Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: What Are Your Favorite Trailers?

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Posted by Michael Coate (Member # 757) on 08-24-2005, 04:49 AM:

As it asks in the subject line, what is your favorite coming attractions trailer(s), and why?

These can be "favorites" for a variety of reasons; creative, well-produced, includes footage not in the final cut, memorable use of music, memorable audience response, really made you want to see the movie, saw it with someone special, etc.
_________________________________

Superman teaser
Aerial footage through the sky with the "S" logo appearing at the end along with the slogan, "This Christmas, You'll Believe A Man Can Fly." And I must say that, as a ten-year-old kid at the time, the filmmakers succeeded in making me believe. [thumbsup]

The Goonies teaser
If I'm remembering the trailer correctly, this was a fairly short teaser featuring the title logos being displayed, one by one, of Steven Spielberg and Richard Donner movies. A single letter would remain on screen as the title faded out. Collectively, the letters spelled "Goonies" which then dissolved into the "Goonies" logo.

I saw this trailer only once, with "Ladyhawke" (70mm presentation, Edwards South Coast Plaza, Costa Mesa, CA). I've always wanted to see the trailer again because I liked it a lot, plus I want to confirm I remember it correctly! It's not included on the DVD (unless it's an "Easter Egg" that I cannot locate).

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 08-24-2005, 05:05 AM:

The original Psycho trailer in which Hitch wanders round the set making all sorts of innuendo-strewn comments is my favourite... but at nearly 7 minutes long it doesn't really work with modern audiences. The last time the film had a major rerelease there were some prints of the trailer too; and in the theatre I saw it people were losing interest and starting conversations long before the climax.

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 08-24-2005, 07:59 AM:

The trailer for "Independence Day" got lots of response and applause from the audience every time I saw it, especially the scene with the White House getting blown up.

Posted by Jeremy Jorgenson (Member # 2989) on 08-24-2005, 12:33 PM:

I'll have to think about favorites in terms of the way they were put together, but two for not specifically artistic reasons are...

Monsters, Inc. - Disney/Pixar released a trailer for this along with the first Harry Potter film (Monster, Inc. opened 2 weeks before Harry Potter). In it Sulley & Mike play charades, Sulley is trying to get Mike to guess "Harry Potter". I don't remember the exact wording but it ended with the voice over of "Now playing at a theatre near you, very near, maybe even the one next to you" or something like that. I like the fact that they created a trailer just to play on one specific movie.

Resident Evil: Apocalypse - I saw the first teaser for this when I saw Underworld at a sold out, opening night show at the Chinese in Hollywood. It was set up like a commercial for some miracle skin cream, and the voice over eventually said "some side effects can occur" and it cut to a quick progression of shots with zombies, ending with Milla Jovovich cocking a shotgun. Certainly not the best trailer ever made, but it was perfect for that audience, a huge roaring cheer went up from the audience when they realized which movie it was for, louder than I'd ever heard in a movie auditorium before - say what you will about that movie &/or trailer, but at that moment, there were a bunch of happy filmgoers, it was an interesting thing to witness.

Posted by Paul Turner (Member # 832) on 08-24-2005, 02:11 PM:

Talk to Her
The trailer had nothing to do with the film but was wonderful to watch. The movie was extreamly unsuccessful for us, but I loved it.

Posted by Mark Lensenmayer (Member # 134) on 08-24-2005, 02:52 PM:

4 come to mind:

Home Movies (Correction: Should be REAL LIFE) (Albert Brooks) This is the famous 3-D trailer. Part is in anaglyph 3-D, but glasses are not provided!! Has nothing to do with the film, but is hilarious. I think it climaxes with a paddle-ball guy in the room with Albert, and Brooks saying, "It's almost like he's in the room!" (I may not have that last quote correct, but you get the idea.)

CONVOY -- Better than the film. They play the song CONVOY and illustrate it with scenes from the film.

THIS IS SPINAL TAP --- Nothing like a cheese festival to tell about a rock and roll documentary. Very funny.

COMEDIAN -- The greatest trailer of all time, with legendary voiceover artist Hal Douglas having a complete meltdown.

