Lost in the Trailer Park

In a nice bit of corporate synergy, last night Fox debuted the Revenge of the Sith trailer after an episode of The O.C. As with most Star Wars trailers, I was excited to see it; as with most trailers of recent vintage, I was underwhelmed. While the clip did a decent job of explaining the plot, there was little suspense, too much dialogue and way too many scenes of councilmen sitting around. While wondering how a Star Wars trailer managed to be dull, it dawned on me that this symptomatic of a wider trend: movie trailers just ain't what they used to be.

A trailer should give you a feel for the film's look, a clear sense of the story, offer a fair amount of intrigue and leave enough mystery to make you want to learn more about the movie. A great trailer doesn't even require a great film; my favorite trailers of all time were for Ali, Attack of the Clones and Magnolia. But other than the terrific trailer for next month's Sin City, it's hard to find anything to decent these days.

As a regular visitor to Apple's stockpile of trailers, I've been witness to a disheartening trend of mediocrity in recent months. It's more than simply bad movies being advertised- it's clear that no thought is being put into the crafting of the trailer (which is a medium in itslef). Today's trailers either give away too much of the plot, waste away the funniest jokes, try too hard to appeal to a specific demographic or don't give us a full sense of what the movie is all about. Whether it's summer popcorn trash like The Longest Yard, a high-profile sports movie like Fever Pitch or even a Pixar movie like Cars, they always come up short. The latest trailers are filled with awkward camera cuts, blaring song clips and big "comedic" set-ups with weightless punchlines. It's gotten to the point where I start watching the trailer for a movie like Herbie: Fully Loaded or Stealth but it devolves so quickly that I don't even bother to sit through the whole thing. With so many millions spent on movie marketing, it's sad that studios can't take a 2 hour movie and compile a 150-second clip of entertaining footage.