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Honest Trailers / Tropes N to R

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    N 
  • Narration Echo: Used in the trailer for Superman: The Movie to highlight some on-the-nose dialog:
    Narrator: He's a buff boy scout, here to fight for truth, justice and the American way!
    Superman: I'm here to fight for truth, and justice, and the American way.
    Narrator: That's what I said.
  • Narrowed It Down to the Guy I Recognize: Invoked in their Glass Onion video, where they point out that in both this film and its predecessor, the most famous actor in the cast did it.
  • Nausea Fuel: Invoked in the honest trailer for Gravity, where the narrator watches the first-person shot of Ryan repeatedly spinning backwards early on in the film, and nearly barfs.
  • Never Trust a Trailer: Based around subverting this marketing. Some specific examples when they've pointed out how inaccurate a work's actual trailers were:
    • The Honest Trailer for Magic Mike, whose advertising focused on the parts where hunky actors play male strippers and left out the serious, emotional story, leading to an Honest Trailer with a ton of sudden and heavy shifts in mood.
    • The Honest Game Trailer for Gears of War, which mentions how the game's emotional cinematic trailer constrasted with the gory action of the actual game.
    • The Honest Game Trailer for Watch_Dogs references the scandal surrounding the game's E3 trailer and how the footage in it looked better than the retail version.
    • The Honest Trailer for Rogue One has a "Not Starring" section made up entirely of scenes featured in the movie's actual trailers that didn't make it to the final cut.
    • The Honest Trailer for Alien: Covenant notes that, despite being advertised as a return to the horror style of the beloved first movie, it eventually turns into the long-winded philosophy piece that many criticized Prometheus for being.
    • The Honest Trailer for Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom does this twice; once when they point out how Jeff Goldblum's return as Ian Malcolm shown in the trailers was actually just a 30-second cameo, and once when they point out how a shot of a Mosasaurus swimming through a tall wave covered by surfers is just part of a tease for a future sequel in the movie.
    • The Honest Trailer for The Meg shows how the movie, whose trailers marketed it as a festival of over-the-top ridiculousness, keeps swinging into an overly serious tone.
    • The Honest Trailer for Galaxy Quest points out how the movie's real trailers marketed it as a silly comedy instead of the sci-fi adventure movie with comedic elements it really was.
    • The Honest Trailer for Mortal Kombat (2021) points out how the rivalry between Scorpion and Sub-Zero, despite being advertised as a central element of the plot, just consists of one fight early in the movie and another brief one near the end.
    • The Honest Trailer for Luca points out how the trailers made it look like it would be Call Me by Your Name for kids, while the actual movie features no romance plot of any kind.
    • The Honest Trailer for Morbius (2022) draws attention to how Simon Stroud's robotic arm was only shown in the trailers and doesn't appear at all in the movie.
  • New Powers as the Plot Demands:
    • In X-Men Origins: Wolverine, they criticize how Deadpool, "The merc with a mouth, gets his mouth removed, and trades his cool costume for eight minute abs, and magic eyeshadow. Oh, and he also gets a grab bag of random mutant powers that Deadpool never had."
      Narrator: Are we sure Brett Ratner didn't direct this?
    • In Superman IV: The Quest for Peace, "Stare in wide-eyed disbelief at these new, completely made-up powers like rebuilding the Great Wall of China with his eyes, lowering people with his mind, and helping this woman breathe in outer space."
  • The Nicknamer: The Trope Codifier in any medium. Up to eleven when all 152 Pokemon from Pokémon Red and Blue are nicknamed — including MissingNo.
  • Nightmare Retardant: invoked In the Honest Trailer for It: Chapter Two, they illustrate how Pennywise's scares have gone from being cool and terrifying to over-the-top and ridiculous by intercutting examples with scenes of Jim Carrey from The Mask.
  • No Endor Holocaust: The Honest Trailer for Minions and the joint Honest Trailer for Despicable Me and Despicable Me 2 points out how many people must have died as a result of the main characters' actions; of special note is Gru's shrinking and stealing the moon in the first film, which they note would probably have doomed the entire planet Earth.
  • Nominal Hero: The protagonists of Fast Five "will stop at nothing to take down a sort-of-ruthless drug lord, by destroying poor neighborhoods, destroying rich neighborhoods, killing twenty-two cops with a giant metal safe, and ultimately leaving Rio in way worse shape than when they found it."
  • Non-Indicative Name: In the Maleficent trailer, the narrator points out how the changes to the title character turned her name into this trope.
    Narrator: Instead, watch as the character whose name literally means "evil" mildly punks people, feels sorry, and is only mean because she was roofied and mutilated by her childhood love.
