Comments on: An epic history of the movie trailer

An epic history of the movie trailer

Room 641-A — Mon, 22 Jun 2015 14:09:54 -0800

"The spirit of the 60s lives in these trailers, leaning hard on mood and music, not plot. The same is true for the Godfather trailer, as Coppola gives audiences a peak into the Corleone family.

However, the closer Hollywood gets to the age of the blockbuster, the more the modern trailer starts to reveal itself, and it all starts with Jaws -- the film phenomenon of the summer of 1975. [ ... ] It introduced something new to trailers: relying almost entirely on the narrative of the film to advertise it. In 3 minutes and 21 seconds, the entire story arc of the film, save for the ending, is given away. There's a shark terrorizing the beach on the 4th of July, it's up to a local sheriff to take care of it, and he teams with a scientist and a fisherman to get the job done."

-- An epic history of the movie trailer, by Matthew Schimkowitz

By: Greg_Ace

Greg_Ace — Mon, 22 Jun 2015 14:20:24 -0800

Needs the "In a world..." tag.

By: Foci for Analysis

Foci for Analysis — Mon, 22 Jun 2015 15:38:53 -0800

I think the mini-movie trailer works so well because as human beings we generally like to minimize uncertainty and pain and maximize certainty and pleasure. The mini movie trailer gives us a familiar and relatable structure that makes it easier to predict how enjoyable our future experience of the actual movie might be. If given the choice between two movies where one is familiar and promises a reasonable level of enjoyment and the other movie's unfamiliarity could result in either an incredibly great or bad experience, most of us would pick the former movie. I think the same principle explains why some people always eat the same salami pizza or read the same type of crime novel. Maybe this also explains why we - secretly! - love spoilers. Most of us simply don't want to be challenged, to risk dissatisfaction, (financial or emotional) loss or a negative state of mind even if the rewards could potentially be great.

By: infinitewindow

infinitewindow — Mon, 22 Jun 2015 15:44:29 -0800

The trailers that have stuck with me through the years: Psycho (linked in the article) Dark City Alien (linked in the article) Terminator 2: Judgement Day (teaser with no footage that made it into the final feature) Buffalo '66 Panic Room The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly The Matrix (1998 teaser that tells you pretty much nothing about the movie other than Keanu Reeves is in it and it's set in 1999) I had saved a bunch of others from that brief period where storage was cheap enough for trailers but not for entire movies. Luckily enough they survived in some form on my hard drive! I looked through them just now to see if any were worthy of inclusion, but most of them just ripped off the ones from the article or the ones I listed above.

By: solmyjuice

solmyjuice — Mon, 22 Jun 2015 15:48:55 -0800

I'm surprised that the Godfather trailer shows Sollozzo getting shot and Sonny lying dead at the toll booth. Effectively shocking images to make you want to see the film but someone paying close attention could certainly recognize the settings when they first appear in the film... two of the most suspenseful scenes!

By: infinitewindow

infinitewindow — Mon, 22 Jun 2015 15:56:59 -0800

Booby prize for Best Worst Trailer: Payback This teaser played like two years before the actual movie came out. It looked like a hell of a lot of fun. I was excited. If you had told me then it was an adaptation of the super-bleak novel The Hunter, I wouldn't have believed you. It's almost like one of those trailers where Sleepless in Seattle gets re-cut into a psychological thriller, or where The Shining is recut into a heartwarming comedy... except for real.

By: Ratio

Ratio — Mon, 22 Jun 2015 16:00:16 -0800

Coppola gives audiences a peak into the Corleone family I assume that refers to the Paramount logo

By: ricochet biscuit

ricochet biscuit — Mon, 22 Jun 2015 16:34:33 -0800

Or for those displeased with the spoilers (Sonny dead at the toll booth, etc.), a pique.

By: sammyo

sammyo — Mon, 22 Jun 2015 18:10:09 -0800

Folks complain about "*spoilers*" but then prefer to revisit the myth/fairytale/ghost story over and over. If you love being scared sitting around a campfire listening to the story of (deep voice) the hook, how many have never heard that story ever? Disappointed at the familiarity of West Side Story? Don't think so. Folks want to know the story. A teensy bit of variation is all that is tolerated. We need to know ahead of time when to be shocked/surprised. When to expect to have a tear well up. It's communal ritual. A tribal experience.

By: sideshow

sideshow — Mon, 22 Jun 2015 18:54:35 -0800

Folks want to know the story I think you used "Folks" where you meant to put "I".

By: infinitewindow

infinitewindow — Mon, 22 Jun 2015 19:00:45 -0800

Robert Zemeckis intentionally puts spoilers in his trailers. He gets away with it most of the time—how many people watched Cast Away to see if Tom Hanks got back to land?—but sometimes it backfires (What Lies Beneath).

By: No-sword

No-sword — Mon, 22 Jun 2015 21:05:02 -0800

He does it intentionally? Why?

By: infinitewindow

infinitewindow — Mon, 22 Jun 2015 21:59:43 -0800

Quoth Zemeckis: "We know from studying the marketing of movies, people really want to know exactly every thing that they are going to see before they go see the movie. It's just one of those things. To me, being a movie lover and film student and a film scholar and a director, I don't. What I relate it to is McDonald's. The reason McDonald's is a tremendous success is that you don't have any surprises. You know exactly what it is going to taste like. Everybody knows the menu."

By: shmegegge

shmegegge — Mon, 22 Jun 2015 23:21:20 -0800

God, as much as I love the movie you can trace almost every awful thing that has happened to the movie-going landscape back to Spielberg and Jaws. The Summer Blockbuster Action flick originated there. Jaws first really cemented the idea that a film should be edited based on focus group feedback. The above linked trailer style. I don't if it was THE FIRST movie to get too many unnecessary sequels, but it must be up there. No shit, when I look at our current landscape of special-effects-heavy largely story-less action films I feel like every one is a branch on a tree whose trunk has JAWS carved into it, even if its roots go quite a bit deeper.

By: doctornemo

doctornemo — Tue, 23 Jun 2015 10:17:01 -0800

The Dr. Strangelove trailer is amazing.

By: vibrotronica

vibrotronica — Tue, 23 Jun 2015 15:15:28 -0800

Jaws first really cemented the idea that a film should be edited based on focus group feedback. No. That was going on as far back as The Magnificent Ambersons. I don't if it was THE FIRST movie to get too many unnecessary sequels, but it must be up there. There have been more than 200 Tarzan movies, beginning in 1918.

By: ovvl

ovvl — Tue, 23 Jun 2015 17:09:05 -0800

Bloody elevator for Kubrick's The Shining is the best teaser trailer ever.