Best. Trailers. Ever. And the Worst!
 

Marketing departments have a great job. Pretty challenging at times, I'm sure. Gotta make the crappiest movies look great and sometimes they can even fail at making the greatest movies even look mediocre.

What are the best trailers you've seen? Any ones that have made you plunge headlong into a theatre without any inkling as to what it's about?

What about the worst ones? Some laughably bad ones where just ten seconds in, you want to leave?

The trailer for Aqua Marine certainly sucks but the movie itself might be hot, who knows.

Anyone else remember the trailer for Donnie Darko? Yeah.

Apocalypto, with the Mel Gibson easter egg. Wow, that was a boring trailer. But just because there's that easter egg, it gets a whole lot better. In a bad way.

Best: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, the one where the entire ad is framed as a Guide entry on the topic of movie trailers, noting that many of them start with the phrase "in a world" and that they all appear to be narrated by a seven-foot-tall man who's been smoking since hs was seven.

Worst: Generally bad movies carry bad trailers. Personally, the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory teaser trailer made me cringe, though that movie later turned out to be quite good.

Alien had probably the best trailer I've ever seen

The only one that I can think of off the top of my head is The Matrix trailer way back when. I knew nothing of the Matrix before the trailer, saw it and really wanted to see the movie after that. It had just the right blend of action and mystery that made you want to find out more.

The problem with many trailers now is that the Marketing consists of "if a movie has action scenes, let's just show all the best scenes in the trailer to get people to come" which means people show up, become disappointed in the movie and grumble, because there was nothing left to see. Or a comedy that shows all the best jokes. When the trailers leave nothing out is when they fail. They have to be mini-movies themselves, give a tease, and leave you wanting more...and have the movie be able to deliver more. That's a good trailer.

On the other hand, bad trailers...those happen all the time. To pick a worst one...I try to block the bad ones from my memory. Still haven't been able to block the worst movies from my mind yet...I guess because trailers are shorter, it's easier to forget them...has anyone seen Druids, with Christopher Lambert? So bad it's scary...

I can't think of any kickass trailers. Surely there are good ones, but none of them that I can say are timeless. Most of them do what they're meant to do, generate hype. For example I remember being extremely exicted when I saw the trailer for Star Wars Episode I, especially since I had no idea at the time that it had even been in production so it was totally out of the blue. Too bad the film sucked though. The trailer itself was nothing special.

I guess trailers are so overall formulaic that I yet to see a trailer that really surprised me.

there's only one kind of teaser that I hate to watch, and it's the kind where it says nothing about the movie at all and only talks about what the critics thought of it. I mean, sure, it's nice that Rolling Stone gave it two thumbs up, but what the fuck is the movie even about?

there's a lot of great previews out there, but I don't feel like naming every single one that I thought was great. a recent one that I thought was done really well was one of the previews for Peter Jackson's remake of King Kong. I can't remember exactly how it went, but it started off with small clips of the movie and ended with Coldplay's "Fix You" in the background. it did a good job of portraying the epicness of the whole thing, as well as highlighting the love story. blah blah blah, I liked it. and I thought it did the actual movie justice as well.

the Comedian trailer is a classic. with the guy who does voice-overs for movie trailers?

man: "IN A LAND, WHERE--"
guy in booth: "it's not that kind of movie."

You mean... the original version from 1979?

http://imdb.com/title/tt0080130/

I also like how you have to post your entire posts in some shitty image to be noticed. Are you so desperate for a hardon that your nightly beatings from your father do you no good anymore?

One of the better trailers in my memory was for Jurassic Park, as it showed basically nothing of the dinosaurs, so people actually went to the movie and found something new.

As for bad trailers? Ones where random scenes are thrown together (Bloodrayne) are usually the worst, or ones in which you can see final scenes from the film or large set pieces blowing up (oh shit, the house they're in is going to explode at some point!)

I personally think Star Wars Episode III had a pretty good trailer, but for me (and I imagine so for others too), it kind of raised my expectations for the movie a little too high. I don't think the movie totally sucked, but it was kind of disappointing when I actually did go see it.

The trailer for Jarhead was great. It really stunned you with its amazing imagery of the oil fields burning.

Now thats just fucking funny, I thought the same thing.

I think alot of trailers end up being liked so much because they use some awesome music in them...that never even makes it to the film (The Two Towers, Chronicles of Narnia). I think shitty trailers are the ones that use completely stupid cliche catchphrases. I remember the Fantastic Four trailer kept focusing on using "4" as much as they could. The movie then went on to suck. I personally think they should of just showed clips of Jessica Alba dancing for 90 seconds..I bet more people would of went to see it.

Remember when you saw Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace trailer for the first time?

Awesome.

Yeah I remember, now I would be like most people on the net and put some stupid cliche remark about "how i remember the first time i saw the movie..and it sucked", but I didnt think it really sucked. Again...its an example of how sometimes trailers, commericials and media make us overhype things. Theres alot of trailers out there that make movies look good..and then when you see them, they are pieces of crap.

Worst Trailer that comes to mind is Bloodrayne. It basically was a summarization of the entire movie in like 5 minutes (Seriously the trailer was 5 minutes long!).

Agreed, I hate those.

Best? I suppose... Well the Matrix (First one) was cool, and as I remember, it had interesting music in the trailer. Another good one was Episode III, one of the short trailers where all they show is just Anakin walking towards the Jedi Temple with a legion of Clong Troopers. It was a good technique. You're all like... what's he doing?

