Went to a movie theater and saw a trailer for a movie where I was interested in the first 30 seconds of it, but the trailer then showed what looked like something probably from the last 10 minutes and spoiled the entire movie, so lost all interest.
So what movies come to mind as having done really good, where it makes you interested and gives you an idea of the movie, but doesn’t ruin any big reveals?
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Fight Club. I literally avoided it because all the ads made it seem like some ‘BRO FIGHTING IS HARDCORE AND AWESOME LETS CHUG A BEER’ dudebro bullshit.
The fan interpretation of the movie as literally that really colors my perception of the movie. I love Bukowski (with some trepidation), and I know that the dudebro interpretation is 180 degrees from the intended meaning, but when it’s that badly misinterpreted I can’t help but feel like the cultural baggage weighs it down. It’s been decades since I’ve seen it, but when I started becoming aware of the PUA culture ((which I think provided the nucleus to the incel/maga culture we see today), they were leaning hard into it.
Contrast that with American History X, which I’ve been told has been interpreted by skinhead/WP subcultures as a film that portrays them positively and justifies their POV. I don’t associate that movie with that interpretation because they’re a much more marginalized community (at least until 2016), and because the movie really beats you over the head with the message so much that misinterpretation cannot be attributed to the film.
Do you mean Palahniuk? Bukowski didn’t write Fight Club
Yup - you’re right. I kinda have the same hang ups with both, and it’s late, so I got them confused.
I know it’s a valid use of the word by its definition, but “marginalized” is so associated with oppressed minority groups in my head that I definitely did a double take at seeing Nazis described as such.
That’s fair. I struggled to find the word, but it was (again, at the time) a counterculture movement on the fringes of a counterculture movement (the punk/hardcore scene in general). There was a time when I was pretty elbows deep in researching groups like WAR and the role of bands like Skrewdriver and gangs like the Hammerskins. I even interviewed some people. They were all very surreally open to talking - you can see that if you watch some documentaries from the time.
I really don’t want to get back into that though. It’s a dark hole, and it’s getting close enough to mainstream politics that it’s an entirely different phenomenon.
What I guess I was trying to say is that Fight Club spoke to more people, and might have helped convert them. AHX was only seen as an endorsement by people who didn’t need converting, and who were such a tiny fraction of the population that they didn’t pose a large scale threat (although they did beat the crap out of me on a couple of occasions).
Oh I didn’t mean to criticize your use of the word, I was more commenting on how the word has evolved :P
I wasn’t sure if I agreed with your assessment of the different receptions for Fight Club and American Horror X (seeing as I haven’t really encountered enough Nazis talking about the film to form an opinion) but “AHX was only seen as an endorsement by people who didn’t need converting” makes quite a lot of sense.
You mentioned documentaries, are there any in particular you’d recommend? I’d be curious to see any parallels or differences there are between neo-Nazi punk culture and the current era “alt-right” or whatever they call themselves lately.
It’s been too long for me to remember off the top of my head, but this SPLC article on Tom Metzger and the White Aryan Resistance should give you a starting point and some terms to search for. The Hammerskins were one of the bigger gangs back then that had a presence in multiple states and I think in the UK. The ADL also has great records and studies on these groups and are a key resource for researchers.
It’s been a while since I saw it, but I believe the older guy in AHX was supposed to represent Metzger. They were very much alike.
Thanks for the starting point! 😊
Look up ‘The Stunt Man’ with Peter O’Toole. He plays a director trying to make a WW1 movie. At one point he’s talking to the film’s writer. “A director I really admire once made a truly great anti-war movie. Military recruitment in his home town jumped 500% after they screened it.”
I think this comment sums up why a lot of studios don’t avoid spoiling major plot points in trailers. It’s very easy to advertise a movie as something it isn’t (or just the opening third), and miss the core audience that will actually leave good reviews on it, convincing others to go.
A movie that did a great job of getting across what it was in the trailer, but still throwing a massive curveball, was Barbarian, which I really appreciate it for. Almost every plot point was subversive, though partially because it was such a strange film.
Cabin in the Woods is another great example. Avoided it because it looked like a generic slasher.
I had it figured out from the scene on the airplane.
“Oh look, we have the same suitcase!”
“Oh, fuck me!!”
Matrix. The original one. They nailed it.
No one knows what The Matrix is… You must experience it for yourself.
We do every day. Do you think that’s air you’re breathing?
everyday
That means “commonplace”. You know that, right? Were you trying for “every day”, as in “daily”?
