Movie Trailers That Were Better Than The Real Movie

[Spartan Girl]

Have you guys ever gotten really excited over an awesome movie trailer/teaser only to discover than the movie itself was a bit...lacking?

I can think of several instances where this happened to me:

The first teaser for Revenge of the Sith that opened with footage from the previous Star Wars movies and had a montage of quick clips with Darth Vader being lifted on the lab table. I honestly thought that we would see more of Darth Vader in than just two minutes.

Superman Returns: I didn't want a Superman reboot, but when I watched the teaser with John Williams' score and the Marlon Brando Jor-El narration, I was a goner. I'm still pissed off that I was manipulated into seeing that stupid movie.

And although I thought Watchman was ok...I honestly liked that first trailer better. Even now it still gives me chills.

[spaceytraci1208]

Definitely Man Of Steel for me. That trailer had me super hype for it, and it just didn't meet my expectations...I thought Superman was finally going to be exciting

[methodwriter85]

I didn't actually see the movie, but I heard it was pretty bad...still, the trailer was dope:

 

[media]

[/meda]

 

The Eminem song was great.

[Schweedie]

I remember seeing the trailer for The Holiday and thinking it seemed great, and really funny. And then when I actually saw that bloody film it turned all of the funny things had been in the trailer and the rest of it was terrible. (I probably shouldn't still be bitter about wasting those two hours of my life after all this time, but I've honestly never been so bored in the cinema and just thinking about that film brings back all the annoyance I felt, heh.)

 

Oh, and I agree about Man of Steel, definitely.

Edited September 12, 2015 by Schweedie

[Janet Snakehole]

Completely agree with Watchmen. I still watch the trailers every now and then.

I actually kind of liked the recent Great Gatsby, but really loved the trailers.

[VCRTracking]

Toys starring Robin Williams is probably the greatest instance of a trailer being better than the movie.

 

[shoregirl]

I thought the trailer for Pitch Perfect was much better than the actual movie. When I saw it I thought I would love the movie but I really didn't. I was happy that I rented it and didn't pay to see it in a theater.

[ribboninthesky1]

The Dark Knight Rises - definitely a case where the best parts were in the trailer(s). 

[harrie]

Sadly, I have to say The End of the Tour fits this bill for me,  The trailer pretty much had everything good about the movie in it -except Joan Cusack because she was brilliant, but  about 80% of her role is in the trailer - which made the movie itself kind of anticlimactic. 

[BooBear]

X men first class. A trailer with cool music narrarted by JFK?

 

Final line: kiling will not bring you peace.

Magneto: Peace was never an option.

[ellenr33]

Where The Wild Things Are all the way...

[Janet Snakehole]

Cloud Atlas. If only for the super epic M83 song.

[M.F. Luder]

The Happening trailer actually seemed mysterious and interesting. Even with his previous duds, I was excited to see a new Shyamalan movie that seemed to be a psychological mystery mixed with horror. We all know how that turned out. I'll add The Village and Lady in the Water to the list, too. 

[King of Birds]

Toys starring Robin Williams is probably the greatest instance of a trailer being better than the movie.

But it's not like any of that footage is in the Toys movie. That's just "hey lets put Robin in a field and have him riff on the big floating names that were in his Hook trailer."  I feel that any "trailer being better than the feature" discussion should at least be based on actual footage from the movie.

Edited September 17, 2015 by King of Birds

[Jamoche]

Any number of low-budget summer comedies - you can tell just by looking at them that they put *all* the jokes in the trailer, because there's obviously not enough behind the concept for a full film. Especially the ones that are spoofs of other movies.

[methodwriter85]

Can we go for the reverse here?

 

Adventureland was a much, much better movie than the trailer indicated:

 

[Bruinsfan]

I actually kind of liked the recent Great Gatsby, but really loved the trailers.

I remember that looking wonderfully lush and glitzy, but when I briefly tuned in while it was playing on cable today they had a speakeasy scene with Vegas-style showgirls, bartenders doing Tom Cruise's Cocktail routine, and rap music as the score. Do Not Want.

[MarkHB]

I'm pretty the trailer for this was much better than the movie, but this music video displays it just as well... the film had such a great look, but was a crushing disappointment.

[Popples]

If you're going to bring music videos into this as well as trailers, then Wild Wild West is probably one of the best examples. I remember the trailer being pretty good, but the music video was amazing! And thank goodness the internet wasn't like it is now then, or there would be embarrassing footage of me trying my best to imitate the top-notch choreography. On the other hand, I tried so hard to get through that film, but I couldn't do it.

[Bruinsfan]

I really wanted to see the movie advertised in the trailer for The Apparition back in 2012—it was an interesting and frightening premise and looked like a well-executed exploration. Unfortunately it had almost nothing to do with the actual movie as filmed and edited.

[Spartan Girl]

Definitely going to have to add Suicide Squad to this list. I mean, I didn't think the movie was terrible, but the trailers -- especially the "Bohemian Rhapsody" trailer made it seem like it was going to be better.

[xaxat]

Sucker Punch. Great look, seemingly great action scenes (Baby punching the machine gun wielding giant cyber ninja in slow motion) but so bad on multiple levels. Led Zeppelin!

[WritinMan]

Pearl Harbor pretty much owns this thread.

[methodwriter85]

5 hours ago, WritinMan said:

Pearl Harbor pretty much owns this thread.

The 15-year old little gay boy version of me who had the hots for both Ben Affleck and Josh Hartnett would be disagree with you, but eh...you're not wrong. Michael Bay was clearly trying to create a Titanic version of Pearl Harbor.