Trailer makes film obsolete, misunderstands Darwin

Now the forthcoming Rise of the Planet of the Revenge of the Uprising of the Apes is a fairly redundant film already, the seventh in a procession of films that concluded perfectly at the end of the original, thank you very much. But what makes it especially pointless is the way the trailer has been carelessly strung together, telling the entire story in a couple of minutes. The lazy trailer-as-abridgement thing has been around for a long time, but given that we already know how this particular story ends, the advert effectively makes the product it's selling obsolete.

A different viewing turns it from shoddy marketing into something quite impressive: it's basically an expertly edited short film in it's own right. It economically tells the story it's trying to tell (man messes with science, science does more than expected, animal uprising, Brian Cox is shifty-looking throughout, film-makers misuse the term evolution, etc.) and wraps it up at a point where you can cut straight to the 1968 original and it meshes rather well.

So why would I bother going to the cinema now to see this same film dragged out over two hours? You've done what you set out to achieve, you've told the story. Job done.

Trailer-makers, if you're out there, if you're listening: STOP IT.

Update on 24 August 2011 by Daniel Gray

I've just seen the film, and can confidently say that I was quite, quite wrong in my dismissal of it. It's great. The best one since the original, and anything but superfluous. It's the Apes film we needed – we just didn't know we needed it.

But I stand by the opinion that the trailer was poorly crafted and even detrimental to the film. So there.

Comments

[Essay]

I think you're not quite right. this is like to judge a book by reading 5 random pages (although if the movie is pointless then you're right at 100%)

[Michael Deal]

I've stopped watching trailers entirely. They clutter my subconscious with all sorts of scraps of prejudice. They sabotage a lot of the anticipation and surprises in the experience of the narrative.