Trailers Always Spoil: Difference between revisions

* The ''[[Darkwing Duck]]'' story "F.O.W.L. Disposition" has Steelbeak doing an [[Enemy Mine]] with Darkwing after F.O.W.L. goes too far. Whether this is believable or not in the first place is debatable, but {{spoiler|every single cover shows him as an evil figure, including the back of the trade.}}

* For those who have read the comic enough, the cover of ''[[The Walking Dead]]''{{'}}s [[Doorstopper|Compendium One]] has quite a few spoilers in the illustrations the cover.

 

== Fan Works ==

** This is especially the case when the surprise twist involves a [[Shipping]]. We get such hilarity as "Which girl will [[Harry Potter (novel)|Harry Potter]] choose? Harry/Hermione."

*** Granted, not including the pairings in the summary is practically asking the rabid shippers to flame you.

* The summary of ''[[Thirty Hs]]'' is basically a summary of the events of the first few chapters.

 

== Film ==

* ''[[The General's Daughter (film)|The Generals Daughter]]'' is a thriller full of plot twists. The trailer spoiled every single one of them. (It even ''almost'' spoiled the actual murderer. While it didn't show the murderer, it showed a short clip from the final scene, where the murderer is revealed.)

* The trailer for ''[[First Daughter]]'' spoils the true identity of {{spoiler|the boyfriend}}, a surprise twist revealed very late in the movie.

* The original theatrical trailer for ''[[The Godfather]]'' features stills from the movie, including almost every single murder.

* A TV spot for ''[[The Dark Knight Saga|Batman Begins]]'' revealed, in order, that [[Late Arrival Spoiler|Bruce's parents died]], Wayne Manor burns down (something that happen 3/4's of the way through the film), and that Bruce has a reconciliatory conversation with Rachel that happens right beside the ashes of said burned-down manor.

** Given that {{spoiler|"Escape", something that happens in the movie, is ''[[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|in the title]]'', [[Foregone Conclusion|what did you think was going to happen?]]}}

* The poster for ''[[Airheads]]'' reveals that {{spoiler|Chazz, Rex, and Pip are ultimately arrested and sent to prison}}.

** You thought ''that'' was bad? Just wait until you see the theatrical trailer for Part 2! It shows two of the most important parts of the battle of Hogwarts. {{spoiler|The first, though only a flash, is Ron visibly cradling Fred's dead body. The second Lupin and Tonks hold hands before what is most likely their death, and the third is Molly and Bellatrix fighting.}} Might as well spoil the fact that {{spoiler|Snape loved Lily}}.

*** [[But Wait! There's More!]]! The trailers for Part 2 also show a scene where Harry speaks to dead friends and loved ones, like his parents—as well as a certain character ({{spoiler|Prof. Remus Lupin}}) who was still alive last time we checked. And said character is quite prominent, meaning it's hard to miss. Whoops.

** The blurbs on the omnibus editions of [[Lois McMaster Bujold]]'s [[Miles Vorkosigan]] books are particularly bad, although the task is made harder by the blurb needing to be for at least two books at once.

** Many editions of ''[[Twilight (novel)|Twilight]]'' mention in the blurb that {{spoiler|Edward's a vampire}}, thereby robbing the first ''two hundred'' pages of any sense of mystery. Of course, if this hadn't been spoiled it would have been a pretty bad case of {{spoiler|[[Genre Shift]] with a mystery romance novel suddenly including vampires. Imagine how that felt to the eight people in the world who didn't know about this beforehand.}}

*** The text on the inside front of the hardback edition's dust jacket is somewhat longer, but still amounts to that.

*** This troper wasn't so lucky. The inside cover of his cover mentioned that Harry was on a quest to find {{spoiler|Voldemort's remaining Horcruxes}}, spoiling a plot point ''the entire 6th book was leading up towards.''

** Related are all these teachers who, when assigning their students novels for mandatory reading, casually spoil everything about the plot , because Lord forbid the students actually derive ''pleasure'' from reading.

* Averted, apparently by accident, on the back covers of some of the Harper Torch-published ''[[Discworld]]'' paperbacks, where it's obvious that [[Media Research Failure|whoever wrote the blurb had never read the books.]]

*** One copy has a friggin' {{spoiler|Dragon with a Crown on the cover}} - both sides of the books will spoil (so will the spine of the book since they have mini versions of the cover art.)

* ''[[The Turn of the Screw]]''. {{spoiler|Peter Quint's dead, and so is that governess he was dallying with.}} This is made out to be a surprise in the book. Thanks, blurb.

