A Good Trailer

I recently saw again the extended trailer to Alpha Dog. The movie, simple enough, was about spoiled rich kid drug dealers who kidnap the rival dealer's brother for a deal gone bad. They befriend the kid, but things turn bad when they realize ransoming him felony that will catch up with them. The movie seemed appealing, a nice mix of ignorant bliss, crime fantasy, and real life gang story.

I didn't see the movie. Why not? I've already seen the whole story from the trailer. Deal goes bad, rival yells "this isn't a game," they kidnap kid, they all become friends, lawyer says "you're looking at life [sentence]," "I'll give you 300 dollars to kill the kid" "that's a joke, right?" "you know I'd never turn you guys in" and the lying soon-to-be killer says "yeah, we know that." What's left to see? Watch the trailer and you already know the three acts and all developments. No twist endings here. Use your own imagination to fill the visual elements, the story is already given.

This quite different than the trailer to 300. In both the early teaser and the recently-released full trailer, tells you only what you need to know. It begins along the lines of "Spartans, the greatest warriors Greece has ever known." After this, a Persian emissary is seen, at sword-point, and the Spartan king kicks him into a pit for threatening his people with slavery, yelling "this is SPARTA!" After this, we see the fighting, dark uniform soldiers against Spartans, rhinos charging, and close call swings. It tells us it is a 300 vs. Million persians fight, and the 300 spartans are kick-ass good guys with good lines. Halfway thru the trailer, the spartan king yells, "Tonight, we dine in HELL!" and it ends with a line simple enough, "We're in for one yell of a night."

What more do you want in the trailer? We know only the idea, but not the plot. We don't know if it is one fight or five, if the Persians die horribly or not, or if the Spartans die from numbers, exhaustion, or suicide. Is there sacrifice in vain, or does it lead to the Persians eventual defeat. The answer to these are simple... watch the movie, because you're not going to get the answer from the trailer. If we get the answer from the trailer, it's like watching a sitcom, we know everyone and everything, and maybe even saw it all before.