Thundercats, HOOOOOOOO!

[Felon]

After hearing all the cries of "awesome" here, I laugh and cry a little bit. The guy who made the faux trailer seems to have latched onto the realization that, once comprehended fully, makes action movie trailers a lot less awesome. That realization being: all action movie trailers are, in fact, the same trailer (maybe I should put that in spoiler tags...?).

It's basically a macro where you just drop in some random sound bites and clips from the movie at hand and then click the "Create Trailer" button. You have to make the effort to divide the clips between the first half of the trailer, where everything's really slow, muted, and mysterious, and the second half where the trailer explodes into a frenetic, seizure-inducing, messy montage, but beyond that it's paint-by-numbers.

About the only beat this trailer misses is the hammy fortune-cookiesque lines of text that should be in the first half, cutting back-and-forth with the long drawn-out opening shots. Something like:

"In a time/world of blah blah blah....." (where "blah" equals "bad stuff")

Cut to opening shots. Try not to give too much away.

"Where blah blah blah rules/reins/destroys blah blah blah...." (more bad stuff)

Cut to next set of opening shots. A little faster paced now. Drop some clues.

"The only sound of blah blah blah is...." (here "blah" is hope, love, freedom and other good things)

Cut to next set of opening shots. Trying to reach a profound moment here where the audience finally gets the big reveal.

"The sound of THUNDER."

Screen goes dead quiet and pitch black for a suspenseful couple of seconds. Is it over? Was that the end of the trailer?

Hell no! KA-BOOM! Let the pounding, bombastic music and half-second-long clips of things blowing up and people running and fighting and stuff flying at the fourth wall commence!

"Awesome!"

 

[Relique du Madde]

After hearing all the cries of "awesome" here...! SNIP

For me what made the trailer awesome was not the visuals or the audio. It was the fact that someone (who wasn't myself) risked their sanity to create that trailer and that theoretically no one has to do it again since it already exists and in it's existence it proves several fundamental laws of the internet. It also makes us able to sleep easily at night without our wondering "What if someone made a faux Thundercats trailer?*"




*Because we all know someone was loosing sleep over this question ever since youtube came into being.

 

[Felon]

There's actually one or two others out there on Youtube, though this is one is superior.

 

[Relique du Madde]

There's actually one or two others out there on Youtube, though this is one is superior.

Then hopefully this will be the last until someone in Hollywood makes a Thundercat's movie (which will most likely not be awesome) :^)

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

After hearing all the cries of "awesome" here, I laugh and cry a little bit. The guy who made the faux trailer seems to have latched onto the realization that, once comprehended fully, makes action movie trailers a lot less awesome. That realization being: all action movie trailers are, in fact, the same trailer (maybe I should put that in spoiler tags...?).

I agree with your observation. I wonder if the form of an action trailer can be linked back to another literary form (maybe the typical 3-act structure or stuff like that)? Or is it unique and only applies to trailers?

 

[Angel Tarragon]

THAT. IS. EFFING. AWESOME!

 

[timbannock]

All I know is it was awesome because it was ridiculous.

Oh, and most movie trailers spoil the whole story. If it weren't for having watched Thundercats, I'd have no clue what the heck this trailer is telling me.

And that's okay. I hate spoiled movies (i.e. Nick Cage's "Snake Eyes" had the worst offender of this sort, possibly followed by Nicole Kidman's recent alien movie, "Invaders" or whatever that piece of **** was)

 

[fba827]

agreed -- I wasn't saying that it was the most awesomest type movie (if real) etc etc. I was commenting on the creativity involved in putting it together -- even if formulatic, it still takes some talent to do the visuals and editing otherwise 1000s of people would have done it before. I personally have no artistic talents so I like to be appreciative of those who do and use it for geek-fandom :-D

 

[Felon]

I agree with your observation. I wonder if the form of an action trailer can be linked back to another literary form (maybe the typical 3-act structure or stuff like that)? Or is it unique and only applies to trailers?

Well, this style of action movie trailer is only a few decades old, as blockbuster action movies don't go very far back. Safe to say, it caught on for the simple reason that it excels at evoking the desired reaction ("awesome"), and most folks are just not actively analyzing what they see. They like formulas, which explains why movies that deviate from the formula are more likely to bomb than be praised for their unconventionality.

The three-act-play analogy is apt. The trailer basically skips the second act.

 

[Pbartender]

That realization being: all action movie trailers are, in fact, the same trailer (maybe I should put that in spoiler tags...?).

It's basically a macro where you just drop in some random sound bites and clips from the movie at hand and then click the "Create Trailer" button. You have to make the effort to divide the clips between the first half of the trailer, where everything's really slow, muted, and mysterious, and the second half where the trailer explodes into a frenetic, seizure-inducing, messy montage, but beyond that it's paint-by-numbers.

Yup, you got that right... Of course, that doesn't make it any less fun to watch. Which is likely why so many action movies use the formula.