Hollywood has an impressive
technology that allows them to
shrink a full-length
feature movie into a
compact, highly
promotable trailer. This trailer is like the
Cliff's Notes version of the movie, and it explains every little
plot-twist,
secret, and
previews every
stunt,
explosion, or
unexpected death. Presumably, this is done so that, having
virtually seen the entire movie, you can now make a fully
informed decision about spending
hard cash on the real thing.
"
Ronin" had a great trailer at the start. It was
mysterious, it was
dark, and you wanted to know more. Then, a few weeks before the movie
hit the theatres, they added more and more to it until you were able to reconstruct the entire screenplay from the trailer alone. "
Mission To Mars", while not a great movie in many respects, suffered from a horrendous trailer that insisted on showing you
everything.
The first "
Toys" trailer was just
Robin Williams standing in a
big green field talking about the movie, a trailer that did not use a single frame from the feature, which is perfection, really.
With "
Unbreakable", it was decided to show you the first
five minutes of the movie so you could get a handle on where it was going, much like "
Sleepy Hollow". If you actually got around to seeing the movie after repeated
exposure to the trailer, it was like a bad case of
Deja-Vu.
I suppose the people that need these trailers are the same people who need
coffee cups with "
Warning, Contents Hot" printed on the side in large letters.