But the problem is, a lot of the things that were said in the trailer and weren't directly quoted by people in the movie were still said! The mythology of the book? It was thoroughly communicated - you don't need a vaguely generic expository line to tell you that people think it's a myth. Is he so married to the direct line that he feels cheated if the same general idea isn't communicated in the exact same way as the trailer?

To me, he's picking really small items to nitpick at. One of his arguments against the scene atop Mount Rushmore is that the camera angle is different? Last I checked, movie productions usually use more than one camera.

OMG, this David guy is an idiot. For decades, movie companies use old and cut out footage for their trailers on their movies. Go back to any trailer you've seen to one of your favorite movies.. in-fact, view all of them and you'll notice that MOST of the content in the trailer is from footage that didn't make the final cut.

Conversely, I hate it when some of the best moments in a movie are spoil by the trailer. Knowing the punchline really takes a out of the setup. If a trailer consisted, say, half out of material that didn't make the theatrical cut (but might be on a DVD or something), I wouldn't be particularly bothered. But then again, it takes a lot more than a trailer to sell me on something like "National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets."

The trailer looked to me like it was represented pretty accurately what kind of movie National Treasure is.

Nice, could the NYT also get my 8 dollars back for the following films:

The Fifth Element
Talladega Nights
Live Free or Die Hard

Thanks.

Oh and I am Legend, man that was crap.

OT Having seen National Treasure 2 I can say this is the most hilarious review I've ever read and made me laugh out loud.

[www.nypost.com]

I think Pogue anticipates and addresses "you are an idiot" attacks in his full column--he knows this won't be a popular statement. But I think he has a point. We all know enough about the business of movies to know that they're specially constructed to generate a desire to see the movie, not to recap it, and we all know that extra footage might be used, or that the movie might be re-cut before it opens. Pogue is talking about something a little more manipulative, I think. For me, showing locations in a trailer that don't exist in the movie is crossing a line for example -- it's like when I was a kid and would rent a horror movie on VHS for the kick-ass cover and then realize I totally got scammed by a fourth-rate movie distributor.

The Spiderman 3 trailer had Spidey hanging in his black suit and reflecting back from a window was him in his red suit, but that was not in the movie. It made me sad. :(

If the trailer is a lie, what would he say about the presidential race?

Trailers are made quite awhile before the movie is complete, so it's hardly surprising that sometimes scenes in trailers get cut.

One problem is that most times, the trailers are created by a separate group long before the final edit of the film is complete, so it's bound to contain footage that for some reason was dropped from the final cut.

Same with the music-- how many times have you heard the music from the Notre Dame football game sequence from "Rudy" in another movie's trailer? I heard it on TV just last week, can't recall which movie trailer was using it.

Oh look, I rambled.

Oh and please sue the creators of the Neverending Story. It only ran for 96 minutes and was, in-fact, not Neverending.

@Nelsormensch: I totally agree. I couldn't begin to tell you how many movie trailers I've seen and thought, "Well, it looked interesting but there's no point in spending money to see the movie now that I know the whole plotline."

But on the topic of trailers that misrepresent what the movie is about: does anyone remember all the fuss "Gremlins" caused? The previews showed the critters in their cute stage and made it seem like a holiday movie for kids. Which is was for about half the movie. Then the gremlins transform, and we also have a character telling a rather horrifying tale of how she found out there was no Santa Claus (her dad dressed up as Santa and tried to go down the chimney, and managed to kill himself). I was fairly young when the movie came out, but I still remember how angry parents were about that one.

Movie trailers are horrible! They usually give us the funniest lines and best scenes before the movie even comes out! And when they give away the end? HORRIBLE! I have been to some movies and have actually said as I walked out: "The trailer was better!"

@scoosdad: Sorry, wasn't a trailer that I heard the "Rudy" music, it was a 30 second TV ad. Might have been for National Treasure 2, actually.

@Chris Walters: I still see those in stores, so you're not the only one.

@Chris Walters: Troll 2?

I think criticism of the way "the Bridge to Terabithia" was marketed is a better example.

I guess this falls under the Brige to Terabithia category, but the trailer for Pieces of April sells the movie as a middling cutesy comedy about a city girl trying to make Thanksgiving dinner for her hopelessly Midwestern family. The film itself is a middling drama about a dying mother preparing for her last Thanksgiving with an estranged daughter.

Now, I can see why a trailer would oversell a movie's appeal, but I'm not sure if anyone benefits by selling the movie as something in a completely different category. The audience is misled, while the people who might otherwise enjoy the film miss it.

@CSR: I was a small child when that movie was released, and was subsequently forced to watch it by my older siblings. However, if a parent wasn't able to read the title and then figure out that the movie wasn't a cute Christmas movie then they should have had their parenting license revoked.

What? There isn't such a thing as a parenting license? Well, it seems we have a lot of work to do...

"We immediately thought about last year's kids flick "Bridge to Terabithia," which was advertised like a whimsical Narnia spin-off but in reality was about the death of a major character."

1) Any concerned parent could have found out that the plot of the movie followed that of the book.

2) The death of major character is also part of the plot of the first Narnia movie.

3) A movie trailer should not give away the ending of a movie. Or would you have preferred that the trailer for Sixth Sense gave away the ending of that movie?

Lie. Cake. Obligatory.

@B: I agree. Taking into account the craptastic first movie and the lack of any sort of novel devices in the second trailer, I would say it very accurately described the movie as something I have no interest in. Except maybe to stream to my 360 :)

@Cy Guy:
I read the book in sixth grade, I never saw the movie, but I wondered how they would handle it.

