Misleading Trailers? (1 Viewer)

[Paul_Sjordal]

I was just leafing through my Titan: A.E. DVD when the included trailers jarred a memory loose.

As awful as the trailers on the official DVD are (and you have to admit they're pretty bad), the early teaser trailer I first watched in a movie theater was so awful I decided right then and there to not watch this movie. It was very similar to the first half of Trailer B (the half before they show any 2D animation), and the 3D animation they used was some kind of primitive early rendering that looked like a high school project (never mind the bad voice acting that involved none of the principals).

The teaser trailer was awful enough that I didn't see the movie until it had been out on DVD for quite some time and even then I rented it on a lark.

Not only did the movie not stink as bad as I expected, but I found that I liked it quite a bit, which came as a shock.

So what trailers mislead you? Did any cause you to expect a movie to be far better or far worse than it actually was?

 

[Qui-Gon John]

A trailer I think they really screwed up is KANGAROO JACK. When I saw it, I thought the movie was all about this kangaroo and expected he would be talking almost all the time, basically a corny talking kangaroo movie, not for me. Well I watched it because my daughter's friend brought over the DVD and instead I found it to be a fun, dodge the hit-men type comedy and the kangaroo really only talked when the one guy had a hallucination. (Then some as the credits rolled, but I looked at that as out-takes). Needless to say, I found it much more enjoyable than the previews made it seem. Of course, I admit it's no 'great cinematic achievement', but definitely much better than the previews had me believe.

 

[James T]

Mission Impossible 2.
I think everyone expected it to be 90mins of what you saw in the trailer instead of everything you saw in the trailer with 90 minutes of filler.

 

[TheLongshot]

The one that comes to mind is "Nightbreed", which markets the film as "generic horror plot", which the film wasn't.

Jason

 

[ThomasC]

Paramount marketing/PR department screwed up in early 2002 with We Were Soldiers and Changing Lanes.

 

[Dan Rudolph]

It seems many trailer makers think the only options are mislead the audience, or give away the entrie movie. Out of those two, I'd rather be misled.

 

[Joey Gunz]

The early trailer for the Kurt Russel film Soldier had me excited about the film. It showed a lot of action: dogfights in space, ground battles, etc. And while the film did have action, it wasn't the kind of action I was expecting. As a matter of fact, if you own a copy of the Soldier DVD, check out the trailer thats included on it. You'll see a quick peek of a space battle on it. It looked good, but its not in the actual movie. For some reason, they cut it out. Why? Who knows.

 

[Tim Glover]

There are many trailers that are misleading and some that fool you into thinking that the movie could be good. I think of one in particular: 3000 Miles to Graceland starring Kevin Costner & Kurt Russel.

The trailer looked funny, slick, and original. The movie turned out to be one of the worst movies I've ever seen. Just awful, and mean spirited. But that's just what I think. :b

 

[DaveB]

I recall early marketing for the M. Knight film, "Unbreakable" had people expecting "The Sixth Sense 2" -- which it clearly wasn't. Although I thoroughly enjoyed the film in spite of the mismarketing, many left the theaters disappointed.

David

 

[Rob P S]

Wasn't Freddy Got Fingered marketed as a comedy? A lot of people were misled by that one.

 

[Raymond_H]

I think Hulk was misleading, but that also could've been the expectations of the fans of it being a major action-oriented film.

Raymond

 

[Doug R]

My favorite recent mis-leading trailer is when the Radio trailer is shown during football games or on ESPN. You'd think it was Remember the Titans 2 instead of I Am Sam 2.

 

[David Baranyi]

Joey, it is a common practice that trailers will contain scenes that did not appear in the actual film. Films like Ali and Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring contain scenes that did not appear in the actual film.

A few years back, I remembered the Japanese trailer for a Pokemon film where most of the scenes shown never appeared in the film. I felt deceived, but I quickly understood that the non-appearing scenes were used to create drama on this average film. This shows that misleading trailers are not restricted to only Hollywood films.

You can find information about misleading trailers by looking at the "trivia" or "alternative versions" section at IMDb's web site.

 

[Edwin-S]

TREASURE PLANET - The trailer made this film look pretty bland. The film was not nearly as bad as the trailer made it look.

HOLES - The trailer to this movie was a major f#$%up. It made the film look like it was going to be a knock-off of something like "TREMORS". You know, giant whatever appears from wherever to (as Bender would say) "kill all humans". I avoided the film in the theater but rented it later. The film had nothing to do with "creatures"; other than the human kind. The film relied a little too much on synchronicity, but it turned out to be a pretty good movie.

 

[TheLongshot]

HOLES - The trailer to this movie was a major f#$%up. It made the film look like it was going to be a knock-off of something like "TREMORS". You know, giant whatever appears from wherever to (as Bender would say) "kill all humans". I avoided the film in the theater but rented it later. The film had nothing to do with "creatures"; other than the human kind. The film relied a little too much on synchronicity, but it turned out to be a pretty good movie.

Don't know how you got that out of the trailers. While there were a lot of big holes there, it seemed pretty obvious that they were dug by the kids, and not by any "creature".

Jason

 

[dan fritzen]

Pearl Harbor

I apologize if this becomes a stepping stone to rip this movie but the trailer made it look so good and does not hint at the entire plot/romance at all. I did like the 10 minutes of action and the doolittle raid but the rest was not like the trailer.

My coworkers and I would rip into this movie several times since its release because we were so decieved by the trailer.

The problem is now studios market movies differently to different people.

I.E. Stars wars 2 had completely different trailers aimed at women/girls and i do not think this is right to do. I have been tempted to sue for false advertising, no that I would.

 

[Gregg Shiu]

I can probably count the number of time's I've been "tricked" by a trailer, somewhere around 4. Most recently, National Security was a complete waste of time, whereas the trailer was one of the funniest things I'd seen in a while. Recess: School's Out was another godawful mess which resembled the animated series for only about 5 minutes. The other two movies which had misleading trailers came out around the same time. Mission Impossible 2, which someone already mentioned, and Shanghai Noon. I thought the first would be amazing and the latter was absurd, but it's funny how it was the other way around. That's all I can think of for now.

 

[Steve Kuester]

Dan, I couldn't agree more. I thought this was an absolutely beautiful trailer, but the movie felt nothing like it.

 

[Edwin-S]

Guess I'm not too smart, because the way they opened the trailer with the flyover, fade, cut to flyover, fade, cut to flyover, gave me the impression that the film was going to end up as some creature feature.....regardless of the kids digging those holes. In fact, I thought the digging of those holes was going to be the trigger for whatever "creature event" took place.

No part of the story that eventually played out on my TV screen ever came across to me in the theatrical trailer that I saw. The atmosphere set up by the trailer was one of "something weird is coming this way".

 

[TonyD]

edwin i'm sure you are smart, but i never thought there would be a creature.
just a bunch of kids digging holes to find soemthing is what i got from the trailer.

one that i think was misleading was for about schmidt.
tried to make it seem like a comedy, but it was more of a serious movie with some funny moments.

i liked the movie in spite of the trailer.