Fixed. Probably got autocorrected.
Right. All I remember from the marketing material, even the bespoke website, was an image of a Sentinel. Seeing that was enough for me to avoid all reviews, but I did visit that website a few more times and still had no idea what the movie was about. Saw it opening night. Actually I was a bit disappointed by the premise, seemed very derivative. Still a great movie tho.
The Blair Witch Project. A lot of us didn’t know it was fake until the actors accepted an award for the movie 😅
Ugh I’m glad we’re part this part of history, when every film and tv show started this same trend for a time.
Do you want Ancient Aliens? Cause this is how you get Ancient Aliens
At least we weren’t the War of the Worlds generation 🤣
I dunno, there was a good long marketing campaign during which everyone had the chance to realize it was fiction.
past*
People played along like it was real found footage but grown adults understood it was a movie. It was fun to pretend it was real. They didn’t do traditional press to help preserve the idea…it wouldn’t have been as fun if the actors were on the tonight show etc.
I read articles about it before going to the theatre, a major studio picked it up as a tiny indie film and didn’t change a lot but they did throw some budget at some sound production that amped it up. The scene in the tents where you hear shit all around them? In surround sound it’s fantastic. The studio added that.
It was so obviously fake though
Edit: downvotes from people who were six when it came out, I guess
Probably more of a bait and switch tactic, but Deadpool 2’s trailer focused on setting up X-Force with some fantastic casting - then killing them off almost immediately in the film
Just rewatched the offical trailer, and you’re totally right! All you really know is that Deadpool is trying to protect some kid and forms the xforce. It doesn’t spoil anything with why Cabal is there, any other villain’s that show up, or the character arc of the kid.
Great example!
You might wanna use spoilers tag
???
It’s been years since it was released. If you haven’t seen it at this point then saying *spoilers! * can only be seen as sarcastic.
You might wanna use a /s
So everyone oughta see it right away or they don’t deserve to see the thing were praising here?
What about those too young to see it when it was released?
Empathy is what I’m asking for here.
I mean, I sorta get where you’re coming from, but it’s also unrealistic. So no movies can ever be discussed on the internet without spoiler tags? What would the cutoff be? Ten years? In my experience after like a year, people who care about spoilers have seen it already. Everyone else maybe would get around to seeing it, but expecting the rest of the world to cater to that is unreasonable.
You’ll never guess who Luke’s father is!
Did you hear what happened to that Jesus fellow?
Luke Duke? I know he has a cousin called Bo but don’t know his father. It can’t be Boss Hog, surely?!
Who?
WHO?
Yes
::: spoiler Is having to use spoiler tags really that inconvenient? :::
For one, tons of people learn about “well known” movies for the first time literally every day. The world isn’t some static thing were everyone knows everything all the time. Furthermore, what’s so hard about just typing “spoiler warning about [x movie]” before talking about critical plot elements? Just a quick heads up to people that are being cautious about it. It’s such a minor thing to do just to be thoughtful, and people always freak out about the suggestion as if it’s some monumental task.
I mean, I get it, it’s a nice thing to do. People who do it care about others. But the flip side of that isn’t “these people don’t care about others.” It’s just that it’s not expected after a while. See what I’m saying?
You’re right, it’s a nice thing to do. But it’s not really something we can get up in arms over after a certain point.
You might wanna use spoilers tag
Wow, yeah. That really is just unhinged. How dare they have said something like that? 🙄
My memory is a bit hazy but The Matrix comes to mind.
What is the Matrix?
Absolutely The Matrix. None of us knew what it was about when we went to see it opening weekend. I thought it was going to be about aliens. Boy was my mind blown.
What was awesome to me was your friends who saw it first weren’t trying to tell you why you had to see it, just that you had to see it.
My friends were the best, they gave me purposely wrong details to the point i almost didn’t watch it.
Mystery Men had posters that just showed the characters, a trailer mostly cut from action scenes and character intros (no plot), and the music video to Smash Mouth’s “All Star”
“You put your father’s skull in a bowling ball?”
“Oh! No, no, no… guy at the Pro-Shop did it for me.”
“Coming home one night, he fell down an elevator shaft… onto some bullets.”
“You, know, I’ve always suspected a bit of foul play.”
“As have I.”
“God gave me this gift, I shovel well, I shovel very well.”
I remember seeing it in theaters and really not knowing what to do with it.
