Trailers that spoil movies
We all know modern day comedy trailers show all the funny bits (just look at 'The Hangover's Mike Tyson cameo), while summer blockbuster promos are filled with all the best action sequences in the movie.
But what about those trailers that give away the ending too?
Infuriating and pointless — here are the worst offenders:
Free Willy
When you have a film that's central question is 'Can a young boy free a whale in captivity?' do you really need to see the actual rescue and money shot (Whale jumping over the young boy on his way to freedom)? The marketing team did, closing the trailer with it and plastering it on the posters.
It's not like we expected him to fail, what with it being a family film and all — but it would have been nice if we hadn't seen the ending before we watched the movie.
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Carrie
There are lots of ways to get an audience interested in a film about a bullied girl with telekinesis powers who finally snaps after she is covered in pig blood at her prom. You could hint at her powers and the constant threat from both her classmates and her unhinged mother, creating an unsettling atmosphere that you know can only end one way — bad. Or you could just show pretty much all the main scenes from the move, ending the trailer with a bloodied Carrie walking out of the burning school after we see glimpses of her rampage!
At least they didn't include the film's famous shock ending though.
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Termination Salvation
One of the main plot points of 'Terminator Salvation' focused on Sam Worthington's death row inmate character, who finds himself reawakened in the post apocalyptic world. Found by the human resistance, they, and he, are stunned to find that he is in fact a terminator.
It would have been a neat twist, and something different in the series.
Inexplicably, one of the film's trailers doesn't just hint at the twist, they show Worthington's entire character development during the film.
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Cast Away
Until a certain point 'Cast Away's trailer is perfectly serviceable — it sets up Tom Hank's middle class character and his relationship with his wife, played by Helen Hunt. We see his plane crashing, and his subsequent escape to a desert island. We see the clumsy rotund man transform into a skinny and bearded adept hunter.
All perfectly fine. Why the marketing bods felt we also needed to see him being rescued and then meet up with his wife (it's also hinted that certain people have moved on since his disappearance), we'll never know.
While the film was still a hit, nothing would have been a surprise if you had seen the trailer.
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What Lies Beneath
Robert Zemeckis shot 'What Lies Beneath' in between the filming of 'Cast Away' to give Tom Hanks enough time to lose weight for the island parts. And like 'Cast Away', the promo of 'What Lies Beneath' is incredibly spoiler heavy. The premise of Harrison Ford and Michelle Pfeiffer living in a haunted house should have been more than enough to pack in an audience. Throw in a few scares, a billowing curtain every once in a while and it should pique people's interest. But no, they had to reveal several key plot twists, including who the ghost is.
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The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
While there are legions of 'LOTR' fans, the first movie drew in not just avid readers of the books but a whole new audience. So why did the film's bosses decide to show a scene of Gandalf in the promo for the follow up.
Surely the return of a character previously thought dead should be saved for the actual movie?
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The Negotiator
The trailer for this 1998 hostage film really did reveal every plot point in the film — including the twist that the two rival negotiators, played by Samuel L Jackson and Kevin Spacey, team up together at the end.
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The Sum of All Fears
What was great about Tom Clancy's book was that the tired old plot of 'trying to stop a bomb going off in a major city' was given a fresh twist by having the actual bomb go off, resulting in the aftermath being the film's main storyline.
It was a ballsy move. Unfortunately, what could have been a great twist for cinemagoers was ruined when the entire story was mapped out in the trailer.
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