Favorite Movie Trailers

[Orius]

Today, movie trailers can be incredibly annoying due to how much plot they spoil to the audience. There was a time, however, when the trailer editors had to get creative in thinking about how to market the movie without spoiling anything instead of just lazily slapping together exciting scenes.

 

Teaser trailers are my favorite because of this reason. A lot of teasers were very creatively done. The best part about them is how much excitement they can provide the audience at times without giving away anything important. That's the genius of a good teaser, teasing you with some very interesting editing that leaves you yearning for more.

 

Let me show you what I mean with some of my favorites:

 

Godzilla - Museum

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_oiHWXLIFI

 

In the summer of 1997, the world was crazy over dinosaurs due to the release of The Lost World: Jurassic Park. To counter this in its marketing, Tristar released a trailer that tried to show how insignificant the T-Rex is compared to the monstrosity that's Godzilla itself.

 

This was such a fun teaser, the way the teacher describes the T-Rex as the largest living carnivore on the planet before Godzilla makes its appearance. Too bad the actual movie wasn't as well-made.

 

Spider-Man - Twin Towers

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_YcSng3QeY

 

Ah yes, the infamous "Twin Tower" teaser that got banned immediately after 9/11. I only saw the edited version of this teaser, so I had no clue this existed till I saw it in the DVD. I love how this was edited to seem like a very professional heist sequence, making you think this is a different kind of movie. This is a great example of how you should make a trailer - tease them bit by bit, hooking them in, and finally unleash the prize when you've them lured in. I love the tagline that goes with the song, "Go for the ultimate spin" as the song plays in the background, "I wanna take you on a rollercoaster." Very well done to fit in with Spidey's dynamic movement, swinging through the skyscrapers.

 

By the way, this teaser (the edited version anyway) introduced me to Lunatic Calm's "Leave You Far Behind", my favorite big beat music of all time.

 

Batman Begins - Something Terrifying

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ohiQ6cLRsE

 

There was a significant factor as to why this teaser was effective: Batman & Robin. After that disaster of a film, this drastic change in tone for what was teased to be a new Batman movie probably sent a lot of Batman fans crazy. It's probably even more exciting than when Nick Fury mentioned the A-word at the end of Iron Man. And a Bruce who finally talks about the concept of fear, something never properly addressed in previous Batman films? Holy cow. This is the stuff of wet dreams of Batman fans everywhere.

 

Psycho - A Hitchcockian Documentary

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ps8H3rg5GfM

 

You'll never see a trailer like this today, which is an incredible shame. This is a gem of cinema that shows the length of creativity the filmmakers had to go to back then. And to really appreciate this trailer, I think you have to understand the Hitchcockian style. Hitchcock is known for his blend of comedy, or at least lighthearted moments with frightening thriller moments. It's a key missing ingredient from a lot of horror movies today (or at least, comedy done wrong), and nobody could ever replicate Hitchcockian filmmaking as perfectly, at least not that I've seen.

 

The point of building up such lighthearted moments was not just to leave the audience unprepared for the suspense that follows, but also to settle in a sense of realism that doesn't feel fictional. Hitchcock is known to put a lot of realism in his movies, making the horror and suspense feel like it could happen in real life. It's not the fantastical and ostentatious kind of horror you'd see today, so urgent to rub in the audience's faces that "THIS IS A HORROR MOVIE" they might as well have typed in caps like I did.

 

Star Trek - Under Construction

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkZFWr0vR8Q

 

This is possibly the best teaser out of all the entries I've listed. There are just many things done right in this teaser: the quotes about space travel in the background, the mysterious vibe slowly revealing the iconic shape of the Starship, Leonard Nimoy saying his famous line right as the word, "Enterprise" appears on the screen, the "Under Construction" at the end. Just about everything about this trailer is perfectly put together to tease the hell out of Trekkies.

 

And that's it for my thesis on movie trailers. lol Share some of your favorite movie trailers you love in this thread! Which trailer excited you the most?

[existentiallylostdumbell]

The trailer for Logan

The trailer for the Revenant

[The Bunk]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDKHWRbK2_Q

[Orius]

Aside from being one of the rare movie reboots that was actually quality, Tron: Legacy had an amazing teaser trailer as well:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iFxMhlNC3ss

 

The cinematography of the teaser alone was beautiful, slowly pulling back the curtain to tease audiences about the return of Tron in millennium high definition quality. When that newly upgraded light cycle appeared in the trailer for the first time, I could just imagine Tron fans going crazy over it.

 

I love that there's almost no music in the background at all till the end. It really sets an immersive atmosphere and absorbs us in. The reveal of a returning protagonist at the end at the trailer was of course ingenious. Rarely do movie reboots at the time bothered to bring back stars from the original movies after so many years due to financial concerns. Star Wars was an exception because it's a bazillion-dollar franchise; Tron wasn't.

[SleepyLeoulf]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EgdxIlSuB70