I got a chance to view (don't ask how) the "extended" version of Rango recently, and a couple things popped into my mind while I was watching it: first, that the trailers for this movies made it look really stupid; kid stuff, but stupid kid stuff. Second, that this flick is on par with a lot of Joss Whedon's stuff, in as much as it tells multiple types of stories without beating you over the head with them, using a lot of metaphor and imagination that even makes the silly stuff mean more than it seems to at first glance. It was a shock and surprise, to say the least. As previously mentioned, the trailers that i saw for this movie made it look supper-kiddie-Cars-type stupid, and despite the talent behind the scenes, I mentally brushed it aside. The difference between the trailer and the actual movie were night and day.
Don't get me wrong, I do honestly think that trailers can be works of art in and of themselves. Teasers in particular, which have to reveal (or, you know, tease) just enough information to build excitement with little to nothing in terms of confirmed or completed footage, fall into this line of thinking for me. I do tend to forget that trailers in general are also (read: primarily) marketing tools, designed to get as many folks into the theater as possible. So many is a time that trailers will mislead an audience into thinking that their movie is something that it's not. An example of this is the great movie Man of the Year, starring Robin Williams. A wonderful movie, but watching the trailers you'd think it was a screwball comedy about a comedian being elected president. The truth is that, while that is indeed a plot element of this movie, it barely covers a third of the entire concept, which involves heavy drama about political manipulation and self-worth. It is, in fact, primarily a drama, or I suppose dramedy would be a closer term to the truth. Why did the trailers misrepresent the movie like this, especially when it was a great flick to begin with? Again, we come to the answer of marketing people thinking they know what America wants to see on the big screen.
A similar situation came up with X-Men: The Last Stand. The trailers not only showed scenes, effects and stunts that were drastically changed in the final film (and not for the better) it even showed performances by the actors that were completely different in the final film (again, not for the better). The prime example of this is Ian McKellen's speech (if you could call it that) to the Brotherhood in the woods, convincing them to join his cause. In the trailer, he speaks with great emotion and weight, building energy up, ending with a flourish that honestly brought Malcolm X to mind, which is appropriate, considering that's who that character is based on. In the final film however, this same speech is given with almost no emotion at all, almost as if he's reading it off of a newspaper or a goddamn cereal box. I understand a director asking an actor to give multiple versions of a speech or line, it can help find character moments that you wouldn't find any other way. But when a revolutionary is giving a speech that brings up mental images of Hitler in one take, and a bored husband at the breakfast table in another, you go with the first take.
Anybody else have any instances of this? Leave a comment, either here or on my Facebook page.
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