How many times have you seen an amazing movie trailer and been horribly disappointed when you left the theater? We’ve all been there.
You watch a trailer that blows you away and say, “Have you seen the trailer? It’s going to be amazing!” Then you watch the film and curse yourself for being tricked.
Thankfully, we’ll always have the trailers to remind us how good the movie could have been.
Here are the top ten films that made a really bad film look awesome. Watchmen? Batman & Robin? Battlefield Earth? Where would you rank them?
10. Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989)
The fun of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. The Klingons. A mysterious Vulcan. Are Uhura and Scotty gonna get down? Is Chekov in the captain’s chair? Is that Spock’s son?! It looked like one of the best Star Trek movies ever. Unfortunately, we got the steaming pile that was Star Trek V: The Final Frontier. The movie so silly and goofy that it almost ended the entire franchise.
9. Monster A Go-Go
The trailer starts with a close-up of a curvy woman shaking her hips in a short skirt. A garage rock tune belts out a groovy beat. The trailer promises again and again that this will be the “monster film to end all monster films” with a ten-foot tall monster (or is he?) to give you the “whim-whams”. This is before the government had the whim-whams banned from motion pictures. With promises of pretty girls doing the twist, the trailer makes us want to “GO!” Instead audiences were treated to a disjointed, confusing and disappointing mess.
8. Battlefield Earth
John Travolta gives a chilling voice-over telling us that man is an endangered species. Based on “one of the best selling science-fiction novels of all time” here comes Battlefield: Earth! There are many shots of explosions, fighter planes, and guns firing. It looks like a war movie to end all war movies! John Travolta shows up laughing about something. Wait…John Travolta with dreadlocks? That’s so goofy it has to be cool! Plus, there’s a song from the Matrix! This will be amazing! Years later it’s won a record nine Razzie awards for everything from “Worst Screen Couple” to “Worst Film of the Decade”. Still an awesome trailer though.
7. Batman & Robin
It opens with the dramatic stings of the Batman Returns theme and gives the funniest line of Batman Forever: Chicks dig the car. A frenzy of chaotic and confusing images go by and then we see a bald Arnold Schwarzenegger as Mr. Freeze. Uma Thurman vamping as Poison Ivy.Then…Bat-Girl? Sure it’s all bizarre, but how bad could it be? It’s Batman! We can look back and laugh about it now.
6. Alien 3
Alien was a classic. The action packed Aliens was instant gold. So, when the trailer for Alien 3 arrived we figured it would rock. Especially with the Alien Queen coming back. We were wrong.
5. Hulk
How can you not love watching the Hulk smash? It didn’t help that the only live-action Hulk we had before this were the ridiculous TV movies.
4. Maximum Overdrive
Killer trucks running people over. Lawn mowers chasing people around. Finally, that famous Green Goblin mask on the front of the truck. Of course, the trailer did star Emilio Estevez, but Stephen King promised he would scare us!
3. Wild Wild West
Men in Black was a great film and when we saw the trailer for Will Smith’s next film with the same director it looked like lighting in a bottle. Add outrageous scenes, high-octane action and hilarious comedy and the trailer makes Wild, Wild, West look like an instant classic. At the end, we see a giant mechanical spider thundering across the screen. It’s still the best steam-punk movie ever made, but that’s not saying much. Awesome song though.
2. Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace
It’s hard to remember that far back, but there was a time when we all looked forward to the new Star Wars trilogy. With its shots of Darth Maul, the podrace, and space battles, it looked like a sure-fire winner. Even the Gungans looked cool with the shot of them emerging from the swamp. Of course, now we all know the truth. The horrible, horrible truth.
1. Watchmen (2009)
The Smashing Pumpkins song “The Beginning is the End is the Beginning” made it good. The sight of Dr. Manhattan striding through the jungle made it great. Knowing its based on the greatest graphic novel ever made it epic. Even now this trailer gives me chills. That’s what makes it the greatest, and most disappointing, trailer ever.
Have you ever been disappointed by a movie after seeing the trailer?
<span class="dsq-postid" data-dsqidentifier="40877 ">6 Comments
For me, the most misleading movie trailer was for M. Night Shyamalan's "The Village". I went to the movies expecting one kind of story and instead got handed a bag of s**t.
Oh and another…sheesh…Event Horizon. So bad.
(Editor: language edit)
I've tried to wipe Wild Wild West from my mind.
While the movie didn't suck, the trailers for Willow were so otherworldly and mystical. Not so the movie.
Michael, that certainly qualifies in the top ten. That movie looked so good and scary!
Willow is an oldie, but a goodie. Plus, it was George Lucas. Who knew he could make bad movies?
It's kind of impossible with these trailers not to know what the resulting films would actually be like. You had to really be thinking something totally unrelated to the movies not to know.
Tony, looking back it was obvious. At the time there was hope. Especially seeing Dr. Manhattan striding in the jungle.