Movie Trailers

By Sally Franz

A big shout out and sincere thank you to Hollywood movie trailer producers.

While some people resent being shamelessly sold new movies, I do not. I am so excited to watch what the marketing department thinks are the funniest moments, the most violent moments, or the most exciting tidbits. I am delighted to sit through large robots, gangsters, trucks and of course aliens with the obligatory impaling, mauling and generally terrorizing of innocent people. And by innocent people I mean those of us stuck in our seats.

I love how so many films are approved for general audiences. I wonder who these people are. How does one even describe a general audience, other than “we got all these people in a room”. None of them look alike or talk alike (okay except for those weird 80 year old identical twins who dressed the same as Patty Duke and her imaginary cousin). I suppose a general audience (G rating) means a test group all agreed they were not too bummed out when they watched that particular movie. Likely the general audience they practiced on was a focus group, soooo the other thing they have in common is that group all will sit still for two hours for $25 and free Oreos and Coke. Then there are the R rated films or for Mature Audiences Only. That cracks me up. If they were all that mature they would not be watching this drivel.

Upcoming trailers are now including comic book heroes working together, comic book heroes fighting each other, outer space aliens still attacking the humans (Why, oh why? Come on, just because we trashed our own planet and are looking for another one to destroy?), and the romantic comedy. Ah, romance. The theme is always: it is complicated. That is code for someone is a liar the other one is hiding a deep secret. And to round out the film fare, there are spy films with lots of people getting killed.

The cool thing about the trailers is they come in several varieties. But let me suggest the two front runners for the aficionado: 1.) the snippet and 2.) random images. The first, the snippet, is when someone has to answer that hard biting question, “what the heck is this movie about?” The result is a frenzy to not only collect two minutes of scenes, but scenes that while they may not be in the order shown in the actual movie do flow together. Or what I like to call the plot line that should have been followed all along. We hear the protagonist declare what he or she wants, as in, “I will get this planet back.” “I will stop that killer.” “I will eat every pie I see.” From then on we see quick cuts of everything that tries to prevent the protagonist from his or her intended goal. The final scene will often show the worst probable scenario. CUT, send to movie houses as the trailer.

Movie Trailer type 2. These are for the terminally hip. Think of Monet, think of Cezanne, think of you without glasses in front of the eye chart with the big E. The producers of this brand of trailer are angry art students. They are frustrated that no one wants to listen to them read poems about death that go on for over six hours. They love to do art installations using plastic spoons to show how vapid and hopeless the world is. These same said folks get into the studio and take cuts of the film in question. They make a sort of collage of light, sound and color. If you hear yourself say, “What in tarnation was that supposed to be?” you are showing your inability to grasp deeper things, to even be a deeper person. If instead you weep at the trailer and nod and say, “so true, so true,” you are way too hip for me and will love what you see.

What I do is take notes. Because after a trailer I know how traumatized or offended I would be if I watched the full length version. Yes, thank you Hollywood for the 15 minutes of movie trailers. This week alone you saved me over $300 in movie tickets. And that is at the senior citizen rate.

Sally Franz and her third husband live on the Olympic Peninsula. She has two daughters, a stepson, and three grandchildren. Sally is the author of several humor books including Scrambled Leggs: A Snarky Tale of Hospital Hooey and The Baby Boomer’s Guide to Menopause. She hosts a local radio humor segment, “Baby Boomer Humor with Sassy Sally”.