Movie Previews Are Giving Away Way to Much

[spacecaps]

I know this has been going on a while but man I was really annoyed with the preview for Runner Runner. I saw The Heat two days ago and one of the trailers was the new Ben Affleck movie which looked intriguing up to a point. As bad as Affleck was a decade ago the guy has really cranked out some great movies recently and this one looked like it was gonna be right up there with The Town but then the preview went on for another full minute and literally gave away every single aspect of the movie. Here it is here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAz_oUxUuDg

Take a look at this and tell me they shouldn't have stopped it around the 1:28 mark with maybe the alligator feeding scene right at the end instead of showing us every nuance this movie is going to have. After watching the preview, I felt like I didn't need to see the movie because they gave it all way in two and a half minutes.

[Gorn Captain]

Movie studios seem to think we're morons with the attention span of a fruitfly.
They can't help trying to show everything that just might get us to go see the film. They also seem to think we need to be guided through the whole movie, ensuring us that "all will end well" (or not).

Same here with people announcing a TV episode they're about to show. I've heard them actually say "but don't worry, Dexter finds a way to stop the killer, as he always does...."
Sure, an audience is incapable of handling the stress of watching a story and maybe straining their brain to figure it out.

Maybe they could announce Seven with the advice "don't be scared, but Gwyneth is going to lose her head in the final act!"

[ctc]

Hmmmm....

It's done on purpose. The studios found that audiences are more willing to see a movie that has the entire story plotted out in the ad than ones that aren't. That's why you see more and more of it. It works.

>They also seem to think we need to be guided through the whole movie, ensuring us that "all will end well"

Partly because of that. We want the "sure thing" from our entertainment; it's why we'll watch a favourite movie over and over.... we know we'll get SOME fun out of it. It's why they make so many cloned movies, and use the same names and franchaises over and over: it's a "sure thing" for us. You see it all the time when a new film for an old character is announced, all the folks who get excited; even though we KNOW what's going to happen.... and you see the same kind of whinging over the smallest changes for the same reason. If we love Batman, then we have an expectation of fun from a Batman film.... provided it measures up to the image of Batman we've been climatized to. And if it doesn't we lose our minds. Using an established character, or actor, or director, or writer is a way around the trepidations we have for something GENUINELY new. The trick is to flavour the old just enough so that it FEELS new without BEING new.

>an audience is incapable of handling the stress of watching a story and maybe straining their brain to figure it out.

That too. How many times do you hear the old "I just want to veg out and watch something." People like it when they don't have to work for their entertainment. "It's a good popcorn film." Fun, but stupid. Even the thought provoking stuff that makes it isn't usually that thought provoking. Very few films challenge, 'cos the producers know that audiences will skip a challenge for "clutzy yet lovable girl finds love part 7" or "boobs, guns and explosions 12." And we, the collective audience can feel insulted, or pandered to, or thought down to all we want; but the sales show that it's the film companies that are right. Every month we see another record broken, and a new crop of blockbusters. Very few of them ACTUALLY fail.

Don C.

[Brazoo]

^^ It's true - as insane as it is to believe...

Generally speaking, people actually enjoy stories MORE when they know what's going to happen next. There are MANY psychological studies and tons of data to back this up.

Studios have known this for a while, and they also know people are more comfortable seeing a movie if they know more about it. So, they're not talking down to the audience as much as they're just trying to give them what they want. It's crazy, I know - but it's a fact.

Here's one of MANY articles on this phenomena:

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/08/spoilers-dont-spoil-anything/

[Earth 2 Chris]

Well, two films that I've seen this summer that have bucked this trend are Star Trek: Into Darkness and Monsters University. Trek's ad campaign was very vague (maybe TOO vague), and Monsters only told you it was Mike and Sully in college, that's it. Now given, those were sequels (or in Monsters case, a prequel), and the marketing folks probably thought folks would go anyway, but at least they didn't telegraph the entire story in the trailer.

After Earth was the biggest offender of this I can recall. I haven't seen the film, and have no need or desire to. The trailer told me the whole fricking thing.

Chris

[Brazoo]

Monsters University, yeah, I can see that. Though, it IS a sequel - people should have generally known what they were getting. Same as Star Trek.

I thought the entire "John Carter" campaign was WAY too vague about what the movie was like. If I didn't know about the plot through comic/pulp fandom I would have been very confused about that whole thing, so it was easy for me to see how most people just ignored it.

[mazinz]

This is nothing new. Go watch trailers from the 80's and 70's- mostly any of them longer than 1 min pretty much shows you the entire film and ending.

[BlackKnight]

If U watch The Snitch Trailer ....
U don't need to see the Movie ...
U just saw it, in 3 Minutes.

It's the Worse 1 this yr so far imo .

[Random Axe]

^^^That was just a bad movie, period. Rock was miscast, and there's no way they were even close to the true story. I think "based on" is too liberal of a term. Waste of freakin time. Otherwise, it wasn't too bad.

[mego73]

Believe it or not, giving it away in the trailer is not a new problem

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OsVQPsiwkBI&sns=em

[Brazoo]

^^ Whoa, that one was wild! I don't think I ever saw that before.

One of my favorite examples is:

Castaway:
I can't remember for sure, but I'm pretty sure the tagline for this movie was "Don't Worry Everyone, Tom Gets Off The Island Okay"

[ctc]

>So, they're not talking down to the audience as much as they're just trying to give them what they want.

To me THAT'S the improtant realization. People commenting on entertainment all too often see the audience as the victims, or irrelevant; when in fact the entertainment industry is almost entirely audience driven.

Don C.

[Gorn Captain]

Personally, I like to know as little as possible about the plot. I like surprises and twists.
I don't want to know "who did it".

What if they had previewed Empire with the tagline "Darth Vader is Luke's father, but they'll give each other a big hug in the next movie, so you can all relax!"

[ctc]

>Personally, I like to know as little as possible about the plot. I like surprises and twists.

Me too; but my tastes tend to run a bit different from the masses.

Don C.