  • Nonhumans Lack Attributes: From the Dawn of the Planet of the Apes trailer:
    Narrator: So, how do I put this... where are all the monkey dicks?
  • No OSHA Compliance:
    • In the Harry Potter trailer, child endangerment is described as being no big deal. Cue montage of various characters receiving horrifying injuries from magic spells or other accidents.
      Narrator: Seriously, how have they not shut this school down yet?
    • The Honest Trailer for Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory is quick to point out how dangerous the factory truly is.
  • No Smoking: The Honest Trailer for Cruella points out how nobody is ever seen smoking in the movie, despite it being set in 1970s London.
  • Nostalgia Filter: invoked
    • The Honest Trailer for Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie points out how the franchise wasn't as good as viewers probably remember:
      Narrator: Now, take a trip down memory lane, and realize... What was I thinking?! This is terrible!
    • The same was done for Space Jam
      Narrator: Look millennials, I know you're just getting old enough to feel nostalgia for the first time, but trust me. This one sucks.
    • The Honest Trailer for Hook suggests that its best remembered by people aged 30 and up who saw it as children, because those will probably best remember it for its good aspects, such as Dustin Hoffman's awesome performance as Captain Hook and the gorgeous production designs, while those who view it with more adult eyes it comes off as a darker, more violent story about a man's midlife crisis that takes two hours to really get going.
    • A Running Gag in the Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom Honest Trailer is the video trying to distract from the movie's logical failings by showing one of the movie's nostalgic call backs to the beloved first movie - until it comes back to bite it in the ass when it tries to distract from a shot of a Brachiosaurus dying in a volcanic eruption by cutting to the iconic Brachiosaurus scene from the first movie and the video instead cuts to a news article revealing that the Brachiosaurus seen being killed was the same Brachiosaurus.
      Narrator: That was the same one? What is wrong with you people?
  • Not Allowed to Grow Up: The trailer for Stranger Things remarks that the producers better get the next seasons done fast, before puberty hits the main cast.
  • Not Even Bothering with the Accent: invoked
  • Nothing Is the Same Anymore: The second trailer for Game of Thrones points out how the show has transcended the original, more realistic style of the first season and turned into "crazy heavy metal album art", referring to the introduction of more fantasy-like elements like the dragons and White Walkers.
  • "Not Making This Up" Disclaimer:
    • During several scenes of awkward silence in Batman & Robin, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, and Breaking Bad, a caption will appear to point out that the scene is unedited by them.
    • Half of the Jupiter Ascending trailer is them recapping the plot of the film with no jokes, with captions pointing out that this is the story the filmmakers actually went with. (And also noting that Channing Tatum wears pointy ears, yet the movie was screened at Sundance.)
    • After pointing out the most inherently nonsensical moment in the film Armageddon (1998) — namely, that training astronauts to operate a drill is somehow harder than teaching a bunch of oil rig workers to be space pilots in only two weeks — it cuts to an appropriately subtitled snippet of Ben Affleck's audio commentary for the DVD, where he admits he himself didn't understand the reasoning behind the idea.
      Affleck: I asked Michael why... and he told me to shut the fuck up. So th-that was the end of that talk. [...] I mean, this is a little bit of a logic stretch, let's face it. "They don't know jack about drilling"? How hard can it be? Aim the drill at the ground and turn it on.
    • The Stinger of the Honest Trailer for The Mummy (2017), as proof of how rushed the movie was, shows footage of an early trailer that included scenes that missed several important sound effects, adding that "this is real".
    • In the Honest Trailer for It (2017), the Narrator is quite surprised to learn the book really has a subplot about the giant Turtle Maturin, which wasn't in the movie.
    • The double feature Pacific Rim: Uprising / Tomb Raider (2018) credits Burn Gorman as....Burn Gorman, with the narrator pointing out that this really is his name. They make the same remark in the Honest Trailer for Halo (2022).
    • At the end of the trailer for Scream (1996)', the narrator ends the credits by calling the film Scary Movie, then remarks that that was actually the initial title for the film.
  • Not Quite Dead: Lampshaded in the trailer for Captain America: The Winter Soldier, where it's revealed that Bucky, Dr. Zola, Nick Fury, and Crossbones (Brock Rumlow) all turn out to still be alive.
  • "Not So Different" Remark:
    • From the Frozen trailer, the narrator notes that when disaster strikes, Anna saves the day by joining forces with her sister (Anna and Elsa sharing a laugh), a merchant (Oaken), a hot guy, (Kristoff) and a snowman (Olaf), to defeat villains like: her sister (Elsa having a mental breakdown), a merchant (the Duke of Weselton), a hot guy, (Prince Hans) and a snowman (Marshmallow)!
