Trailers are a necessary evil when it comes to the world of cinema. They were traditionally a bit more important than they might be now, but marketing is still significant to some extent, and certain trailers can still cause a buzz in the internet age. If a trailer doesn’t give away too much, then it’s probably not evil at all, and is just a neutral thing (take it or leave it; watch it or don’t watch it), but if too much is given away, it’s annoying every time.
There’s a focus below on sci-fi movie trailers that showed a little too much, be it some kind of reveal or even just a very memorable shot that’s hard to forget about – and anticipate – once it comes time to watch the movie. To the credit of these trailers, though, none are as bad as the particularly infamous original trailer for The Godfather (1972), which is just a slideshow of images from almost every single scene in the movie. It’s not sci-fi, so it’s not here, but it really does have to be seen to be believed (don’t watch it if you’re one of the three people on the planet who haven’t seen The Godfather yet, though).
8
‘Project Hail Mary’ (2026)
The trailers for Project Hail Mary don’t ruin absolutely everything, but the whole mystery angle of the film is undermined a bit if you’ve seen the promotional material. You’d think the basic premise and star power would be interesting enough. Like, there’s a potentially planet-ending threat, a mission into space to save the world, and only one person on board that spaceship (played by Ryan Gosling, no less, who’s one of the bigger stars at the moment, even if actors generally aren’t as bankable alone as they might’ve been in decades past).
There are some interesting things about why he ended up on the ship that are depicted in the trailers, and then the fact that an alien life form plays a huge role in the narrative is also given away. The whole character of Rocky is also shown in the second and third trailers, so it’s one thing to hint at extra-terrestrial life, but another thing entirely to make clear the appearance and eventual dynamic the alien life form has with the main character. Project Hail Mary is still a good and enjoyable movie if you’ve been subjected to the trailers, but it’s probably even better a viewing experience if you haven’t.
7
‘Blade Runner 2049’ (2017)
Oh hey, it’s another sci-fi movie starring Ryan Gosling that had a few too many things given away in its trailer. It’s Blade Runner 2049, and while it’s not an instantly unforgivable act to show things that happen in a movie’s second half in a trailer, it is a problem when something that happens in the back half of a movie is treated like a reveal by the movie itself, yet there’s no big wow moment in actuality, since you’ve already seen what happens in the trailer.
It’s Harrison Ford showing up, to put it bluntly. And, sure, he was central in Blade Runner (1982), so it makes sense for him to be in the sequel in some capacity, but the movie really holds off on confirming whether he’ll be in it, provided you don’t know ahead of time, thanks to the trailer. It would be like if the Spider-Man: No Way Home trailers showed the other Spider-Men showing up. People were expecting it there, too, but it was still nice to not be 100% sure until the movie opened (and it led to people famously getting genuinely excited when it happened, in the moment).
6
‘Thor: Ragnarok’ (2017)
If you have the Hulk in your movie, you’re probably going to want to show the Hulk in your movie’s trailer, so by that logic, you might wonder why Thor: Ragnarok belongs here. It’s more to do with how the Hulk is introduced in the movie itself, because it’s done in a way that’s supposed to feel like a surprise reveal (similar to the Blade Runner 2049 situation, and one that explains what happened to him after he left Earth at the end of Avengers: Age of Ultron.
If you didn’t see any trailers or posters for Thor: Ragnarok somehow, it would feel like a cool surprise, because that’s how it’s executed in the movie itself. The trailers also show a bit too much when it comes to other parts of the movie, including Mjölnir getting destroyed, which is a shame when the movie’s trying to be surprising and (in mostly good ways) a little different from the majority of Marvel Cinematic Universe entries that had come before it.
5
‘Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice’ (2016)
There is a significant death scene in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice that the trailers don’t show, but it felt like everything else but that moment was fair game to spoil. And, true, a trailer’s always going to show the fight promised in the title, even if a lot of it doesn’t happen until near the end of the movie, and also, “Dawn of Justice” more than hints that the conflict won’t last and that the Justice League is soon to be properly formed, but still.
