could assume he was going to get off the island because who wants an unhappy ending.
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I could go for an ending where he comes to term with his situation and founds a society of half-human half-volleyballs.
 
Yeah, I get a bit peeved by trailers that basically show me everything there is in the movie -- or at least, the good parts.

One time I watched a trailer for this dark comedy (don't remember the name) that showed scenes that were hilarious in the dry-style wit. I decided to buy the dvd to watch it, and then found out that the two-minute trailer had shown ALL of the funny parts. The rest of the movie was a fucking lame-fest.
 
Himuro said:
Same. That's a part of the reason I loved it so much.
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Same. Plus on top of that, I avoided the trailers on purpose. Went into it only knowing what the character looked like. :D which makes me want to make this point:

IF YOU DON'T LIKE SPOILERIFIC TRAILERS, JUST FUCKING AVOID THEM IT'S NOT THAT HARD!
 
Mallika said:
Yeah, I get a bit peeved by trailers that basically show me everything there is in the movie -- or at least, the good parts.

One time I watched a trailer for this dark comedy (don't remember the name) that showed scenes that were hilarious in the dry-style wit. I decided to buy the dvd to watch it, and then found out that the two-minute trailer had shown ALL of the funny parts. The rest of the movie was a fucking lame-fest.
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I remember this with Bowfinger. It was #1 at the box office for a few weeks I believe and the trailer looked half decent. I rented it when it came out and proceeded to turn the film off after 15 minutes.
 
I took a survey about this in a mall once.
They showed me some trailer for a chick flick with Cameron Diaz.

They were all like "Do you want to see this movie?" They were not surprised a college-looking guy didn't care to see a total chick flick, but they were surprised at why: "Because I feel like I've already seen it."

They were straight up befuddled. :lol

I explained, "I see her problem...then I see more details of her conflict...I see a guy who has similar problems...I see their friends foreshdowing how to solve it...I see guy meet girl...I see them have relationsip trouble...and then I see them kissing and being happy." I also thanked them for showing me the free movie.

*Shrug*

Well, I fought the good fight, at least.
 
old horror and cult movie trailers completely give it up. Like the trailer will literally go form the beginning to the end showing everything.
 
Worst offenders are comedies. I don´t remember the name, but it was one with Chris Farley. The trailer, not just showed all gags, but worst, they were only funny in the trailer.
 
You say you hate these trailers, but if they did something different you'd scratch your head when you saw the clip, say 'I can't even tell what this movie is about' and stay home.
 
If revealing some "twist" in a two-minute trailer would ruin an entire movie, it probably wasn't spectacular to begin with.

It's the same rule that applies to "all the funnies were shown in the trailer" comedies. If that's all it had, it wasn't much to begin with.
 
Flynn said:
You say you hate these trailers, but if they did something different you'd scratch your head when you saw the clip, say 'I can't even tell what this movie is about' and stay home.
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Not really. The first Hancock trailer released, for example, was very conservative. It was just Will Smith, asshole super hero, that's all you knew. I was really interested in the movie at that point.

The second trailer (well, second one I saw) is the one the OP refers to, and after seeing that, I pretty much lost interest in seeing the movie. It's honestly like I've already seen it, so much so that now I'm just going to give it a rent rather than go see it at the theatre.

It's the same thing with comedies, with the way trailers are these days, I don't really want to go see the comedy because they've shown me all their best jokes 5-10x if the trailer is heavily advertised. It's not even funny when you see it in the movie, it's just "oh now is when he does this".
 
Flynn said:
You say you hate these trailers, but if they did something different you'd scratch your head when you saw the clip, say 'I can't even tell what this movie is about' and stay home.
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Tell that to all the millions of people who saw Wall-E opening weekend.
 
jiji said:
yay, straw man
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Okay how about this.

The don't show the entire movie. They show less than two minutes of the movie.

The fact that you consider a trailer "the entire movie" says volumes about you as a moviegoer.

If all you get out of a movie are the sizzle bits you deserve to be annoyed. It's not what happens in a movie that makes it interesting it's how it happens. That's why moviegoers can see a two minute preview that summarizes a movie and still enjoy watching the two-hour movie later on.
 