    • The Honest Trailer for Captain America: Civil War points out how similar the plot is to DC's recent movie about superheroes fighting each other, even though they were very differently received:
      Narrator: Featuring: a non-superpowered villain, tricking a symbol of America into fighting a billionaire playboy, using an incoherent plan that involves blowing up a meeting of government officials and using the hero's mom to manipulate him, that ends with an ominous warning from a prison cell and sets up a universe's worth of spinoffs along the way.
    • invoked The Honest Trailer points out a similarity Ghostbusters (2016) had to several other blockbusters that were also released in 2016, but didn't get as much online hate:
      Narrator: ...that after a summer full of duds like the Jason Bourne rehash, the Independence Day sequel, and a Tarzan reboot, proves once and for all that girls can make middle-of-the-road, studio-mandated franchise batter just as well as the boys.
    • The Honest Trailer for Shrek points out that, even though it sets out to parody tropes from Disney movies and fairy tales, that doesn't stop it from using them itself, like a reluctant, ugly hero who thinks no one can love him, a no-nonsense princess, an evil, horny government member who wants to be king, and a funny animal sidekick.
      Narrator: Hey, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em!
    • Beauty and the Beast points out how the Beast and Gaston are in fact guilty of the same things:
      Narrator: Cheer as this strong, smart, independent woman, rejects this (Gaston) violent, controlling, bad mannered, hairy dude who imprisons her dad, for this (the beast) violent, controlling, bad mannered, hairy dude who imprisons her dad.
    • The Honest Trailer for Ready Player One points out how the antagonist, Nolan Sorrento, is villainized for wanting to use OASIS to make more money (by implementing more of a Pay To Win model), scenes before he has managed to achieve his goals show that the system's creator, James Halliday, already makes plenty of money from it.
    • The Honest Trailer for "Every Quentin Tarantino Movie" addresses his habit of recreating shots or scenes from older movies in his own, which has made him something of a divisive filmmaker, by pointing out that plenty of great directors have also been known to do the same thing.
      Narrator: It's not stealing if you haven't seen it. Just ask Lucas, or PTA, or Guy Ritchie, or... all of 'em (Woody Allen, Stanley Kubrick, Brian De Palma).
    • The Honest Trailer for Seasons 2 and 3 of The Boys suggests that show has become what it also satirizes: "a successful superhero franchise beloved by all, made possible by an evil corporation".
  • Not So Stoic: The narrator usually delivers all his lines in the same epic tone, but when he's talking about certain things, he'll drop the stoicism:
    • When he's talking about the changes done to the Mandarin in Iron Man 3, he's clearly upset.
    • And of course, there's his increasing anger that comes out in the Honest Trailer for After Earth, culminating in a case of Screw This, I'm Outta Here.
    • In the Honest Game Trailer for Mario Kart, the narrator gets upset when he gets hit by a blue shell.
      Narrator: A weapon so incredibly evil that it seeks out the lead driver and — AW COME ON!!! I was right there! This happens every race! Stupid Nintendo! I was like in first the entire freakin' time!
    • Calling for the death of King Justin Bieber/Joffrey in the Game of Thrones trailer. And in the second GOT trailer, for Ramsay Bolton/Invincible Joffrey to also get a Cruel and Unusual Death, as he's earning it.
    • In The Maze Runner, the narrator questions the plot, culminating angrily with "And how can trapping a bunch of teenagers in a maze possibly be the solution to any of society problems?! HELLO?! ANYONE?! F*CK!"
    • In the Honest Trailer for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Coming Out of Their Shells musical concert, after The Nostalgia Critic showed clips of the Turtles doing more embarrassing appearances in live-action media:
      Narrator: WHAT IS EVEN HAPPENING?!?!?! I HATE THE PAST!!! DAMN YOU NOSTALGIA CRITIC!!!
      The Nostalgia Critic: AHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
  • Not That There's Anything Wrong with That: In The Lion King (1994) trailer, the narrator says these words immediately after mentioning "a child raised by a same sex couple" (flashes pics of Simba being raised by Timon and Pumbaa) as one of the things he's surprised got included in a G-Rated movie.
  • Now, Where Was I Going Again?: The Honest Trailer for The Last Guardian describes its minimalistic gameplay, which will often have players running around in desperate search for an idea of where to go, and notes that that probably makes at least a few players miss the guiding features they've complained made previous games too easy, like objective markers or highlighted paths.

    O 

    P – Q 

    R 
  • Race Lift:
    • In Skyfall, there's disbelief at the fact that Ms. Moneypenny's black. Credited as "Miss Moneypenny's black?!"
    • The "race bending" of The Last Airbender is "advertised".
