I saw Guardians of the Galaxy this weekend for the second time, and while I had approximately the same feelings as I did last time, that's not what this post is about, because instead I've been thinking about how they didn't show the trailer for The Giver like they did last time, presumably because it's been released already, and how I was glad about this at first, because that meant that I didn't have to sit through that trailer again, but also a little disappointed, because that meant that I didn't really have as good an excuse to complain about it again.
Then I remembered that I totally don't need an excuse to complain about how much I hate the trailer for The Giver, because whatever, it's my blog, you can leave if you want to.
Warning: do not watch the following trailer unless you want to be spoiled for key aspects of The Giver.
SHUT UP. SHUT UP, TRAILER FOR THE GIVER, I AM MAD AT YOU.
And it's super-annoying, because it's not like it starts badly. I never saw the first trailer, which I heard was still entirely in color — I guess it hadn't entirely gone through post-production yet? — but starting with the stark black-and-white is always an attention-grabber. Then Meryl Streep's super creepy voiceover hits us with the dystopia cluebat, because at this point we know that any regimented society promoting "order" and "this is the way things have to be" is automatically going to be evil. Guaranteed.
Meryl Streep is a hologram!
Everybody has perfectly ordered allotments of food!
We're clearly being put into the position of "independent observers who already know something is super wrong" — they're eating off mirrors, okay, who even does that — instead of Jonas's position of curious obliviousness, but that's a valid way to start this off. They're clearly hoping to hit all the dystopia-loving viewers who made The Hunger Games and Divergent pretty epic successes, which I guess is feeding into some sort of circular loop, given that Divergent definitely owes a nod to The Giver's deceptive-utopia thing.
Intro to Jonas: cute kid, near-literal version of curiosity-may-end-up-killing-the-cat, has some cute friends who remind him — and us — that this society has very defined limits and they clearly don't reward curiosity.
I LOVE THIS HOUSE. I LOVE THIS SHOT. I don't actually remember the description of the Receiver of Memory's house, and sure, this is pretty on-the-nose about how Jonas is both literally and metaphorically at the very edge of his known world, but look. I am so full of dreamy sighs right now. And from both the inside and the outside, it really does look more like a library than a house, but in its own way it's more of a home and a place of refuge than any place Jonas has ever lived. And it's beautiful. Jonas's head, the Giver's head, they're up in the clouds.
But I'm getting distracted from the trailer by my knowledge of the actual book, so. Onwards.
Exposition time! Mystery time! In the quest for order, the leaders gave up emotions and colors! I guess this is okay information to give away one minute into the trailer, although it's kind of kickstarting all of us straight into the middle portion of Jonas's journey of discovery! If you're advertising a dystopia I guess you have to let people know what flavor of dystopia they're signing up for?
CHECK OUT THAT HERO SHOT. THAT IS SOME LUKE SKYWALKER STANDING UNDER THE SUNS OF TATTOOINE SHIT RIGHT THERE. Jonas is so confused and perturbed, while Meryl Streep clearly thinks she has all the answers! (She might. She's Meryl Streep. Even Evil Meryl Streep is probably flawless.)
Blah blah blah, Jonas is quietly resisting the restrictions and rules of his society, pulling his sweet-seeming lady-friend into it while Mom Katie Holmes worries and Meryl Streep raises her eyebrows ominously. This trailer seems to imply that the movie is going to be steering very quickly into the conspiracy-thriller territory rather than the slightly quieter and more eerie journey that I remember, but hey, it's been a while since I read The Giver.
Would I have started the trailer off a little more subtly, taken a little longer to work into the "this is evil, I'm going to skip my meds" thing? I don't know. It's hard to tell without seeing the movie, and with dystopia trailers there's always the need to make it a little specific so it doesn't seem like every other evil-regimented-Stepford-Twilight-Zone society we've ever seen.
BUT THEN. BUT THEN.
I DON'T CARE IF YOU WANTED TO FIND AN EXCUSE TO PUT ALEXANDER SKARSGÅRD IN YOUR TRAILER, TRAILER MAKER. YOU SHOULD HAVE KNOWN BETTER. YOU SHOULD HAVE KNOWN BETTER AND I HATE YOU FOREVER, OKAY, THIS WAS A HIDEOUSLY TRAUMATIC SCENE WHEN I READ IT FOR THE FIRST TIME AND IT'S A CRUCIAL TURNING POINT FOR JONAS AND YOU FREAKING SAVE THAT SHIT FOR THE MOVIE WHEN IT WILL PACK 40X AS MUCH OF A PUNCH, OKAY, YOU DON'T DROP IT LESS THAN 2 MINUTES INTO THE FREAKING TRAILER.
Look, a trailer serves a specific purpose and that purpose is to intrigue people about the movie by giving them a taste of what is to come! THIS IS NOT A TASTE. This is like the equivalent of giving you like 3/4 of the meal in one go. Tease, don't tell!
And I promise you, showing Redhead Teen Girl about to get zapped would have been sufficiently ominous. Needles are scary even when you don't know that the main character lives in a coldly dispassionate murder society.
And then we get into the blah-blah-blah, Evil Meryl Streep decides that Jonas is now dangerous because he knows, and we transition into Big Blockbuster Conspiracy End-Of-Trailer Roundup of Main Character's Friends And Community Turning Against Them While Everybody Runs Around A Lot And There Are Lots Of Really Quick Jump Cuts.
Which, like, I don't actually know if this is weirdly misleading trailer-making or they really did change The Giver just that much, but I really hope it's the former. I know it's weird that I'm saying this, but not everything needs to be an action movie.
BUT I'M STILL REALLY MAD AT THIS STUPID TRAILER.
No comments:
Post a Comment