Worst offender recetly was that Curious Case of Benjamin Button or whatever it's called, with Brad Pitt. Thanks for showing me the whole fucking movie.
 
I only watch the first trailer for this very reason.

And I also refuse to watch any preview for a TV show I like, theyre even worse.

Roi said:
That's why I don't watch trailers of movies I really want to see.

Yes, that means closing my eyes and put my finger in my ears when I'm in the cinema.
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I actually did that for the Pirates movies.
 
Also: Ever notice that the parts of movies that usually get the biggest laughs are the parts that you already saw in the trailer. People like familiarity. They see the gags coming a mile away and can't wait to fucking laugh at them.

Back when cinema first started there was a series of films all about a gardener and his garden hose. A couple kids would crimp his hose so that the water would stop. The gardener would go, "hey! what's wrong?" and look in the nozzle -- at which time the kids would uncrimp the hose and the guy would get squirted in the face.

These movies were huge hits that spawned a ton of sequels and people kept coming.
 
Flynn said:
Okay how about this.

The don't show the entire movie. They show less than two minutes of the movie.

The fact that you consider a trailer "the entire movie" says volumes about you as a moviegoer.

If all you get out of a movie are the sizzle bits you deserve to be annoyed. It's not what happens in a movie that makes it interesting it's how it happens. That's why moviegoers can see a two minute preview that summarizes a movie and still enjoy watching the two-hour movie later on.
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Hey, sometimes it's nice to be surprised. There's a reason people don't like spoilers, but I guess those people aren't "true moviegoers". Are you saying you don't get more enjoyment out of a good story if you don't know what happens, vs. knowing a summary of the plot?

If so, that says volumes about you as a supposed "moviegoer".

Also: Ever notice that the parts of movies that usually get the biggest laughs are the parts that you already saw in the trailer. People like familiarity. They see the gags coming a mile away and can't wait to fucking laugh at them.
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Or they've seen it 10x in the trailer and are sick of it by the time it actually happens in the movie.
 
The 15-second televion spots for The Matrix showed virtually nothing. Just a little bit of bullet time (Neo dodging bullets on the rooftop), a little Carrie-Anne Moss, and this dialogue:

"Unfortunately no one can be told what the Matrix is... You have to see it for yourself."

That's about perfect. Fortunately for me I never saw the theatrical trailer for The Matrix until much later, after I'd seen the film in theaters. It's more spoilerish. Nothing compared to shit like the Hancock trailers still.
 
DarkJC said:
Hey, sometimes it's nice to be surprised. There's a reason people don't like spoilers, but I guess those people aren't "true moviegoers". Are you saying you don't get more enjoyment out of a good story if you don't know what happens, vs. knowing a summary of the plot?

If so, that says volumes about you as a supposed "moviegoer".
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It certainly does. It means I'm more concerned with the nuances of storytelling than the bullet points.
 
Flynn said:
It certainly does. It means I'm more concerned with the nuances of storytelling than the bullet points.
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But movies like summer blockbuster flicks are all about those bullet points. Or the big action sequences with that one important shot.
 
Prime crotch said:
But movies like summer blockbuster flicks are all about those bullet points. Or the big action sequences with that one important shot.
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Now we're onto something. The real problem aren't the trailers, but the movies that really don't have anything worth offering other than two minutes of crotch shots and explosions.
 
Flynn said:
You say you hate these trailers, but if they did something different you'd scratch your head when you saw the clip, say 'I can't even tell what this movie is about' and stay home.
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Watch the Quarantine trailer and then come back and tell us if you think what they did there is OK. There is no more fitting trailer that illustrates this problem than that one (unless they added more scenes in the US remake after where the original ends, and in that case they 'only' spoiled the whole plot of Rec). There are ways to cut the trailer so that it's not confusing and that it doesn't show literally whole plot. Many editors could do it just fine.

In case of Quarantine, they simply didn't have to show the very last location the movie takes place in, they could show a bit more of what's before it, and still end up with a trailer that's not any less interesting looking.

Flynn said:
Now we're onto something. The real problem aren't the trailers, but the movies that really don't have anything worth offering other than two minutes of crotch shots and explosions.
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I don't buy that either. Any of those ineptly cut trailers that show too much, could have been done so that they show less and yet have the same impact.
 
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