Complaining: Trailer Joke Decay

Note: This thread was proposed by mightymewtron.

Trailer Joke Decay isn't too bad as far as complaining goes, as it does seem to be criticizing marketing by overplay. However, it still gets repetitive and negative, and I think it could be broadened to focus more on the overplay and less on the subjective impact of the joke, as I think there's more worthy discussion in the reasons for overplaying a scene in marketing.

Trailer Wick Decay shows a healthy amount of usage (40%) that describes frequently-played trailer jokes, but doesn't suggest they got less funny with time. I think this could work as an objective trope (Frequent Trailer Scene?), and possibly even be broadened beyond jokes, though only one example I found was non-comedic. I wouldn't be opposed to keeping the subjective variant, but I think the broader one would be more useful as a trope.

Paging ~mightymewtron to the thread.

Retooling this into the objective Frequent Trailer Scene trope suggested in the OP might work.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Apr 25th 2024 at 6:51:19 AM

to rename.

Wouldn't it just be easier to make it YMMV, e.g. "This joke becomes stale because of how often you'll have seen it in the trailers?" Isn't that an audience reaction to begin with?

It is YMMV already. That wouldn't change anything of its current definition.

Yeah, since this is already YMMV, that would just be the outcome of the thread if we ended up not making any changes.

I stand by my original suggestion. I don't see much value in the decay part when the unique aspect that could be worthy of a trope is more what scene gets replayed and why (the "ruined joke" bit might fit Trailers Always Spoil). If nothing else it could be split.

Edited by mightymewtron on Apr 25th 2024 at 10:29:23 AM

to rename

I'm actually a bit confused about what the issue is here. There'd healthy amount of correct usage and even the op admits it's not too bad as far as complaining goes. Is it just an issue of wanting to make it less negative?

I think a factor in the proposal to retool this into an objective trope about repeated trailer scenes is the fact that the amount of examples that mention repeated scenes without mentioning the joke becoming less funny is almost as high as the amount of examples that do mention that, and removing the requirement for a reaction to be specified and making it solely about replayed scenes would result in at least 84% of examples (going by the wick check with that percentage) being correct (though if we make this objective, we'd be removing the reactions unless we split those off, since examples for objective tropes have to be written objectively).

Edit: As for whether to split this between the current YMMV definition and an objective trope about repeated trailer jokes, that could be a crowner option in addition to solely retooling into an objective trope.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Apr 25th 2024 at 10:15:56 AM

I’ve seen “this joke was repeated in the advertisements so often that it became less funny” be brought up enough times that I’m in favor of a split between objective examples (Recurring Trailer Scene?) and the current trope (which I don’t think needs a rename, just cleanup; many of the examples can be easily moved to the aforementioned objective trope).

I agree. The trope list reads like there's two different tropes: an objective trope about the fact that the same joke got used in all the trailers, and a YMMV trope about the fact that the overuse of a joke made it hit less for the audience.

Is "scene that regularly appears in trailers" even tropeworthy? To me that sorta falls between the intent behind stuff like Signature Scene (the scene everyone will remember or is likely to think of when a work is brought up) and Money-Making Shot (a really critical scene to ensure butts get in seats).

I think this is redundant with Trailers Always Spoil.

I think both scenes can factor into why a scene would be prominent in trailers, and the trailer replay can factor into why a scene would become a Signature Scene, but a Signature Scene or Money-Making Shot needn't be the one present in trailers, so I don't think it's totally redundant.

Agreed; the scene doesn't necessarily need to be a Signature Scene, nor does it have to be a Money-Making Shot (or a shot at all). A random example from the wick check, for reference:

• YMMV.The Amazing Spider Man: Spidey's quip about the small knives to the would-be carjacker since nearly every trailer and commercial have included this bit.

I wouldn't consider this a Signature Scene, nor is a Money-Making Shot, but it is a joke that gets used a ton in advertising. It's the objective version of what this trope currently covers: a funny line that gets constantly thrown into trailers and ads to get audiences thinking and talking about the movie.

Don't see how it's redundant with Trailers Always Spoil at all.

The thing is that trailers by design are intended to get peoples' attention and talking about a work, so aside from complaining, the only real angle that can be really grappled from this trope would be "a line that gets constantly thrown into trailers". That makes it sound less like a YMMV concept and more just like an objectively quantifiable main page trope... which actually makes it sound even less flattering to me in terms of worthiness as a trope. Then it's like a really clumsy cousin to a Tagline.

Edited by number9robotic on Apr 25th 2024 at 7:11:45 AM

Hmm... I get the argument that trailers tend to reuse scenes a lot by design (which isn't very notable), but I do feel like there's something to get out of the objective side of this trope. There's a line that can be drawn between "scenes shown a lot in the trailers because they're important/exciting" and "scene shown a lot in the trailers because execs think its funny". Both are crucial to marketing, but there's a difference between what's actually important about the film and what's solely attention-grabbing (i.e. grabs audiences' attention without being fundamental to understanding what the film is about). I've aware that I'm being a bit vague, but I can say there is somewhat of a difference, even if not clearly-articulated.

That said, I'm in favor of preserving the current trope either way. There's a lot of examples that go little beyond "this scene appears a lot in the trailers", but "this joke is less funny because they overused in the trailers" is a legitimate Audience Reaction that I've seen before (and felt myself; looking at you, Zootopia DMV scene...). The trope's pretty rough in its current state (the low-context examples are widespread even on the main page) but I'm opposed to tossing it out wholesale.

It's definitely a legitimate Audience Reaction, that a joke or exciting scene loses its impact in the movie because of being overplayed in the trailer. Some of my friends have complained about trailers showing all the good jokes.

Edited by SharkToast on Apr 25th 2024 at 7:56:57 AM

After seeing more posts on the matter since my previous post, I think I'm fine with splitting this between an objective trope about repeated trailer jokes and the existing YMMV item about repeated trailer jokes being considered stale.

Does it need to be as narrow as repeated trailer jokes, or repeated trailer scenes in general? I guess that can be hashed out in TLP.

AudioSpeaks2 proposed expansion in Trope Talk a while back. My impression of the usage check suggests it would be a solution in search of a problem, but you could make the argument that it falls under Tropes Are Flexible anyway.

How about Overused Trailer Scene?

I suppose having it cover scenes in general could work.

My concerns still stand, and Overused Trailer Scene as a concept to me still sounds like it has problems. If it's not just a "complaint" trope ("this scene shows up everywhere, and that's a problem"), that sounds like a more objective main-page trope ("this scene shows up everywhere").

Issue is that it's still not a very tangibly quantifiable trope — what exactly counts as "overused"? Just the fact a shot or joke shows up a lot? How much is "a lot"? 2/3rds of all trailers? All trailers? What about shots that are only partially present in certain trailers, where some instances of it are edited down to fit the pace compared to much longer ones? This isn't something like Overly Long Gag where the "overly long" (over)usage of something is itself the concept — this sounds like just a general phenomena that happens when you have multiple trailers intended to peoples' attention and get butts in seats.

And that's just the set of issues in terms of technicals and definition; the idea of "a shot/line that gets constantly thrown into trailers" doesn't sound like it indicates anything about the work itself or the trailer in question. Again, it's just a thing that happens, and that alone doesn't sound tropeworthy, ergo chairs-y.

I do agree that there probably is something that can be ascertained in the logic of why certain shots/lines get used in trailers so frequently, but just saying "it's used a lot" doesn't itself sound like a stable factor in determining what counts as one. Until we actually do have a properly articulated standard for what exactly is being highlighted, I'm still against the concept.

Edited by number9robotic on Apr 26th 2024 at 4:49:03 AM