Modern Trailers Straight Up Spoil Movies and Shows—And I Hate It

I used to love watching movie trailers. Long before we had the internet at home, some of the magazines I bought had a cover disc that included some movie trailers. I watched the trailer for Tomorrow Never Dies over and over again on my PC back in the day, until I finally got to see the movie.

These days, I don’t rush to YouTube to see the latest trailer for a movie that I plan to watch. Instead, I avoid it like the plague, because it’s almost certainly going to spoil something important for me.

Trailers Used to Be an Artform

For the longest time—decades and decades—a movie trailer was a crucial piece of media that could make or break a movie before a single ticket had been sold. In a minute or two, you had to convince people that they wanted to see your film. You had to excite and intrigue them but, most importantly, you had to leave them wanting more. Editing a trailer was a job for a specialist, and would even be done by an independent marketing company, rather than the movie’s director or editor.

Look at this trailer for 2008’s Watchmen.

It shows off key parts of the film, without actually letting on what the plot is. The premise of the film is on show, the visuals, the vibe, everything that matters, but the trailer is cut in such a way that it’s self-contained and satisfying while still leaving you in the dark as to what the exact plot is. Whether you read the Watchmen graphic novel, or didn’t know a thing about it, this trailer is equally effective.

Likewise, let’s look at the Tomorrow Never Dies trailer I loved so much as a child.

Now this is still a master class in how to cut a movie trailer. It covers the broad points of the plot setup, it shows off some cool action scenes (but not all by far), and is sharply edited with humor. Who wouldn’t want to watch this movie after seeing the trailer? There’s much more to the actual move than what’s shown here, and classic trailers might even have some deliberate misdirection, which means even more surprises when you sit down to watch the final cut.

A Lot of Streaming “Trailers” Are Just Random Clips

Since we’re all watching on-demand movies and shows using streaming services now, you could argue that trailers are more important than ever. With classic films that already have theatrical trailers, we tend to simply get those existing trailers as a preview, but it seems that neither the rights holders or streaming platforms can be bothered to pay for properly put-together trailers for everything else.

For a lot of streaming shows, the “trailers” are either just a random assortment of clips, or it’s literally just a segment of the show or film that plays for a minute or two. Not a carefully selected bit of the program that would give you useful information about the plot, or make you want to watch it either. Honestly, the only thing these auto-playing previews achieve is annoying me into not wanting to watch whatever I accidentally highlighted with my remote.

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Movie Trailers Summarize Plots and Give Away Twists!

I can understand the financial and logistic reasons for now cutting a good trailer together for a huge backlog of TV shows, but I’m much less sympathetic when it comes to trailers made for modern movies.

Trailers that spoil big movie twists are nothing new. It happened with Soylent Green in the 70s, and with Terminator 2 in the 90s. It’s not unheard of at all. However, I do feel that modern trailers simply give away too much of the movie during the trailer. It doesn’t feel like I’m watching a trailer for a film, it feels like I’m just watching a two-minute cut of the movie. After seeing most trailers these days, I basically feel like I’ve already seen the movie, or at least I’ve read the CliffsNotes.

It’s almost as if teaser trailers are now what trailers used to be, where we still get a little mystery about what’s going to be in a film.

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I’m Avoiding Trailers Now

While not all modern trailers are like this (I thought the new Superman trailer was pretty good), I just can’t take the chance of watching the trailer for a movie that I’m interested in.

If I don’t leave the plot details a complete mystery, it really robs the impact of the film, but apparently that’s how things work now.

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Why Do Trailers Suck Now?

A few years ago, I read that some people in Hollywood feel that spoilers in trailers are good. There’s a theory that it’s a generational thing, and that having key plot points spoiled in a trailer makes younger people these days more likely to watch than not. Attention spans are shrinking, and you should probably just throw all your best stuff in the trailer, because it’s the only two minutes with potential customers you’re going to get.

Since on-demand streaming is now the norm, and people may not even go to the cinema to watch a movie, this modern style of trailer could be the result of what the algorithm says converts more trailer viewers into movie watchers. Test screenings might show that certain scenes are going to have the biggest impact on audiences, so the bean counters want them in the trailer, even if it spoils a major twist or plot point.

There’s also just so much content coming out, that studios might feel they should let it all hang out in the trailer to have any chance of catching the attention of overloaded viewers.

Whatever the reasoning, trailers don’t seem to have the same purpose and function anymore, or perhaps it’s that modern audiences are just looking for something different in movie trailers, and the industry has just responded to that.

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Please Make Trailers Good Again

On the rare occasion I still go to the cinema these days, I have a sense of trepidation that I’m going to see a trailer I’ll regret. So in order to skip the ads and trailers, I try to be 15 minutes late to the movie, which usually works out pretty well. You can take that as a free tip.

While I know it’s a plea that will fall on deaf ears, if enough people complain about modern trailers, perhaps they’ll change back to something more like the trailers I used to love. However, I guess the numbers don’t lie, and simplistic, spoiler-laden trailers must be filling seats. At least, if they didn’t believe that, then we wouldn’t be in this mess.