ORIGINALLY POSTED ON MY "WHAT WE LEARNED THIS WEEK" COLUMN FOR THE FEELIN' FILM PODCAST WEBSITE

POST-SUPER BOWL HANGOVER

Primo movie teasers have become an annual tradition connected to the Super Bowl.  The championship game is typically the most-watched global television event of the calendar year and movie studios, just like other brands and companies, target maximum eyes on their valuable offerings.  Back in the days before YouTube replays numbering the tens of millions in less than 24 hours, those coveted 30-second Super Bowl ads were shown ONCE.  That was it.  If you didn't see it, POOF, it was gone.  Back then, the hype generated was real and the trailer-making marketers knew all it took to grab an audience was the right juicy single morsel.  Less was more and we were hooked on a mere 30 seconds.

Today, three trends have whittled away the effect of a good Super Bowl teaser.  First, in this marketing culture of #f1rst and scooping the competition, too many of these ads are available before the Big Game, sapping much of the surprise factor.  Second, we've reached a day and age where trailers regularly give away far too much of film.  As awesome as that Mission: Impossible Fallout teaser was last night, it showed too much (and the full trailer was even worse).  Film directors like Rian Johnson shouldn't have to tweet a spoiler warning on his own film's trailer.  Wolverine's appearance should have been a well-kept surprise in X-Men: Apocalypse and not a stinger reveal in a trailer.  The same goes for Darth Vader in Rogue One, Hulk in Thor: Ragnarok, and, heck, even Michelle Monaghan for Mission: Impossible Fallout, among many others.  Third and finally, there isn't the dazzle of the one-time viewing anymore and any hype is beaten to death by the buzzy over-saturation of click bait editorials that overanalyze every second of the teasers of teasers let along the real teasers or full trailers themselves.  Personally, I find it nauseatingly too much.

This all adds to unrealistic, messy, or improperly-fueled expectations that hang on a film all year.  The Super Bowl spots are the peak springboard of turning the calendar over to a new year of movies.  As soon as January hit, the flood of those "most anticipated films of 2018" lists and think pieces arrived and cropped up eager conversations over in the Feelin' Film Discussion Group.  The wild use of the word "expectations" is another soapbox for a different day (and soon), but I long for a day when the repetitive spoiler blathering could go away, allowing patience to create real hype, not the over-marketed variety we have now, to create a higher form of anticipation.  A great example was this past holiday season.

I made it well known in my social media circles that I didn't watch the final Star Wars: The Last Jedi trailer that dropped last October.  I avoided it like the plague, especially with the spoiler suspicions attached.  I wanted the mystery.  More importantly, I didn't need to see a thing to be excited or sold on the film.  The existence of it from the moment Star Wars: The Force Awakens ended two years ago was all it took.  I didn't need a synopsis.  I didn't even need a title.  They had money.  An occupational perk/hazard for me as a press-credentialed critic is that my screenings don't have trailers.  They've been easier for me to avoid to the point that I don't watch them at all anymore for 90% of the films I see and review (and that's over 150 films a year).  Such willpower can be done.

The resulting enjoyment of avoiding the Star Wars: The Last Jedi trailer made for an incredible viewing experience.  No silly hype tipped off any details or trained me to watch for certain anticipated moments.  The moments came to me.  Every twist and development was a surprise and the connections made were richer than ones that would have been pre-built for me because of marketing hype.

With that example and hope in mind, I have a challenge for all of you.

THE CHALLENGE

Pick ONE film on your "most anticipated list" for 2018 and avoid the marketing for it from now until its release. 

Don't say Black Panther with only two weeks to go.  Don't say Avengers: Infinity War coming in May because that's an easy automatic.  Dig deep.  Pick a real long-term challenge for 2018.  Turn off the noise.  Don't watch the trailers.  Don't read the click bait and certainly don't read reviews before finally seeing the film.  Go to the hallway and refill your napkins and popcorn butter at the multiplex.

My rationale is that if the film you pick is on your official or unofficial "most anticipated list" you already know enough about it and want to see it where you don't need any more marketing.  You're already hooked.  Knowing anymore about it only chips away at the final result.  I'm tired of hearing and reading the whining of supposedly ruined "expectations" by films that don't turn out the way people were sold by from the trailers.  Remove that whining potential by removing the problem of over-selling marketing.

The challenge is to let the film speak for itself and not speak for the marketing.  Feel a different buildup.  Feel the patience of old school hype.  Leave something to the imagination.  Let the Super Bowl be the last peek.

Try it for one film and help out your peers.  Share your pick in the comments or in the Facebook discussion.  We're a support group as much as we are a discussion spot.  Afterwards, evaluate that experience.  Was the anticipation better or worse?  Was the culminating film experience better or worse?

Call me confident, but I don't think I'm going to get many "worse" admissions if you give this an honest try.