      Narrator: Watch as the ethnically diverse heroes you know and love are brought to life as generic white kids, and the ethnically diverse villains... stay ethnically diverse.
    • Laurence Fishburne as Perry White in Man of Steel is credited as "Perry Black".
    • Discussed in the Batman (1989) trailer, where the narrator checks the "Cast a black guy to play a white guy" (referring to Harvey Dent being played by the black Billy Dee Williams) box for the "Break the Internet bingo" he's playing.
    • The Fant4stic Honest Trailer points out that the Internet was kinder to a Latina playing Sue Storm in the original films, but went ballistic when a black guy was hired to play her brother Johnny in the reboot.
  • Rage Quit: The narrator finds After Earth far too dumb, gives up, and drives off in a huff just before the cast reading.
  • Random Events Plot: The Honest Trailer for The Neverending Story points out how the movie basically consists of the hero overcomming some random obstacles, only for the plot to resolve itself eventually.
  • Rated I for Index: Usually "Rated H for Honest" or "Rated S for Spoilers".
  • Read the Fine Print: The trailer for Lilo & Stitch reveals that the print of Stitch's adoption paper is actually a thank-you letter from Disney to the animators of the movie, meaning that the Galactic Federation has every right to take Stitch away from Lilo.
  • Real Is Brown: The Honest Trailer for Eternals remarks on how the movie's primarily beige and grey color tones makes it look duller than the colorful Jack Kirby comic book it's based on.
  • Real Trailer, Fake Movie:
  • Reality Is Unrealistic:
    • The trailer for Return of the Jedi points out how the Ewoks being able to defeat the better armed, and seemingly superior Empire actually isn’t that farfetched, drawing parallels to real-life wars like Afghanistan and the Vietnam War.
    • The remastered Avatar trailer mentions that as stupid as Unobtanium sounds, there are real minerals with even stranger names, like Cummingtonite.
  • Reality Subtext: invoked
    • In the Manchester by the Sea entry in the Honest Trailer for the 2017 Oscars, it's suggested that Casey Affleck drew inspiration for his portrayal of "a hard-drinking, irrittable Boston man living in the shadow of his more successful older brother" from his relationship with his own more successful older brother.
    • The Honest Trailer for Catwoman (2004) suggests that some of the scenes where Sharon Stone's character talks about being pushed aside when she got older are just Stone venting about her Hollywood career.
    • The Honest Trailer for Encanto redubs "Surface Pressure" to be about how Lin-Manuel Miranda is feeling the pressure to invokedkeep producing hits:
      ♫ Pressure after Hamilton put him right on top, uh-oh ♫
      ♫ Pressure after In the Heights was a total flop, uh oh oh oh ♫
      ♫ Hoping that Encanto gives him an EGOT win ♫
      ♫ So we'll all forget his role in Mary Poppins ♫
      ♫ Overexposed, but he can't take a break ♫
      ♫ invokedMoney's great! ♫
    • The Honest Trailer for Top Gun: Maverick isn't subtle about how Maverick's fear of being too old to stay in the action likely reflects those of his actor:
      Narrator: Tom Cruise returns in his iconic role as Maverick, for a film about how Tom— I mean, Maverick may be old, but To— I mean, Maverick won't go down that easy, because Tom— I mean, Maverick refuses to die, no matter how many dumb stunts To— er, Mav pulls for Mission: Impossible— er, the Navy or whatever.
  • Recurring Element:
  • Re-Cut: Screen Junkies Plus has extended versions of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and Suicide Squad (2016), both because the writers had too much material and due to the movies themselves having extended Blu-Ray versions.
  • Recycled with a Gimmick:
  • Recycled Script: invoked
    • The Spider-Man Trilogy. Composed of:
      1. Spider-Man: where Peter Parker struggles with his powers, breaks up with Mary Jane, and fights with a villain that ultimately kills himself;
      2. Spider-Man 2: where Peter Parker struggles with his powers, breaks up with Mary Jane, and fights with a villain that ultimately kills himself; and
      3. Spider-Man 3: where Peter Parker struggles with his powers, breaks up with Mary Jane, and fights with a villain that ultimately kills himself.
        Narrator: Wait, did they just make the same movie 3 times in a row?
    • The Honest Trailer for Dumb and Dumber To points out how the movie repeats not just the basic premise of the first movie (Harry and Lloyd going on a road trip to deliver a mysterious package), but also many jokes and specific scenes ("I like it a lot", the Mutt Cutts Van, the Binaca spray gag, etc.).
    • The Back to the Future trilogy. Composed by:
      1. Back to the Future: where they travel to the past, beat up the bully, fix the future, and set up the sequel,
      2. Back to the Future Part II: where they travel to the past, beat up the bully, fix the future, and set up the sequel, and
      3. Back to the Future Part III: where they travel to the past, beat up the bully, fix the future, and leave open the possibility for a sequel.
