You are now entering Ad Space, a realm of commercials, brought before us so we might examine how they work, and discuss why we both love and hate them so. So it is written …
The Product:
Clash of the Titans … the remake
The Promotion:
The Pitch:
We didn’t have Ray Harryhausen, but we still think it looks pretty cool.
Let me be clear: the 2010 remake of Clash of the Titans is a decent movie. Far from great, and it falls into that 2000’s trend of taking a piece of older media and stripping all the whimsy out of it (I’m half-surprised we never got a dark-n-gritty Princess Bride reboot). But it’s a fun enough turn-off-your-brain action/adventure film.
The trailer, though? This may be the most awesomely badass movie trailer ever made. If the film had been half as amazing as this made it out to be, we’d be still be talking about it now as one of the great movies of the century.
I just … I gotta applaud the people who put this together. Obviously, they played to the strengths that the movie gave them to work with: splicing together as much footage of the fight scenes, monster effects, and dramatic poses as they could (plus a brief shot of the movie’s sole sex scene). All while keeping the dialogue and acting on display to a bare minimum. Note that the lead character only speaks one line in the entire trailer, and after the halfway point, there’s no dialogue at all … except for the one line from the original film that’s become a meme, which of course gets its own spotlight moment.
But, y’know, that’s pretty basic movie trailer stuff. It’s the craft behind it that makes the thing shine. The editing is great, making everything seem frantic without falling into the “I can’t tell what any of this is” trap. The music choice was excellent, it accompanies the action brilliantly, and makes a better “The Bird and the Worm” music video than the actual music video for “The Bird and the Worm”. And some of the extra touches, like the “DAMN – THE – GODS” title cards, or the scorpion’s strikes matching the percussion on the soundtrack . . .
Like, is it even possible to watch this trailer and not get absolutely pumped?
Probably yes … but damn unlikely, you must admit!