Trailers give away the ending?

Good Ol' Batmanuel! · #1 06-20-2003, 02:08 PM

I was watching an episode of Beat the Geeks today and the movie geek was given his 15 seconds of camera time for ranting. Anyway, he said "To all you people who make movie trailers...stop giving away the ending!"

This got me thinking "have I ever seen the ending of a movie in a trailer?" I can't really think of any instances, but maybe my fellow Toon Zoners can.

kid_flash · #2 06-20-2003, 02:14 PM

Two I CLEARLY remember...

Cast Away: I love that movie, but I knew the ending because of the frickin' trailer!

The Italian Job: Spoiled it twice. First, "what happened to my truck." Okay, so it wasn't blatant, but you could figure out that things weren't going so well for the bad guy. Second, they show Charlize hitting Norton while being held by "the muscle." Doesn't take a lot to figure out how THAT fits into the movie.

**Conekiller** · #3 06-20-2003, 02:33 PM

Deep Impact: the asteroid hits, IN THE TRAILER! big "Duh" move

it's a little off but the Custom opening for Cartoon network's airing of Trigun has a big spoiler in it involving Vash and his arm

**Mynd Hed** · #4 06-20-2003, 04:57 PM

This only sort of counts, but I understand J.R.R. Tolkien never liked the name "Return of the King" for the third Lord of the Rings book because he felt it gave away the ending. His publishing company apparently brought him around, though.

**The Penguin** · #5 06-20-2003, 05:33 PM

One I can think of off the top of my head (I may be back later) is The Scorpion King. I watched the movie and then showed a friend of mine the trailer and determined he didn't have to watch the movie because they managed to cram the whole 92 minutes into the three-minute trailer.

pabcool · #6 06-20-2003, 07:44 PM

Nickelodeon Movies is infamous for that. *cough*HA!*cough*

**Lonestarr** · #7 06-20-2003, 08:59 PM

Watch any trailer for a romantic comedy. 100 minutes compressed into two. Perhaps it's because they're so damn formulaic! The trailer for The Wedding Planner leaps to mind as one of the worst ways to do this.

Another that sticks out is The Negotiator. Maybe it's because Warner Bros. wanted to lose money (they accomplished that with Batman and Robin the previous year, so why break precedent?), but they had a good film and spoiled it with a moment in the trailer that didn't even occur in the film.

**Conekiller** · #8 06-20-2003, 09:00 PM

Ah, Blue Crush also comes to mind

Good Ol' Batmanuel! · #9 06-20-2003, 10:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lonestarr

they had a good film and spoiled it with a moment in the trailer that didn't even occur in the film.

Reminds me, oddly enough, of all the commercials for The Truman Show, which showed him riding on his push mower like it was a wheelchair. That wasn't in the movie. Maybe it's on the DVD, which I haven't seen. At any rate, just a small thing I remember.

Mackenzie Rainelle · #10 06-20-2003, 11:53 PM

The Two Towers. Did they HAVE to put Gandalf in the trailer?!

#11 06-21-2003, 11:57 AM

I can only think of a few off top of my head, the worst being Fox's horrid trailer for Cast Away and WB's terrible The Negotiator trailer. Cast Away's trailer should've ended with him being ship wrecked on the island. That would've made what followed an actual surprise, instead of spoiling it all. The trailer for The Negotiator gave away the entire movie, as well as the twist ending. I will say that WB made a nice DVD set for it, though. Such an under-rated movie.

I had no problem with the The Two Tower's trailer revealing Gandalf. If you've read the book, or even seen the movie poster, then you know he's back. I didn't think it was a surprise at all, really.

Trailers for The Italian Job and The Score, both Paramount movies, also give away pretty much the whole movie. Luckily I missed the trailer for The Score before seeing it. And The Italian Job? Well, the trailer just gives the whole movie away point by point.

And I really, really, really hate it when trailers show footage that ends up getting cut from the movie. It just really bugs me.

