‘Trailers’ ruin the cinema thrill
Do you love the cinema – but hate the trailers? If you are anything like me, the answer is a resounding ‘yes’.
These days, it takes about 23 minutes from the start time to the moment a film actually begins. That’s more than a third of an hour of ads, promos for the cinema chain you are in – and vignettes about other blockbusters you might like to watch in the future – before you get to the main course of the evening.
The truth is I used to love them. They were mini-films that teased, tempted and got me overwhelmed at the prospect of whatever the “forthcoming attraction” was going to be. But how times have changed.
They now feel like the main course – before the main course! So much is revealed that I feel like I have actually seen the film being advertised long before it is released.
Take, for instance, the trailer for the new Bond movie No Time To Die. Having now seen it, I know that at some point Daniel Craig will ride a bike up a bridge and jump off, and his Aston Martin will drive into a square and spray bullets at some bad guys. I also know several of the other key plot lines points, thereby killing the element of surprise and thrill when I actually get round to watching the full movie this autumn.
Other genres, like comedy, produce trailers containing all the best jokes. Why exactly? This means the best lines have all been used by the time you see the actual picture. And some even give away the ending. How crazy is that?
To be honest, I am getting a bit fed up with going to see a film knowing that I have probably seen the best bits already. But it doesn’t have to be this way.
No special effects
Two of the greatest trailers ever made didn’t show one single frame of the film. And both were produced by the ‘Master of Suspense’ himself, Alfred Hitchcock.
The trailer for Psycho saw Hitchcock take cinemagoers on a tour of the set. Nothing more. And the trailer for the sequel, The Birds, simply filmed him giving a lecture about mankind’s relationship with our feathered friends.
Similarly, the trailer for the 1968 classic Planet of the Apes featured its star, Charlton Heston, talking to the camera about his fellow co-stars. That’s all. No special effects; no crash, bang, wallop; no nothing, other than the perfect ‘tease’, which is what a trailer is supposed to be.
It is believed the first trailer for a movie was created in 1913 for a musical called The Pleasure Seekers. Cinema has come along way since then.
I totally understand films have to be sold to an audience that is today bombarded with marketing messages from all directions and on all mediums. But here’s an appeal to those producers and promoters who make the trailers: by all means tell me who is in the film and what it’s about, but please desist from exposing me to far too much! If it continues, I may have to start arriving 20 minutes after the scheduled start time. Come to think of it that’s probably not a bad idea…
Andy Godfrey is a film critic for Sorted and a leading member of the Mark Kermode Appreciation Society.