Discrepancies between film trailers and the final cut released to the theaters is nothing new.  It’s been done for as long as I can remember.  But for some reason, it seems to be happening a lot lately.  As it stands right now, I can name three films in the last three months to have scenes in the trailers that were either not present, or altered in some way in the final cut.

The first film this year that I really noticed this happening with was Iron Man 2.  As it got to the part in the trailer that I recognized I thought, “Oh right, this is the scene from the trailer.” Then lo and behold, the scene passed without showing what was shown in the trailer.  The scene I’m speaking of was the scene between Tony and Pepper before he jumps out of the plan to land at the expo.  Disappointment ensued.

The second film actually had a couple of scenes missing.  Get Him to the Greek was a surprise hit for me and I really ended up liking it.  A couple of the scenes in the trailer that I wanted to see were noticeable absent and again, disappointment ensued. The scene that shows Aldous driving a little car through a house, the scene where he wakes up Aaron to go jogging and the scene showing the two of them exercising in the park were all missing.  These were scenes that I wanted to see.  They looked funny on their own but I was hoping to actually see them in the proper context.  Alas, foiled again.

The third film didn’t so much leave something out but rather altered a scene specifically for the preview.  The Predators trailer has a scene showing Adrien Brody’s character being lit up by the laser sites of the Predators weapons.  There’s over a dozen sites locked on him but when we get to that scene in the film, the number drops significantly.  The trailer give the viewer a false hope that they will see a lot of predators, when in fact, the movie actually only shows a few.  It’s a tad disappointing.  While researching this I came across an article on SciFi Squad regarding this trailer.  They had a quote from Robert Rodriguez stating that this was in fact done on purpose.

“A lot of my movies have trailer shots that I shoot just for the trailer,” Predators producer Robert Rodriguez told MTV, “so that people haven’t seen the movie already but they get the feeling of what it’s supposed to represent.”

I find this to be a bit of false advertising.  If a scene gets cut out completely, that’s one thing.  Trailer and teasers are being released so early these days that you can’t always account for what happens in the editing process.  Sometimes a scene released early may not make the film as cohesive so it gets cut.  Blatantly altering a scene to build it up is something else entirely.  Don’t promise me a steak then sell me a burger.

I can understand the studios wanting to build up these films as much as possible and the trailers are designed for that purpose.  I know this issue isn’t likely to be fixed.  There are too many variables to take into account.  But three films in three months is a little much.  I’ve heard that one of the first trailers for The Last Airbender has missing scenes as well but I can’t comment on that personally as I have yet to see the film.  If you know of any other examples, leave us a comment.