So the trailer for Dune was released today which is something I've been looking forward to because Dune is honestly the first new movie I've been exited for in years. When I saw that the trailer was out I went over to my computer with the nicest screen to watch it, but when I first watched it I didn't really feel anything particularly special. Don't get me wrong, the movie looks great, but the trailer just felt like any other trailer.
I've watched the trailer several times since and I'll probably watch it six more times before the end of the day and I can say that with repeated viewings I am begining to like the trailer more, especially as I realize that all the lines spoken in the trailer I think came directly from the book, and that I think the scene with Paul facing the gom jabbar was the perfect one to focus on in the first trailer, but it shouldn't take me several viewings of a trailer and background knowledge of the source material for someone to decide they like a trailer. Before we had YouTube the only times we'd see trailers was when we were at a movie theater waiting ot watch something else, trailers used to only have one shot to make things count, you'd think that in the 100+ years that the film industry has been around that they would have figured out how to nail that shot by now.
At the first viewing the trailer was just like any other sci-fi/fantasy trailer, it showed a lot of pretty visuals and tried to get at least one shot of each important character and most the diologe came from an oracle-type character set to a Pink Floyd song. The film's score wasn't even featured. Honestly, when was the last time that you saw a trailer for a movie that was not produced by Disney, or took place in Middle Earth that featured its own music? Not that I have anything againnt Pink Floyd, but every trailer does the same sort of thing now days, and while trailers from ten years ago didn't all do the things they do now all the trailers from ten years ago were incredibly similar as well. Trailers evolve, but they evolve to whatever trend is popular, not to whatever best hooks viewers.
Trailers should hook me the first time, not the sixth.