The Trailer of Episode I was better than the movie itself.
Actually, it consisted of ALL the good stuff the movie had.
Short of more lightsabering.

I thought the trailer for the Two Towers was amazing. Sure, they used Requiem for a Dream in it, and there were a couple clips that weren't in the movie, but it still rocked. On the other hand, the trailer for Zathura, which also used Requiem for a Dream, was horrible. :(

One of the trailers I most watched in my life was Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Manace.
God, I can't even imagine how many times I've watched this trailer, just so you can have an idea, I watched so many times that I memorized it, not only that but I've never forgot the lines of it, I know it by heart untill today.

One of the best trailers I've ever seen was for Comedian (a Jerry Sienfeld film) which was genius. Go track it down, it's worth watching.

I hate trailers that tell me nothing about the movie's plot. Either they're ambiguous or trying to tell the movie on the talent (like Doogal is currently). I can't stand it. It's almost like them telling me, "Wait until someone reviews it, read the review, and then see the movie."

The teaser for Matrix Revolutions. I think that this was better than the movie to be honest. I liked the song that they used in that trailer. It was a cool extra that showed after the credits of Reloaded.:)

Yeah I liked that trailer too, it took me forever to track down that song. Like I said, its amazing how many songs can make or break a trailer

That's what I thought of as well. That's probably the best trailer I can remember in recent years - as well as the best example of how a great trailer doesn't necessarily mean a great film... as we all soon discovered. *sigh*

I actually remember seeing the trailer for the original Matrix, and that made me really want to see it. It may be kind of sad, but I ended up seeing the Matrix 27 times fully, and countless partial watches, and the awesome trailer is what started that whole process.

My favorite has got to be 'Raging Bull'. I used the trailer to show a friend how just because a film is in B&W doesn't mean it sucks.

So true. I remember watching the trailer for Seven Years in Tibet. It had great music and when I watched the movie, I was waiting for the theme I heard in the trailer to pop up. Never happened. Turns out it was from another movie. Thoroughly disappointed. Don't remember enough of the movie to tell you whether I ended up liking it or not.

Wasn't it Gladiator that used the music from Conan? Or am I thinking of a different trailer? All I know is that I was sitting there in the theatre watching a trailer, and all I could think is "This movie couldn't have even been bothered to use their own music?! Sad." I just can't remember the movie... :)

I remember the first Harry Potter Movie had some stupid trailer advertising it as if it were like a Rambo movie, The movie it self wasn't horrible but it looked in the trailers as if Harry Potter was some action hero.

a few of the "best" trailers:

Matrix - when I saw this trailer for the first time in cinema, it blew me away

The Island (TEASER!!) - just perfect, doesnt spoil anything, perfectly cutted with the best chosen music

The Hills have Eyes - technical, this trailer is TOP

Texas Chainsaw Massacre (remake) - OMG OMG OMG, awesome. The mix between realism and the half finished footage is perfect!


game trailers:

The Getaway - the real filmed London chase is great and professional, nothing you expect from a videogame

The trailer for the first Superman movie was great. And the teaser for Hulk was superior to the movie

The trailer for Fellowship of the Ring, like, a year or more before it came out. I swear I heard O, Fortuna playing in the background.
Bad trailers, Dead or Alive, that part in the FotR trailer where they're like: hay, gotta wait another year to see the next movie, and another year after that to see the next! I also hated that for Bubba Ho-Tep. Good movie, crappy trailer.

One thing I can say is that (almost) any movie that doesn't have "the voice" doing the narration...well, generally is a sucky movie. That's not to say that all movie trailers that have had "the voice" are good, but it is a pretty darned necessary requirement (this is of course only for trailers that have a narration voice).

Has anyone seen the trailer for Brick?

apple.com/trailers

It's very cool, with the noir theme present throughout. I never would have thought Mr. Angels in the Outfield would make a good noir hero, but this trailer makes it seem like it.

My favourite film trailers have to be those of The Matrix, and Spiderman. Spiderman especially; I just LOVED the track they had in the background. It was brilliant.

As for Game Trailers, my 5 stars goes to the Max Payne Trailers (for both 1 & 2).
Especially the trailer for MP1; my god, I must have watched it over 100 times in the first day I downloaded it. Amazing; I still watch it to this day.

Well, personally, I can't really crown A definitive trailer to be the best, but the Matrix trailers have always had good editing and some really cool tracks.

But I'd say FIGHT CLUB:

http://www.movie-list.com/f/fight-club.html

An awesome trailer for one of the best movies ever.

Edward Norton can narrate my movie trailer any day.

I think that really true, because most trailer that I like are one with a good music that match the trailer, but sometime the trailer is 10x better than the movie (for exemple: Ultraviolet, I foudn the trailer very cool but the movie wasn't really good)

on of the trailer I remember I watch over and over, was the teaser and the japanese trailer of The Matrix: reloaded(love the music in the japanese trailer)

The Matrix trailer was pretty awesome.

Hmm I also have to say the Kill Bill vol.1 trailer was cool. Sin City had a great trailer also, but the movie wasn't AS good as I thought it was going to be ;(
I'm pretty sure there's a lot more, but right now I can't think of any.

As for worst trailer? Hands down the trailer for Bloodrayne.