Speaking of voiceovers, has anyone ever seen a short film called 5 Men and a Limo? It has the 5 top voiceover guys in a car going to an award ceremony. Very funny. I just came across this last night. File is fuzzy, but pretty good. Too big to upload here, however (7.81 meg)

Posted by Bill Gabel (Member # 1105) on 08-24-2005, 03:36 PM:

quote: Mark Lensenmayer
Home Movies (Albert Brooks)

Were you thinking of "Real Life" (1979), "Home Movies" was by Brian DePalma.

One of my favorite trailers was "Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid" with the Buttometer gag.

Posted by Mark Lensenmayer (Member # 134) on 08-24-2005, 03:42 PM:

Thanks for the correction, Bill...I was in too much of a hurry. I'll correct it. Sorry.

Posted by Dan Lyons (Member # 1454) on 08-24-2005, 04:08 PM:

"Showgirls" [thumbsup]

redband

Posted by Christian Volpi (Member # 2370) on 08-24-2005, 05:34 PM:

I must agree, the Showgirls redband trailer was quite the eye opener the first time that I saw it.

"Twister"- movie sucked but I loved watching everybody jump in the auditorium when the tire goes flying towards the camera.

"Gone in 60 Seconds"- Yet another movie where the trailer was better than the actual film. Expert editing on this and it's extremely fast paced. Loved it!!

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 08-24-2005, 05:39 PM:

Comedian is definitely high on my list.

Also:

Ed Wood
Star Wars reissue (1997)
Lost World (the one with the synchronized strobe lights)
Citizen Kane
Psycho (original, long version)
Lost Highway

...and many others that I can't think of right now.

Posted by Ian Price (Member # 14) on 08-24-2005, 06:16 PM:

Recently I really enjoyed the new Harry Potter trailer. It starts with a montage of the 3 main actors as they appeared in each of the previous films. Just that image alone as they seem to grow up had me hooked. They didn't have to say anything or tell anything about the new film and I know what I was watching.

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 08-24-2005, 07:03 PM:

Twister - The first teaser trailer in Dolby Digital. This was back when digital trailers were almost unheard of. We played all of the other trailers in mono, and "Twister" was last. I always liked to go into the auditorium and watch it. When the first sound started which was the narration saying "Even as the seasons change..." there would always be audible gasps from the audience over the sound quality alone. It was a HUGE difference from the trailers they had just been listening to. The entire trailer had superb sound mixing, FAR BETTER than the sound in the actual movie which wasn't special at all. What a horrible movie that was. All I remember was that the therapist lady had really nice boobies and I wanted to play with them.

Posted by David Stambaugh (Member # 1102) on 08-24-2005, 07:04 PM:

One from recent years that sticks in my mind is the first trailer for PETER PAN with the music "Clocks" by coldplay. The trailer was better than the movie.

TWISTER - Yeah! I remember that trailer very well. The sound was amazingly good.

Posted by Brian Michael Weidemann (Member # 2243) on 08-24-2005, 07:12 PM:

I thought the third version of the Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy trailer was perfect. It's by no means the first time a trailer used a self-referential, self-aware gimmick, but it fit so nicely. Of COURSE it had to have "movie trailers" as an entry in the Guide itself. Extra fun was that the explosions and bikini girl in the trailer were nowhere to be found in the film itself!

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 08-24-2005, 10:27 PM:

Yeah, the teaser for "Twister" was great. Too bad it isn't in 5.1 on either of its DVD releases. I'll also second the cheers for the teaser of "Independence Day."

Total Recall teaser
The 70mm version kicked ass. Very simple visual concept. Arnold's face rises up horizontally across the screen to reveal this flyover view of the Mars surface. Two moons shoot by the camera as it flys at a silhouette of a pyramid on the horizon. The fly by surround effect was fantastic. Again, it's a shame none of the DVD releases of this movie feature the teaser in 5.1.

