9 Trailers I Loved For Movies I Hated

Once upon a time, movie trailers were… special.

You didn’t see them plastered all over the internet (my God The Materialist trailer followed me EVERYWHERE and boy did it look terrible to me). Yes, you might see them as a commercial on TV, but usually well after they had premiered in theaters.

Instead, they were little surprises waiting for you at the beginning of whatever film you were going to see.

Waiting in the dark, wondering what new movie you might hear about, possibly before anyone else… it was exciting.

Teaser trailers were especially exciting.

I remember being SO FREAKING PUMPED when the first teaser came out for Batman:

Honestly, there were times when I went to see a film and the trailers were the best part.

This was before they doubled the number of trailers you had to sit through and added ads on top of that. The length was just right. It was a legitimate pre-show. I always made sure to get there in time to see them.

We talk a lot about the enshittifcation of things in our modern age and I’d argue that how we see movie trailers has become one of those enshittified things.

Movies were… special. They were events. They were things to look forward to. You couldn’t just lie in bed and scroll instagram and watch the new Dune trailer on mute with captions on your phone.

You had to GO SOMEWHERE. See it big. See it loud.

GET HYPED.

My phone on mute isn’t getting me hyped.

It used to be that there was always at least one movie I was waiting on to be released at all times. Something I couldn’t wait to see. Something I’d be there opening week for.

I miss that anticipation. We still have a few films that manage to do that - The Odyssey was one of them - but it still doesn’t capture that feeling of special-ness. That something special was coming. Something special was coming and you might be lucky enough to see it.

So, all that said, it has always been extremely disappointing when a movie’s trailer turned out to be better than the movie itself was. I’m not talking about the trailers that sold you a different movie (I’m looking at you The Witch) but the ones that offer so much promise, make everything look so wonderful, create a feeling of its own.

Those trailers perform a magic trick that’s pretty impressive, really.

They know what tactics we are vulnerable to as audiences: nostalgia and explosions and cool music and they know how to use them. And they work! And we pay our money and we are so so bummed.

Honestly, it’s the opening bit of this trailer for me. After having had no new Star Wars anything for SO LONG, nostalgia was definitely the play and it worked. It brought you back and promised you more. My head, like everyone else’s that had been raised on Star Wars, promptly exploded.

Couldn’t wait. Could. Not. Wait.

Hours in line. Hours!

The sold-out theater was positively electric with excitement as the lights went down. When they came up… strangely quiet. A general feeling of confusion seemed to float with everyone as they exited.

We weren’t ready to hate it just yet… because… it was supposed to be awesome. Wasn’t it supposed to be awesome? Did I miss something? Maybe I just didn’t get it?

Oh no. I got it. Sadly.

I truly dislike this movie. And I know a lot of people like it and I don’t get it. Wanna know why I don’t get it? Because the TRAILER PROMISES SO MUCH and the movie delivers NOTHING. It’s a fantastic trailer. People were seriously hyped. The whole thing seemed like a great idea executed in a great way.

Except then you watch the movie and it’s just a long version of the trailer. Like, the trailer is all, ‘Here’s the setup! Wait’ll you see what happens next!’ And then the movie’s all, ‘They walk around a lot!’

So, in my memory, before the trailer below came out, a teaser version came out that was just the blood part coagulating on the stone. And that sold me. I was really into horror at that time and I just thought it seemed classy and bloody and Francis Ford Coppola and YES.

This is a movie that I know lots of people have rediscovered and now like. I’ll let you know if that ever happens to me.

Goddamn does this movie look amazing. I mean… Ridley Scott, coming back to the Alien franchise, EPICALLY. Everything looks huge and new and mind-blowing.

I wanted to like this movie so much. There are some remarkable sequences in it. The part where the chick has to give herself a robot abortion was harrowing. But, the movie does not deliver on the trailer’s promise that you’re going to see the best movie ever made.

I don’t HATE this movie, per se, it’s just not great and it certainly doesn’t live up to the trailer which is lovely. The trailer is the movie we wanted. It’s probably the movie they set out to make. But somewhere along the way, it just didn’t come to fruition.

Another Alien movie and my husband will be mad because he thinks this movie is under appreciated. But my god the trailer says, ‘THE BITCH IS BACK’ and the movie DOES NOT GIVE US THE BITCH. Not the way we want her, anyway.

First, in the still frame of the trailer below, doesn’t Matt Damon weirdly look like Phillip Seymour Hoffman? Just had to point that out.

I REALLY looked forward to this movie. I thought District 9 was fantastic, and now here was the same director with what looked like a much bigger budget and a fantastic cast (Jodie Foster! Matt Damon!). The design of the rich people’s world also looked so cool - as that weird floating ring in space with gardens…

Well. This movie sucked. And you barely get to see any of the rich people’s world. And Jodie Foster even sucked which is crazy.

What a lovely trailer. Paul Giamatti as the handyman who one night hears something in the pool…. It starts to tell you a story that you want to hear the rest of. Unfortunately, it turns out the rest of the story isn’t worth listening to.

Again, mildly controversial because my husband thinks this movie is underrated, man, this trailer looked amazing. You’d never guess how much of the movie you’d spend at that weird dance celebration in their rebel city place thing. I mean.

So much dancing.