Movie trailers can be tricky things to get right. Include too much and audiences will likely conclude, rightly or wrongly, that they have already effectively seen the movie and that there’s no need to mortgage their home and grab a tub of pop corn large enough to level a small town, and a vat sized-container of Coke and sit in a darkened theatre for however many hours it takes.
Or include too little, and you risk either underwhelming potential moviegoers, or giving the wrong idea of your movie entirely, damaging its chances anyway.
But if you’re one of the blessed who enter the Goldilocks zone and get it “just right” – and there is a whole science devoted, not surprisingly, to doing just that – then you will have the perfect advertisement for your creative masterpiece and cinephiles will rejoice and be glad (as will no doubt your film’s backers).
In the case of trailer #2 for Disney’s upcoming Oz the Great and Powerful, which functions as a prequel of sorts for the 1939 classic The Wizard of Oz, which of couse starred Judy Garland as the Toto-bearing Dorothy – the author of the Oz books wrote 14 published titles in all, along with stage musicals and plays, and the film was based on the 1901 book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz – the team behind the upcoming 3D fantasy which includes Sam Raimi of Spiderman fame, have succeeded in making us very happy indeed.
While it does lay out the story fairly well – Oscar Diggs (James Franco), a circus magician with a less than stellar career and suspect ethics is blown into the Land of Oz after being caught in a tornado, where he is charged with ridding Oz of a great evil, all the while knowing he is not the powerful man many think he is – it also hints at some magic and mystery and leaves you with the feeling that there is much more to see.
(For more information on the film, read here.)
It is also visually breathtaking, making liberal but effective use of CGI, while still looking very much like a companion piece to the 1939 classic.
Obviously like all movies, we won’t really know how good the film’s producers are at making cinematic “porridge” till we are plonked on our comfy cinema seats balancing the aforementioned vat of soda on our laps, but I have better than sneaking feeling the joy will not just remain but increase.
After all, if the Great and Powerful Oz can’t make an awe-inspiring fantasy movie, who can?