Covers Always Lie: Difference between revisions

'''Bill''': "Yeah, we were totally ''lied to'' by our album covers."|''[[Bill and Ted (film)|Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey]]''}}

* [https://web.archive.org/web/20100317135702/http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/la/artwork/guess-the-film-plus-tips-on-using-film-posters-in-your-home-094768 Polish and Czech film posters of well known Hollywood films] tend to be so infamously abstract that they often bear no clear connection at all to the themes and content of the film in question. As such these posters are highly collectible, mostly because they [[Tropes Are Not Bad|tend to be pretty awesome looking]]. [http://wellmedicated.com/inspiration/50-incredible-film-posters-from-poland/ A few more Polish posters can be seen here]

** See also About.com's [https://web.archive.org/web/20120115234257/http://horror.about.com/od/horrorthemelists/ig/Foreign-Horror-Movie-Posters/Alien_polish.htm 60 Awesome Foreign Horror Movie Posters].

* ''[[Delinquent in Drag]]'', anyone?. The ADV Films release's VHS cover made [[Go Nagai]]'s high school comedy look like an action film.

* Possibly the example with the biggest chance of emotional scarring: ''[[Narutaru]]''. The back cover of the first English volume describes it as "A rare mix of breathtaking fantasy and gripping action/adventure, filled with imagination, excitement, and delight." Paired with the way everything on the cover depicts the main character happily flying around against a pink background, and you've got a good cover to [[What Do You Mean It's Not for Kids?|attract little girls looking for a magical girl series]]. Except for the fact that ''Narutaru'' is actually [[Seinen]], and ''extremely disturbing'' [[Seinen]] at that. Whoops. (That aforementioned blurb also proves that Dark Horse ''really'' hadn't done their research when they first got hold of the manga...) The opening of the anime [[Bait and Switch Credits|is even worse]]; not only does it have a super-cute art style and [[Soundtrack Dissonance|a very upbeat theme song]], but it references some shocking events from later in the series and treats them like a ''joke''. Also, one of the DVD covers features one of the side characters, [[Lonely Rich Kid|Hiroko]], smiling like a typical [[Cheerful Child]]. Let's just say she's not quite like that in canon.

* The cover of ''[[This Ugly Yet Beautiful World]]''{{'}}s manga has lots of fanservicey, yuri undertoned pictures... all of which never come close to happening in the book itself.

* The covers of the ''[[Amanchu!]]'' mangas show the girls in [[media:amanchu! volume 1.jpg|sexy]] [[media:amanchu! volume 2.jpg|swimwear]]—which — which never happens in-series. Well, at least the scuba gear still makes sense.

** The English DVD covers are in negative, giving them a creepy look, despite the fact thatalthough the art is happy and cute. It's a thematic reflection of what happens when you don't trust your [[True Companions]]. You can, however, turn it inside out to get the normal look, and the Japanese boxset covers are posters you find inside the box.

* Check out [[Superdickery.com]].com for dozens of examples of dishonest ''Superman'' (and other) covers. For that matter, check out the entire site, as it rocks. (Though it will suck out hours of your life you'll never have back... [[Tropes Will Ruin Your Life|just like TVAll The Tropes]]).

** The cover of New Avengers #35 got readers up in arms when [https://web.archive.org/web/20150104064937/http://www.thecomicfanatic.com/new%20images/nwavng35.jpg such a cool cover] ironically featuring [[Wolverine Publicity]] when the story inside (which dealt with the villain known as "[[The Hood]]") wasn't even remotely related to the cover.

* "The Miracle of Thirsty Thursday", a [[The Silver Age of Comic Books|Silver Age]] story from Superman #293, was about the people of Metropolis suddenly gaining severe hydrophobia and Superman having to put them into deep sleep in order to cure them and have them drink water again. [https://web.archive.org/web/20140409120206/http://superdickery.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=130:the-miracle-of-thirsty-thursday&catid=28:superdickery&Itemid=54 The cover touting the story], on the other hand, had [[Super Dickery|almost the exact opposite premise]]—apparently Metropolis is suffering a drought of water, and Superman is denying them a drink from a fire hydrant.

