If you love movie trailers, then you have some that you enjoy for their art and execution.
But if you love movie trailers, then you likely have many that are just silly fun for you and bring excessive amounts of 'tee-hees' and giggles into the air around you.
So for your judging pleasure (because what's the internet for if not for judging?), I give you my top five favorite guilty pleasure movie trailers. Some of them are far better than the movies they advertise. Some of them are just plain silly. But each of these five brought a stupid smile to my face.
Number 5 - Fast and Furious
Like 'Rise of the Silver Surfer,' this teaser for the fourth entry in the 'Fast' franchise focuses mostly on a shortened version of one sequence from the film, always an effective trick.
What it also has going for it is the good fortune of revealing Vin Diesel's return to the role of Dominic Toretto, his character from the first film, who sat out the second, and popped in for a cameo at the conclusion of the third.
If you don't care for the 'Fast' films, this means nothing to you, and your eyes glaze over upon realization of what you're watching. But for me, these are stupid, fun brain-off flicks that feature some delightfully dumb characters and plots, pretty girls, and occasionally cool non-computer-assisted car stunts.
The tag line 'New Model, Original Parts' definitely drives up the 'tee-hee' factor, though nothing quite earns the giggle like Vin Diesel's menacing chuckle to the observation by one character that Paul Walker is a lucky man, because despite once dating Toretto's sister, he is "still breathing."
Tee-hee factor: FURIOUS
Number 4 - Superman Returns
Superman Returns. The trailer says exactly what the title says. This trailer is an announcement saying: Hey folks. Superman is back. No hints of plot. No hints of villain or conflict. Just Superman.
Taking its cues from the masterful Richard Donner 1979 original, 'Superman Returns' landed in 2006 after the once-powerful Superman franchise had sputtered to a pitiful end some 20 years earlier with 'Superman 4 - The Quest for Peace.'
This teaser continues along the Donner-established canon by beginning over darkness with a Marlon Brando voice-over (Brando played Superman's alien father in the original film). The music cue 'The Planet Krypton' from John Williams' timeless score for the original plays out over relatively classic Superman imagery, from people looking up into the sky to the Kent farm at sunrise, and of course -- perhaps the symbol of the Donner-era Kal-El -- Superman and Lois Lane on the roof of the Daily Planet.
Where the teaser adds a nice updated touch is the very last shot where Superman hovers silently in space, listening to the sounds from planet Earth below until one of them calls for his attention above the others -- after which his eyes snap open and he bursts into super-sonic flight toward Metropolis, causing a tremendous concussion when he hits the Earth's atmosphere. It's a beautiful moment in a beautiful trailer, and though the movie itself is weighty and curiously lacking in energy, this first teaser hits all the right spots.
Tee-hee factor: SUPER
Number 3 - Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
Feeling like I spent my 'Harry Potter' trailer love on my first blog entry, I questioned including this, but then I remembered: this is about the tee-hee factor.
'Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire' teases us with a lovely bit of wandering down memory lane with fast glimpses of Harry, Hermione, and Ron over the course of four films, reminding audiences that these kids are growing up in front of our very eyes. This simple reminder creates an almost parental sort of concern for these characters, as for the briefest of moments we are forced to look upon them not as actors in a film, but living human beings. Young adults who were still children, not all that long ago.
A trick like this would not work with something like, say, Star Wars, where Harrison Ford looked roughly the same from film to film.
After the opening montage, the trailer is roughly as good as all the other Potter trailers, but the teaser opening has a warmth and specialness to it that puts it on my guilty pleasure list.
Tee-hee factor: MAGICAL
Number 2 - The Twilight Sage - Eclipse
I saw Twilight and was pretty bored. It wasn't the most offensive thing ever, but it was too gooey-gooey for me and I failed to understand the appeal (which is fine, it's not meant for me in the least, anyway). I saw New Moon and found it to be one of the most boring, horrible things ever committed to film. I can't tell you a single thing I remember. The whole movie made no sense and felt like the projector playing it was broken and playing everything really slow.
So I was delighted to see this trailer for the third entry in the series and to find that it consisted mostly of action, tossing around phrases like, "lives lost" and "killings." Imagery of Robert Pattinson and Taylor Laughtner don't increase my interest level, but other shots, such as an army of bad vampires walking out of a lake onto dry land or two vampire armies running toward each other ready to unleash hell is very much the kind of stuff I enjoy.
And then, of course, there are the werewolves, which despite being ridiculously muscular 18-year-olds while in human form, are still freaking wolves half the time and appear at the end of the trailer to do battle with the bad vampires and side with the good ones.
One thing that for me personally earns the Twilight films a few originality points is that in this universe, sunlight does not kill vampires, it merely reveals their true form (glittery-skinned Christmas-ornament-looking versions of themselves). As a result, this series remains the only vampire series where the monsters can battle during the day, giving it a visual edge over all others who are forced to keep to the rules and only allow their vampires to play at night.
So between the over-the-top operatic music, the visually different vampire battle, and the wolves looking like they're ready to bust some heads, this trailer got me to tee-hee enough to give the series one more chance after the awful, awful mess that was 'New Moon.'
Tee-hee factor: GLITTERY-SLIGHTLY-HOMO-EROTIC-STUPID
Number 1 - Terminator 2 Judgment Day
In the grand scheme of movie teasers and trailers, this one is neat but not necessarily one of the greats.
It earns its tee-hee points for presentation.
In 1990, James Cameron was hard at work on Terminator 2 and had no time to cut together a trailer for the film, despite the studio wanting some sort of announcement for the soon-to-be-released sequel to the sci-fi/action hit 'The Terminator.'
Recall that in 1990, the internet was no place for movie geeks to share news and excite one another, so trailers and posters were how the world found out what was coming.
So Cameron handed $100,000 to the late Stan Winston, the special effects wizard who for decades defined our cinematic standards when it came to monsters and effects. To this day, cinema remains changed because of him.
Winston went off and came up with the idea of robots on an assembly line. It's fun because they look familiar, but we're not sure why. We watch them get put together piece by piece, powered on with eyes glowing red, and finally put into a big chamber that appears to cover them in human tissue.
Pan up the newly-tissued robot and you find -- Arnold Schwarzenegger.
So simple. So fun.
Tee-hee factor: INFINITE
Until next time.
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