No. It’s all simple marketing. The studios want to catch the attention of as many people as possible, and if a formula works, why mess with it?
Eventually, they will change it up if audiences start growing tired of certain conventions (i.e. Christopher Nolan’s BWAAAAM sound, or more recently, “darker” iterations of pop or children’s songs). You just need a loud enough critical voice to make changes happen.
Trailers have a relatively short amount of time to convey an idea but also make a sales pitch for that idea so conventions tend to arise and have a life withing a time-frame as narrative and selling functions like a function in programming that can be reused and understood by a target audience. Go back and watch a film trailer from the 50s and you’ll probably laugh at the GIANT TEXT flying at the screen to emphasize points in the extremely literal narration that was basically an elevator pitch verbatim.
Trailers do have very specific time windows and trailers that go longer cost serious dollars to show as a result. Likewise most trailers are made by editing agencies that only make trailers as its seen as a vital, critical marketing tool, but beneath the talent of the core directors and editors who may be too busy/on their next project to work on it anyway. Trailers exist like Broadsheet movie posters in that they are extremely business driven art to sell what is already a very commercially oriented form of art. They can very artful on their own but also most of what you see is just performing/servicing that commercial need. Remember the decade of orange and blue contrast floating head movie posters for every movie?
Or more recently, all the trailers from the 80s to 90s that began with…
“In a world where…”
David Letterman has a new YouTube channel.
I’ve currently watching two shows right now and switching back and forth between them depending on my mood.
The first show is A Discovery of Witches, which is apparently based on a fantasy series, which I haven’t read. It’s not the greatest show, but it’s enjoyable and I always like shows about supernatural elements. I will say that I know nothing about the plot of Twilight, but A Discovery of Witches strikes me as “Twilight, but good.” Take this totally uninformed opinion for what it’s worth though…
The second show I’m watching is Reacher, which is also not great, but it’s dumb fun. It’s also based on a series of books I haven’t read. A friend told me about it, and it sounded so ridiculous that I just had to try it.
There was a movie based on this series back in 2012 or so, and apparently the biggest criticism of it by fans of the books was that Tom Cruise was too small to play Reacher. Well, the actor playing Reacher in the TV series fixes this. Reacher is a former military guy who is 6’5" and 250lbs and is apparently a genius. He’s like if you crossed Captain America with Sherlock Holmes, which makes for some funny and ridiculous situations. The show never lets you forget just how HUGE Reacher is, both in the way it’s shot, and the other characters in the show constantly referring to how massive and imposing he is. It is male power fantasy at its dumbest and finest, but it’s enjoyable in a “turn your brain off and watch this huge guy beat the crap out of people and also Sherlock Holmes his way into solving crimes.”
If you are interested in learning more about the only 4-time fooler on Penn and Teller Fool Us here is a documentary on their journey in magic.
Well shit, I didn’t know that Arthur Coghlan was A)on Fool us, let alone four times, and b)still alive. That’s Rad!
Finished the first season of Reservation Dogs this past weekend. What a wonderful show. Straight up beautiful and very funny. One of those shows that genuinely has heart and backs that up with great writing and acting. Conveys a feeling of unapologetic realness.
Oh it’s fantastic. I await a second season eagerly.
I caught up with The Queen’s Gambit on my recent work trip. It’s pretty good! Maybe one too-many “falls back into drug use and gets help again” loops, but I’m not sure which of those loops to cut.
Idk, I actually wouldn’t really cut any of that. Recovery is a cycle of relapse for a lot of people, so I feel like that was probably intentional. Idk how closely this reflects the book, but it definitely makes me wanna check it out!
Something can be both intentional and match reality, and still make a TV show feel repetitive and overly long. Everything is a trade-off, and in this case I would have erred on the side of concision. Thankfully Netflix releases all their shows in full seasons, so by binge watching we can push through repetition more easily than if we had to wait a week between episodes.
That’s fair. It could also partially be them adapting the book too closely as well, which I’m unfamiliar with.
Altho, if there isn’t a sequence that can be highlighted as “drop this immediately, it adds nothing” (I can’t think of one that stands out as unnecessary, but it’s been a while since I’ve watched it) idk how easily it could be made more concise? Iirc, the relapses all have a different trigger that reveals a lil more about the character and her backstory and how that plays out across her life.
I’m not an editor, tho, so idk what would get cut or not haha
*also: yes, I love the “watch all episodes at your leisure” style. I just am not able to finish a show unless it is an absolute banger if I have to be a certain place at a certain time on a certain channel to watch it. Bingedrops are what I was doing when I would sail the high seas once a show was out, anyway haha
Queens Gambit follows the book very, closely; and where it doesn’t is only in backstory (her biological parents) and in that case the show expands on it slightly; and in my opinion improves it. I read the book after and felt that the netflix version kind of rendered it obsolete.
Severance. It’s more than very good. The build up to the season finale and the final episode is peak level TV show experience. Totally worth an Apple TV+ subscription for a month.
Agree 1000%
This is unmissable.
I thought we were spoiled with Station Eleven, and then Severance came along.
Utterly awesome.
Has anyone else been watching the Halo series? I’ve been keeping up with it, and after a rocky start(Including a terrible scene that I can’t seem to shut up about), it’s actually gotten pretty good.
Yeah I been watching it at my brother’s place since he has Paramount.
I agree it starts rough and gets better. Its unfortunate as on one hand I like the Madrigal storyline on its own, but it’s really clashing with the vibe and pace of the rest of the show. That whole storyline feels like a cross of the Cowboy Bebop live action and the Expanse, which again is good on its own, but not sure where it fits into Halo. When it focuses on what we know of as Halo, it gets good.
Yeah after the latest Halo episode I feel like the Kwan/Madrigal plot is interesting and good (other than what it gets kindof corny) I want to see more of it, but it’s in a show called Halo. And it just doesn’t fit.
It would be like putting Frodo and the Hobbits in GoT. Or Arya in LotR. Or Faye from the live action Bebop in The Expanse.
It’s been out for a while, but I wanted to see Reacher on Amazon Prime Video with my wife. While it is a simple “vigilante detective” show, I feel it is a good adaption because we both liked it. I’ve read most of the books in the series while my wife has only seen the first movie.