We'll start this off with a list... my personal favorite movie trailers. Now I must confess that I have not seen EVERY movie promo ever made. That would just be crazy. But here is my list of five that got my eyes open so wide and my smile so big, my face hurt me more than it usually hurts other people.
So, without further blah blah...
5) Spider-Man (the banned World Trade Center trailer) VIEW HERE
This bad boy surprised me in the summer of 2001 when I was sitting alone in an air-conditioned theater about to see Jurassic Park 3. It got me on many levels: 1) I knew a Spider-Man movie was being made but I didn't know they had a teaser prepared. 2) I didn't know it was Spider-Man until the last twenty seconds. And 3) building a web between the twin towers of the World Trade Center was just so... weird... and catching a helicopter in it like a bug was inspired.
The trailer was pulled from theaters after 9/11, but I consider myself fortunate enough in having seen it, complete surprise that it was, on the big screen in its original pre-9/11 glory.
4) Godzilla VIEW HERE
While the movie disappointed and their promotional campaign eventually started to crush down on the picture before its release... this teaser did what the name promised... it TEASED. Like Spider-Man, this appeared to be something else entirely at first... a tonal pre-cursor to Night at the Museum... but came out with a GOTCHA moment that certainly caught me by surprise. The tagline 'Guess Who's Coming to Town' worked like a charm. The phrase, "From the Creators of Independence Day" still had meaning, and finally, by not showing the beast in promos, they made that fan-interest turn into burning desire to know! Again, not showing the beast at all in any promo got annoying and wore out eventually, but for this first little taste... superb monsieur.
3) Star Wars - Episode I - The Phantom Menace VIEW HERE
I'm comfortable saying two things: 1) the Phantom Menace was not the weakest of the Star Wars prequels and 2) this trailer took every geek in the world and simultaneously turned all of our brains into mush for 2 whole minutes.
It's hard to see now, with games and animated series, and sitcoms, and Seth MacFarlane... but there was a time when Star Wars was 16 years away from our consciousness. Well... most of us. Some of us had toys and posters and comics and secretly were slowly dying inside waiting for the promise of more adventures with lightsabers to make their way across the big screen. Well, at this blog I review trailers, not movies, so the quality of the Star Wars prequels will be left to better folks. But this trailer, the moment that theme pounded, the moment that lightsaber whirred, when Obi-Wan meets Anakin for the first time... the creatures! The space battles! The explosions! A bad guy with horns and a red face? And holy goodness!! A two-bladed lightsaber!! If you can do it without getting angry, let your mind go back in time twelve years to the fall of '98 when you first saw Star Wars promising to make you young again.
2) Independence Day VIEW HERE
Three simple sentence... one simple image... perfection in advertising. ID4 (has anyone figured out what the heck that really means?) made only three promises in its early advertising campaign -- that on July 2, they would arrive. On July 3, they would attack. And on July 4, we would fight back. And whoever 'they' were, you know they meant business cause they cruised around in ships that cast shadows over entire cities and they blew up the White House. And that's the other thing... blowing up the White House...
In 1994, when this trailer hit, Bill Clinton was two years into his presidency, and while not the worst thing to ever happen to American politics, he was a goof, he spoke with a southern drawl (which we all forgot about during the W years) and he was an obvious womanizer in the White House. So while not offensive enough to elicit victory cries from people, the sight of the White House getting blowed up good by aliens with a sense of humor was just cute enough that people could laugh and cheer. Then politics had to get all serious again...
1) Alien VIEW HERE
I did not have the pleasure of seeing this in a dark auditorium with a full crowd. But watch this... just watch... and tell me you're not terrified. And the best part is that from this teaser, you ain't seen nothin, yet.
Well, thanks for reading. How about you all? Got any trailers that made an impression?
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