        Biff Tannen: There's something very familiar about all this...
    • Skyfall's trailer lampoons how the hard drive Bond is after contains the identity of all NATO agents, which is ripped off from Mission: Impossible and how the ending is a rip off of Home Alone.
    • Jon Bailey actually interrupts his reading of both Divergent Honest Trailers finding the movie identical to other dystopias (The Hunger Games for the original, The Maze Runner for Insurgent).
    • Modern Warfare's storyline is called as such.
      Narrator: Pick up all three of the best-selling shooters that are all the same, full of rehashed moments like: slow-motion door breaches; the level where you control a giant gun; that part where you look around and wait to die; the unnecessary controversial moment; and, the climatic ending where you're seriously injured and the main bad guy is about to kill you... but then he gets distracted by something which gives you enough time to kill him first.
    • The first four Mission: Impossible movies, involving a rogue IMF agent and an arms dealer.
    • The video for Ant-Man points out the plot's similarities to the first Iron Man movie, such as a brilliant tech industrialist being betrayed by a bald former ally and a supporting character looking at the suit they'll wear in the sequel.
    • Relentlessly parodied in Superman Returns, where all of the homages to the Donner films are said to just be kind of pointless and dull, especially when combined with weepy dramatic subplots and very unsubtle Jesus imagery; at one point, all of the dialogue directly lifted from the first film is just played side-to-side with the original.
      Narrator: Christopher Reeve IS Superman... and Brandon Routh is doing a pretty good impression of him.
      Narrator: Kevin Spacey stars as Gene Hackman's Lex Luthor!
    • In the Honest Trailer for The Force Awakens, Gannon Nickell points out the movie's many similarities to the very first Star Wars movie, A New Hope:
      Nickell!Narrator: Gear up for a film so desperate to recapture the magic of the first Star Wars, it practically is the first Star Wars. Featuring: desert orphan finding a cute droid with top secret information, escapes the Empire with the help of the Millenium Falcon, visits a shady cantina, learns about the Force from a tiny alien,note  watches a man in black kill her mentor and needs to destroy a shield generator so X-Wings can make a trench run.
    • The Honest Game Trailer for Star Fox Zero mocks the game for how much it copied from Star Fox 64, such as the story, levels, bosses and enemies.
    • Ghostbusters II, which gets a side by side comparison to the first movie, pointing out how the plot is identical to the first film.
      Narrator: [annoyed] It's exactly the same as the first movie! But bad!
    • The Bourne Trilogy. Composed of:
      1. The Bourne Identity: where Bourne tries to figure out who he is, has a cool car chase, and runs from a control room full of people on computers, only to discover that the crooked government guy chasing him was just a puppet for someone else;
      2. The Bourne Supremacy: where Bourne tries to figure out why he is who he is, has a cool car chase, and runs from a control room full of people on computers, only to discover that the crooked government guy chasing him was just a puppet for someone else; and
      3. The Bourne Ultimatum: where Bourne tries to figure out who made him who he is, has a cool car chase, and runs from a control room full of people on computers, only to discover that the crooked government guy chasing him was just a puppet for someone else.
        Narrator: Hey, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.
    • The Honest Trailer for Ghostbusters (2016), in addition to saying the plot is the same as the original movie, points out the final battle's similarities to the final battle of Pixels, showing how both feature main characters in jumpsuits fighting an army of giant monsters and shooting at them with lasers and even use similar shots.
    • The full Honest Trailer for La La Land points out a similarity between it and the director's previous movie:
      Narrator: From the filmmaker behind the movie about the jazz guy who likes jazz so much he ends up alone, comes a movie about a jazz guy who loves jazz so much he ends up alone. Man, what did jazz do to Damien Chazelle?
    • The Honest Trailer for Point Break (1991) points out how it seems to have been a big inspiration for the first The Fast and the Furious movie:
      Narrator: Ride along as a blank-faced cop falls in with a charismatic adrenaline junkie who's secretly committing crimes and dates a waitress with a personal connection to his target. But The Fast and the Furious didn't totally rip this off, because in Fast, they drink Coronas, where in Point Break they drink... also Coronas. Seriously, somebody owes someone money.
    • The Honest Trailer for Transformers: The Last Knight points out how it borrows a plot point from a certain other summer blockbuster:
      Narrator: [Optimus Prime]'s been forced by a lady with dreads to turn against his family. And if you said "that's the exact plot of Fate of the Furious", congratulations; you saw some really bad movies in 2017!
