Welcome back, Indy.
I was at the movies this weekend and finally got a good look at the trailer for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull:
Cool trailer, no? Maybe it runs a little long, but the beginning is so perfect: the whip, the shadow, the self-deprecating “not as easy as it used to be.” This trailer does what a good trailer should do: sets a mood, makes me laugh, and makes me want to chuck good old Harrison on the shoulder…while sitting down to watch his movie. It also makes me think, for whatever reason, that maybe this “resurrecting Indiana Jones” thing isn’t the worst idea George Lucas has ever had (which is kind of a post in its own right, don’t you think?). This is probably the point.
So, readers, here’s my question: What is the correlation between trailer quality and movie quality? I’m thinking here of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone vs. The Golden Compass, one of which was eerie and iconic, and the other of which was just scatterbrained. Is quality a one-to-one thing, or do we get sucked in by good trailers for bad movies? Do bad trailers happen to good movies, and if so, would anybody know about it? Trailers are made by trailer-production houses, meaning they don’t necessarily come with the vision of the director, but does the trailer-friendliness of a film mean it’s somehow more watchable? Inquiring minds (uh, like mine) want to know. Give me your best trailer stories.
And in the mean time, let’s ponder: Crystal Skull. Mysteriously valuable, or simply breakable?
Indiana Jones, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Harrison Ford, George Lucas, trailers, youtube
April 8th, 2008 at 3:49 pm
Haven’t we talked about this before? I seem to remember telling you that I’ve always thought the trailer for Interview with the Vampire was way better than the movie. Not that the movie was bad, but the trailer had this amazing eerie seductive rhythm which might not even be sustainable in a full length movie. But then I think that’s what the best trailers do - give you the *feeling* of the movie more than the movie itself does!
Bad trailers… as you say, kind of a tree falling in the woods thing. I will say it was interesting watching previews/trailers for Star Trek Next Generation on the Men’s Channel. They’d invariable show the 2 seconds of shooting in the episode, whatever the focus of the episode actually was.