Are we allowed to skew the trailers?
I've waited long enough now. I went to see the movie Kick-Ass on the day of its premiere but was too afraid to bring spoilers that I've been waiting with this post.
So basically, if you haven't seen Kick-Ass yet:
- You should.
- You might not want to read this post if you don't like spoilers.
Something that seems to be more and more common nowadays is to have the traileres for movies to be different from the actual movie in one way or another.
For example; some movie trailers for Inglourious Basters (best movie of 2009 IMHO FYI) had scenes in them that weren't in the movie. But the real kicker is Kick-Ass.
SPOILER ALERT
The trailers keeps presenting the character "Red Mist" as one of the many heroes in the movie while in the actual movie, he's a villain.
This was brilliant!
The trailers were still good enough for making me want to see the movie and once in the theatre I had no idea what was gonna happen because of the skewed perspective I'd previously been fed with.
There were also some other scenes that they'd changed the order of making it seem like other scenarios than they actually were, like when "the girl" said that she would definately sleep with Kick-Ass. The trailer makes it look like she doesn't know who he really is, while in the movie she does and it's a flirt with him. (That scene is not included in the embedded trailer.)
SPOILER END
So here's my question:
Can we do this with video game trailers as well? If so, would it be "okay" or would the consumers get angry? And can we only do it with the story and presentation, or can we skew the gameplay a bit as well, making it look more like an adventure game when it's really all about tearing limbs from enemies while bathing in blood?















May 8th, 2010 - 12:16
What about Kojima-san and his “skewed” trailers from MGS games?
Remember when we got to see Snake fighting a harrier on one the bridges in new york? And when MGS2 actually got out, Snake was not even the main character anymore and all the trailers were just making us believe that something different was going to happen.
May 11th, 2010 - 23:15
@finn
That’s an excellent example! Thank you. I’d totally forgotten about that one.
July 20th, 2011 - 22:46
Thanks for the nice info in your post. I will certainly be seeing more of your articles when I get off work. Bookmarked!