* One edition of ''[[The Witches of Karres]]'' by [[James H. Schmitz]] has a back-cover blurb rather accurately saying that the "adorable little girls made Pausert the mortal enemy of his fiancée, his planet, the Empire, the Sirians, the Uldunians, the dread pirate chieftain {{spoiler|Laes Yango}}..." The spoilered name there was an alias the pirate chieftain '''the Agandar''' used when trying to capture Pausert's ship by trickery rather than brute force.

 

* The producers of ''[[Frasier]]'' had to pull a fast one on [[NBC]] in order to avert this. In the "Adventures in Paradise" two-part episode, Frasier finds himself at a Hawaiian resort in a room next to his ex-wife, Lilith. The second part ended with a dream sequence where Frasier was back at the resort, this time next to {{spoiler|[[Cheers|Shelly Long as Diane Chambers]]}}. The producers were worried that NBC would heavily promote the surprise cameo, so they shot the scene in secret and turned in a copy of the episode without the scene, only giving the real episode to the executives at the very last minute.

* During ''[[Chuck]]'''s third season, one episode ended with the implied death of {{spoiler|Devon Woodcomb, aka, Captain Awesome. However, almost immediately afterwards, we see him in the next time trailer, still alive.}}

*** Another possibly attempted subversion was the commercials for the episode where Teyla poses as a Wraith queen, with scenes taken out of context to imply she would end up turning against the team. The possibility isn't even ''mentioned'' in the episode itself.

** EVERY SINGLE promo for ''Stargate: Continuum'' shows {{spoiler|Ba'al being betrayed and killed by Vala/Qatesh}}, which is really supposed to be a surprise.

** Considering it was the last episode aired, an astute viewer probably would've had it figured out.

*** But if you're showing the series to someone new you can get a great reaction by not letting them see the opening credits so they don't know which people are regular cast members until the end of the first episode.

* PBS' trailer for the newest adaptation of ''[[Great Expectations]]'' gives away {{spoiler|how Miss Havisham dies}}, even though the official website goes out of its way to stick "Spoiler Warning" on the production designer's discussion of that event.

* The trailers for ''[[Supernatural (TV series)|Supernatural]]'' are infamous for this. For example, the season 3's big cliffhanger ending of {{spoiler|Dean being sent to hell}} was kind of ruined since the original episode promo showed {{spoiler|Sam crying over Dean's dead body.}} More recently, the episode promo for season 7's "Repo Man" completely ruined the episode's big twist of {{spoiler|the apparent victim actually being a villain and trying to let a demon that once possessed him once again inhabit his body}} by actually making it the ''focus of the trailer.''

 

== [[Tabletop Games]] ==

* Many RPG adventures' cover art, seeking to entice buyers with action scenes, inadvertently spoil the nature of the scenario's [[Final Battle]] or a major mid-story menace.

 

== Video Games ==

* Trailers for ''[[Portal 2]]'' clearly spoiled the fact that {{spoiler|1=GLaDOS was still alive and would still be the main antagonist of the game}}. At least for half of it.

* Partially played straight but also subverted by ''[[Kid Icarus: Uprising]]''. The information and trailers released prior to the game show off pretty much every stage, boss, character, and plot point up to Pit's final battle against Medusa. {{spoiler|So people were reasonably surprised when Hades tore up the credits screen, revealing that the game wasn't even two-fifths done, and most of the more important and/or memorable characters and subplots had yet to be introduced.}}

 

== [[Web Animation]] ==

* Parodied in ''[[The Demented Cartoon Movie]]'', which opens with a mock trailer that does the exact opposite: it doesn't reveal ''anything'' about the movie it's advertising because it's heavily censored, and parts of it have been replaced with stuff like [Dialogue Missing] and [Title Missing].

 

== [[Web Comics]] ==

* Parodied with the second trailer for ''[[The Way of the Metagamer]] 2: [[In Name Only]]'', which intentionally reveals many, many plot twists.

 

* The trailer for [[That Guy With The Glasses]]' two-year anniversary special ''[[Kickassia]]'' had [[The Spoony Experiment|Spoony]] shouting "{{spoiler|Oh my gosh! It's 3D Lee!}}"

* More like "the preview always spoils", unless the YouTube user has found a way to muck with the video thumbnail of a movie, YouTube will default it to the middle of the movie. If it's say, for a race and the course is known, you can tell at least midway who's winning.

{{quote|2419. I am required to tell the DM if the secret villain of the adventure is revealed on the back synopsis of the module screen. }}

 

* Parodied in the ''[[South Park]]'' episode Professor Chaos. Quoting from memory:

{{quote|'''Narrator''': Will Professor Chaos succeed? Which boy will replace Kenny? Which adult cast member will [[Tonight Someone Dies|die]]? These questions will be answered... {{spoiler|right now. No, Tweek, and Ms. Choksondik.}}}}

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Spoilered Rotten]]

[[Category:Coming Attractions]]

[[Category:Paratext]]

[[Category:Trailers]]