* The covers to Batman and Robin 23-25 all show Jason Todd in the Red Hood costume he wore during [[Grant Morrison]]'s run. The problem however is that Jason never wears it, in fact he dons a new costume at the end of the second issue. Which makes the [https://web.archive.org/web/20120111144545/http://www.dccomics.com/media/product/1/8/18973_400x600.jpg third cover] seem like a [[Take That]] in hindsight.

** In fact, this is rather a spoiler, since for the first hour of the film, Welles's character is supposedly dead, and his initial appearance is treated as a splendid revelation. In fact, theThe fact that it's even Welles isn't particularly trumpeted, so the cover really does the moment a disservice.

* [[James Bond (film)|James Bond]] posters in general feature a plethora of stuff from the film assembled into one poster. But just for fun, let's look at the poster for ''[[On Her Majesty's Secret Service]]''. Bond wears a tux at some point. Bond and Tracy ski at some point. Piz Gloria explodes at the end when it's attacked by helicopters, and Blofeld does bobsleigh, and yes, his men do ski after Bond and Tracy. However, ''[http://www.jamesbondmm.co.uk/bond-posters/ohmss-posters?id=001 they do not all happen at the same time.]''{{Dead link}}'' [[Rule of Cool]] does enter into it, though.

* Pick a cover, any cover, of the DVD for ''[[Chocolat]]'' and you'll see [[Johnny Depp]] sharing the same amount of space with the lead character, despiteeven the fact thatthough his character [[Advertised Extra|is largely absent from the majority of the film.]] This can mislead any first time viewer really, as inevitably the question, "So when the hell is Depp showing up?" will be asked within the first half hour.

** The US releases aren't as bad, though still really cliche, [http://www.scificool.com/images/2009/12/district-9-dvd-2.jpg with the disabled alien ship floating over a barbed wire fence with a "No Humans Allowed" sign]. Which is...the complete opposite of the entire ad campaign ([httphttps://wwwweb.archive.org/web/20141020043229/http://filmjunk.com/images/weblog/2009/06/d9busstop.jpg Bus Stop for Humans Only], [httphttps://wwwweb.archive.org/web/20141020043224/http://filmjunk.com/images/weblog/2009/06/d9bench.jpg Bench for Humans Only], etc), and entire premise and themes of the movie.

* The back of the DVD cover for ''[[Tootsie]]'' features an image of [[Dustin Hoffman]]'s character, Michael, kissing his coworker Julie while in full [[Wholesome Crossdresser|Dorothy Michaels]] regalia, despiteeven the fact thatthough the two never kiss at any time while he is dressed as a woman.

* The American ''[[Discworld/Hogfather|Hogfather]]'' DVD case goes out of its way to obscure the central conceit of the movie (that Death is replacing the Discworld's Santa Claus for a night... for instance, his servant Albert appears on the cover, but not Death himself), and prominently features the young actors who play Bilious and Violet (who aren't really involved in the action). The whole effect is to make the whole thing seem much less dark.

* Releases of ''[[The Lavender Hill Mob]]'' make much of the fact that [[Audrey Hepburn]] has a role in it - the blurb spends more time talking about that than it does about the plot of the film, in fact. In reality, the film was made long before Hepburn was famous, and she's in it for maybe ten seconds.

* The DVD cover of some editions of ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer (film)|Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'' feature Kristy Swanson and Luke Perry at the ready for battle in an ominously dark, foggy cemetery - coupled with a logo that's somewhat similar to that of the ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'' TV series, it makes it appear much less campy and comedic than it really is, and also makes it look like some sort of offshoot of the show. At least the cover doesn't obscure the fact thathow it doesn't feature [[Sarah Michelle Gellar]] or any other actors from the later TV series.

* Earlier editions of ''[[Harry Potter/Harry Potter and Thethe Philosopher's Stone (novel)|Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone]]'' had a youngish wizard with a short brown beard and a purple robe on the back cover, possibly Professor Quirrel. Later editions replaced him with someone who was clearly Dumbledore.

