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Nov. 19th, 2012 11:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
xanithofdragonsI don't like American movie trailers.
I don't watch movies often. There seems to be something about the movie format that doesn't work as well for me. Other media like books or tv series or comics tend to hold my interest better. I can marathon a tv series. I can read a book I'm really into in under a day no matter the length. With most movies, on the other hand, I tend to get bored or tune out easily in the middle. But behind the format of movies themselves, I think there's another thing that makes me uninterested in movies most of the time, and it's the trailers, the commercials, how the movies are marketed.
Most of the time when I see a trailer or commercial for an American movie, at the end of it, I have no idea what the movie's about. The trailer looks like a bunch of disjointed scenes they thought were cool strung together with little to no context. When I'm picking media to watch or read, I select based on plot most of the time. I'm interested in the plot, the story, the characters. When I watch American movie trailers, they don't tell me what I want to know. The may show visual effects or action scenes, which are extras for me. They tell me the actors, but I don't pay attention to American actors. They tell me the director, but I don't pay attention to them either. They may give vague praise from critics, but I don't care.
There are a couple of things that made me think about this. In one of my Japanese classes at Kansai Gaidai, we watched Shall We Dance? (the original Japanese movie), and once we had watched the whole thing, the professor showed us a Japanese trailer for the movie, an American trailer for the Japanese version, and an American trailer for the American remake. Only the Japanese trailer seemed interesting to me. It made the movie look good, and I thought the movie was only so-so and a little awkward to watch at points overall. The Japanese trailer was good enough to improve my opinion of the movie.
Then, recently, I read a review for a movie after seeing commercials for it all summer and thinking it didn't look particularly interesting because the commercials were all disjointed scenes with no context or explanation style ads, and the review actually told the plot. The review made me think the movie was a little interesting, because it told me what I wanted to know about the movie, unlike the commercials which may as well have told me nothing.
I don't watch movies often. There seems to be something about the movie format that doesn't work as well for me. Other media like books or tv series or comics tend to hold my interest better. I can marathon a tv series. I can read a book I'm really into in under a day no matter the length. With most movies, on the other hand, I tend to get bored or tune out easily in the middle. But behind the format of movies themselves, I think there's another thing that makes me uninterested in movies most of the time, and it's the trailers, the commercials, how the movies are marketed.
Most of the time when I see a trailer or commercial for an American movie, at the end of it, I have no idea what the movie's about. The trailer looks like a bunch of disjointed scenes they thought were cool strung together with little to no context. When I'm picking media to watch or read, I select based on plot most of the time. I'm interested in the plot, the story, the characters. When I watch American movie trailers, they don't tell me what I want to know. The may show visual effects or action scenes, which are extras for me. They tell me the actors, but I don't pay attention to American actors. They tell me the director, but I don't pay attention to them either. They may give vague praise from critics, but I don't care.
There are a couple of things that made me think about this. In one of my Japanese classes at Kansai Gaidai, we watched Shall We Dance? (the original Japanese movie), and once we had watched the whole thing, the professor showed us a Japanese trailer for the movie, an American trailer for the Japanese version, and an American trailer for the American remake. Only the Japanese trailer seemed interesting to me. It made the movie look good, and I thought the movie was only so-so and a little awkward to watch at points overall. The Japanese trailer was good enough to improve my opinion of the movie.
Then, recently, I read a review for a movie after seeing commercials for it all summer and thinking it didn't look particularly interesting because the commercials were all disjointed scenes with no context or explanation style ads, and the review actually told the plot. The review made me think the movie was a little interesting, because it told me what I wanted to know about the movie, unlike the commercials which may as well have told me nothing.