Men In Black teaser
"Protecting mankind from the scum of the universe," was a good catch-phrase. This is another teaser put together with smart simplicity. You have the tracking shots of MIB clothing and weaponry, followed by a very impressive shot of a spacecraft crashing toward the main characters. I liked the shot because it was not cut up with a bunch of reaction shots (like it was in the actual movie).

Darkman trailer
I liked the trailer more than the movie. And the title was put together like an actual logo rather than some dummy sleepwalking Trajan across the screen for the 1,399,758,366th time.

Dinosaur trailer
I think this one clocks in at around 5 minutes. And it's pretty much from the best part of the movie. So its enough for me to have the trailer (in DD 5.1 no less) on disc 1 of my "Tarzan: CE" DVD. Very impressive trailer for the time. Lot of good, realistic CGI work.

LOTR Trilogy teaser
Watching this teaser is a guilty pleasure of mine. I was pretty damned thrilled the first time I saw it. If I remember right, the teaser first appeared in late summer of 2000, at least a full year before the first movie was released. The biggest thrill of the teaser was seeing titles and release dates for THREE movies in succession. Decent 5.1 mix on the clip as well.
While I'm on the subject of LOTR, the final trailer for "Fellowship of the Ring" was pretty kickass too. I loved how it ended with Gandalf defiantly yelling at the Balrog, "you shall not pass!"

Posted by Jeffry L. Johnson (Member # 453) on 08-25-2005, 04:07 PM:

A Clockwork Orange

Posted by Per Hauberg (Member # 529) on 08-25-2005, 06:40 PM:

And nobody mentions FAR AND AWAY - so far and so away from that not very good picture, but the trailer - WOW !

"This is television"

"This is ordinary cinema"

"THIS IS OUR FILM !!!!!"

So damned near the top, presenting 70mm to the ignorants, so that they'd understand it - with a truly magnificent mix for surround demo. -And then they came again to see the film, asking where the surround had gone.

Trailer mix by the pr-team - Film mix overseen by Mr Howard, who did not want to wake up the audience with all that sound !

But - the question was about the trailer, and therefore FAR & AWAY should be my wote for a winner.

Thank You

Posted by Adam Wilbert (Member # 1184) on 08-25-2005, 07:43 PM:

LOTR Two Towers, the one with the music "inspired by" the kronos quartet theme to Requium for a Dream. That one gives me chills and I'm disapointed that its not on the boxed LOTR DVD set that I have.

The Pearl Harbor trailer was another one that was better than the actual film. I probably watched that one four or five times a day in the months leading up to the release and I never got tired of it.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 08-27-2005, 01:47 AM:

The Star Wars Trilogy reissue trailer is probably my favorite, the one that starts out with a TV set in the middle of the screen, with the narration "An entire generation has only experience STAR WARS this way...on the TV screen" and then it blows out to fullscreen with great sound. I only have a flat version of this, wish I had a scope.

The teaser for "Oh God!" was good. No picture, just a blank screen with George Burns talking. "Hello there, it's God. Yeah, God. Thought I'd make a movie." Good stuff.

There are probably dozens of others but these two come to mind first.

Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 08-27-2005, 02:39 AM:

A Bugs Life - 1998 - the full version. There was a segment in there that had a cut from <the Who's> "Who's Next" album: "Barbary O'Riley"...EXCELLENT RIFT!!. I captured a few of these trailers and one of them made a 20ft loop and have the accompanying DTS trailer disc and use this loop as a sound test loop. (the same rift is also on the "Robots" trailer)

A Night at the Roxbury's - 1998 - same thing-had great rifts from the dance music, except this trailer didn't have DTS encoding, thus I made sound loops for usage for SR-D and SDDS - mainly to test out low freqs like bass bins and sub bins.

Ever After-1998 latter part of the trailer had music from Enya from one of her earlier albums.

-Monte

Posted by Brian Michael Weidemann (Member # 2243) on 08-27-2005, 04:43 PM:

I liked the trailer for Contact, where that pulse sound just repeated, getting louder as I remember. I made a loop of just that pulse, not for testing sound levels, but for freaking out ushers in the auditorium between shows. Good times.

