New Clips for 9 and A Letter From a Fan

There are two new clips out for the movie 9.  Watch them at the bottom of the post.  Do we really care?  Maybe, but more importantly: when does movie promotion go too far?

Movie promotion should be like a good burlesque show.  Tantalize us.  Show us a little here... Show us a little there... We the fans love getting to watch trailers and to see clips for movies.  Watching them excites us and makes us desire to watch the movie.  It allows us to run to our friends and say hey have you seen this trailer or clip?  You have to check out this little teaser show!

Make sure it is relevant.  Show us a little arm or leg, we don't care if you feature the floor boards that your standing on.  We the fans don't like to waste our time watching clips or trailers that feature moments from the movie that don't stimulate our imagination, draw our attention to what is the competitive advantage of your film and why we should watch it.  Like in these clips they show us the dolls in action but that was better served in a trailer.  They show us another creature of the setting but that was not the focus of the clip and they show how it is defeated making it irrelevant in context and showing too much at the same time.  The last thing was the scene of awakening the machine which left me wondering if they showed too much.  But in either case those moments should be saved for when we go for the full movie experience.

Please don't show too much it will ruin the moment when we get the full show.  Burlesque is the art of teasing, and tantalizing the audience's imagination with promises of great things to come.  If they show too much then there is nothing left to get excited about and nothing left to look forward too.  G.I. Joe had a problem with this with the Eiffel Tower scene, their burlesque dance turned into pornography showing too much.  Sure it made the trailers more exciting but it robbed the actual movie of the impact that it should have had and robbed me of the full movie experience. Good burlesque would have featured moments of the chase and the tension building up to the actual Eiffel Tower scene but cut away at the last moment leaving the audience guessing.

Movie promotion goes too far when it shows too much robbing us of the full movie experience or if it wastes our time with stuff that should be saved for when we watch the movie.  I've put in the two clips below for those who are curious and as a good case study.  The only interesting parts are the creatures featured in the clips which would have been better featured in a trailer with shorter quicker exposure of those creatures allowing us to wonder more about them and not seeing how they get defeated.

Awakening the Machine Clip

9 saves 7 clip