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Joel
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Show Notes
Directed by: Fred Dekker
Written by: Frank Miller, Fred Dekker
Starring: Robert John Burke, Nancy Allen, Rip Torn, John Castle, Jill Hennessy, Mako
C. C. H. Pounder, Stephen Root
Trailer
What did you think of Robocop 3?
Tell us why you gave it that score
Question of the week:
Can you think of a movie where the trailer was better than the actual movie?
Leave your answer here
Next Movie: Skyline
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33 comments:
The trailer for Dark Water was excellent, but when I saw it in the theater, I was really disappointed. The trailer made the film look to be a creepy, scary, horror film like The Ring, but it wasn't that. It was more of a character study drama with a creepy mood and atmosphere than a horror film. It also didn't help that I got bored watching the movie as I felt it dragged and didn't have a good pace. What a shame...
Any of these films that came from toy lines in my childhood. Cases in point:
I. G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra had freaking HALO SUITS, but the only exciting part of that movie was realising that Scarlet was played by the green chick in Star Trek. Oh, and the Halo suits. Oh, and any time Joseph Gordon-Levitt wasn't (a) being the Doctor (there can be only one Doctor*), and (b) on-screen with the guy who played Duke.
II. Any Transformers movie. Whenever I saw a car turn into a robot, I freaked out. Any time Peter Cullen's voice boomed on-screen, I freaked out. I even fooled myself into liking the films when I was in the theatre. But, well, you know. They were just Michael Bay (post-Bad Boys) films, which automatically spells disaster.
III. Speed Racer. Need I say more? Actually, that trailer looked horrible anyway, so let's not count this.
Iron Man 2, the movie was honestly pretty good, but the trailer made it look like it was going to be phenomenal. Even so, I'm looking forward to some skin-tight-leather Scarlett Johansson action in The Avengers.
I'm trying to slog my way through RoboCop 3 before I listen to your podcast, but it's tough! It's got all of the dark violence (minus the gore) of its predecessors with none of the wit and brains behind it. I love how they play suicides for yoks (Hey, a guy jumps out of a window as his wife is consoling him on a videophone! *snork!* Watch that guy blow his brains out off-camera after his team screws up! HAW!).
It's funny seeing some of the recognizable cast, like CCH Pounder and Stephen Root, emote their way through this dog. And I'm on the lookout for goofs, such as when you can see RoboCop's torso move as the actor takes a breath in one scene, or when the plate glass window shatters moments before RoboCop walks through it. But an assassin ronin robot? Puh-leeze.
You're doing a great job, guys! Keep it up.
The Remake of Clash of the Titans had an amazing trailer and then took a steaming hot dump on the original, the trailer, and anyone unfortunate enough to watch this piece of shit.
X-Men: The Last Stand - The theatrical trailer was unfathomably epic and got me so excited for the movie. When the trailer ended with Jean Grey begging Logan to kill her, I almost stood up in excitement. The final product was a steaming pile of crap.
Have a couple of good ones.
1. Cloverfield-Great trailer but after I watch the film I felt a better name for it would have been "White Douches Run Around While Being Filmed By Shaky Cam".
2. Terminator Salvation-A fantastic trailer to a mediocre movie. The trailer had everything I like, a bad-ass Christian Bale, check. Huge freaking robots, check. Great Nine Inch Nails song, check. However the movie was a huge letdown in every way possible.
Tron: Legacy had a fun little trailer, but oh, did that movie suck.
Kick Ass had a great trailer and promo material. But then I saw it... *sigh*
-Dane
...and McDekker's "Doomsday Device" has a blast radius of 20 yards? Really? Not exactly a failsafe, is it?
Good call, Tyson, on Iron Man 2. The trailer made it look very good but the finished product was junk in my opinion. The charm of Tony Stark in the first movie was replaced by an overly cocky mean spirited drunken jerk-like behavior in the sequel.
As for my pick…The Darjeeling Limited had an excellent trailer, 5/5, I would watch it anytime it showed up on a dvd. The movie itself was a 3/5 in my opinion, still good, but far inferior to the trailer. And the short film, Hotel Chevalier was a pile of garbage.
Misleading Movie Trailer:
Not really a trailer, but more the 15 and 30sec TV spots for Freddy vs. Jason were AMAZING. Made the movie look like it was Freddy fighting Jason for 90min. There were some cute young faces thrown in, but you thought "maybe they are Elm St kids going camping at Crystal Lake and Freddy and Jason are fighting over who gets to kill them".
Not so much. The movie was 75min of (enjoyable) crap with Freddy and Jason killing insignificant kids and then only 15min of the two really duking it out. OK, there was a minute long clip showing Freddy manipulating Jason by pretending to be his decapitated mother, but it made no sense.
