Trailers Always Spoil: Difference between revisions
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{{examples}}
▲== Anime & Manga ==
* For ''[[Attack on Titan]]'' there is a trailer that shows the drill sergeant telling Armin {{spoiler|that he would be 'a great light snack' for a Titan}}, for the second half of that trailer, we see {{spoiler| Armin being consumed by a Titan. This is probably a subversion, because in that episode, Armin is the only one in his squad that ''doesn't'' end up in a Titan's stomach.}}
* The entire ''[[Dragon Ball]]'' metaseries (all dubs) plays with this trope, particularly at key moments. It's done as a ratings ploy: if you want people to watch, tell them exactly what they'll see. Why would I want to miss {{spoiler|Trunks kill Freeza}}? Also the manga necessarily spoiled the anime. Common to any anime closely following a manga.
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*** To make matters worse when it was announced to media a day before [[The Reveal]] that an all new half Black half Hispanic character [[Alliterative Name|Miles Morales]] would replace Peter Parker as Spider-Man the media went into uproar while still ignoring the [[Alternate Continuity]] thing.
* 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
▲== Fan Fiction ==
* It's a pain trying to find a surprise twist in [[Fan Fiction]] because so many writers think "summary" means "tell me everything that happens in the story".
** 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 best summary of a story I've ever seen, for a ''[[Death Note]]'' fanfiction: ''{{spoiler|
* The summary of ''[[Thirty Hs]]'' is basically a summary of the events of the first few chapters.
== Film ==
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* ''[[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 trailers for ''[[Fantastic Four
* 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.
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* The trailer (not to mention the VHS cover art) for ''[[Meet the Feebles]]'' shows the surprise ending in action.
* ''[[Balls of Fury]]'' tries really hard to make Feng's identity a secret, despite that [[Christopher Walken]] is 99% of the star power (the other 1% being, of course, James Hong).
* ''[[Collateral]]'' treats Tom Cruise/Vincent's occupation as a secret, but you already knew it if you saw any promotion at all. Even critics were unsure how to treat this bit of information, most saying something to the effect of "I guess this is a spoiler, but it's already spoiled." In a hilarious bit of probably accidental hypocrisy, [https://web.archive.org/web/20101021230743/http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=
* ''[[Double Jeopardy]]'' was infamous for its trailer revealing that: Ashley Judd goes to jail for the murder of her husband, she finds out her husband is alive, a fellow inmate informs her that she cannot be convicted for the same crime twice, and that she menacingly points a gun on her husband while Tommy Lee Jones (who was investigating Judd) sits back and watches.
* The trailers for ''[[The Curious Case of Benjamin Button]]'' pretty much detail every event in the entire movie, showing just about everything important that happens in Benjamin's life.
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** 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}}.
* The
* The trailer for the [[
** 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.
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* Trailers of ''The Kindred'' and ''Centipede'' spoil the demise of the monsters.
* The trailers for ''[[Scott Pilgrim vs. the World]]'' give away the fact that {{spoiler|one of Ramona's exes is not an ex-''boy''friend}} which was supposed to be a minor twist.
* Not exactly a trailer
* The trailer for ''[[The Town]]'' has a fairly mild example, in that {{spoiler|The last line in the trailer is actually the last line in the film.}} Granted it's tough to tell outside of context.
* ''[[Arlington Road]]'''s main plotline involves whether or not the Tim Robbin's character is actually a domestic terrorist or just a regular guy. If you've seen the trailer, however, you know the answer. In fact, Jeff Bridges spends much of DVD commentary complaining about the film's tell-all marketing.
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** 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.}}
** This, however, was [[Subverted Trope]] by the cover text for ''[[
*** 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.''
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** 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.]]
** Except for ''[[
*** 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.
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* 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.
▲== Live Action TV ==
* 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.}}
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*** 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.
* A well-known TV example would be the trailers for the ''[[Firefly (TV series)|Firefly]]'' ''pilot'' (if you can call it that, considering it was the last episode aired). The major act break at the half-way point of the two-hour episode was supposed to have been revealing what was in the box Simon was so anxious to keep secret. This was ruined by the fact that the FOX promos spoiled it from the get go, as well as showing the moment the box was opened in the opening credits.
** 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.
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* [[Network Ten]] purposely ruined the shocking twist in the finale of the third season of ''[[The OC]]'' for Australian viewers. Instead of letting us think she was getting [[Put on a Bus]] ten decided to start showing ads three weeks before the finale saying " {{spoiler|MARISSA... WILL... DIE}}".
* [[VH-1]] spoiled a match in ''[[The World Series Of Pop Culture]]'' this way: One of the semifinal matches spilled over into the final episode...and the preview trailer for the finale spoiled who wins that semifinal match. Oops...
* Some years ago, a promo for the [[American Broadcasting Company|ABC]] nightly news promised an interview with the first-ever million dollar winner on ''[[Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?]]''. Said promo aired ''before'' ''WWTBAM'' started.
* ''[[Glee]]'' did this in a season 2 episode, showing {{spoiler|Kurt, who has been at a rival school for ten episodes,}} standing at the top of a staircase yelling {{spoiler|"Kurt Hummel's back at McKinley!"}}
* In the Season 2 episode of ''[[Leverage]]'' that introduced Tara Cole, {{spoiler|she was posing as their client's uptight lawyer to "audition" as a stand-in grifter for Sophie - a fact she didn't reveal to the team (or the audience) until the end.}} Unfortunately, that was given away in one of the promos that aired just prior to the actual reveal in the last segment.
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* 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 ==
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* 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.
== [[Web Original]] ==▼
▲== Web Original ==
* 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.
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{{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. }}
== [[Western Animation]] ==
* 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.}}}}
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{{reflist}}
[[Category:{{PAGENAME}}]]
[[Category:Spoilered Rotten]]
[[Category:Coming Attractions]]
[[Category:Paratext]]
[[Category:Trailers]]
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