Columnists, Opinion

LAUNGJESSADAKUN: Trailers as an alternative to movies

A friend of mine absolutely loves it when cinemas show movie trailers before the beginning of a movie. He has often dragged me along for the 30-minute barrage, during which most of our popcorn is eaten and we get a preview of all of the upcoming pictures.

The 30 minutes always remind me of my Facebook feed and how I sometimes scroll through it for hours on end in a state between entertainment and boredom. There is, though, at least one positive thing about the experience: I can use the time to screen for movies I want to watch and ones I need to avoid without having to waste time on actually seeing the movies themselves.

The problem with this is that any time there is a movie I think is worth seeing, I have most likely already spoiled the movie for myself by watching the excessively revealing trailer beforehand. This has become increasingly problematic.

Even checking a movie’s score on Rotten Tomatoes beforehand could make or break a movie-going experience, despite its obvious bias and unreliability. The website gave “The Avengers” 92 percent, so it is obviously not to be trusted. Yet, I still allow Rotten Tomatoes to get me excited about a movie, or to completely ruin a movie for me. Imagine the effect a trailer could have if random internet “critics” could already accomplish so much.

Although there is the occasional trailer that really manages to get me pumped for a movie without spoiling major plot points, there seems to be an imbalance between these and just bad trailers in general. Sometimes it isn’t worth it to take this risk, so I try to just avoid them as best I can.

It should be noted, however, that some of the best movies I have seen were the results of accidentally watching a trailer. I still remember when I saw the trailer for the stop-motion drama “Anomalisa” while visiting the United States a year ago. The trailer, which aired during a “South Park” commercial break, made the movie seem weird and creepy at first, but I decided to give it a shot after seeing the trailer multiple times. I now think of the film as one of the best of its year, and probably one of the most ambitious stop-motion films I have ever seen.

Would I have watched “Anomalisa” had it not been for the trailer? Probably. Later at school that week, one of my friends mentioned it in passing while talking about upcoming pictures. Had I not told him that I had already seen it, and if he had made a convincing argument, I would likely have still watched the film. The trailer was more of a heads up, and especially with something so ambitious, it was kind of necessary to let us know what to expect (spoiler alert: I did not expect a stop-motion sex scene).

As I am writing this, I have plans to see “The Girl on the Train” in about an hour. I still do not know anything about the movie — apart from the possibility of there being a girl on a train and that a friend suggested it 30 minutes ago — because of how long it has been since either of us have been to the theater. Hopefully, it will remain that way.

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