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Warning:
#&@*$! Spoilers
Marketing
people, particularly marketing people who work for
big corporations, don't care about you. These are
not good people. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm sure
individually they don't beat their dogs or anything.
You could probably have a civil conversation with
one. But get them in a room together, and they are
evil. When studio marketing jockeys gather in a meeting
to discuss how to promote a movie, they don't care
whether you like the movie or not. If they give away
the ending, if they give away a pivotal plot point
that actually ruins the movie for you, they do not
care. Period. Their job isn't to get you to enjoy
the movie.
Thus,
marketers and creators -- who should be on the same
side -- are actually working at cross purposes. How
screwed up is that? As a writer or a director, you
strive for a wonderful story, with dramatic tension
and interesting twists. Specifically in a movie (as
opposed to a book), you try to create moments when
the viewer is looking at the screen and just says,
"wow."
Marketers get hold of these moments, and they say,
"wow," too. But then they put those moments in the
trailer and the ads.
Imagine experiencing one of these movie moments for
the first time without some marketing "genius" spoiling
the secret first (to avoid terrible spoilers of my
own, I'll pick older, widely seen movies):
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In
Dark City, when we learn the weird bald guys
are actually aliens and can reshape the city.
*
In The Abyss,
when we discover that there are aliens under the water.
*
In The Matrix,
when we learn what the Matrix really is.
*
In T2, when it
turns out Arnold isn't there to kill John Connor,
but to save him.
Now,
I chose these movies because I saw each and every
one of them on opening night. These moments weren't
ruined for me by people who saw the movie before me.
They were ruined by marketers. And I'll never get
them back.
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