    • The Honest Trailer for "Every Wes Anderson Movie" points out how all of his eight movies made to date have featured one or more disaffected protagonists, a romantic interest for one of the main characters that he sometimes shares with a third person, and some sort of elaborately planned event that goes wrong. The plots get so repetitive that, as the narrator reads them, the Honest Trailer fast forwards faster and faster to get past them.
      Alec Baldwin-sounding Narrator: It sounds repetitive, but trust me; they're just the most charming little things.
    • The Honest Trailer for Deep Blue Sea lists the many plot points it borrows from Jurassic Park:
      Narrator: [...], complete with approaching tropical storm, running on a skeleton crew on their most important weekend, Sam Jackson, "hiding in a kitchen" scene, and guy who gets eaten for resetting the power.
    • The Honest Trailer for Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom points out how it rips off the story of The Lost World: Jurassic Park, apart from the endings:
      Narrator:[...], where an old cast member gets summoned to the estate of an ailing original park founder, then sent to the island to save the dinosaurs, only to get double-crossed by a slimy junior exec, who secretly hired a hunter to bring the dinosaurs back to the mainland for profit.
    • The Honest Trailer for The Meg notes how the movie repeats its own script by having two sequences where the main character, Jonas, saves the crew of a trapped sub, a woman is set up as his love interest, there is an accident involving the crane of a boat and, just to hammer it in, the first sequence ends with the Meg getting eaten by a second, even bigger Meg.
    • The Honest Trailer for Rocky IV points out how, despite the new opponent, the movie does essentially nothing new compared to the previous Rocky movies. It still has the same basic plot, same jokes, etc.
    • The Honest Trailer for Robin Hood (2018) points out how, besides recycling everything the previous Robin Hood movies already did, it also recycles the main storyline from The Dark Knight Trilogy and Arrow.
      Narrator: This Robin Hood is also a rich young man that trained in a distant land, who returned home to fight injustice as a masked vigilante, helps his social activist girlfriend protect the slums, hits a secret identity speed bump in his love life, inspires a repressed population to rise up against a villain, and twist the guy dating his ex into... I dunno. Some kind of a Two-Face?
    • The narrator notes the plot of each of the Men in Black films is really similar.
      Narrator": The first film, where K shows J the ropes, while being hunted by a villain who can kill people instantly, unless you're the heroes, as they search for an all-powerful device that was right under their nose all along; the second one, where J shows K the ropes, while being hunted by a villain who can kill people instantly, unless you're the heroes, as they search for an all-powerful device that was right under their nose all along; and the third one, where J goes back in time to show K the ropes, while being hunted by a villain who can kill people instantly, unless you're the heroes, as they search for an all-powerful device that was... Yadda yadda yadda. Are we sure we want more sequels to this thing?
    • The Honest Trailer for Mortal Engines derides it for how the movie's action scenes are similar to ones from Star Wars, and that it even has the villain turning out to be the main character's father.
    • The trailer for The Mummy (1999) ackknowledges that it's in many ways a repeat of the Indiana Jones movies, but then proceeds to point out how those movies were based on earlier serials like King Solomon's Mines, which in turn were based on radio plays, which in turn were based on books.
      Narrator: So let The Mummy be another reminder, that nothing you've ever enjoyed is original.
    • The Honest Trailer for the Men In Black trilogy points how how besides having the same basic plotnote , but also the same three jokesnote 
    • The Honest Trailer for The Simpsons Movie points out how its plot borrows plotlines from old episodes of the TV show, such as Homer going on a chili-fueled hallucination trip and one involving a multi-eyed fish caught in a polluted lake.
    • The Honest Trailer for Black Widow (2021) details how the plot mirrors that of many previous MCU Movies, with the lead character having to keep important object x, out of the hands of military leader Y, by taking down massive airship Z.
    • The Honest Trailer for Space Jam: A New Legacy points out how the plot is very similar to Hook:
      Narrator: ...and when [LeBron's] son Dom gets kidnapped by his nemesis, a cleverly named villain who'll win the kid over by showing all the love and encouragement he's missing at home, forcing the dad to round up a bunch of cartoonish misfits from a land where they don't age and convince them to help him fight back against the bad guy, until he learns to let loose, have some fun and believe he can fly. Bang-a-Rang! Bang-a-Rang! Hey, can we just watch Hook instead?
    • The Honest Trailer for Jungle Cruise lists major plot points from Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl the movie repeated:
      Narrator: So if you like the first Pirates of the Caribbean film, Disney's hoping it's because you like movies where a boat captain and a headstrong tomboy lady clash, and then they run across some nasty Europeans who are actually immortal, so the captain pretends to die to save the others, but he turns out to be immortal too, and the headstrong tomboy lady saves him in the end. [with Jack Sparrow's voice] Savvy?