Having Wonder Woman at all in the movie might’ve been nice to not know about, even if she was always going to be there once the Justice League was formed. It’s clear that she and the two title characters team up near the end of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, and the trailers also make it apparent who Lex Luthor ultimately uses to combat the superheroes: Doomsday (again, it would’ve also been nice to not know he’d be featured in the film’s climax).
4
‘Predator’ (1987)
If they’d really wanted to, Predator could’ve been made and released without any indication that the villain was a deadly hunter from outer space. You know aliens are going to be involved right from the start, so it’s fair game that the trailer also lays out the whole alien thing. Still, in another world, you could’ve marketed this purely as a Commando-esque action/adventure/thriller movie, and then totally blindsided people Cabin in the Woods-style after just a few scenes.
Instead, Predator is here because the theatrical trailer shows the alien too much, since its appearance (though now well-known, thanks to Predator being a series) isn’t fully revealed until quite late in the actual movie. Also, at least one significant death is more than alluded to, and you also see a little too much of the movie’s final showdown, even though there was plenty of action earlier in the movie that trailers could’ve shown to keep proper spoilers to a minimum.
3
‘Prometheus’ (2012)
Prometheus is not necessarily a well-loved movie, or at least those who do like it are willing to acknowledge that there are some problems with it. It’s a prequel to Alien that doesn’t have much by way of an alien, or aliens, but is very much tied to that original film in some admittedly interesting ways, some of which are shown in the trailer (but not everything Alien-related was viewable before the movie’s actual release).
Instead, what Prometheus shows a little too much of is some stuff that happens in the final act, including visuals of a rather spectacular explosion that’s hard to forget, with such visuals also making it plain what’s exploding. There’s also an effective moment of body horror in Prometheus that’s less surprising if you’ve seen the trailer, and also a reveal of one particular threat (not an alien, but something physically imposing) that’s best not known before starting the film.
2
‘The Amazing Spider-Man 2’ (2014)
There’s more to The Amazing Spider-Man 2 than just science fiction, as far as genres go, but the sci-fi stuff is there enough for it to qualify as such a movie. And there’s too much here, really, so it bounces around between genres rather chaotically. You might expect, then, that the marketing team would have a lot of material to work with, and could therefore assemble trailers that didn’t ruin things, and yet…
It’s messy, so you can’t piece together the entire movie or anything from the trailers, yet too many memorable shots and reveals were shown.
…The Amazing Spider-Man 2 has some pretty dreadful marketing material, if you’re the kind of person who doesn’t like trailers ruining things. They show the final shot of the movie in one of the trailers, so you’re kind of waiting for that to happen the whole movie, while a prominent death is alluded to and a villain you might not have expected to show up is revealed as being in the movie through the trailers. It’s messy, so you can’t piece together the entire movie or anything from the trailers, yet too many memorable shots and reveals were shown – or hinted at strongly – before the movie itself came out.
1
‘Terminator 2: Judgment Day’ (1991)
In The Terminator, a ruthless cyborg (played by Arnold Schwarzenegger) is sent back in time to kill a woman who’s to give birth to the man who might well stop the machine uprising of the future. There’s also a man who’s sent back in time to protect her, and this is sort of repeated in Terminator 2: Judgment Day, only now, there have been two cyborgs sent back in time to kill the eventual savior of humanity while he’s still a boy.
If you went into this blind, having only seen The Terminator, you might be surprised when it’s revealed that Schwarzenegger isn’t actually the villain this time around, but that early twist was given away in the film’s final trailer. Since it takes place early on in Terminator 2: Judgment Day, it’s hard to say that the trailer here gave away everything, but it was probably the biggest surprise of the whole movie, so it’s a shame it likely wasn’t surprising to many (it would be like showing what happened in the shower scene in Psycho; not entirely movie-ruining, but definitely not helpful).
Terminator 2: Judgment Day
- Release Date
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July 3, 1991
- Runtime
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137 minutes
- Director
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James Cameron
- Writers
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James Cameron, Gale Anne Hurd, William Wisher