TERMINATOR: GENISYS Director Unhappy With Trailer Spoilers

For the most part, people not wishing a movie or TV show they want to watch from being spoiled, can abstain from their social media feeds or confine themselves to the world of non-internet connectivity to avoid them. There are dedicated film and TV geeks who unconditionally refuse to watch any trailers or exclusive features, for fear of having the story spoiled for them, corrupting their experience of viewing the material without any outside influence. This concept of the film Trailers spoiling the plot, may now have reached new heights with the second trailer of ‘Terminator: Genisys’, which completely spoils a major plot twist within the film, in its own Trailer. And the reveal isn’t one scene amidst a flurry of images in a montage sequence of scenes from the movie, but the narative of the Trailer is deliberately structured around the twist itself.

‘Terminator: Genisys’ seeks to reset the franchise as ‘X-Men: Days Of Future Past’ successfully did, by featuring a story that uses the time travel plot device to establish an in-story reason to wipe the slate clean of the other, unappealing films of the franchise, creating a new timeline and potential sequels. With the Director of ‘Thor: The Dark World’, and a cast that sees ‘Game Of Thrones’ Emilia Clarke as Sarah Connor and the return of franchise headliner Arnold Shwarzenegger, ‘Terminator: Genisys’ was set to be an intriguing concept for the much beloved world that original director James Cameron (‘Avatar’) had created.

[SPOILER Warning: The rest of the article will discuss Spoilers from ‘Terminator: Genisys’, including the trailer embedded below.]

However, the second official trailer for the film, ends up revealing one of the biggest plot twists of the movie, by showing John Connor, played by Jason Clarke (‘Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes’) as some sort hybridized human turned machine, and basically the film’s main antagonist. While fans of the franchise collectively face palmed at this, there was still some benefit of the doubt that remained that this could’ve been intentionally done as a misdirect from the real plot twist, which could be insurmountably larger. However, those optimists were quickly faced with reality, as even the director of ‘Terminator: Genisys’ Alan Taylor, expressed his concerns with those scenes being featured in the trailers. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGSxss7gWak

Below is an excerpt from Alan Taylor’s interview with Uproxx’s Mike Ryan:

While watching Terminator: Genisys, I wish I didn’t know what was given away in the trailer.

Yeah, it’s funny; I certainly directed those scenes with the intention that no one would know. One of my favorite moments – and I think Jason Clarke did a great job with it – is when he walks into the hospital in 2017 and everything from there until the turn, you’re supposed to think, Oh man, this is great.

John Connor is there to save the day, then it becomes a nice moment.

I can’t agree with you more. I know there was kind of a challenging calculus going on in the heads of those who market this thing to decide that this was the right thing to do. I think they felt like they had to send a strong message to a very wary audience that there was something new, that this was going to new territory. They were concerned that people were misperceiving this as kind of a reboot, and none of us wanted to reboot two perfect movies by James Cameron. I think they felt they had to do something game-changing in how the film was being perceived.

Were you consulted before that trailer was released?

I had a few heads ups and a few unpleasant conversations where I squawked about this or that [laughs].

While fans can avoid news leaks, media coverage and other details of upcoming films to prevent their movie experience from being influenced, one would expect a film studio’s marketing campaign to be coordinated enough to not give away details of the plot, on which, presumably at the time of this writing, the entire story hinges. So it is of immense surprise that the team behind a major motion picture such as ‘Terminator: Genisys’ would Spoil their own movie, in their own official Trailer. 

even the official poster spoils oh so much!

Obviously the details behind this decision has not been revealed, and it’s unlikely that the inner workings of a film’s marketing decision making process will be disclosed to the public, barring a Studio executive speaking out. But this situation lends even more credence to the approach of some fans avoiding trailers and other marketing materials for a movie altogether. And given that that marketing is meant to generate anticipation for a film, this could be a precedent that prevents general audiences who aren’t up to date on the latest releases or movie news, from knowing of, or even  wanting to see certain films, hurting the box office collections as a whole. 

Source: Uproxx

‘Terminator: Genisys’ releases July 1st, 2015. Starring Emilia Clarke, Jai Courtney, Jason Clarke & Arnold Shwarzenegger, directed by Alan Taylor.