10 Amazing Trailers That Tricked You Into Seeing Terrible Sci-Fi Movies
Never trust a book by its cover or a film by its trailer!
The burdens of the modern cinema-goer can be frustrating and bizarre. There's trying to find original movies that aren't based on old franchises or comic books, having your immersion broken by sudden product placement, or simply trying to enjoy a movie musical without seeing James Corden. But, the worst of the worst has to be teaching yourself not to fall for the deception of a good trailer.
Trailers are, by design, intended to get butts in seats. The whole purpose of these short adverts is to sell you on the plot, imagery and potential success of these upcoming movies, which is why they all go above and beyond to make their flicks look as good as possible, even if they are complete garbage. A good trailer can make even something like The Room look like Citizen Kane - if handled well.
Science fiction is certainly no stranger to this, as the genre has to work overtime to get people interested, thanks to the over-saturation of sci-fi in cinema and the fact that it's still a niche genre. Naturally, this means many people have fallen victim to great trailers for bad movies.
The following ten are the most egregious examples of this, as you'd think they used Jedi mind tricks to convince you to see them.
10. Suicide Squad (2016)
DC may stand for Detective Comics, but with their cinematic universe, maybe they should switch it up to Disappointing Crap.
It's hard to imagine a time when anyone was excited about this dumpster fire of a movie. The universally panned dark comic-book flick was a major setback in the DCEU and a sign to long-term DC fans that their cinematic ventures were nothing more than paint-by-number corporate shells masquerading as comic-book movies. But, when this trailer came out, it was a whole other story.
This explosive Comic Con ad had so much going for it, including the chilling opening monologue from Viola Davis as Amanda Waller and beautiful use of the song "I Started A Joke". Plus, seeing the soon-to-be iconic Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn for the first time was so exciting - not to mention the infamous Jared Leto as The Joker, which was (at the time) really tantalising. This trailer made the film look dark, frightening and even profound.
DC only kept this up as well, as the next trailer (scored by Bohemian Rhapsody) was also kickass. Sadly, in the end, the movie ended up being an irredeemable and jumbled mess, with Robbie's Harley Quinn acting as the only saving grace.