10 Amazing Trailers That Tricked You Into Seeing Terrible Sci-Fi Movies

If someone decided to make a course on teaching people how to avoid disappointment by not trusting trailers, then Battle: Los Angeles would need to take up a whole syllabus, as it's the poster child for tricking people into watching a terrible sci-fi movie. The fact that this movie and its trailer are even connected seems like an insult, and it's still being talked about eleven years later.

Battle: Los Angeles is presented as an alien invasion story, the likes of which you've never seen before. The trailer shows you glimpses of marines going about their business before a barrage of docufilm footage shows an extra-terrestrial threat attacking the city, with enough ambiguity to leave your mind racing.

As if the imagery wasn't enough, the trailer is also a masterclass in sound design. The explosions and sound effects connote the idea of a devastating war zone, making the film seem like a legitimately explosive battle for the whole human race. Take that and chuck the eerie "The Sun's Gone Dim" by Johann Johannsson in, and you've got a benchmark in trailer history.

Then, the film came out, and all those who flocked to cinemas were treated to a cinematic mess with no soul, a terrible plot and action scenes so chaotic you couldn't tell what the hell was even happening on screen.