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Skyline:
By itself, it was a pretty crappy and boring movie, but knowing some "fun facts" about it made it much more enjoyable and the only reason I went to see it:
It was done by the Strauss Bros (I think, writing this from memory so there will be some errors) who directed the HORRIBLE Aliens vs Predator sequel.
They were hired to do the FX for Battle: Los Angeles and were accused of using the equipment for that movie (cameras, etc) to film this competing alien evasion in LA movie and rushing it to release to theatres before Battle: LA. Not sure whatever became of that.
They filmed the movie for only $10M. The only familiar person was the one guy from the last couple seasons of 24. Being a FX company, they did all the effects for cost.
The ENTIRE movie was filmed in their apartment complex and/or in front of Green Screen (I think set up there as well).
Taking the $10M budget and "do it yourself" stuff into account, makes it a pretty impressive feat.
However, it's MUCH better for a film school class to look at it than for the General Public to watch it. It was pretty bad and boring, but I enjoyed the last couple minutes. It suffers from the whole "Aliens are taking over the entire planet with BILLIONS of people, yet are focusing on this handful of individuals for no apparent reason".
As a movie, I give it a 2/5.
As an exercise in making a big movie for $10M cutting every corner imaginable, I give it a 4/5. I know they film the Paranormal Activity movies for a million bucks or two, but they don't have CG in 60% of the movie.
I second that on Iron Man 2 and Tron: Legacy. How disappointing those turned out to be?
I have one film in mind:
Salt (2010): The trailer featured some awesome footage of Angelina Jolie in action mode, something we hadn't seen in a while up to this movie. It started with a surprising premise and blazed all the way through the trailer. Sadly, the movie disappointed me with the twisted storyline. You spend about 45 minutes wondering if she is innocent or guilty and the rest of the movie wondering what's the point of all the deception. When the reveal is finally made you're rather exhausted. Even the action seems tiresome by the end
terminator salvation. when I saw the trailer I was convinced it would be the greatest movie ever made. the music was perfect and the intensity was unbelievable. the movie, on the other hand, was a steaming pile. so disappointing.
Avatar! On Avatar I seen the trailers n i was like OMG a remake of Star Wars Attack of the clones! My girl friend n I went the 1st day n after 2 hours of nuthingness n bad story building I walked out. I was pissed n I couldnt stand that n the beginning the arrows were nuthin to the bullet proof glass then at the big war scene the arrows r magically stronger. Weak Shit!
I have to agree wit Aaron Heerdt because the clash was the 1st 3D movie i have ever seen. N that fucked up 3D 4 me 4 so long. I told myself that if this is the new wave of 3D they might as well stop here!
How about DYLAN DOG: DEAD OF NIGHT.
Did anyone here see that ??
Horrible film. It has the feel of a cheesy early 1990's straight to cinemax late night horror film. AND IT'S NOT EVEN HORROR!!! God this sucks !
Also, the trailer for SUCKER PUNCH made the film look interesting. Too bad the film was well below good !
When I saw the trailer for The Happening in the theater, it freaked me out. It was a very vague and creepy mood-setting trailer and it totally worked on me. . . until, thankfully, someone spoiled the movie for me. I was saved from actually going to the theater and paying money to watch it.
Coincidentally I had watched Robocop 3 and Skyline on the same day a few weeks ago.
Skyline was just awful, it was boring and pointless. I could see the germ of a good idea (namely an invading alien horde using human beings as raw material for its machinery) but none of that came across. Instead we got a stupid parade of monsters that cartoonishly popped brains in and out like like they were fashionable hats.
As for Robocop 3, I don't know what the hell you two are talking about. We couldn't have seen the same movie, because the Robocop 3 I saw machine-gunned a Robocop-shaped hole... into my heart.
I remember my freshman year in college seeing the Star Wars Episode 1 trailer and about having an orgasm. Watching it, I'm not sure what the opposite of an orgasm is, but I'm sure I had one of those.
Branchito Bandito:
What happened was you saw all the FX and got a geek boner (much like I did)....
Then you watched the movie and realized it was about a 10-year old who couldn't act and a CGI Mentally Retarded Slave With Hound Dog Ears and you felt dirty and guilty for your arousal from the first time the you saw the Lucas Films logo and heard the 20th Century Fox Fanfare music start up the first time you saw the Trailer!
I think you guys are missing the point. Every disappointing movie, every movie worthy of being reviewed on your podcast, is preceded by a trailer expertly crafted to fool the audience into thinking it's going to be AWESOME!
I have a theory that if the guys that cut the trailers, made (or at least edited) the actual movie, we'd have a lot less crappy movies.
So there are almost too many trailers that fall into this category, but I'll pick Alien: Resurrection because it held out hope that my favorite movie series would be revived, only to suck. Oh, and for some reason the trailer for Powder looked really cool and ended up being hot trash on a plate.
For me its a tie between - Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, and CLASH OF THE TITANS. Both trailers had me pumped to go see these movies, and I saw both opening day. Needless to say, both Movies crushed my soul.
