"A single drop...
"soon became a river."
[intro music]
All media needs some way of grabbing our attention
and that is precisely what trailers of all kinds are designed to do.
They're a carefully planned, usually well thought-out
brief window into the quality of what the thing might end up being.
Might.
They are meticulously crafted in such a way
that you can end up with trailers that are actually better than the movies themselves.
Please take note that any specifics I talk about here
are not necessarily indicative of the quality of the movies or games themselves
because you can still have a terrible trailer with a great movie and vice versa.
Which leads into a fact that a lot of people seem to forget about this subject:
Trailers
Trailers lie.
Now, that doesn't necessarily mean they're straight up saying something like:
"Hey everyone, this movie is totally gonna have a badass Liam Neeson wolf fight in it!"
(distant voice) "That doesn't actually happen!"
"Oh wait, wait. What do you mean that doesn't happen in the movie?
What? Then why did they put it in the trailer?"
Okay, so that was a fucking terrible example, but you know what I mean.
Trailers have one purpose to fulfill, and that's to excite or interest you
to the point of enticing you into handing over your UK space credits to buy or see it.
Or wherever-you-live space credits.
And the advertising companies will do this in any way they can.
So with all that setup out of the way,
let's delve into some of the trends and stereotypical aspects of this hilariously specific video.
I've been thinking about this topic casually for a long time now,
mentally noting down when trailers do weird things that piss me off.
But to really understand how vastly different advertising and trailers are in modern times to how they once were,
we need to reach back into the past to see how things naturally evolved to the state they're in now.
So I spent some time hunting down some super old movie trailers going back as far as 1977.
Obviously these are gonna be some quite general assumptions about each decade
(because I'm not 40 years old)
so I could have little facts wrong here and there.
But with that said, let's have a look.
Oh, the 1970's.
It was a much simpler time back then.
There wasn't a superhero movie or reboot coming out every 3 months
and there was no Twitter to complain about them on either,
so when you saw a movie trailer in the theatres,
you knew you had to pay extra attention because there was a high chance you'd never see it again.
After watching a couple for myself, I noticed that these 70's trailers didn't like to give much away.
They were pretty vague, and in cases like the Alien trailer, were fascinatingly cryptic.
And while things like the first Star Wars trailer are pretty comical and dated to us in retrospect...
... at least they didn't spoil anything and kept most of the best scenes out of it for the most part.
The 1980's.
The 80's marked a point in trailer history where things started to get kinda weird and silly.
The trend was that every trailer was overly long and went through the entire movie beat by beat,
spoiling EVERYTHING. And I mean everything.
Like, this Blade Runner one literally goes through every single scene in the movie. Every single scene.
And they have those cheesy voice-overs
to give you a little bit of context to what's going on if it makes no sense.
"Ghosts."
"Hello, Ghostbusters?"
"They're real."
The 1990's.
The 90's didn't really change that much in terms of trailers.
They generally stopped spoiling every aspect of the movie
but still used that cheesy deep voice narrator to explain to you what was going on
with classics like:
"An adventure..."
"Look out!" "Down!"
"... 65 million years in the making."
It's kinda funny how different this is to...
It's kinda funny how different this is to... this.
Yeah.
It wasn't really until the oughts until things started to rapidly change.
Speaking of...
The 2000's.
I can't really do the voice for that one.
(goofy voice) "The 2000-"
(regular voice) The 2000's.
Have you noticed that every trailer now does the "show clip, fade to black, show clip, fade to black" thing?
Well, as far as I can tell, that started in the 2000's.
The early 2000's were also a time for angsty, badly edited clusterfuck trailers that made no goddamn sense.
Then as we got to the later half of the decade, the structure became slightly more nuanced,
with little things like punchlines or action shots being added after the title card.
But everything changed for good after one certain trailer came into the picture, which leads us nicely into...
The 2010's.
(It's just not the same, is it? It's just not the same as "1980's".)
Whether you like it or not, Inception's trailer kinda changed everything.
Pretty much every single big movie trailer uses the "BWAA" thing because of it.
You don't really have to be a fucking genius to notice this one.
"Oh, the trailer's winding down and fading to black, I wonder what's gonna happen!"
"Oh. It's a big noise followed by an explosion or something. Woohoo."
BWAA
I don't wanna be one of those assholes that lives in the past
and says the old stuff is better just because we don't have it anymore...
But the old stuff was better.
Now that no one has any attention spans that last more than...
... what was I talking about? Really, what was I talking about?
Everything feels the exact same!
All superhero trailers are the exact same.
Establishing shot.
Weighty speech about why superheroes are important or whatever.
Random reaction shots of various cast members.
Then peak with a money shot at the end with the dramatic tension music
before it cuts to black and the movie's title is shown.
All horror movie trailers are the exact same.
