OFFICIAL TEASER.
a pick six
by Hunter Jon
I think the teaser trailer is dead. I haven’t seen what I consider to be a proper one in a long time. I guess you could say that’s because most movies just have a single, two and a half minute-ish trailer. No teaser necessary. This is true. But you know I’m not talking about those kinds of movies. I’m talking about any type of movie with multiple trailers built into it’s marketing campaign. So basically summer stuff and Oscar hopefuls. And when it comes to releasing that first trailer, what are most common these days seem to be full length ones that show a ton of footage yet don’t give too much story away. These usually cover every bullet point of the first act and maybe tease a bit of the second. Other trailers that follow show off more and more from deeper and deeper into the narrative until all that’s left to see for the first time on the big screen is the grand finale. Look no further for one of these ‘teasers’ than the first look at “Suicide Squad” shown at Comic-Con that was three minutes long. There was a time, though, when these tentpoles all had true teasers. I’m talking about those minute to a minute and a half previews that would genuinely tease the movie - that is to say what the movie was, not the movie’s plot. The “Batman Begins” teaser comes to mind. They tease an ominous, mysterious movie and it’s meant to be a big reveal at the end that it’s a Batman one. It only showed us a brief flash of the Bat himself - blink and you missed it. The teaser for “The Dark Knight” showed us even less, because merely hearing dialogue and the Joker’s voice was more than enough to get the hype machine up and sprinting. The closest thing we get to these old school teasers today are the extremely brief ads letting us know when a trailer is going to premiere. And although they usually only last about five to ten seconds and therefore are the very definition of a tease, these are not teaser trailers. They are trailers for the trailers. Even more redundant is the fact that now they attach these ads promoting the trailer to the beginning of the official trailer on YouTube. So you’re basically shown all the money shots and highlights from the trailer that you’re about to watch before it even begins. To me this seems as pointless as if you paid to see a movie and one of the trailers shown before it was for that same movie. Why promote it to us? We already know. You’ve got us. We’re here. It worked.
Anyway, I miss the days of actual teasers. For one, even the worst movie can look promising if you take all the best footage and squeeze it into just over a minute. Nearly every teaser for a while there was enticing as a result... so that was fun. Secondly, because some studios, marketing departments, and even filmmakers themselves used it as an opportunity to get creative. There'd be plenty of time to be safe and traditional with the full trailer, right? So this was the moment to experiment. Some of my choices here are the results of those bold, outside the box ideas that played around with the very concept of what a movie trailer was. Others are their very own works of art - short films unto themselves that almost do a better job of telling us a story than the actual movie. In fact, a lot of these movies were incredibly underwhelming considering how awesome the teasers were. Masterpieces were suggested. Cloverfields were delivered. But I’ve done my best to completely separate my feelings between the advertisement and the product. Know that any eventual disappointment with any of these movies themselves simply doesn’t matter and didn’t come into play at all when assembling this list. I'm judging the trailer and the trailer alone. Each one I've chosen here did a fantastic job at getting me extremely excited and hyped for whatever they were teasing. Some of them even ruined the movie for me a little (or a lot), as trailers can do. You'll fall in love with that one music cue or specific cut/edit or inflection on a line reading... only to find something different in the finalized movie. Or you take the pieces presented and complete a puzzle yourself ahead of time, only to find out later that you and the movie had different pictures in mind. It can be crazy frustrating, but it's really a huge compliment to the teams behind these trailers because, in my eyes, it means each one is its own great piece of stand alone filmmaking and can be enjoyed as such. I’ve watched many that made this list at least a hundred times each. I’m the kind of movie nerd who will enjoy a trailer I love over and over and over again until I know every frame and sound by heart. A pastime that is ideal for teasers - the shorter the trailer the more time you can devote to poring over every single frame of it. Eventually, regardless of your feelings for the full movie, you grow to enjoy the trailer on its own - just like a song. Sometimes all you need is that perfect title track and the rest of the lacklustre, bloated album nicely fades away.
Lastly, I must admit to having trouble deciding what officially qualified as a ‘teaser trailer’. But I finally settled on the following definition: under two minutes and doesn’t spoil too much. That’s it. So for anyone who would like to point out that some of these were not technically labelled nor are considered ‘teasers’, we’re going to have to agree to disagree for the sake of this list. I do apologize, though. You’re probably right.
Anyway, I miss the days of actual teasers. For one, even the worst movie can look promising if you take all the best footage and squeeze it into just over a minute. Nearly every teaser for a while there was enticing as a result... so that was fun. Secondly, because some studios, marketing departments, and even filmmakers themselves used it as an opportunity to get creative. There'd be plenty of time to be safe and traditional with the full trailer, right? So this was the moment to experiment. Some of my choices here are the results of those bold, outside the box ideas that played around with the very concept of what a movie trailer was. Others are their very own works of art - short films unto themselves that almost do a better job of telling us a story than the actual movie. In fact, a lot of these movies were incredibly underwhelming considering how awesome the teasers were. Masterpieces were suggested. Cloverfields were delivered. But I’ve done my best to completely separate my feelings between the advertisement and the product. Know that any eventual disappointment with any of these movies themselves simply doesn’t matter and didn’t come into play at all when assembling this list. I'm judging the trailer and the trailer alone. Each one I've chosen here did a fantastic job at getting me extremely excited and hyped for whatever they were teasing. Some of them even ruined the movie for me a little (or a lot), as trailers can do. You'll fall in love with that one music cue or specific cut/edit or inflection on a line reading... only to find something different in the finalized movie. Or you take the pieces presented and complete a puzzle yourself ahead of time, only to find out later that you and the movie had different pictures in mind. It can be crazy frustrating, but it's really a huge compliment to the teams behind these trailers because, in my eyes, it means each one is its own great piece of stand alone filmmaking and can be enjoyed as such. I’ve watched many that made this list at least a hundred times each. I’m the kind of movie nerd who will enjoy a trailer I love over and over and over again until I know every frame and sound by heart. A pastime that is ideal for teasers - the shorter the trailer the more time you can devote to poring over every single frame of it. Eventually, regardless of your feelings for the full movie, you grow to enjoy the trailer on its own - just like a song. Sometimes all you need is that perfect title track and the rest of the lacklustre, bloated album nicely fades away.
Lastly, I must admit to having trouble deciding what officially qualified as a ‘teaser trailer’. But I finally settled on the following definition: under two minutes and doesn’t spoil too much. That’s it. So for anyone who would like to point out that some of these were not technically labelled nor are considered ‘teasers’, we’re going to have to agree to disagree for the sake of this list. I do apologize, though. You’re probably right.
Here are my six favourite teaser trailers.
(I've included the appropriate amount of honourable mentions)
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