DVD movie trailers. It's out of control.

[Solo4114]

So, I got "The A-Team" from Netflix this weekend. Pretty generic movie, entirely interchangable with "The Losers". No surprise there. I wasn't expecting much, and it satisfied my expectations.

What I did NOT expect was to have the usual myriad DVD trailers.......and have it include a trailer for The A-Team.



Seriously. I cannot make this up. The DVD included a trailer of the film I was about to watch. Not as an "Extra", mind you, or a "Special Feature." No, no. This was an honest-to-god trailer BEFORE you got to the menus.


What possessed them to do this? Did they just not give a s**t? Did they figure "well, anyone who watches this is probably braindead anyway, so they won't notice. Besides. Maybe we can get 'em to buy another copy." Did they not notice, somehow? Did the coding of the DVD accidentally treat some "special feature" trailer as an actual "show before menu" trailer? I suppose I'll never know.


Fortunately, unlike other DVDs that have started doing this crap, you were able to skip through to the menu, which I did. But it seriously blew my mind.

 

[CessnaDriver]

VHS used to do the same thing sometimes.

 

[DS Operative]

Not being able to skip the trailers & other "features" really gets my goat!

 

[dualedge]

Not being able to skip the trailers & other "features" really gets my goat!

Yeah, this is one of my soapboxes... I rant and rave about this endlessly to my wife when I'm trying to watch something.

If I'm RENTING a movie, that's one thing... you can force me to watch your stupid trailers and commercials. I get that. But if I'm buying your *@(#ing movie, don't you dare disable my player's ability to skip all that crap with maybe the ONLY exception being the FBI piracy warning stuff.

Disney has this scam they call "FastPlay" that figures you as a parent are going to be too lazy to skip it so your kid winds up watching all of these Disney trailers and commercials before their movie starts... :angry At least with theirs you CAN skip it.

This is one of those things that just infuriates me on a daily basis.

 

[Treadwell]

Yeah, this bugs me, too. Similarly, they'll put, say, ads for Star Trek Seasons 1 and 2 on the set for Season 3. Really? Wow, I knew they released the third season, but never in my wildest dreams did I expect the previous two are also available!!! :rolleyes

 

[Larry Young]

So, I got "The A-Team" from Netflix this weekend. Pretty generic movie, entirely interchangable with "The Losers". No surprise there. I wasn't expecting much, and it satisfied my expectations

In The Losers' defense, Andy has never been shy about saying it's his version of The A-Team. :lol

 

[Michael Bergeron]

Not being able to skip the trailers & other "features" really gets my goat!

Absolutely... One trailer? Sure, but I can't stand sitting through 20mins of trailers on something I've paid for to watch in my home.

It's crap like this (plus many other things) that drives people to torrent sites and the like.

 

[Solo4114]

In The Losers' defense, Andy has never been shy about saying it's his version of The A-Team. :lol

Actually, my gripe was more about The A-Team rather than The Losers. I saw The Losers first and, DC Comic team aside, thought it was alright as a generic "buddy/team action comedy....thing..." Nothing special, but I wasn't expecting much of anything except what I got.

With The A-Team, you had all this established "lore" and intellectual property that really just wasn't taken advantage of to do anything particularly...different. It was just another action movie with a guy who smokes cigars and loves plans, a charming attractive fellow who's also mildly obnoxious, a strongman with a mohawk and a bad attitude, and the crazy guy.

My point was basically that they used only the bare minimum from the original series (which, don't get me wrong, was no great work of art...) and if you stripped out the EXTREMELY limited references to the original, the film was functionally IDENTICAL to The Losers. Seriously. Badass commando team gets sold out by CIA dirtbag who's in it for himself. Wisecracks and 'splosions ensue. I actually respect The Losers more than The A-Team because at least THAT movie had the balls to stand on its own IP (well...mostly). By contrast, The A-Team depended on its licensed IP to sell its story, and even then it doesn't use that IP all that much.

This is just my typical gripe about remakes/reimaginings. If your story is good enough to stand on its own, you don't NEED licensed IP. If your story needs licensed IP, it's probably crap and you just shouldn't bother. Not that that's ever stopped Hollywood, of course...

