How the Movie Trailer Shrank Our Focus

In the months preceding my final year of middle school — Summer 2002 — I purchased my favorite movie of all time: The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. I had just finished the books, and only six or seven months prior to this purchase I witnessed the beginning of this saga on the big screen. There was no popcorn, soda, or candy bars with me in the three times I watched FOTR (Fellowship of the Ring abbreviated for all those missing out) in theaters. There might have been a pair of friends that joined me, but for all I cared during those three hours it was only me and a merry band of Hobbits adventuring across the epic expanses of Middle Earth.

I brought this sacred icon home immediately, placing the shiny new compact disc in the DVD slot of the television in my room. (I had persuaded my family to stock me up with the latest early 2000s tech: A TV with VHS/DVD combo options. I knew that VHS was losing the war between entertainment options, but I also knew that was no way in hell I wouldn’t have the option to watch The Great Mouse Detective on VHS at any time that pleased me. Why suffer the choice when you could have it all in one 30 lb. box with a bubble screen.)

But I digress.

The FOTR disc, securely set in its natural habitat, began spinning and to my delight an image emerged of a soft, gold ring floating delicately into the sands of the Great River, Anduin. The haunting sound of desolate violins arose and an elvish typeface appeared around the ring. A series of options were presented to me. I could watch the movie; change the sound settings; go to a specific scene in the film; or see the special features. This was not my first introduction to the DVD menu, but it was the first time that I was genuinely interested in the special features. I wanted to watch this movie for what would be my fourth viewing since its release on December 19, 2001. Nevertheless, I also wanted more. Only thirteen years old at the time, I couldn’t bear to wait until December 18, 2002 (oh yes, I counted the days) for the sequel, The Two Towers. Perhaps these special features would unlock some hidden secrets of which only I could keep ownership. I selected special features.

I don’t remember today what treasures I unearthed in those special features. What I do remember is that four, maybe five hours later I rushed down to the family computer and logged into AOL, seeking more, more, more. Until I found it. The three-minute video that launched for me a lifetime of affinity for movie trailers.

Tell me a story. Now shorten it into three minutes or less.

If a movie is a novel, then a movie trailer is the synopsis on the back cover. Introduce characters; fill in basic plot points; add cliffhanger; fin. Pack in just enough information to whet the appetite of potential moviegoers. As AV Club presents in its short history of movie trailers, they have functioned primarily as advertisements for their full-length brethren.

Their function evolved significantly in the lead up to Jaws. This is the Sarah Palin of trailers — a game changer.

Here we have a story about a story. Not only is the plot alluded to, its practically revealed to the audience. Some of the most iconic parts of the movie a put front and center in this trailer. John Williams’ captivating score is front and center, warning the audience of the dangers below, while simultaneously piquing our curiosity; Roy Schneider utters the infamous “bigger boat” line; a camera lurks beneath Susan Backlinie as she wades in the ocean surf, her legs a pair of vulnerable hot dogs. Forty years later, any one of us can watch these three minutes and share in the ability to discuss the finer points of Robert Shaw’s drinking habits.

I should also note, the trailer is highly entertaining.

As a marketing device, trailers need to build an offering to their viewers. The movie, in turn, is the promise of that offering fulfilled. Trailers from the era before Jaws did that plenty well. However, they were hardly entertaining. Watch a trailer from the 1960s from start to finish. Go ahead. I can wait here.

Did you watch a full-length trailer in that list? Did you have any thoughts about it? I can tell you what I thought: I thought how can I sit here and watch one of these! I encountered a long, slow introduction to a bunch of characters that featured bizarre cuts, inconsistent use of text, and worst of all, complete lack of entertainment. The atmosphere and style of the movies marketed in these trailers is nowhere to be found.

And that doesn’t matter at all. Trailers, as their name suggests, were designed to be a utilitarian marketing device, carrying just enough information to get you to your destination. Promote the big name actors, provide a title and opening date, and make sure you show off your studio logo. If you start adding in a bunch of bells and whistles, you might as well not leave your trailer once you reach the camp. Or worse, maybe your trailer will end up looking even better than the great outdoors. Just like the stock market in 2008, the bubble of expectations will burst once Icarus gets too close to the sun.

That’s right, I just ended that paragraph with a metaphor inside of a metaphor in order to bring you to my next piece of evidence, the trailer for Inception.

