The ‘Traitor’ Commercial Gives Too Much Away
Posted on August 10, 2008 at 8:00 am
It infuriates me when trailers and ads give away too much of the movie. This often happens when all the best jokes or special effects are strung together to get you to buy a ticket but once in a while an important plot twist is given away, too. I try very hard to be careful in my reviews not to give away anything I think the audience is better off discovering in the movie. If you have any plans to see the fine terrorism drama “Traitor,” starring Don Cheadle, please don’t watch the ads because they reveal an aspect of the plot I am sure the director and screenwriter wanted to be a surprise.
I don’t understand why the directors and producers don’t police this. You would think the marketers who make the commercials run the studio.
It often seems to be that when they give away the best stuff in the trailer, the rest of the movie is not worth much time, and less money.
I hate this trend as well – practically showing the whole movie in the trailer. A trailer should be a teaser not a spoiler.
I just saw the trailer and I felt more compelled to see it. I found the official website (traitor-themovie.com/) and I anticipate its premier today in theaters.
Thanks! I’d love to hear what you think about the movie and whether you agree with me that the trailer gives away one of the movie’s surprises.
One of the questions on the Filmmakers Exam at http://www.rinkworks.com is “will the trailers and/or commercials for your movie be able to show every good scenes and still have room to show some of the bad ones?”
What annoys me though is when the voiceover to the trailer is totally inaccurate – in the trailer for “Friday the 13th: Part 2,” the voiceover guy either a) hasn’t seen the movie or the first one, or b) can’t count. “On a June night in 1980, Friday the 13th, 12 of her friends were murdered.” I checked, it was 7, not counting the killer and the two killed in the teaser.
Man its stupid!! That god d*mn preview gave it away!! If I chouldtalk to the person who made the commercial I WOLUD KILL HIM!!! I wanted to find out in the movie… BUT NOOO they had to tell us in preview!!