Just rewatched that movie. Still great.
Everything but the skunk scene.
Interstellar marketing was pretty interesting, they basically told you nothing about the movie, but communicated the vibes of it well. I don’t think the first trailers even showed space, despite that being where the majority of the movie takes place.
That movie was so nuts, they could have shown a lot more and still given nothing away…
Interstellar trailer https://youtu.be/zSWdZVtXT7E
This is one of the few films where I thought the teaser trailer was more compelling than the full trailer.
This trailer and the feelings it evokes will always be in my mind. It may just be a bunch of clips and speeches overlaid with amazing music but damn is it perfect.
Alien.
The OG!
“In space no one can hear you scream”
Rewatched the trailer, literally all you know is that they are in space, and there is something terribly wrong.
Such a good trailer.
Terminator 2. The trailer gave the impression that Schwarzenegger was the baddie.
One of my minor cinema regrets is that I saw T2 before I saw T1, so the impact of the moment Arnie steps out of the elevator in front of Sarah wasn’t what it might have been. Still a great movie though, so glad I saw it in the cinema.
By the time Arnie steps out of the elevator we as the audience know he’s a good guy.
Yeah, fair point, you’re right - what I mean is that having not seen the first one, I wasn’t clear on why Sarah reacted the way she did.
I think there’s maybe a wee bit of backstory and some photos of T1, but at the time I don’t think I had really picked up on that, so when she sees him and is terrified, I didn’t quite get it.
The whole escape scene with Sarah’s rollercoaster ride of emotions in it is one of the finest pieces of acting in cinema ever.
Oh yeah that makes sense then.
Really? I think you might have lucked out and seen a different trailer, because the one I saw completely spoiled the big reveal!
Cabin In The Woods. I wanted to see it because of the commercials and wondering WTF?
Cabin in the Woods is a fantastic subversion of horror movie tropes and a great homage to the classics.
Gary Oldman, in the role of a lifetime.
I about spit up my drink going through that trailer.
So for Gary Oldman is this role tge equivalent of like Kirk Lazarus playing Lincoln Osiris? Or Tugg Speedman playing Simple Jack? Because I just can’t decide.
I watched the whole trailer thinking this was a parody for a movie that didn’t actually exist. I thought maybe it was a fun treat for Tropic Thunder.
Kate Beckinsale agreed to star in the film for scale if she would be allowed to wear her “lucky hat” during filming, and Bright agreed.[1] On her first day of filming, the producers demanded that Bright tell her to remove the hat, and Bright refused, as this was the only reason she was in the film for a low salary. Arguments between Bright and producers persisted during filming.[1]
but more importantly:
Matthew Bright conceived the film when he was 18, as “a raucous comedy about little people fucking each other”.[1]
the wiki for this movie is wild
ahem Did you really have to post this? It would have cost you nothing to not post it.
Frozen. Somehow, Disney kept the unexpected twist a secret. Even while watching the movie, you just don’t think that something like that could happen right up until it does. It’s a card they’ll never be able to play again.
Bonus gaming answer: Halo & Halo 2. Bungie did a great job keeping both The Flood and playing as the Covenant a secret until the respective games were released.
Out of curiosity, What’s the twist in frozen?
The obligatory Prince Charming turns out to be the villain.
Yeah, it seemed cliche to me. Maybe it surprised some people because it wasn’t a thing in Disney movies?
Ah ok, thanks for telling the time
One character is revealed to be evil
They did pretty well with Inside Out as well. Bing Bong wasn’t even in any of the promotional materials at all.
To be fair Avengers Endgame did a good job of it.
Inception also comes to mind. I had no idea what it was going to be about and it turned out great.
Infinity war comes to mind for me. IIRC, the trailers contained a bunch of fake footage that wasn’t actually in the movie to prevent spoiling anything.
Barbarian. The all-red movie poster caught my eye, and the trailer doesn’t spoil much, there is waaaayyyyyy more going on in the movie than is shown in the trailer, although I would still recommend see it blind.
I was in a state of stunned wtfuckery for the entire movie.
It’s an amazing movie.
Every time you think you got it figured out you’re blindsided with some shit lmao. Great movie
Truly.
Blindsided with 18-wheelers, every time.
Love it.
Nope.
I mean the movie, I’m not just refusing to answer. If you don’t already know what it’s about, it does an incredibly good job of making you curious as to what the fuck is going on.
Also, it’s just a banger with lots of attention to detail. Highly recommended.