Sit 100 trailer afficionados down in a room and ask them when we reached the trailer singularity — today’s era of trailers outpacing their own films for shear level of social insanity. I have no evidence to suggest this, but I will still argue that 95 of those afficionados will declare the Inception trailer as the moment that brought forth the trailer singularity. There are over 1.12 million videos that show up if you search for “Inception trailer” on Google. That’s nuts. At least it’s nuts until you realize that there are over 5 million results if you search for Avengers, and over 16 million if you search for the new Star Wars trailer. There are mashups, spoofs, “honest” trailers, acapella versions, lego versions, French, Russian, Arabic, and Sweded versions — the list is really long.

The power of Inception’s trailer was inflated due to the film’s weaknesses. There were excellent, lofty themes and powerful moments spread throughout the movie, but its convoluted plot — the infamous dream within a dream within a dream, ahem, within a dream! — left it open to attack. Why debate the movie on its merits when you can tear it apart using its own internet meme:

• Hey Jimmy, what’d you think of Inception?
• Well Carl, I really enjoyed Christopher Nolan’s exploration of the human psyche. While many of the characters lacked full development, the main charact—
• BRRRRRRRAAAAAWWWWRWRRRMRMRMMRMRMMMMM!!!

I promise you, that fake conversation above, happened. I don’t know where; I don’t know when; but it happened.

The power of the trailer itself may have less to do with trailers and more to do with the proliferation of internet technology. What was once on our home computers eventually transferred onto our laps and finally into our pockets, and at each iteration it brought forth greater access to more information. Movie trailers didn’t beget the fall of movies. YouTube, Facebook, and Vine were necessary steps to reach such an eventuality.

Still, the trailer does provide a short-form vehicle capable of usurping filmdom’s control on our collective conscience. All of the examples above illustrate the one thing that trailers give us that movies do not: Time. In a world where we are confronted by 5,000 or more advertisements a day, our focus is clearly outmatched. We are simply unable to deal with this constant shock of data. For many of us it starts as soon as we wake up, leaning across the bed to pick up our phone. For the remainder of the day we wade through the sludge of twenty-first century flotsam — 15-second spots blasting the hooks of new pop hits; sidebar ads promoting the latest sharing-economy darling; Snapchat’s vanishing videos of people having more fun that you in cities around the world. Intimacy has been upended by wit. Storytelling has been replaced by data.

Movies will inevitably die a slow death. They simply cannot outlast their short-form cousins. When there’s so much to see, there’s no time to pull over.

Much ado about…

Despite my doom and gloom, box office receipts for 2015 are beyond any of the preceding years. If money is any indication, the art form that is moviemaking is more successful than anytime in its history. Three of the top ten moneymaking movies of all-time were released this year. Of course, ticket prices are also at all-time highs.

‘So, Anders, why are you so preachy about movie trailers?! People are still watching movies — A LOT! Maybe stop freaking out about everyone giving up on long-form entertainment. Maybe you’re just an alarmist. Maybe there is still such a thing as deep inspection and understanding of film as an art form. Maybe — ‘

OK! I get it. The trailer is not some harbinger of a future dominated by technological slavery toward 6-second clips of entertainment. But goddamnit maybe Snapchat is! You can’t watch LOTR on Snapchat!

Human forms of entertainment have evolved from antediluvian story-telling, to minute by minute updates on on worldwide events. I grew up in a world dominated by another unique form of entertainment, characterized by both unwieldy boxes filled with tape, and circular discs covered in pop-art on one side, while reflecting tiny rainbows of information on its belly. Neither the VHS, nor DVD are perfect receptacles of art. But they are recepticles. They have weight. They come packaged in their own unique boxes that too have weight. And when I went to the movies, I went to be fully immersed in a whole new world, uncaring of the fast-paced events outside of the theater. This can easily be construed as nostalgia, aging’s natural byproduct. Maybe it is nostalgia, but I’m still convinced that we aren’t heading for much greener pastures.

When I watched the trailer for The Two Towers for the first time, I was amazed. How could they pack all of this into just three minutes? I wondered, gazing at the screen. It seemed marvelous. Perhaps, it still is.

And yet, now when I go back to watch the trailer I find myself asking how will I ever find the time to watch this three-hour movie? I know that this isn’t the trailer’s fault, but I can’t help but blame it. It’s there. And after only three minutes I’ve gotten the same high that a movie can give over the course of three hours.

It all makes me think of Gandalf and what he said to Frodo in the Mines of Moria.

“All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.”