Great trailers and Lousy Trailers (1 Viewer)

Hey there- so your first introduction to a movie is through the trailer-- some have great trailers and others have lousy or uninspiring trailers-- Which trailers did the job and which ones fell short (print advertising can also be included)


I think that the Trailer for the new King Kong movie is fabulous.

The Village-- had good advertising-it kept you intrigued

Spanglish--(I just saw it on tv and was pleasantly surprised) had a trailer that didn't do the movie justice at all.

anyone else

Worst -- Snake Eyes. It was a three minute film. I knew the premise, plot points and ending. I saw it on VHS a long time after it was released and it was like I had seen it already. A DePalma misfire.

All of the lord of the rings trailers had me.
But think one of the best trailers and all around marketing of all time was The Matrix. All those what is the Matrix trailers had me man, I had to find out what the hell the Matrix was!!!!

Worst is Robert Zemeckis. BOth "Castaway" and "What Lies Beneth" completely gave away all the twists in the movies. And than, to top it off, when asked about it, Z has the nerve to say that in this day and age, the audience wants to be told in advanced what well happen in the movie. What a schmuck!

Some people do, actually. My wife always wants to know who gets killed off, so she doesn't get emotionally wrapped up in them. Personally, I don't want to know because I like being surprised, and it kinda ruins things if I know.

As for great trailers, AI had a bunch of them that were pretty great.

Jason

The "Terminator 2" teaser with the assembly of the Terminator was a great one in my opinion.

I also think the trailer for "The Adventures of Baron Munchausen" was brilliant: "A film full of...noise" but I'm a total Gilliam whore.

More recently, I thought the "Batman Begins" trailer was very effective.

And one good thing I can say about the Star Wars prequels is that they had kick ass trailers.

Too many trailers these days fall victim to the plague that some have already mentioned. They show you the whole plot! This especially sucks with thrillers as it drains out the suspense and the "wow" moments. But as George Clooney pointed out, the reason people went to see "The Perfect Storm" was to see the wave they had already seen.

?!?!?!

I put the teaser and the trailer as two of the all-time greats.

Yeah. I thought both theatrical Pearl Harbor trailers using the Thin Red Line music were amazing.


Then we saw the movie....

I have recently come to the conclusion that trailers are all about the music in them. It also helps if I already have some sort of attachment, via several methods (sequel, historical, other medium [comics]).

Great trailers in recent history:
- Terminator 2 is a great example. My favorite was the "This Time There Are Two" version. One of the best trailers I've ever seen.

- The Lion King. It just used the opening Circle of Life, and ended up the bass "zinger". I saw it with Wayne's World 2, and I'd have done anything, ANYTHING, to see The Lion King at that moment.

- Titanic had a trailer (not the really long one that came with the first DVD release) that was incredible. Peter Coyote voiceover, Braveheart music to start it off.

- The TPM teaser, because it came out of NOWHERE for me. I was just watching TV, blissfully unaware of prequels (I knew they had cast them, but had NO IDEA when the movies were ever coming out). Two minutes later, I was almost awestruck. The "Breathing" teaser for AOTC was also quite awesome.

- Laugh it up, but the full Pearl Harbor trailer is still one of the best trailers I've ever seen, thanks to minimal dialogue, Journey to the Line, and some of Bay's best visuals. I actually cried during the trailer, it was that good. It does not exist in this form anywhere, much to my great sadness. I'd certainly trade the film for it. (EDIT: I see I have been beaten to it, in several recent posts)

The Matrix Reloaded full trailer was also quite awesome.

The Spider-Man 2 full trailer was one of the best in recent years as well.

Batman Begins had a good campaign, considering they were working uphill.

In smaller medium news, Black Hawk Down had some great ads that made use of Moby and DMB with spectacular Ridley imagery.

Lots of nerd movies, I know.

I thought the trailers for Galaxy Quest did a disservice to what was a great film. I think Serenity had a dreadful campaign, posters, trailers, everything.

One of my all time favorite trailers is Dark City. The music, the imagery, and not a lick of dialogue, other than what is in the music "Sleep....now".

Recent bad trailer(s) are the ones for Zathura. Besides using the Requiem song which is now eternally locked in my mind as the Two Towers trailer music, they just don't make any sense nor make me want to see it. Their best trailer was probably the first which was more of a take off of Jumanji's but at least made the film look interesting.

The Phantom Menace teaser may the greatest trailer of any kind of all time. It was nostalgic, and the visuals literally sucked the wind out of you. The Revenge of the Sith trailer was very impressive as well

The Return of the King trailer was quite powerful, giving us the sense that 'this is it'.

The teaser for Cinderella Man, for one reason or another, made my eyes well up with tears everytime I saw it.

"The Adventures of Baron Munchausen. A true story. We've got the film to prove it."


And yeah, Dark City has one of the best trailers I've ever seen. I saw it before The Jackal and was completely amazed.

A little older than most of what's mentioned here, but I LOVED the trailer for Eyes Wide Shut with Nicole staring in the mirror, "Bad Bad Thing" playing, the CRUISE, KIDMAN, KUBRICK titles. If ever I wanted a time machine it was the first time I saw that trailer.

Besides Pearl Harbor, another example of outstanding trailer, bad movie, was the 1st teaser for Luc Besson's The Messenger - just Joan in a wheat field, slowly swinging her sword and chopping wheat, than it fades to black and had text instead of VO something like - She has been called many things throughout time - Saint, hero, soldier, insane, etc. in some kind of stylized font.

On the art house front, I thought Primer had a fantastic trailer. I didn't care for the movie, but the trailer was intriguing and strange, while telling you absolutely nothing about the story.

I've liked The New World trailers that I've seen, especially the first teaser.

Great: MASSACRE, MAFIA STYLE