Imagine, if you will, you are sitting in a movie theater. You've got friends on either side of you and you are killing time answering the same easy trivia question for the tenth time. Finally the lights dim, your excitement rises a little, but no, it's just a coke commercial. Or some voice telling you to silence your cell phone. But then it happens. This screen pops up:
Oh yeah, it's preview time, the best part of the movies. What will it be? A super-rad blockbuster? A cheeseball romcom1? Emotional Oscar bait? A terrible and lame teen vampire movie? You never know. You are on the edge of your seat as everything about a movie is distilled down into a scant 2-3 minutes. When it ends you lean over and whisper to your friend, "that looks awesome" or "that looks terrible" before the green screen is there again and it all starts over.
Movie trailers are a funny thing. They are, at their core, commercials. I hate commercials, but I love trailers. Well, that's not exactly right. I love trailers in the movie theater, when they are up on the big screen. And I love catching sweet trailers when they first drop. But I always skip them on DVDs. I don't really know why, maybe it's the mystery of it all. But no matter their context they are definitely an attempt to sell you on spending your hard earned dollars2 on a movie.
Because of this they are often put together by people in charge of selling the movie rather than people who make the movie. This can lead to movies that don't end quite as awesome as the trailer would have you believe. At times the trailers simply give away too much3 of the story. And often the movie is completely misrepresented. What is wild is to think about how easy it is to completely manipulate the audience with some simple text and a sweet soundtrack. It makes you wonder if you could completely change the tone of a film?
Oh wait, someone already did that. Back in 2006 someone reedited a trailer for Mary Poppins, added new music and sound effects and came up with Scary Mary. Check it out4.
Other videos soon followed. Such as a re-cut Charlie and the Chocolate Factory trailer. Although, let's be honest, that movie was damn creepy on it's own, that tunnel scene? Come on.
But I think my favorite remixed trailer is probably this one, which I will leave you without any set up.
It pretty crazy how easy it is to make a trailer look absolutely nothing like the movie. Keep that in mind the next time you see a movie you are totally jazzed for, because you might be in for a surprise. Except if it's a Twilight preview, the actual movie will be just as sucky as the trailer.
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1 That would be a romantic comedy.
2 Or your parents if you are still in high school/home for Christmas.
3 My apologies for linking to VH1.
4 Hey Carrie and Tara, suck it up and watch the dang videos this time.
