I absolutely love movie trailers. To me it is the highlight of my trip to the movies. When I watch a movie at home, I play through all of the trailers first, and if it is a DVD I play the trailer for the film I am watching before I ever press play movie. There are times I am more content to watch movie trailers than the actual movie, but why is that?
Personally, I like trailers so much, because normally they are better than the film. I don’t understand this either. Why do film companies produce trailers that the film can never live up to? Several trailers even contain scenes, images, and plot references that are no where to be found in the actual film.
Which brings me to the point of this article that movie trailers are false advertising? There is no way around it, they are flat out lies. Movie trailers are nothing more than a piece of marketing material to get you to buy a ticket to see a film. How many films have you seen hyped up by Hollywood that just left you disappointed?
Movie trailers keep getting better and better, and the movies they are advertising suck more and more. This problem has gotten worse over the years also. For example: Last night I watched Bio-Dome, and in typical Stan-Lee fashion I watched the trailer first. Yeah, I have seen it all before, but my habits always prevail. The trailer complimented the movie very well, I noticed a few clips that I didn’t see in the film, but for the most part the trailer fit very well. Now let’s compare this to a new release, Fool’s Gold. The trailer made the move look great, an adventure / comedy / love story. Sounds like a perfect date movie right? Well guess what? The trailer missed the plot completely! When watching the trailers did you know the film revolved around a rapper called Bigg Bunny? I had no clue. There are some trailers out there that you will see Bigg Bunny, but the most publicized trailers ignore any mention of him.
So when should a trailer be considered false advertising? I think that many of today’s trailers should be considered false advertising. Personally, I am tired of seeing trailers that are better than the film. What do you guys think? Are you sick of the bloated trailers that lead you to think a D-grade movie is a piece of film history?