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 08-27-2005, 06:33 PM:

quote: Adam Wilbert
LOTR Two Towers, the one with the music "inspired by" the kronos quartet theme to Requium for a Dream. That one gives me chills and I'm disapointed that its not on the boxed LOTR DVD set that I have.

That trailer is on the 2-disc theatrical version of "The Two Towers". For all three films in the LOTR trilogy, if you want the trailers and other promotional stuff you have to get the 2-disc versions. If you want the longer cuts, the DTS-ES 6.1 track and the exhaustive amount of making of extras you have to get the 4-disc sets. So, to have a complete LOTR collection, you're talking 18 discs. Whew!

Posted by Robert Burtcher (Member # 3227) on 08-28-2005, 06:39 AM:

I second the vote for The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (Final).
"The goal is to create a piece of advertising that's original and exciting, yet intelligent and provocative. In other words, lots of things blowing up."

My other favorite trailers are (in no particular order):
National Security - "You realize that you missed the target in the middle." "Who, the brother? Look at him, surrounded by 4 white guys with guns... The man is terrified."
Evolution - "Have a nice end of the world."
Waiting - "Oh God! It's so angry!"
Ice Age 2 Teaser

Posted by William Leland III (Member # 1400) on 08-30-2005, 09:51 AM:

Eyes Wide Shut - loved the Chriss Issac "Baby Did a Bad Thing". i would crack up the sound in our DTS house, you could hear the music all the way across the lobby floor. i rule

Deep Blue Sea - the shark throws the man at the glass and it starts to crack. it sounded like the entire theatre wall was going to crack. one of the few times i heard all of our speakers working.

Posted by Dominic Espinosa (Member # 2122) on 08-30-2005, 08:21 PM:

The first 2 Harry Potter teasers
Ice age/Ice age 2 - Scrat is dope!
Hitch Hikers Guide final - excellent!

Posted by Jeremy Jorgenson (Member # 2989) on 08-31-2005, 08:56 PM:

A number of people have mentioned the Hitchhiker's Guide trailers... I liked the Chicken Little spoof that played before the actual Hitchhiker's Guide feature (spoof of the first Hitchhiker teaser).

And, speaking of Disney trailers spoofing other Disney films, I liked those Lilo & Stitch trailers that showed clips from earlier Disney animated films (Little Mermaid, Beauty & the Beast, Aladdin, The Lion King) with Stitch interacting with (usually messing up) whatever was going on.

Posted by Michael Coate (Member # 757) on 08-31-2005, 09:50 PM:

On the subject of spoofs, I enjoyed the "SpongeBob Squarepants Movie" trailer that utilized clips from submarine movies ("Hunt For Red October," "Das Boot," "U-571," etc.). And the "Naked Gun 2 1/2" trailer that spoofed the pottery scene from "Ghost" was pretty amusing.

Posted by Brian Michael Weidemann (Member # 2243) on 09-01-2005, 01:30 AM:

I recall the trailer for what I think was the second Austin Powers movie ... "If you see ONE movie this summer ... see Star Wars! If you see TWO movies ... see Austin Powers The Spy Who Shagged Me."

Spoof trailers are often funny, but sometimes they're too obvious. It starts out all slow and dramatic, and the music is serious, and the narrator says something typically trailer-like, and then 30 seconds into it, it turns a 180 and kinda says "FOOLED-YOU" and it's some dumb comedy. I remember the first time I saw the trailer for Howard Stern's Private Parts. I didn't know what movie it was for, but I knew from three seconds in that it was trying that fool-them-into-thinking-it's-serious gimmick.

Another parody trailer was the teaser for the first Brady Bunch movie, a take off of the Independence Day teaser. That one was a little jarring.

Posted by David Favel (Member # 1125) on 09-02-2005, 04:12 AM:

Or the Scooby Doo - Batman spoof.

Posted by Steve Scott (Member # 630) on 09-04-2005, 02:53 PM:

Fight Club: It turned me onto the Pixies, and my life has never been the same since [Smile]

Posted by Martin Brooks (Member # 1269) on 09-05-2005, 11:13 AM:

I thought the trailer for Chicago was brilliantly cut and paced.