** As well as this, the cover art depicted Harry as someone who looked a lot older than the eleven year old he was during the events of ''Philosopher's Stone''. The illustrator Thomas Taylor originally intended Harry to be fully facing the train, hiding his face from view so as to let the reader imagine what he looks like. The publishers insisted on a portrait, and so Taylor only had a limited amount of time to change his design. Since then he's somewhat wryly regretted the fact thathow one of the most famous covers in literature was the result of a single day's work.

* The French edition of [[Terry Pratchett]] and [[Neil Gaiman]]'s ''[[Good Omens]]'' ("De bons presages") used to feature [https://web.archive.org/web/20111109081108/http://www.progx.org/deliciouslibrary/images/771857AA-AC17-11D9-84A4-000D933B18F6-140.png a small blond child looking nervously over his shoulder at a giant crocodile-dragon-thing]. Which is in the book precisely nowhere. (The current cover is much more accurate.)

* The books in Steven Brust's [[Dragaera|Vlad Taltos]] series all have a picture of a jhereg (presumably Loiosh) on the cover, and all of them have four legs and wings despiteeven the fact thatthough jhereg are more bat-like than dragon-like.

* The covers of [[Keith Laumer]]'s ''[[Bolo]]'' series are legendary amongst its fans for never getting the image of the eponymous tanks right. In one particular book, it showed a tank being faced by what appears to be a typical Taliban or Al-Qaeda insurgent... despiteeven the fact thatthough the battles in the book were against beaked aliens with black and white fur.

* Darryl Sweet's interpretations of ''[[The Wheel of Time]]'' series are known for two things: being completely inaccurate and/or completely inconsistent. The best covers never seem to portray the same people. In particular, Rand rarely ever looks the same, and you would only know it's Rand due to the fact thatbecuase he's the main character. In particular the differences in size are never accounted for. Rand is quite tall being half Aiel, but is always portrayed the same height as everyone else. The worst are the covers that are completely inaccurate with the most infamous being ''The Great Hunt'' where the Trollocs are basically [[Unfortunate Implications|black people]] in armor. [[Lampshade Hanging|Lampshaded]] in ''The World of Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time'': the section titled ''Historical Portraits of Questionable Accuracy'' contained copies of all the book cover art.

* [[Jack Campbell]]'s ''[[The Lost Fleet]]'' books feature the main character, John Geary, holding a different gun, in different armor, in a different location on each cover. This is despitein thespite factof thathow Geary: Hashas never carried a weapon, has never worn armor, and didn't even leave his ship until the sixth book. (The books also contain absolutely no physical description of him, so there is no reason to believe he looks like that—even the race may be wrong.)

* The second book in the ''[[Animorphs]]'' series shows Rachel morphing into a gray cat on the cover. In the book, the cat is actually described to be black and white. Also, the kids are usually shown morphing in their clothes, despite the fact thathow the books say they can only morph skin-tight outfits. (And on a minor note, a lot of the morphs are anatomically incorrect. E.g. instead of the human ears rising to become the animal ears, the human ear disappears and the person's ''hair'' rises and reshapes to form animal ears.)

* [[Ursula K. Le Guin]] herself complained about covers depicting the hero of ''[[Earthsea Trilogy|A Wizard of Earth SeaEarthsea]]'' as [[Race Lift|white]]. The only white people in Earthsea are the Karg raiders, everyone else is black or brown. The hero, Ged, is brown.

* The Season 9 set of ''[[The X-Files]]'' prominently features David Duchovny's face, despiteeven the fact thatthough he was in only one episode that season. Or two if you count the brief, imaginary reflection of him in another character's eyeball. Robert Patrick and Annabeth Gish, who were the actual leads that year, are marginalized.

* The DVD of the [[Miniseries]] ''[[To the Ends of the Earth]]'' features Sam Neill's face largest and in the forefront, and his name and profile on the case spine, even thoughalthough he plays a very minor character. The real star, [[Benedict Cumberbatch]], is barely noted.