    • The Honest Trailer for Home Alone 2: Lost in New York points out how it recycles pretty much every plot point of the first movie.
    • The Honest Trailer for Black Panther: Wakanda Forever lists several plot points it has in common with Avatar: The Way of Water:
      Narrator: So if you only see one sequel full of beautiful underwater photography about the evils of colonialism from an indigenous perspective, fighting for control of a natural resource that enhances human potential, set against a blue-skinned race that's friends with whales, that introduces children of the heroes from the first film, and brings back some legendary dead warriors, then dang, you've got a tough choice on your hands. I guess it depends on how much cry face you want to look at.
  • Reed Richards Is Useless: The Honest Trailer for Ant-Man and the Wasp points out how Hank Pym's growth and shrinking technology could be used to solve world hunger, but instead gets used for fight suits.
  • Reference Overdosed: The Honest Trailer for Ready Player One (2018) describes the movie as having "More references than a Big Bang Theory episode about the Justice League challenging The Avengers to an anime edition of Trivial Pursuit".
  • Relationship Sue: invoked Ryan Gosling in The Notebook is credited as "Perfection".
  • Replacement Scrappy: invoked
  • Retcon: The Honest Trailer for Justice League points out how many plot points from Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice were just ignored in the movie, such as the public's hatred of Superman, who is now treated as an icon In-Universe, and Bruce Wayne's nightmare with the Flash, which is never even brought up.
  • Retraux:
    • Honest Trailers for films and TV shows released a few decades before present, such as Superman IV: The Quest for Peace, Top Gun, Hackers, and Rocky IV, are filtered to make it look like they were ripped from an old video tape.
    • The Honest Game Trailer for Cuphead is given a different narrator and a different opening to make it look like a 40s or 50s propaganda infomercial.
    • The entry for Mank in the Honest Trailer for the 2021 Oscars is narrated in the same style as a news reel from the 30s or 40s.
  • Retroactive Recognition: invoked
    • The Honest Trailer for Love Actually has a Starring list made of the actors from the movie as roles in which they were more famous. Also, throughout the trailer the narrator is surprised that Mark is played by Andrew Lincoln, who years after the movie became famous for his role as Rick Grimes in The Walking Dead.
    • The Honest Trailer for Entourage mentions how the show featured guest appearances by actors who were fairly unknown at the time, but went on to become more famous than any of the show's lead actors, such as Community's Ken Jeong and Modern Family's Sofía Vergara. The Honest Trailer also shows a scene where Ari and E talk about the lead actor in The Station Agent, who, according to Ari, was relegated to making Fedex commercials - the lead actor in question being Peter Dinklage:
      [shot of Tyrion looking grim]
      Narrator: Awkward.
    • In the Honest Trailer for Batman Begins, the narrator realizes that the child Batman saves is Jack Gleeson (AKA King Joffrey Baratheon from Game of Thrones).
      Narrator: Is this King Joffrey? That is him! Why are you giving him military hardware? Take him before it's too late!
    • In the Starring part of the Face/Off Honest Trailer, the narrator is surprised that a member of Castor Troy's gang is played by the future director (Nick Cassavetes) of The Notebook, of all things.
    • Friends' "Starring..." segment points out that an extra in one episode is "that guy from Screen Junkies" (Hal Rudnick).
    • The Honest Trailer for Donnie Darko shows that a young Seth Rogen was in the movie, but the narrator gets incredibly uncomfortable about his scenes because the creepy jerk he plays is such a jarring performance compared to his later, easygoing stoner roles.
    • The Honest Trailer for Hancock draws attention to the fact that it was co-written by a pre-Breaking Bad Vince Gilligan:
      Narrator: [...]this blockbuster, that tried to create an original Anti-Hero audiences love from scratch. But you can't expect to get everything right the first time. Right, Vince?
  • Revenue-Enhancing Devices:
    • A big point in the Honest Trailer for The Phantom Menace, the very first Honest Trailer, is that the movie was being re-released in 3D.
    • Titanic 3D. "3D so real, you can actually feel James Cameron stealing money from your pocket."
    • As the introduction of Modern Warfare points out
      Narrator: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. Special Edition [Total Cost: $180]. Plus DLC [Total Cost: $280].
    • Destiny gets mocked because the game was released with very barebones gameplay and the developers apparently chose to squeeze money out of players with DLC instead.
  • Reverse Cerebus Syndrome: The Honest Trailer for Return of the Jedi accused the movie of doing this to the original trilogy, and in the long run the franchise as a whole, by making a movie full of burp gags, slapstick comedy, and Boba Fett going out like Wile E. Coyote.