Establishing shot.
Random reaction shots.
Scary thing, cut to black.
Montage of scary things or whatever.
End with an elongated scare shot.
Oh God, do you remember when a bunch of trailers awkwardly crammed in dubstep
to desperately try to stay relevant?
They certainly haven't dated horribly since. No siree!
Don't you also love it when virtually every single comedy trailer has all the best jokes in it?
Talking to you, A Million Ways to Die in the West, there literally were no other jokes in the movie!
The 2020's.
Wait, what?
Seeing as our attention spans are getting shorter and shorter
and everything needs to become more and more flashy and attention-grabbing,
can you even imagine what trailers are gonna be like in the future?
BWAA
THEY CAME FROM OUTER SPACE
BWAA
BWAA, BWAA
BWAA, BWAA, BWAA
GIVE US YOUR MONEY, CHINA
BWAA
BWAA, BWAA
BWAA, BWAA, BWAA
GIVE US YOUR MONEY, DUMBASSES
BWAA
BWAA, BWAA
BWAA, BWAA, BWAA
Transformers 17:
Transformers 17: The Revenge of the War of
Transformers 17: The Revenge of the War of the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
Transformers 17: The Revenge of the War of the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull on the Attack of the Dark Side
Transformers 17: The Revenge of the War of the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull on the Attack of the Dark Side of the Rebellion in the Revelation
Transformers 17: The Revenge of the War of the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull on the Attack of the Dark Side of the Rebellion in the Revelation of the You'll Give Us Your Money
Transformers 17: The Revenge of the War of the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull on the Attack of the Dark Side of the Rebellion in the Revelation of the You'll Give Us Your Money Anyway. Fuck You.
Video games.
I know it's nice when game companies first reveal their game with an elaborate pre-rendered CG trailer
but I can't help but feel like it's just a tad unnecessary.
How many times have we played a game and been like:
"Well, it's good I guess, but I wanted to do what they did in the trailer."
I'm talking to you
EVERY ASSASSIN'S CREED GAME EVER
And how about that infamous trailer for Dead Island?
You know, the one where it goes backwards and has the super sad music everyone's obsessed with?
Then do you remember actually playing the game?
That trailer could not have been more of an opposite to the real experience and tone they were going for.
This is why I have such respect for a company like Rockstar,
who typically only use in-game assets to make trailers
which in hand makes it much more exciting
because you know that's the real game and that's what you're gonna get your hands on when it releases.
I know there are a bunch of trailers from old time periods that are super good as well as bad
but it takes something special to make it stand the test of time.
Something like the original Alien trailer is still creepy and effective now
and in terms of more modern ones,
I also have a huge affection for the first teaser trailer for Star Wars: The Force Awakens.
I know everyone wants to be super negative about it because they were burned so many times before,
"Because the Phantom Menace trailer was SO good and look how that turned out"
but when you actually go back to the Phantom Menace teaser trailer and notice all the warning signs
like the dumb slapstick comedy,
Jar Jar,
bad CG,
Jar Jar,
overuse of bad CG,
Watto,
and a bunch of other stuff that in retrospect is HORRIFICALLY TERRIBLE.
Try to apply the same thing to the newest trailer. You can't.
It's a badass trailer that won't be dated by anything because of the John Williams music
and clever use of shots that don't spoil anything.
(Or look like Jar Jar or Watto.)
Now that's how you do a trailer.
Everyone would still see the movie even if this was the only trailer they showed for it.
In fact, I'd almost prefer if this WAS the only thing they showed from it.
It's gotten to a point now where I actively try to avoid trailers for movies I'm anticipating
unless it's some kinda big dumb action movie or something.
'Cause what's the point of spoiling it for yourself and messing with your expectations?
I don't know about you, but I can predict when things are coming based on a trailer because I sit around saying:
"Well, I saw the Hulk catch falling Iron Man in the trailer so I know that's how this scene must--
--oh, there it is. Check that off the list."
Now, none of this is to say that I condemn or dislike the idea of trailers in and of itself
'cause the only reason I even made this video is because I care so much about the medium.
Making great trailers is an art form in the same way making a movie or game is.
I just wish the advertising companies would respect it a bit more
and at least try to make it less apparent that all they care about is our respective butts in their seats.
(That sounds a bit weird, doesn't it?)
("Respective butts in their seats"...)
(Not gonna say that one again.)
[outro music]
So those are my thoughts on movie trailers.
So, what are your thoughts on the-- on the idea of trailers yourselves?
Do you agree with me, do you disagree with me?
What are some of your favorite trailers and what are some of your least favorites?
Tell me in the comments below, and as always, thanks for watching.
All comments and ratings are very much appreciated. Make sure you check out some of my other videos,
I've got plenty of 'em, I'll see ya next time, BYE.