Amazing movie scenes ruined by spoliers in Trailers

[Michael Tree]

When I saw the first Two Towers trailer, I was flabbergasted to see Gandalf in it. In the movie, his reappearance is an amazingly done scene, full of ambiguity and revelation, but it was completely ruined by the trailers. This is in striking contrast to the Fellowship, where the trailers were very subtle, and avoided all the really cool scenes like the Balrog or Sauron.

Another such scene was the one in The Phantom Menace where Darth Maul ignites his double lightsaber. In the trailer it was cool, but because of it in the movie it was ho-hum. If it wasn't in the trailer, it would have been an amazing scene, akin to first seeing Yoda throw down in AotC.

I'm curious what other movie scenes other people think were ruined by the trailers.

 

[Wormwood]

My all-time favorite was Terminator 2, when the trailers told you explicitly that Arnold was the good guy, something the movie took great pains to hide.

 

[hong]

The WORST TRAILER EVAR was for _Titanic_, when they showed that the ship sank. Ruined the whole movie!

 

[Orius]

When I saw the first Two Towers trailer, I was flabbergasted to see Gandalf in it. In the movie, his reappearance is an amazingly done scene, full of ambiguity and revelation, but it was completely ruined by the trailers. This is in striking contrast to the Fellowship, where the trailers were very subtle, and avoided all the really cool scenes like the Balrog or Sauron.

The Two Towers has been in print for 48 years. It's fairly common knowledge by now, at least to anyone who's read far enough into LotR, that Gandalf doesn't die in Moria. One more argument in favor of reading the books.

Another such scene was the one in The Phantom Menace where Darth Maul ignites his double lightsaber. In the trailer it was cool, but because of it in the movie it was ho-hum. If it wasn't in the trailer, it would have been an amazing scene, akin to first seeing Yoda throw down in AotC.

I'm curious what other movie scenes other people think were ruined by the trailers.

Agreed. I believe Monte Cook wrote a rant on his site about this very subject.

 

[Shadowdancer]

My all-time favorite was Terminator 2, when the trailers told you explicitly that Arnold was the good guy, something the movie took great pains to hide.

Well, Arnold let the cat out of the bag himself on Johnny Carson when he first announced there would be a T2 -- he said that night he would play the good guy. So in all of the stories about T2 before it even started filming, up until it was released, told you Arnold was playing the good guy.

I hated how much of "The Truman Show" was ruined by the trailers, and all of the publicity for it before it opened. That movie would have been awesome to watch if you didn't know the premise behind it going in. But I guess they kind of had to give the premise away in order to attract an audience.

"The Matrix," I thought, did a pretty good job of keeping its "surprise" plot twist a secret so the movie wasn't ruined for you going in. Same thing with "A Beautiful Mind."

 

[Michael Tree]

"The Matrix," I thought, did a pretty good job of keeping its "surprise" plot twist a secret so the movie wasn't ruined for you going in. Same thing with "A Beautiful Mind."

Fight Club succeeded at this particularly well too. Almost too well, in fact, as many people I know (including myself) didn't see it in the theatre because it looked like just some dumb formulaic "edgy" movie.

 

[Bhaal]

I was also very upset about the trailers for TTT. I've read the books, but for people who haven't it's doing them a disservice. Imagine if "I am your father" got put into trailers for star wars. At the least in 20 years when the trailers are gone, new people to the movie will enjoy the suprise not being spoiled.

On the other side of the coin, when I saw A Beautiful Mind I had no idea about the premise. I don't know if this was because the trailers didn't give it away or that I just never really paid attention to them. When I saw the movie, not knowing what it was really about made it 100 X more enjoyable.

 

[Michael Tree]

Re: Re: Amazing movie scenes ruined by spoliers in Trailers

The Two Towers has been in print for 48 years. It's fairly common knowledge by now, at least to anyone who's read far enough into LotR, that Gandalf doesn't die in Moria. One more argument in favor of reading the books.

All true, but millions of people who went to the movie didn't read the books, and it's a huge spoiler to them.

But even for people who have read the books, the reappearance of Gandalf would have been a much more cinematically powerful one if half of it hadn't been shown in the trailer.

Agreed. I believe Monte Cook wrote a rant on his site about this very subject.

Did he now. I'll have to check that out.

 

[WayneLigon]

I have to agree. Speed II looked like it would been an interesting movie, but I had desire to see it because the trailer showed, well, pretty much everything. That new DeNiro movie: seems like the same thing. Really only two choices there, but the trailer gives away what I'm betting would have been a crucial scene ('I didn't turn. You did.').

 

[Agamon]

I hate comedy trailers that show one of the movie's funniest moments/jokes, and you see it over and over and when you finally see the movie it isn't funny anymore.

I never thought of the Gandalf scene in the TTT trailer, proabbly because it wasn't a spoiler for me. Likely the people putting together the trailer didn't think of it that way either.