  • Rhymes on a Dime: The first minute of the trailer for How the Grinch Stole Christmas! is narrated entirely in rhyme.
  • Rock Beats Laser: The Honest Trailer for Independence Day notes that the advanced aliens are defeated with "a sheet, Morse Code, punching, and an Apple Powerbook 5300."
  • Role-Ending Misdemeanor: invoked The Honest Trailer for Season 2 of The Mandalorian predicts that Gina Carano and/or her character, Cara Dune, will eventually be taken out of the show after she made a number of tweets supporting the alt-right movement. Their prediction finally came true the week after the episode aired after she retweeted a comment from a conservative who likened Republicans to Holocaust victims.
  • Rooting for the Empire: Invoked by the narrator when he has this reaction to watching the exploding warships in Pearl Harbor, getting so excited by the action... that he forgets he's cheering on the Japanese bombers blowing up fellow Americans.
    Narrator: Dammit Michael Bay, why'd you make that look so cool?
  • Rouge Angles of Satin:
    • The Honest Trailer for The Santa Clause attributes its title to why some people can't spell "Santa Claus".
    • A more literal example is at the beginning of the Honest Trailer for Rogue One, which opened with a bunch of people in the comments asking for "Rouge One".
      Narrator: Guys, you've seriously gotta learn how to spell "rogue".
  • Rule of Cool: In The Avengers, they point out their disbelief at how The Incredible Hulk could suddenly and inexplicably control his rage, "which doesn't matter, because that shotnote  was awesome."
  • Running Gag: invoked
    • "STARES." Also made into an Overly Long Gag set to very EPIC music. Done for X-Men and Godzilla, too!
    • "...Bewbs!" / "...Abs!" / "...Tush!" / "...And pixellated Bahls!"
    • Shots of characters looking strained from a test of strength will be dubbed: "(Character) pooping."
    • Any trailer involving an animated movie will have silly parodies of the songs, with the obligatory love song changed to a song about "porking."
    • The constant Bonnie jumpscares in the Five Nights at Freddy's video. As well as at the end, the narrator is relieved that at least there are no sequels, only for the sequel title to appear. At the end of the Honest Game Trailer for Five Nights At Freddy's 2, the exact same joke is done only to reveal Five Nights At Freddys 3.
    • The Pokémon trailers will at least have one Pokemon being called "This (Creature) is on Fire!" And at least two get renamed as sex toys.
    • "And leave a comment with a word you'd like to hear me say in my awesome voice."
    • "What a coincidence!" In the CinemaSins crossover video "Everything Wrong with The Amazing Spider-Man 2", everytime characters meet up or something happens conveniently to the plot.
    • The narrator reading lines that shower Jar-Jar Binks or M. Night Shyamalan with praise despite the fact that both of them have been heavily mocked in Honest Trailers.
    • Any time there's a mention of Jurassic Park III, it's accompanied by the talking velociraptor dream sequence clip. And if any part of the Jurassic Park franchise gets mentioned, chances are they'll find an excuse to work the conversation around to Jurassic Park III.
      • Taken to its logical conclusion in the actual Honest Trailer for Jurassic Park III, which not only uses the clip as a scene transition throughout, it also includes the scene in the "Starring" part, nicknames Alan Grant "Alan!" in reference to it, and nicknames the movie [The One where a Dinosaur Says 'Alan'.
      • Following the aforementioned Jurassic Park III Honest Trailer, a few subsequent trailers have a raptor randomly appear as a random visual gag (e.g. as a possible player avatar in Ready Player One, and a Thanos snap victim in Avengers: Infinity War).
    • Whenever a movie is made by one of Disney's subsidiaries, such as Touchstone Pictures or 20th Century Fox (for movies made or released before it was purchased by Disney and changed its name to "20th Century Studios"), the narrator will simply refer to them as "Disney".
      • As of the Honest Trailer for Wonder Woman 1984, the gag has been extended to Warner Bros., which is referred to as "AT&T" in reference to them buying Warner Bros. mother company, WarnerMedia.
    • In the Honest Trailer for Ted Lasso, whenever he makes fun of the titular character, it cuts to him looking sad, causing Epic Voice Guy to panic and apologize.
    • Any time a villain's evil plan is overly convoluted or poorly thought out, the clip of Tony Stark saying "Not a great plan" is played.
  • Russian Reversal:
    • The Honest Trailer for Green Lantern (2011) says it was "too nerdy for mainstream America, and too mainstream for nerdy America".
    • The Double Feature Honest Trailer for Pacific Rim: Uprising and Tomb Raider (2018) describes the latter as "the movie that was based on the video game that was trying to look like a movie" and the former as "the movie trying as hard as it can to look like a video game".

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