Yeah, this bugs me, too. Similarly, they'll put, say, ads for Star Trek Seasons 1 and 2 on the set for Season 3. Really? Wow, I knew they released the third season, but never in my wildest dreams did I expect the previous two are also available!!! :rolleyes

Yeah, but now imagine that your Season 3 DVDs advertised...Season 3?! WTF?!!!

Absolutely... One trailer? Sure, but I can't stand sitting through 20mins of trailers on something I've paid for to watch in my home.

It's crap like this (plus many other things) that drives people to torrent sites and the like.

As soon as I figure out that's what the movie's going to do, I just rip it to my computer and watch it that way. The studios can stuff their mandatory trailers.

 

[Larry Young]

...the film was functionally IDENTICAL to The Losers. Seriously. Badass commando team gets sold out by CIA dirtbag who's in it for himself. Wisecracks and 'splosions ensue. I actually respect The Losers more than The A-Team because at least THAT movie had the balls to stand on its own IP (well...mostly).

Hey, I liked 'em both, but I can't see how one could argue that The Losers was standing on its own IP. It's standing on The A-Team, and the writer freely acknowledges that to whoever asks.

 

[niennumb1]

DISNEY IS THE KING OF DVD TRAILERS! And most of them you can't just skip to the menu! It's sooooo aggravating!!!!


I buy all my movies, but you gotta hand it to the pirates. I still LOVE this picture. Hilarious!

 

[robn1]

VHS used to do the same thing sometimes.

I remember the "Top Gun" tape had a Pepsi commercial at the beginning, that's where it all started.

 

[dbuck]

I remember the "Top Gun" tape had a Pepsi commercial at the beginning, that's where it all started.

And I remember the backlash. I worked at a video rental place at that time, and the trade papers had an article on that stupid ad and the future of rental advertising. Many retailers went though the trouble of recording over it with blank screen. We didn't bother, we had probably fifty copies of that movie. We got a couple of complaints, but mostly people just scanned through it, much like I do now with the DVR. Thankfully ads on VHS movies didn't really catch on.
I really hate that Disney Fastplay, ostensibly designed so any five year old can load and play movie, I dare you to find a five year old who cannot. All fast play does is guarantee you see the ads, and a big fat reminder near the end of the movie to watch the bonus features.
I read that somebody somewhere once filed a class action lawsuit about theatrical movie trailers, that a one o clock movie really started at one fifteen because of all the stupid ads and trailers. Now if only I could hit the menu button in the theater and get to the movie.

 

[ThrowingChicken]

I hate ads about upgrading to Blu-ray on a Blu-ray disc. And now the latest movies I have purchased have ads in the top right corner while on the main menu, wth is with that?

 

[Larry Young]

Jeez, I've never been so immediate-gratification that I can't wait a few minutes until the movie starts. Go to the bathroom; get a snack. Dang, surf around on the RPF for a few until you hear the studio fanfare starts. I don't see the big deal.

 

[dbuck]

Just for fun I popped in Toy Story 3. It took nearly eight minutes of ads to get to the menu. Were it to be only about a minute, or perhaps two, I'd be a bit more inclined to tolerate them. As for the five year old wanting to see Buzz and Woody, those eight minutes are a lifetime. My nephew wouldn't sit still for all those ads, and by the time the movie started he'd be off on another adventure.

Now if only I could force myself to eat my snacks slowly so that I'm not done with them by the time the opening credits start rolling......

 

[Solo4114]

Hey, I liked 'em both, but I can't see how one could argue that The Losers was standing on its own IP. It's standing on The A-Team, and the writer freely acknowledges that to whoever asks.

In spirit and overall feel? Sure. But that's no different from Lucas saying he was inspired by Kurosawa, Reifenstahl, etc. I'm talking more about remakes with EXPLICIT branding. Like, we're lifting the brand/IP to capitalize SPECIFICALLY on it. Lay the brand overtop your otherwise ho-hum run-of-the-mill film in order to (A) bring in the fans of the original IP who just...can't...stay...away, and (B) raise your boring generic movie above the realm of a mere "inspired by" type film.

