5 Best Trailers For Terrible Movies

Movie trailers can be as misleading as they are glorious. This tremendously impactful art form can produce works that stand out on their own, even compared to the features they're marketing. However, they can also be inaccurate when trying to represent those motion pictures. Sometimes, that inaccuracy manifests through materials like 10 bad trailers for great movies. Other times, though, trailers provide an experience far superior to the actual feature-length production. These are tragic experiences, where audiences are sold one kind of film only to sit down for the final project and discover something gruelingly underwhelming.

The five best trailers for terrible movies are phenomenal examples of what happens when quality promotional materials happen to subpar pieces of cinema. The lackluster shortcomings of these five movies really help highlight the virtues of these trailers. Sometimes, the teasers accentuate a mood that the final film couldn't hope to achieve, and others just work in terms of showmanship and excitement regardless of how the actual movie turned out. Still others reflect a specific style of movie marketing (like teasers delivered a year before a film's release) that are tragically no longer deployed today.

Whatever makes these five outstanding trailers so sublime, they all share the common trait of being far superior than the movies they were meant to market. It's a painful tragedy that these trailers teased films destined to underwhelm people. However, at least those trailers remain fascinating to unpack and rewatch.

The very first teaser trailer for "Terminator Salvation" was released online on July 16, 2008, 10 months before the films debut and just in time for the trailer to run on theatrical screening of fellow Warner Bros. tentpole "The Dark Knight" (which also starred Christian Bale). Dropping a teaser so far in advance didn't just echo how the first two "Terminator" sequels also launched their respective marketing campaigns early; it was also meant to signal that Warner Bros. brass thought they had something special here. That brief but evocative teaser certainly suggested they had the goods to get the saga back on track after "Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines."

Running just over a minute long, the "Salvation" teaser is focused on briefly seen glimpses of the dystopian future while Christian Bale's John Connor delivers somber narration about how "this is not the future my mother warned me about." Initially, the only sound in the trailer is static, which leaves the evocative images on-screen memorably silent. That static then transforms into the iconic "Terminator" theme, as this eerie teaser suddenly morphs into a sonically recognizable extension of the "Terminator" world. The Warner Bros. marketing team did a fantastic job cutting together a teaser that leaves a mighty impression in a small amount of time.

Once the movie itself reached theaters, though, "Terminator Salvation" bombed at the box office while its many artistic shortcomings were glaringly apparent. The film suffered from inert characters (especially Sam Worthington's generic Marcus Wright) and poorly shot action sequences. That teaser set a high bar that the final film couldn't come close to matching.

If you saw an unorthodox indie feature in late summer 2017 (like "Ingrid Goes West" or "Good Time"), chances are you too saw the trailer for "Gemini" on the big screen. In this 145-second piece of marketing, the world of "Gemini" looks as captivating as can be. Said world focuses on Jill LeBeau (Lola Kirke), who sets off to find out where her boss and pal Heather Anderson (Zoë Kravitz) has gone to. Her hunt is set to an ominous score that's especially memorable in this trailer's second half. Here, this distinctive grumbling noise keeps bursting onto the soundtrack and immediately suggests potent danger is around every corner.

Combining those great audio touches with the deeply precise editing and rich color palette scattered throughout the "Gemini" trailer made it sensational. Unfortunately, the final film was far more inert compared to this promotional element. As a feature-length production, "Gemini" suffered from glacial pacing and a lack of tension. The compellingly suspenseful ambiance and music from that trailer were totally absent in the final product. Even the film's final scene (a place where so many neo-noirs leave audiences spellbound) just fizzled out.

The Neon marketing team had conceived a trailer that offered a superior — rather than artistically accurate — glimpse into "Gemini." This was still a fantastic creation to witness on the big screen in 2017, but "Gemini" as a film just didn't live up to the trailers that preceded its arrival.

The first American remake of "Godzilla," which hailed from director Roland Emmerich and was released into theaters in May 1998, was preceded by a marketing campaign big enough to tower even this iconic reptile. There was no shortage of memorable commercials, posters, and brand name tie-ins hyping up "Godzilla." All of these materials were kicked off by a summer 1997 teaser that was launched into theaters alongside screenings of "Men in Black." This was a classic example of a teaser with nary a single piece of footage from the final film. Instead, this trailer was a standalone creation showing a museum tour guide emphasizing awe-inspiring facts about a T-Rex skeleton.

As a thundering footsteps draw closer and closer, the tour guide emphasizes that this creature was once the largest creature to ever exist. Godzilla's foot then crashes through the ceiling, crushes the T-Rex skeleton, and then stomps away. This clever teaser got a lot of mileage out of its fun sense of build-up, as well as concluding with an incredibly memorable final shot. This kind of theatricality and fun was unfortunately lacking in the actual "Godzilla" remake, though. This project remains a widely criticized production thanks to its cowardly vision of Godzilla and over-emphasis on grating human characters, among other faults.

It's no wonder TriStar Pictures never released "Godzilla 2" or "3" after this creative misfire. If only the first American "Godzilla" movie had half the fun of its very first teaser trailer.

Easily among the five best "Star Wars" trailers of all time is the very first teaser that introduced the world to what "Star Wars: Episode II — Attack of the Clones" would look like. This trailer begins with a noise incredibly familiar to "Star Wars" geeks: Darth Vader's heavy breathing. Initially set against total darkness, this breathing then begins accompanying snippets of "Attack of the Clones" footage. With each inhale or exhale, the camera cuts to a new location from the film. There's a lot going on during this trailer, but uniting it all is that familiar Darth Vader breath.

Not only does leaning on this Original Trilogy detail provide continuity across the various images, but it also ominously suggests Anakin's dark fate is growing nearer. This breathing is a harbinger of the brutal Sith Lord he will become. Unfortunately, this teaser did not function as an accurate showcase of the final quality of this particular Prequel Trilogy entry. Part of the untold truth of "Attack of the Clones" is that it's now considered the nadir of "Star Wars" movies. An absolutely monotonous piece of blockbuster filmmaking way too lifeless given its romantic ambitions, "Attack of the Clones" is a bore.

Even so, the "Attack of the Clones" teaser trailer remains an amazing creation. Not only is it strikingly crafted, but it's also a fascinating collision of two different "Star Wars" eras.

In late 1993, Disney took a big gamble in kicking off the general marketing campaign for its then-upcoming 1994 film "The Lion King." The studio opted to drop the entire "Circle of Life" opening sequence as a standalone teaser. If things had gone poorly, this teaser would've been seen as a bloated misfire that eschewed trailer conventions to its severe detriment. Of course, instead, "Lion King" became a phenomenon. At the end of this decade, Disney took a similar marketing route for the very first teaser for its 2000 feature "Dinosaur." Like "Lion King," "Dinosaur" would have its dialogue-free opening scene released as a standalone teaser.

Said scene chronicled "Dinosaur" lead Aladar in his egg, being shuffled around various dinosaurs on land, in the sea, and even in the air. This segment gave audiences a fantastically expansive look at the world of "Dinosaur" and the majesty this production aimed to conjure up. To boot, James Newton Howard's original track "The Egg Travels" was a soaring piece of orchestral music that amplified the teaser's sense of grandeur. Unfortunately, the actual "Dinosaur" feature was far less interesting than this teaser — and the most bizarre dinosaur movies from around the world, in general.

The final film has largely been relegated to "forgotten" status thanks to its unmemorable characters and surplus of irritating dialogue. "Dinosaur" severely lacked heart or personality, deficiencies that ensured it could never live up to its amazing teaser trailer.