I’m totally with you on the ‘not wanting to know anything about the story’. I very seldom read the back of a book or video etc…

At the risk of hijacking a more general point about spoilers for a Hollywood-sucks rant, there are some more interesting theories about the decline and fall of the cinematic empire here.

When we last went to the cinema, Karen and I saw the trailer for “Unleashed”, starring Jet Li. From the trailer I was able to string together a convincing plot synopsis (Universal Soldier with a dash of Finding Forrester) and now I don’t want to see the movie, at least not until it makes the $2/week shelf at Civic Video. I think the trailer-editor did me a favour.

Alastair,

Your theory about trailers being the best bits of the movie – and leaving people disappointed – strikes a strong chord with me.

I have watched extended trailers in movie theatres and thought “Well, thanks for that. There’s no need to see that movie – I’ve already seen the important stuff.”

It is not just limited to movies. Douglas Adams’ Mostly Harmless was a largely disappointing book, but best read without reading the blurb first, as the blurb contains all the funny parts of the book!

I was extremely frustrated by the advertisers of Dead Poet’s Society. It was advertised as a comedy – however, that was only because the artfully edited the small amounts of comic relief from a tragic story into a 30 second advert. Two years earlier, Good Morning Vietnam suffered from the same treatment.

I’ll admit my examples are very dated, but my point remains. A poor selection in the trailer (e.g. all the best bits, or all the comic bits) leaves us disappointed when the movie doesn’t live up to the expectation we are given. Sure that movie-maker got my money, but I am less likely to regularly visit the cinema if I regularly get disappointed in this way.

Re: formatting.

I quite agree with you. That was a bug in the stylesheet. It has been corrected. Thanks for pointing it out.

Re formatting of that last comment: I don’t like your stylesheet’s rendering of ordered lists to make them look like blockquotes.

This relates to one of my pet theories as to why cinema audiences (or at least Hollywood revenues) are declining.

1. People watch movie trailers
2. The trailer gives away crucial plot details and/or reveals climactic sequences and/or tells the funniest jokes
3. People get excited and think there’s lots more to the movie besides what was revealed in the trailer
4. People go and see the movie and find out that what was in the trailer was the entirety of the best bits of the movie.
5. People leave disappointed.

The Usual Suspects is best watched without preconceptions. For movies I want to watch, I avoid the trailers like the plague.

Battlestar Galactica is an otherwise excellent show but has an annoying habit of showing you highlights from this weeks episode at the beginning of the show! (I look away from the screen)

(On a related note, I quite liked this list of reasons for the decline of Hollywood)