The hyping of hype
The author thinks Zack Snyder’s film trailers usually are better than the films themselves AP PHOTO
It used to be that I didn’t like being late to a movie screening because I hated to miss the trailers. Somehow, the two-hour explosion fest I was about to watch would be incomplete if I did not have the pleasure of watching several unrelated, minute-long explosions beforehand.
Of course, thanks to YouTube, I can now watch all the trailers in high quality from the comfort of home, so missing them doesn’t trouble me as much. But when I venture out these days, I’m sitting around after the credits, waiting for a 30-second glimpse of a future film, which sometimes is more exciting than the movie I just watched (Suicide Squad, I’m looking at you, for being so awful you made me feel relieved to see Batfleck).
Another thing I like doing is watching livestreams of press conferences. You know the ones I mean: Apple unveiling its new product line, Netflix announcing a new slate of original shows, Marvel and DC laying out their cinematic universe plans.
My really big weakness, of course, is PlayStation. Every time Sony hosts one of its “PlayStation Meetings” or media events at one of the major gaming conferences, I’m glued to my computer. Its E3 showcase back in June was amazing, and I would totally buy, like, 90 percent of everything they teased.
This, however, does not change the fact that I spend hours watching what are glorified commercials, which have precisely their desired effect on my wallet and me.
An unsettling thought has, thus, nestled its way into my brain: The hype is better than reality. We’ve created a machine to sing the glory of what might be, with very little concern for what actually is. The promise of the future always will trump the mediocrity of the present. The new iPhone is better than the one we have. The new games will be even more fun to play than the ones I have now. And on, and on, and on.
I usually use filmmaker Zack Snyder as an example of how this phenomenon works. He creates sublime trailers that only occasionally reflect the quality of the finished film. Sucker Punch had the best marketing. The trailers were so cool – lithe schoolgirls fighting samurai mecha, a helicopter engaging in a dogfight with a dragon, World War I-themed zombies – and the finished movie was so awful it makes me upset to think about.
I’ll never trust him again, I vowed, but then I kept doing it, over and over. Man of Steel had brilliant trailers (it was just OK), Batman v. Superman looked incredible (just OK) and now, Justice League continues the pattern. Maybe this one will be the one, I tell myself. This one will fulfill the promise. This reminds me, some of my friends booked a private cinema hall to watch Man of Steel, you know since the trailer looked incredible. Well, the movie wasn’t that great, but they told me that the private screening experience was worth the money.
In a way, it is our nature, isn’t it? We imagine how great things could be, and we tease ourselves with things we don’t have. I will be happy once I get a new job/move out/start dating/travel more/ whatever. We hype ourselves up for a future that might never come to pass, and when we are disappointed, we shrug it off without a thought and continue searching for the next big thing.
Perhaps what we ought to do is turn away from the hype of what’s to come and enjoy the present.
