Keeping a film's secrets

[J.R.]

In this world of mass media with the internet and countless television channels I feel that films have lost their ability to surprise us. Take A Beautiful Mind. It's a great film, but every bit of coverage it got mentioned that the main character was schizophrenic, thus blowing what could have been a jaw-dropping twist. Imagine going into what you think is just a by-the-numbers biopic of a mathematician, only to have the mental illness angle show up out of nowhere and completely change the tone of the film. And of course the twists in Fight Club and The Sixth Sense became famous and were mentioned all the time, so that you spent the entire film looking for clues to the ending.

[Foywonder]

Ummm...the trailer's made it clear that he suffered from some sort of mental problem. It didn't actually name schizophrenia, but you could tell his was supposed to be mentally unstable.

If you want a good example of a movie's trailer giving away way to much, then look at the trailers for WHAT LIES BENEATH and CASTAWAY or even that upcoming stinkbomb SWIMFAN. They showed the whole damn film.

[AndyC]

The Wild Wild West springs to mind. Through the whole movie we hear about Loveless kidnapping scientists and engineers for some nefarious purpose. What could it be? Meanwhile, we've all seen the giant mechanical spider that is obviously supposed to be the movie's big surprise. Seeing the spider in the trailer was one of the reasons I wanted to see this flick, but I think it was also one of the things that made it so disappointing.

Not much we can do about the internet giving away surprises, although most of us have the good sense to warn if there are spoilers in our posts. It's when the marketing people themselves have no idea that something is meant to be a surprise that bothers me. Or that they simply might not care. If showing the giant spider gets people in the theatre, they show it, even if it means people spend the whole movie thinking "yes, yes, he's building a giant spider; now where is it?"

Independence Day was another one. If they'd left it with the general getting the report of a large object approaching earth, then the big shadows crawling over the cities, that would have hooked me. They showed theWhite House blowing up, the Empire State Building blowing up, the big aerial battle. There was more to the movie than that, but those were the big moments.

[John]

Terminator II - I would have gotten a much bigger kick out of it if I'd gone in thinking Arnold was the bad guy again, only to find out that he's the hero, but the trailers gave it all away.

[Squishy]

I wouldn't count the trailer of "A Beautiful Mind;" until reviews gave it all away, I thought it was a standard political-intrigue thriller. After all, the guy who discovers the government conspiracy is ALWAYS discredited as mentally unwell. The twist this time: he actually was.

Hollywood is currently scratching its head, wondering why "Stuart Little 2" tanked so badly, after generally favorable reviews. Hint: YOU SHOWED THE ENTIRE CLIMAX AND CONCLUSION in the damned trailers. Apeturds.

[Fearless Freep]

I think releasing "Return Of The JEdi" before "The Phantom Menace" blew the suprise that Anakin Skywalker grows up to be Darth Vader

[AndyC]

I think that is something different altogether. Knowing that Anakin becomes Darth Vader is, I think, essential to enjoying the new Star Wars movies. They're all about his descent into evil, and written with the assumption that everyone already knows what happens to him. The fun is in seeing how it happens, and spotting the little details that we know will be significant.

[Fearless Freep]

> I  think that is something different altogether.

I know, it was a joke :)


I think  I enjoyed "The Phantom Menace" more than most of that very reason.  Knowing who Anakin and Senator Palpatine turned out to be let me look at the movie not as a movie in it's own right but as part of a larger story.  As a movie in it's own, it was ok, and a "Chapter 1 of....", it was much better

[frannie]

i was all fired up to see it when the first trailers came out because they didn't show anything.  it just said "july 2 they arrive, july 3 they attack, july 4 we fight back" or something like that.  there were no shots of the film itself.  i couldn't wait to find out what it was.

[J.R.]

I remember the first Independence Day trailer in front of the first Mission: Impossible and it blew me away. It was just Will Smith waking up and walking around, tripping over some stuff, then looking up from the paper to see a giant spaceship. Beautiful.

[AndyC]

The teasers for Independence Day were great, then they gave too much away with the full trailer.

[AndyC]

It will be interesting for the children who will actually have a choice of starting with the original trilogy or the new one. Start with The Phantom Menace, and you blow the surprise of Vader being Luke's father. Start with A New Hope, and you go into The Phantom Menace knowing Anakin becomes Vader and Palpatine becomes emperor.

I'm kind of leaning toward it being better to view them in the order they were made, since the second was written with that in mind. It's like Columbo in that respect, for lack of a better simile. You know who did it and how, but the fun is in seeing it come together.