Ryan McNeilThings should start getting back to normal around here this week, though the days of certain features are going to be a bit off for reasons that will be clearer on Thursday. I do hope you’ll bear with me as I get back into my routine after my festival-going.
Speaking of my routine, I found myself scratching my head about part of it recently – the discussion of trailers. Last week, this trailer hit the web, and being the big Spielberg fan that I am, I immediately gave it a look. Within a day or two, discussion of the trailer came up amongst my fellow TIFF-goers.
…Question of “what the film was about”…whether “it was a good trailer”…comparing it to the trailer for Spielberg’s previous film, WAR HORSE.
It was around this time that I noticed a site that posts trailers the same way I do, actually ends the post with rating the trailer.
Am I the only one who sees this all as a little bit strange? We’re projecting opinion and critique on to an advertisement. More often than not, that advertisement isn’t even created by the creators of the film, so decisions on what to show and what to withhold, and even what tone to convey are made completely independent from the final product.
Making matters even weirder was the fact that I just watched 27 films in 11 days. Of those 27, I’d only seen the teaser for 1 (THE MASTER). Since watching the films, I’ve started to visit the trailers for them and marvelled at many things: namely, how much is given away and how different the films are from what’s being sold.
That leaves me wondering why we pay much attention to them at all – which I realize is mildly hypocritical on a day I’m posting a trailer. To that point, I’ll say this: Posting trailers weekly is only a placeholder, and the moment I can think of a better weekly feature, they’ll be the next thing to go.
I think that they are useful in giving the uninformed a taste of what to expect. But to completely pass judgement on a film based on a trailer (and certainly to rate said trailer) seems increasingly strange to me.
Feel free to chime in below, and enjoy this peek at LINCOLN.
I really love a good trailer, or teasers as they trend is now. I think were I to rate a trailer, I will judge it on how much it makes me want to see this film. I mean if it’s a film I’m really excited about, even a terrible trailer can do nothing to change this opinion (though it might make me a bit hesitant). But then if it is a good one, I do like to go crazy with excitement about it.
Speaking of Lincoln’s trailer, the War Horse comparison is kind of inevitable. The look, the score, everything, which is unfortunate because that’s turning me off a little bit (sorry!). Still, DDL as Lincoln is too tempting a prospect to refuse.
The look is somewhat inevitable since the two films both have war footage and are set about forty years apart. The score does seem sorta similar though.
To me it looks like a Spielberg drama (fitting!), which is to say that if you played trailers for this, PRIVATE RYAN, EMPIRE OF THE SUN, and COLOR PURPLE all one-after-another you’d sense a definite commonality.
You raise a good point – if we really need to rate trailers, they should be judged pass/fail (“Does this make me want to see this movie?”)
I definitely think they get more love than they deserve. That’s why I think talking during the trailer is acceptable.
Sadly trailers are sometimes so badly put together that they’ll lessen my inclination to watch a film I had planned to watch. Those trailers really miss the target.
I approve of not writing so much about trailers. It happens very rarely that I read trailer posts.
I didn’t comment on that post, but I am with you. If people want to talk during the trailers, I don’t mind…I didn’t pay to see the trailers.
It’s funny – just like anything else, I believe there is an art to a *really* good trailer (just like there is an art to a *really* good TV commercial). Unfortunately, no studio really cares about the art of it. They just want to sell the product to the widest customer base possible.
“We’re projecting opinion and critique on to an advertisement.” Bravo. It’s just SO dangerous to read too deeply into trailers.
To this day the best trailer I have ever seen remains “Pearl Harbor.” And I think we all know how that movie turned out.
Ever seen the trailer for the musical NINE?
Of course, they are advertisements, and, really, no different from the ads for Coke, and Sprint, or any other product that’s being put up on the screen. They tease us with glimmers, highlights, but they don’t express the tone, the pace, or the soul of the film. They certainly can’t give any idea of the construction and feel of the film, they can only provoke us to curiosity about it.
Films and trailers are as different in form and substance as art and commerce.