Better yet, try stripping the VERY few callbacks to the original and ask yourself what you're left with. If the answer is "Just another generic also-ran," then your decision to use the underlying IP to somehow elevate it beyond that status is little more than crass market manipulation. And that pisses me off -- the moreso because it's EVERYWHERE today.

It's not that the movie was bad, necessarily. It's just that it didn't really use the IP it was given in any particularly remarkable way.

I remember the "Top Gun" tape had a Pepsi commercial at the beginning, that's where it all started.

That's different. I remember seeing a Warner Bros. commercial on the Lethal Weapon 2 (or 1?) VHS. But it lasted 30 seconds, and you could fast forward through it if you didn't want to hear one of Mel Blanc's last performances.

Jeez, I've never been so immediate-gratification that I can't wait a few minutes until the movie starts. Go to the bathroom; get a snack. Dang, surf around on the RPF for a few until you hear the studio fanfare starts. I don't see the big deal.

Well, for me, it's closer to this...

Just for fun I popped in Toy Story 3. It took nearly eight minutes of ads to get to the menu. Were it to be only about a minute, or perhaps two, I'd be a bit more inclined to tolerate them. As for the five year old wanting to see Buzz and Woody, those eight minutes are a lifetime. My nephew wouldn't sit still for all those ads, and by the time the movie started he'd be off on another adventure.

Now if only I could force myself to eat my snacks slowly so that I'm not done with them by the time the opening credits start rolling......

Literally, you can have eight to ten minutes of non-skippable previews when all you want to do is sit down and watch your ******* movie. When it's one or two previews, fine. No biggie. When it's 15 previews that you can skip, again, no biggie. But when you get ten solid minutes of nothing but MANDATORY previews (and usually previews for crappy films, as well as crappy video-game tie-ins in some cases), it's bloody annoying. The moreso because you often get no warning that this will happen.

Second, in this case, it was previews for the very film I'm TRYING to watch. Now, I could skip through them in my case, but honestly, WTF? Who planned this? It'd be like going to the Eiffel Tower and as you're riding up the elevator, hearing ads for....the Eiffel Tower. I'm already HERE. Why are you advertising this to me when I'm already here?! You won already! You got me! DEAR GOD IN HEAVEN, WHY MUST YOU HOUND ME SO?!?!?!?!

Or something like that.

 

[Larry Young]

As for the five year old wanting to see Buzz and Woody, those eight minutes are a lifetime. My nephew wouldn't sit still for all those ads, and by the time the movie started he'd be off on another adventure.

What's a kid like that doing trying to watch a two-hour movie, then? :lol

...and to add to the anecdotes, my almost four year old loves the ads; shows us stuff he's interested in we might not think of. He about lost his little mind when he saw the trailer for How to Train Your Dragon, and I didn't even know that movie existed.

I've seen it four or five times, now. When can I show him Star Wars, Mommy? WHEN?

 

[dualedge]

Jeez, I've never been so immediate-gratification that I can't wait a few minutes until the movie starts. Go to the bathroom; get a snack. Dang, surf around on the RPF for a few until you hear the studio fanfare starts. I don't see the big deal.

Yeah, my problem isn't really even that there are ads and all that crap on there, it's the fact that they disable all of the skip, fast forward, menu and top menu buttons so you literally cannot get past it. I don't even mind it so much for a rental if you can't skip the stuff... I'll just start it and come back to it in 10 minutes. But if I'm forking out $20 or $30 for a new movie I'm going to own, that's just not acceptable.

I mean, what if you had to sit through 5-10 minutes of advertisements before you could open your refrigerator or start your computer? Because you know companies would do it if it were possible. :lol

 

[dbuck]

What's a kid like that doing trying to watch a two-hour movie, then? :lol

If I buy the kid a fifty dollar Buzz for Christmas, the little rat better sit there and watch the movie.:lol
Actually, he asked to watch it, and he tried, but he got bored. He would look at the tv here and there, but mostly he chased the dog and the cat and his little brother, with Buzz leading the way. So, it was a success, sort of.

If you watch a regular DVD they show you Blu ray ads, hoping to get you to buy the movie yet again. If you watch the blu ray they show you 3d ads.......