Why the quick cuts
and bland CGI backdrops?
What are you hiding?
Last night at our 6 p.m. showing of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, we saw a good collection of trailers–a couple of kids’ movies, Vince Vaughn’s over-marketed Christmas project, and the current Hot Trailer, The Golden Compass. I’ve seen the Golden Compass trailer several times now, but I’ve been reluctant to write about it. The truth is, the trailer pretty much leaves me cold, no matter how much I want to like the movie.
Fortunately, I’ve come to the conclusion that the problem may lie in the construction of the trailer, and not in the movie itself.
Remember, a million and a half years ago now, the teaser trailer for Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone? We got a camera panning over suburban London, a few street lights going out, and a cat sitting on the fence. An owl swooped down from the sky to deliver a letter. The address? “Mr. H. Potter, The Cupboard Under the Stairs, 4 Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey.” That was it, and it was completely effective. Everybody knew what was about to happen.
The Golden Compass trailer takes the opposite tack: it’s a generalized look at the world of the film, with quick cuts of the dirigibles, Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig, witches flying around, and a plucky little girl demanding to go north and fight. We learn that she may be “the child.” Oh, and there are bears. The problem with this trailer is that it assures fans of the novel that all of the key elements will be there, but it doesn’t give anybody much of a sense of the story. It feels like a lack of confidence: if this film is that good, we don’t need to be reassured that there will, in fact, be armored polar bears. Better to set the movie apart as something polished and subtle than to lump it in with all of the other fantasy-adventure movies we see in theaters all the time. Do they not believe in the size and loyalty of Phillip Pullman’s fan base? (If so, I believe they’ll be surprise; the Harry Potter generation had to have something to read in between books.) Something simple, stylish, and mystical would have been a better choice if they want to establish themselves on the level of the Potter films.
I still have high hopes for the movie. After all, two minutes of clips does not a fictional world make.
The Golden Compass, trailers, Harry Potter, Phillip Pullman, Nicole Kidman
July 19th, 2007 at 12:32 pm
She looks squished in that picture. Come on, isn’t she thin enough?? Or is that just the blog at work?
The art of the trailer is underreported, I think. Sometimes, though, the trailer is better than the movie, and that’s not so good, really. The trailer for Interview with the Vampire had this amazing languid, sensual, menacing feel and rhythm, and the movie just didn’t. I felt gypped. Ah well.