Gene Siskel, to keep his objectivity, wouldn’t even WATCH trailers. I can’t help myself. But I never fool myself enough to think that one has anything to do with another as to quality.
Except that Coke and Sprite have a say in approving the ads a firm creates for their product. A producer/director have no such say.
Well to your first point, rating a trailer is probably just as valid as rating any other commercial. I buy Old Spice deodorant. The product works as good as any other, but I buy RG because their marketing is awesome (“I’m on a horse”, Bruce Campbell, Terry Crewes, etc.). My dad bought Bathroom Duck toilet bowl cleaner for years because the commercial depicted a duck flying around a bathroom in a small airplane. Super Bowl comes around and all anyone cares about it for are the stupid commercials – next day everyone is rating and judging them.
As to the second point (about why we care about them), I can honestly say I don’t care about them anymore. I used to love trailers. Now I find that I avoid them as much as possible. Sure I get strange looks in the theater plugging my ears and humming while the ad department for Looper gives everything away, but I don’t care. I want nothing to do with trailers – especially for those I know for a fact I’m already going to see. Sometimes my curiosity gets the better of me and I can’t look away, but for the most part, I’d rather go into the movie as blind as possible.
I hear you – just like anyone else, I’m susceptible to a good ad (probably why I wear Adidas). I didn’t dig too deeply into the site that rates the trailers, but I don’t think they were rating them on “How good of an ad is this?”.
Not to throw stones.
I’m with you – I don’t really seek them out the way I used to. Even posting them weekly has bored me, and only still happens so I can spread the word of upcoming films. Heck, in the run-up to TIFF, I didn’t even watch trailers of the films I was choosing between.
If I saw you covering your ears and keeping your eyes down, I wouldn’t mock you. I’d say “that guy’s got the right idea”. Hell I’ve even done the same from time to time.
I try to avoid trailers whenever possible. Sometimes they just flat out ruin an entire film — if I had seen the trailer for Tucker & Dale vs. Evil beforehand, for example, I would have been severely disappointed. It showed nearly all of the film’s major gags.
I understand their purpose, but what is the fun in giving away crucial plot developments?
I know, right? I really think the studios should allow the directors to make the trailers and the TV spots. They’d probably do a way better job of selling the film.
I used to enjoy watching trailers. However, Hollywood’s current marketing philosophy equates trailers with Cliff’s Notes: they give away the entire movie. Also like Cliff’s Notes, they frequently get the tone and themes all wrong. Those are the worst because they set the movie up to fail. People who go in expecting the movie the trailer promised are disappointed, while people who would like it don’t go because the trailer sold it as something else.
I’ve reached the point where I’ll only watch trailers for movies I know I’ll never see, like the latest slasher blood fest. Come to think of it, I don’t watch those either…. Because I see so many movies in the theater I still end up listening to a lot of trailers, but the low-tech expedient of closing my eyes through them is remarkably effective.
I think I will have to start trying the sensory deprivation route. That, and I really need to think of something better to post on Wednesdays.
I’ve found myself avoiding teasers and trailers more and more these days; I’ll watch the preview footage for some releases, but only once, and only in one variation (e.g. I will watch the first or second trailer for a film, but not both). Incidentally, I’ve found myself getting more out of films and enjoying films, even the ones I dislike, more than I used to. I wonder if that’s just a coincidence or not.
Getting to the point, I think I>Lincoln has a great trailer inasmuch as it goes the distance to show off just how much star power is backing the whole project. (Though I find the claims of historical inaccuracy regarding Lincoln’s voice to be troubling.) At the same time I’m now very concerned that the film will be much too reverential of the man. On one hand this makes sense; he wound up being one of the US’s greatest presidents. On the other hand I don’t like seeing biopics glaze over truth in favor of making their subjects look better, and Lincoln wasn’t a man without his flaws.
That said I don’t know how characteristic it would be of Spielberg to give anything less than a glowing portrait of the man as a national hero and saint. Basically, I’m on board, but cautiously so.