ROBOCOP 3 wasn't even horrible - it was just...dull, with the action and the story itself deeply compromised by its PG-13 rating. There are bits where you can see it might have been good, or at least entertainingly bad, if the budget and direction had been up to Frank Miller's ideas - but felt too cheaply produced and indifferently directed for what it tried to accomplish, so bits that were clearly written to be satiric or witty (i.e., RoboCop shooting a RoboCop-shaped hole in the Nazi Brit guy's door) just looked stupid. Looking at IMDB, it seems to have pretty much killed director Fred Dekker's (NIGHT OF THE CREEPS, MONSTER SQUAD) promising career - his next (and last) credit is "Consulting Producer" on STAR TREK: ENTERPRISE nearly a decade later.
A lot of what you two complained/commented about are classic Frank Miller tropes: The preternaturally-talented tween-age girl is Carrie Kelly's Robin from THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS; the RoboNinja and the Japanese corporation are Miller's career-long love of Japanese culture (his run on DAREDEVIL, RONIN); and the funny/menacing displays of martial prowess like shooting guns out of people's hands and keeping them flying or shooting a RoboCop-shaped hole in a door are another career-long love of his (SIN CITY). (Those gunplay tricks also allow them to have action scenes without excessive and bloody deaths - so if they annoy you, blame the decision to go for a PG-13 rating.)
Oh, right - the question for next week! Honestly, so many blockbuster action-adventure trailers make the movie look more exciting than it actually is that it hardly seems worth the effort to bring them up. Tying into iggystar's comment, one step on the career path low-budget icon Roger Corman used to make his proteges (i.e., underpaid labor film school students) take on their way to getting a crack at directing for him was to do a stint editing trailers. He always believed that if you can learn to cut an interesting trailer, you'll have most of the tools you need to make an interesting movie on a tight budget - as well as gaining experience in seeing what you need to keep and what you can toss away from what other filmmakers have done.
Therefore, my choices would be for comedies that make the movie look hilarious when it really sucks. I have two off the top of my head: The teaser trailer for Mel Brooks's ROBIN HOOD: MEN IN TIGHTS which lampoons ROBIN HOOD: PRINCE OF THIEVES' ILM-created "arrow-cam" shots by having the arrow stay in the air for a ridiculously long time, round corners, stop for traffic, etc. on its way to the target, ending with Cary Elwes's Robin doing a comic facepalm (none of which appears in the movie itself - you can see parts of it at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dX4Ik-cyp-I ); and the trailer for EPIC MOVIE, which trims the stupid jokes that land flat in the film itself so they're actually funny (trailer at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZKIr7r6Op4 ). Re-watching the EPIC MOVIE trailer just now reminded me just how much of comedy relies on timing - which those guys who carried on the ".... MOVIE" series completely lack, but the trailer editors have in abundance.
I know you've talked about it before, but I think The Village wins the best trailer/worst movie award. I am STILL pissed about that movie, it had so much potential!!!
The Forgotten gets second place though, that trailer looked SO good, but it ended up being one of the WORST movies I've ever seen! We laughed all the way through it, it was terrible.
The new Twilight trailer was actually not that bad. I know it hasn't come out yet but I don't think I need to tell you that it's going to suck hard.
Definitely Dragon Wars. The trailer looked amazing. The scene of the dragons fighting the helicopters made me really want to see it. Wow was that movie terrible. You guys should do that one.
The trailer for Ultraviolet made it seem like a decent action film but it turned out to be a piece of hot garbage on an August summers day. You two should review that one in the near future.~Enrique
The trailer for The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Absolutely exciting, but the movie turned out to be a poorly cast loony toons cartoon set in space.
... uhm, people? Trailers are commercials. Their very purpose is to tittle your imagination with some movie's best 10 seconds. But, just as the Mazda 3 in the commercial jumps the Grand Canyon, does donuts, and drifts through slowmo spray and glimmering sun-dazzle while YOUR Mazda 3 sits in the driveway getting dusty and coated with bird crap for years on end, a movie always has 100 times the moments of a trailer. And most of those didn't make the cut.
That said, the american Godzilla teaser messed me up. It was a black screen over the Godzilla noise. I think of this as the same as *seeing* a really big roller-coaster. The actual ride lives entirely in your mind. Watching the moving is replacing your imaginings with a concrete experience. I loved some of it, other parts were lame or too slow and/or stupid, and the turns didn't pack enough Gs.
Suckerpunch. That movie looked like it was going to be Hell on wheels, turns out, it was just Hell. Complete crap beautifully shot, but the movie is dumber than a box of hair. Let's hope Superman is better.
Red Tails. I watched that trailer over and over again thinking it was going to be the best movie of the year. I was so disappointed when I walked out of the theater that night. God that movie sucked.
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