Misleading movie trailers

Pokemonquistador2 said:
Isn't this book assigned reading to everyone in middle school, though? Not knowing the premise and shock ending to this story is like not knowing that Old Yeller ends with the dog getting shot for rabies.
Click to expand...

Yeah, it really surprised me when people were somehow shocked about that one, since the book has been pretty ubiquitous in the world of children's lit for decades. I suppose not everyone gets assigned the same books, though; my school was a religious school, so it wasn't assigned (the MC says "damn" at some point, and IIRC questions the existence of God, which the fundies in charge of the school weren't fond of).

Still, I suppose even if you correctly assume the Terabithia parts are fantasy, the trailer does kinda make it look like a much more cheerful story than it actually is.
 
I can't imagine said:
Yeah, it really surprised me when people were somehow shocked about that one, since the book has been pretty ubiquitous in the world of children's lit for decades.
Click to expand...
The shock was entirely toward Disney with them promoting it was something else with the misleading trailers and making of featurettes. Afaik tbe movie was pretty true to the book which was OOC for a Disney flick.

I suppose not everyone gets assigned the same books, though; my school was a religious school, so it wasn't assigned (the MC says "damn" at some point, and IIRC questions the existence of God, which the fundies in charge of the school weren't fond of).
Click to expand...
İ recall it depended heavily on the school dictricts to pick and choose which children's book to promote to their students. İ personally wasn't in any of the districts (two different states) where it was "ubiquitous," mentioned or if any of the school libraries even had a copy.
 
Yeah, Terabithia wasn’t required reading in my schools. I picked it up thinking it was a fantasy based on the cover art (like a Bruce Coville type story) and never finished it when I realized it was a tweenage drama fest with nothing happening.

A movie that pulled that on me as a kid was “My Girl”. I remember all the trailers being a fun coming of age or kids level romance-lite, except it was another “kid dies at the end” movie.
 
  • Feels
Reactions: Shield Breaker and Cyril Sneer
I'm surprised that no ones mentioned Scott Pilgrim vs. the World yet. that was billed as a millennial romcom rather than the hilarious lunacy it turned out to be
 
  • Disagree
Reactions: Truthboi and Burning Fanatic
Burning Fanatic said:
The most recent (and prominent) example I think of is It Comes at Night (2017). The idiots who did the marketing made the film out to be some incredibly creepy horror flick, when in reality, it was this slow-burn of a film. I liked it for what it was, yet it still was so frustrating to be completely lied to.

View attachment 1166282

Click to expand...

I never saw the trailers before seeing it, thankfully. It's a great but extremely dark film.
 
  • Feels
Reactions: Burning Fanatic
Pokemonquistador2 said:
Isn't this book assigned reading to everyone in middle school, though?
Click to expand...
Naw, we never read it, but then again my school(s) always seemed to assign shit books (assuming that Terebithia is actually good). I'd never even heard of it before it came out so going by the trailers I thought it was a generic Narnia-esque movie set in the modern day. I was surprised when people who did know the book told me that the fantasy shit would three minutes max and what it was really about.

Syaoran Li said:
The 1992 box office bomb Radio Flyer was marketed to look like it was one of those late 80's/early 90's "Kid Adventure" movies like The Goonies, Home Alone, or 3 Ninjas.

The movie itself is actually a harrowing tragedy about the horrors of child abuse, with a few token dream sequences and a mind screwy ending.
Click to expand...
I wonder how many Boomers took their kids to see it expecting a nostalgic sap-fest and instead were hit with alcoholism and severe child abuse?
 
Last edited:
  • Agree
Reactions: Shield Breaker and Syaoran Li
The trailer for Star Trek: Generations is very sneakily edited to make it look like Kirk would be on the Enterprise-D with the TNG crew. Of course in the movie Kirk only shows up with Picard at the very end on the desert planet to help punch Malcom McDowell.


The teaser is even worse, as they shamelessly insert irrelevant effects shots from TNG to make the movie look more action-packed than it is:

 
  • Like
  • Thunk-Provoking
Reactions: BrunoMattei, Uranus Pink, Dom Cruise and 1 other person
I can't imagine said:
Yeah, it really surprised me when people were somehow shocked about that one, since the book has been pretty ubiquitous in the world of children's lit for decades. I suppose not everyone gets assigned the same books, though; my school was a religious school, so it wasn't assigned (the MC says "damn" at some point, and IIRC questions the existence of God, which the fundies in charge of the school weren't fond of).

Still, I suppose even if you correctly assume the Terabithia parts are fantasy, the trailer does kinda make it look like a much more cheerful story than it actually is.
Click to expand...

Read it in class around 2003. I remember we watched the terrible Canadian version which starred the son of that pedo Jeffrey Jones
"YOUR LYING TO ME. LESLEEEEE AIN'T DEDD!!!" *runs in a field*
 
jellycar said:
Read it in class around 2003. I remember we watched the terrible Canadian version which starred the son of that pedo Jeffrey Jones
"YOUR LYING TO ME. LESLEEEEE AIN'T DEDD!!!" *runs in a field*
Click to expand...

I had that experience of reading a book in class that I loved only for us to watch a terrible movie adaption of it with The Sign of The Beaver.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back