If you miss a sporting event you can catch up by watching the highlights on SportsCenter. If you haven’t read a book but want to be able to talk about it you can get the Cliff’s notes version. But what recourse do you have when it comes to catching up on movies or TV shows? Short of binge-watching there is nothing you can do. No substitute for actually putting in the time. But what if you don’t really care about watching an entire show or movie? What if you aren’t interested in hanging on every word of dialogue and don’t care about missing minute details? What if hunting for Easter Eggs, chatting in forums, and spending every waking second of your day coming up with fan theories isn’t for you? What if all you want to do is catch up on the fly? Quick and easy. Down and dirty. In that case, what options do you have?
For now, nothing. But I am hoping to change that. What I’m envisioning is a way for people to watch the equivalent of movie highlights. A reverse trailer of sorts that gives away the entire plot in two minutes or less. Spoiler alerts be gone. The spoiler is now the whole point. Armed with the knowledge of what happened in Phase One and Two of the Marvel Cinematic Universe you can now safely dive into Avengers End Game and the rest of Phase Three without having to sit through the Incredible Hulk or thirty other movies. Millions of man hours would be saved. Relationships allowed to blossom.
I honestly feel like this idea has a lot of merit. Just think about it. Considering how much content there now is from regular movies and network TV shows to binge worthy series on dozens of streaming services it is nearly impossible to stay on top of all the latest comings and goings in the world of pop culture. To avoid information overload what we need are better content search engines or recommendation services that help us quickly find relevant content. Or better yet, a way to watch content faster. Similar to speed reading or listening to podcasts at two times the speed, watching reverse trailers could become a relevant life hack for people too busy to sit down and watch a full length film. And it could be a real god send for people who only care about one or two aspects of an inter-connected series. Take the CW’s Arrowverse for example. I love The Flash and still admire Arrow but have zero interest in watching Super Girl, Legends of Tomorrow or Black Lightning. Which is problematic when the characters from one show appear in another during annual crossover episodes. If I could watch highlights of the shows I don’t care about and only focus on the ones I do that would save me a ton of time and significantly enhance my life.
Reverse trailers could even go hand in hand with another movie related idea I’ve recently encountered: Film Tapas. Instead of sitting down to watch an entire movie you instead make a night out of watching twenty or so movie trailers in a row. Similar to how you only eat small samples of food at a Tapas restaurant, during a film tapas you’d only sample various movies, not watch the whole thing. Considering that a lot of people say that watching the previews is the best part of going to the movies then it may make sense that Film Tapas could become a stand alone thing. Especially if reverse movie trailers that give away the plot is what’s on the menu.
All in all, this technology wouldn’t just change the game, it would create a whole new one: a way to game the Hollywood system that has been meticulously engineered with an endless stream of sequels and remakes specifically designed to bleed our pocketbooks dry and consume our every waking moment. After all, the Godfather saga didn’t refer to the movie, it referred to what you had to go through to watch the entire trilogy. No longer. The time has come to take back control of our time. To make it easier for movie fans to stay on top of everything happening in Hollywood the way that sports fan can stay on top of their favorite teams without having to watch every minute of every game. The time has come for reverse trailers.
Are reverse trailers the Greatest Idea Ever?
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