Good Ol' Batmanuel! · #12 06-21-2003, 02:22 PM

A couple of people have mentioned how bad the trailer for Cast Away was, but I don't remember what happened. Can someone fill me in? Use a spoiler box if you feel it's necessary.

Enrique · #13 06-21-2003, 03:34 PM

the giveaways aren't always blatant. sometimes the trailer just gives you enough info for you to figure it out. like when i saw the trailer for "john q", they don't show the ending, but i had figured it out, and my friend who saw it 2 months later confirmed it for me.

**Matthew Williams** · #14 06-21-2003, 03:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Good Ol' Batmanuel!

A couple of people have mentioned how bad the trailer for Cast Away was, but I don't remember what happened. Can someone fill me in? Use a spoiler box if you feel it's necessary.

basically...

Spoiler:

Good Ol' Batmanuel! · #15 06-21-2003, 04:26 PM

Thanks, Mr. Williams. Man, that is blunt, isn't it?

It's alright to hint at things, especially if you can draw a logical conclusion to it, but yikes... I wonder what went through their minds when they decided to do it that way?

Mango Fett · #16 06-21-2003, 05:39 PM

"The Score" was mentioend, I wish to second it.
I gotta list it as one of the worst movies I have seen just because the trailer had me waiting for something that was, in actuallity, the end of the movie. Maby the movie is good...but it was ruined for me.

It could be said that the spoiler in the trailer promoted the movie as somethign entirely differant then it was.

Ordinary Guy · #17 06-22-2003, 12:08 AM

I still feel that if they never showed Darth Maul's double bladed lightsaber in The Phantom Menace trailer. That would've been one helluva cool suprise.

**TimTwoFace** · #18 06-22-2003, 12:29 AM

I hate trailers that give away the ending! In fact, the only ways I'd ever want to find out the ending of a movie is to read the book a movie is based on, or watch the movie itself. That's it.

Lots of trailers that show the ending ARE good trailers, but that's because sometimes those that compile the trailers are practically making a mini-movie in itself. Sure, some movies have very predictable endings, but I'd much rather see the endings in the movie than have the trailer spoil it. There SHOULD be enough cool stuff in a movie for a good trailer to be filmed that only features the basic premise of the movie and no more - if all the trailer is is the ending of the movie, then there can't be too much movie to begin with, can there?

-Tim

JDuncan · #19 06-22-2003, 12:35 AM

It doesn't give away the ending, but the T3 trailer gives away at least 75% of the movie. Its like a summary, the way it goes through the movie.

Terminatah · #20 06-22-2003, 07:30 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Good Ol' Batmanuel!

Thanks, Mr. Williams. Man, that is blunt, isn't it?

It's alright to hint at things, especially if you can draw a logical conclusion to it, but yikes... I wonder what went through their minds when they decided to do it that way?

It might have had something to do with the film's director, Robert Zemeckis. He's a brilliant director, but has an unfortunate view of movie trailers.

The following is an excerpt from a Cast Away review by Anthony Leong of celebritywonder.com, wherein the spoiling trailers issue is addressed:

Quote:

In his defense, Zemeckis claimed that he was only catering to the needs of modern moviegoers, who apparently want to know 'exactly everything that they are going to see before they go see the movie'. He compared the marketing of movies to the standardized offerings at McDonalds-- the reason for McDonalds' success in the global fast food business was because customers know exactly what they'll be getting, with no surprises.

Before Cast Away, Zemeckis released What Lies Beneath, a movie whose trailer clearly summarizes the major revelation that takes place over an hour into the movie's intricately suspenseful series of twists.

I disagree with Zemeckis' methods in that trailers should be getting asses in the seats, but they needn't give away good surprises to do that. It's very easy to arouse excitement with an abrasively small amount of footage.

I also don't like comedy trailers. They give away most of the jokes some of the time, and the best jokes all of the time. And there's no footage we'd be better off seeing in the whirlwind of a snappy commercial than in the planned momentum of the actual movie. Ideally, all trailers should be teasers.

-Terminatah