And I want to see the CBS Saturday Morning version of 'How to eat Fried Worms' I haven't seen it in 20 years, but I still like it better than the last movie they made.

Had the death of the main character in Bridge to Terabithia been marketed in the movie, it would have ruined the entire thing. She dies in the last 8 minutes of the film and her death comes quite sudden.

I read the book when i was younger (what?! there was a book?!) and it was advertised to me as a fantasy novel, not a coming of age novel involving death. Had i known the girl was going to die from page 1, i prob wouldnt have cried my eyes out on pg 250 (or whatever it was).

@warf0x0r: You lost me with Fifth Element and I Am Legend (both of which I unapologetically liked), but totally brought me back with Neverending Story.

Brilliant.

Personally, I think the most shocking thing about the article is that David Pogue went to see National Treasure 2 at all. He tends to be a little brighter than that.

Sometimes they make trailers that don't even have the same actors as in the movie!! Like in Apocalypto.

Movie trailers are made well before the movie is finished, and they are made by studio marketing specialists not the movie's editors.

The job of the trailer producers is to make you want to see the movie. Not all movies are good so in many cases that means deceiving you by constructing the best trailer possible from the available bits, often creating a better seeming movie than will actually be made. It is marketing, honesty just doesn't play into it.

Perhaps the trailer producers should make the movies instead of just making the ads?

I remember when the movie Congo came out, and Bruce Campbell was displayed as though he would be a major character in the trailer, but alas he was on screen for about 3 seconds before getting killed. I was really looking forward to seeing Bruce Campbell in Congo...

"We immediately thought about last year's kids flick "Bridge to Terabithia," which was advertised like a whimsical Narnia spin-off but in reality was about the death of a major character."
-------------

No kidding... that was the first movie I thought of when I read the title. Terabithia showed everything it had to offer in the advert.

I had always thought the ultimate trailer scene not in the movie was the flying tractor tire in the "Twister" trailer. It was a big thing at the time.

Conversely, my favorite scenes in the 'Superman Returns' trailer were, in fact, in the film.

We should know by now that the trailers are typically not representative of the final film, as they are to entice us to pay to see them. Too often, the trailer is better than the movie (The Day After Tomorrow springs to mind, but I'm sure everyone has one or two they think back on).

Similar thing happened to me with A Beautiful Mind. I wasn't familiar with the book, and thought it would be action movie about a mathematician. Nothing not cool about that. Saw it with a bunch of friends for my birthday. The dinner afterward was more sober than I had hoped.

Yeah... the trailer for Medellin was great... I wish the movie didn't suck...

Chris, you should consider taking the spoiler for "Bridge to Terabithia" out of the story.

Ooh! Ooh! Arachnophobia!

All the previews and trailers for weeks leading up to the opening heavily (heh, no offense) featured John Goodman, and made it looks like some sort of comedic bug-movie spoof. The day it opened in theaters, all of the TV spots were changed to horror movie trailers, with no sign of Mr. Goodman.

As I remember it, John Goodman had more screen time in the trailer than in the entire movie.

Roger Ebert says that trailers show us the movie that producers wish the director had made.

My favorite example of this has to be Highlander: Endgame, for which the trailer was overflowing with ridiculous special effects depicting magic, supernatural bad guys, levitating swords - none of which made it into the theatrical cut. It's like they gave 5 minutes of movie footage to the trailer team, said "Put $100,000 of CGI in here," and then released a completely different movie.

@B: I *thought* all the fantasy stuff was odd. All I remember about that book from 4th grade is that Leslie died. What was the movie about?

It works both ways. I didn't bother to go see "Fight Club" because based on the trailer, it looked like the kind of movie you couldn't drag me in to watch. I only eventually watched it because Netflix predicted I would give it 4/5 stars, and I was convinced they had to be wrong. Then I bought the DVD...

Did anyone notice that "Good Luck Chuck" was marketed as a quirky slapstick romantic comedy in some markets (like on Style Network, Bravo TV, etc... "female" markets). That's like, the ultimate misrepresentation.

I don't mind if scenes from the trailer don't make the final cut, but could the trailer producers at least ask the director what the THEME of the movie is? Cause that's the biggest problem with 95% of trailers, IMO. (Citation: No Country for Old Men, which was marketed as an action/thriller, but wasn't really either of those in the end).

I think the real problem is he went to go see National Treasure 2, period.

@Secret Agent Man: Oh, aren't you special with your Cannes-going-ways.

From what I hear, the rest of us "regular" movie-goers are going to get a much better film - you know, once some real editors get their hands on it.

@mathew: Yeah, Fight Club was a total "WTF" trailer.

@JD:

True, I'd say it's not false advertising since the idea was in the movie, but as was in the original post, the trailer COULD have had Pamela Anderson in next-to-nothing talking about "unlocking my secrets" and then in the actual movie, it's Ed Asner saying the same line... Is that false advertising to many? (personally I'd rather see Ed, but that's just me).

@B: agreed. I was upset when I saw the trailers, having read the book as a child.

David Pogue needs to stick to what he does best, articles on technology and gadget reviews. A film critic he is not.

I like the first National Treasure movie, and the sequel was just as good. I didn't feel cheated and the movie was 4 minutes shy of 2 hours (not counting credits).

I actually like it where the trailer uses different material than the finished movie. That way you're not like "Oh, they used up all the best material in the stinking trailer"

It sounds like one of those movies that are so bad that it's good yet bad enough to get bad again. Has Cage done anything good since "Leaving Las Vegas??"