FOTR trailers: a retrospective

[Christian]

I'm sitting here watching SW Episode I: The Phantom Menace with my kids. They insisted on a videotape of it, but I was adamantly against spending perfectly good U.S. dollars on it; so I taped it off of network TV early last month. (First time on network television! Don't miss it!)

The upshot is, our copy of TPM has commercials. And, just (I think) to emphasize the irony of watching that blight on cinematic history, some of the ads are part of the pre-release media blitz for FOTR. Hadn't thought about those in a while ... It has disjointed pieces from various parts of the movie, closing at the end with the first meeting of Aragorn and Frodo, and a piece of the scene with the cave troll hunting Frodo in Moria. And it manages, I couldn't help but notice, to give an effective preview of the movie without (a) spoiling the plot, and (b) showing all of the good parts!

What do you think-is that a first? I guess (b) wasn't hard to do-a commercial with all of the good parts from FOTR would have been about two hours and fifty-eight minutes long. But I was really impressed with their success in giving a 'feel' for the movie without any plot spoilers.

OK, your turn! Any responses?

 

[Christian]

closing at the end

'Closing at the end'? Dang it-I let a repetitive redundancy slip in.

And now, back to your regular program.

 

[Grim]

i thought they did a pretty good job, but they kind of spoiled the cave troll. I was totally unsurprised when it showed up. The Balrog though, now that was a surprise!

 

[Ravellion]

Yes, very good that they didn't show the balrog - also, I loved the fact that they had some of the travelling scenes in there... they gave a good "feel".

Rav

 

[Fyrie]

My only gripe with FOTR is that the music in the trailers, in my mind at least, fits the feel of the movie much better. Don't get me wrong, the music is (on a musical measurement) fantastic in the film. However, I constantly feel like it is grating against what is going on, on screen.

For example, that slo-motion shot where they are in order appearing as they walk up the mountain. The music just didn't fit. I could probably think of 50 or so other things that rubbed me wrong with the soundtrack, to the point where it distracted me.

Another example would be the music at the end fo the council seen.

 

[Rashak Mani]

Trailers always tend to spoil the fun of movies... the troll I agree wasnt a surprise... yet overall I agree with you that it wasnt too bad as regards plot spoiling. The fact that most of the fans already know the story should be noted thou

As for the music... I agree too... the trailers used the music much better than the film.

 

[EOL]

I thought that they did an excellent job with all of the FOTR trailers, but it's hard for me to remember if anything was given away because having read the books there was very little that could have been given away.

Now the Matrix that was a great movie with a horrible, give-away-the-entire-ending, trailer.

 

[BronzeDragon]

I was actually disappointed that some of the scenes in the trailers were cut from the movie itself.

The part of the entire Fellowship receiving presents from the elves of Lothlórien was particularly missed by me.

Indeed, let me start a new thread....