* Gary Numan's backing band put out one largely forgotten [[The Band Minus the Face]] album entitled ''For Future Reference'' under the name Dramatis. While the initial release had [http://2.bp.blogspot.com/__ZenZ_-dWB0/SNcx0Fm0ZRI/AAAAAAAABRw/g3G6-svdUnk/s200/fro.jpeg a cover just featuring a photograph of the band], in 2000 it would be re-released with a cover with [https://web.archive.org/web/20110113170100/http://image.allmusic.com/00/amg/cov200/dre200/e241/e24162qwjlu.jpg one ambiguously shadowy face on it that might or might not be Gary Numan], and billed as an album called ''The Dramatis Project'' by Tubeway Army Featuring Gary Numan. In fact Numan only contributed guest vocals for one song, and no members of Tubeway Army, the band that initially brought Numan fame, were involved.

* The ''[[Chrono Trigger]]'' cover has Crono, Frog, and Marle fighting a boss. The boss is in the wrong location (in fact, a location that doesn't exist in the game), he's being fought with the wrong party, and Marle is using a flame spell when she's [[An Ice Person|an ice spell user]]. ''And they kept it for the DS release!'' This is made even more bizarre by the fact thathow that said artwork was drawn by Akira Toriyama himself, the guy who actually designed the characters and monsters for the game. However, it turns out that [http://www.gamespite.net/talkingtime/showthread.php?t=11444 it was early promo art]{{Dead link}} before the game had been finalized.

* The cover artwork of the ''[[Fist of the North Star]]'' NES game features a cel artwork from the anime series which depicts Kenshiro sparring with his brother Toki, despiteeven the fact thatthough this was actually based on the second series (''Hokuto no Ken 2''), which didn't even had Toki in it. Since the game was published years before the anime was even localized for the U.S. market, the people at Taxan just used a random artwork from the series without any regard to the game's content, knowing that most Americans at the time would've not noticed this..

** Possibly lampshaded by the fact thathow when you first take command of him, even ''Raiden'' complains about not being Snake. (It was apparently his codename all through training, and he's mildly annoyed about having to ditch it.)

** [https://web.archive.org/web/20100203235513/http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/001286.html They aren't even pretending] to have anything to do with the game anymore. Thankfully, you can count on the marketing geniuses at [[Plants vs. Zombies|PopCap]] to come to the rescue with their own [https://web.archive.org/web/20090801095310/http://www.offworld.com/2009/07/evony-agony-popcaps-plants-vs.html undead twist].

** There's also [https://web.archive.org/web/20140729020412/http://www.mobygames.com/game/bomberman-/cover-art/gameCoverId,48253/ the American NES cover], which is just plain [[Hilarious in Hindsight]] what with the abomination that is ''Act Zero''.

* In the ''[[Double Dragon]]'' series, it is established that Marian is Billy's girlfriend, who is the Lee brother that wears blue in the games. Yet on the cover artwork used in pretty much every version of ''Double Dragon II: The Revenge'', she is shown embracing the one who wears red. Either, Billy doesn't mind sharing his girlfriend with his brother Jimmy, or the artist switched their colors by mistake. Of course, thereThere's also the fact thathow Marian is supposed to be dead in ''II'' ( {{spoiler|although, [[Unexplained Recovery|she does get better]] in some versions of the game}}).

* Rampant in the cover art of Atari and other early-era video games. The artwork on the box and in the manuals was always way better than the blocky shapes on the screen. Take the cover of [http://i210.photobucket.com/albums/bb112/sicboypeachy/Warlords-F.jpg Warlords], versus the [https://web.archive.org/web/20131125201155/http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/warlords/2600_06.png ingame screenshot] for instance.

** Another big offense is the apparent lack of Jurgen, who is stated as always being at Cain's side. This is [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshaded]] in the novels when Amberly points out that Cain hated the fact thathow every "official" history of his accomplishments completely omits Jurgen's existence.