Official TMNT 2 Trailer Discussion

[Leo656]

Despite what whiny fanboys say, having a "Big Reveal" in a trailer is almost always a good idea. I've mentioned this many times, and science backs me up on this: Most often, people do not like surprises, no matter how much they insist otherwise. Yes, I'm fully aware that a few people here do like surprises and are gonna go, "But *I*..." Yeah, shut up for a second and let me make the larger point, and just realize that you're a statistical minority. Anyways, especially when it comes to things like movies that require an investment up front, the majority of people want to have a really good idea what they're getting into beforehand. And several studies of movie audiences have revealed a general consensus that people who were exposed to various degrees of "spoilers" beforehand had an overall better appreciation for whatever movie they watched than people who went in blind. Usually the people who had more information about the movie before seeing it will say that the movie "exceeded expectations", while people who insisted they wanted to be surprised had far more complaints - because the real movie on the screen had no resemblance to the imaginary one in their head.

Movies, and especially sequels, that are controversial for whatever reason have no reason NOT to put in a big, crunchy, fan-service-y reveal moment. It never pushes people AWAY from the movie - no matter what they claim about "Already saw the whole movie in the trailer, no point", those people most of the time DO go, and were always going to go. The Big Reveal moments are what entices the fence-sitters, the undecideds, the ones who have doubts for whatever reason. In a movie like this one, where the only people who actually liked the last one were ones who would have accepted ANY movie with the TMNT name on it, keeping something like Bebop and Rocksteady under wraps would be stupid. People hated the last one; it made money but was not well-received by anyone except apologists and kids. If they want to make a lot more money, they have to win people over immediately, not wait until they're in the theater and hope they're "surprised" by a pleasant turnaround. And like it or not, Bebop and Rocksteady means a lot more people are going to buy tickets. Even if the movie is awful - which didn't stop them last time - there are already people talking about how they're going to go see "the TMNT movie they've wanted since they were 8", the one with Bebop and Rocksteady and Krang. Everything else can suck, but those people are already sold.

That means that clearly, "spoiling" Bebop and Rocksteady (and now Krang and the Technodrome) was absolutely the right move. It's always the right move. Only a tiny minority of the most contrarian fanboys think that a spoiler-heavy trailer hurts the final movie one bit; everyone else just sees something they weren't expecting to see and goes, "Hey, cool! I have to see that as soon as I can!"

I personally think the entire feel of the thing is wrong and the movie still won't be very good for anything but a cheap laugh, but they'll be failing at a higher level, so credit for that at least.