It can be a strange, even slightly nervewracking feeling, watching a trailer for a new film. If it's something that you're eager to see, then you'll likely be intrigued and tempted enough to take a first glimpse. But beware – you may well end up seeing too much too soon.
Mary Poppins Returns has one such moment in it – a huge heartwarming surprise that most people reading this will probably already be aware of by now. Especially if you've seen the trailer, which totally undercuts the surprise. It got us thinking about some of the other films that punctured the drama by giving everything away far too soon...
1. Soylent Green
"What is the mystery of Soylent Green?" screams the trailer for this Charlton Heston starring SF classic. With food supplies running low, a mysterious new foodstuff may be the answer to solving starvation, but is something more sinister afoot?
Well, pay enough attention to the trailer – or even just glance up at it a few times – and you should be able work out with no trouble at all (thanks to shots of corpses on conveyor belts) that Soylent Green is, in fact, PEOPLE!
2. Prometheus
The first teasers for Ridley Scott's Alien prequel actually did a pretty good job at hinting at the tone and story, while keeping the exact nature of the menace oblique. Not so the full trailers.
When we finally sat down to watch the film we already knew that the mysterious mound the foolish humans were exploring was actually a spacecraft similar to the derelict one from the original film, that it would take off and, in the final moments, be brought crashing to the ground. So there's all of the threat of the final act negated...
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3. Carrie
Brian DePalma's horror masterpiece contains some of the genre's most startling imagery. After a lifetime of bullying at school and abuse at home from her mad mom, Sissy Spacek's Carrie finally snaps and unleashes her psychic powers at the prom with devastating results – all of which the audience have already seen in the trailer.
The way it manages to lay out every major story beat and surprise in about a minute is actually quite impressive.
4. Rocky IV
The key scene in the fourth Rocky film is when Ivan Drago (Dolph Lundgren) kills Rocky's best bud, Apollo Creed, in the ring.
It's remained such a pivotal moment in the history of that franchise that the recently-released Creed II is almost entirely built around it. Now think how much more jaw-dropping it would have been if we hadn't already seen it happen in the trailer...
5. Terminator Genisys
Oof – this one was annoying. Although the omens were never that good, we still held out some hope that Alan Taylor's reboot might do something interesting with the increasingly convoluted Terminator timeline.
Unfortunately, after the big Arnie v Arnie fight, the film's only real surprise was that John Connor was now a Terminator. Clearly meant as the film's big twist, its inclusion in the trailer made Taylor furious.
6. Cast Away *and* Free Willy
Two for the price of one here, as both these films focus on characters trapped or in captivity and the escalating tension over whether they will escape. One is a killer whale, one is a Tom Hanks.
But don't fret, because both films give the game away in their trailers, showing the whale swimming away and Tom Hanks' Chuck being reunited with his family. Hey, tension is overrated.
7. Goldeneye
Sean Bean's Alec Trevelyan – AKA 006 – made a fine foil for Pierce Brosnan's Bond in his well-liked first adventure. In a scene set in 1986 (hang on, shouldn't Bond be Roger Moore regenerating into Timothy Dalton at this point?) the pair are breaking into a Russian military facility, when Trevelyan is caught and executed.
Later in the film, however, Bond discovers that his old pal is as secretly alive and now working for the enemy. Thanks to the trailer we all already knew this. Then again, it did make this a rare example of a film where we got to see Sean Bean die twice.
8. Jurassic World
Remember that really cool bit in the first Jurassic World where Chris Pratt's swaggering Owen comes tearing out of the jungle on a motorbike surrounded by dinosaurs? Wasn't that just awesome?
And wouldn't it have been way more awesome if it wasn't one of the key moments from the film handed to us on a spoilers plate by the trailer?
You get the picture. Instead of age warnings on trailers, now, perhaps they should come with notices about precisely how much they're going to ruin your cinema experience…
9. Thor: Ragnarok
Who is the Grandmaster's mysterious champion, the most beloved warrior on Sakaar? Thor is assured that he is brutal and unstoppable, but everyone goes out of their way to avoid revealing his name: Hulk.
They should have saved the energy it took to be vague and evasive, as the trailers show the entire sequence in which Thor is reunited with his old Avengers teammate.
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