In a world... where "previews" has a lot a funny jokes... but in later years, they now became less funny from unfortunately predicted events!
- The Honest Trailer for Taken joked a little about how the film made Europe look dangerous and said the message it sent was "Don't go to Europe", while showing a skyline shot of Paris. It was released on January 6, 2015. One day later, the Charlie Hebdo shooting
occurred, and the following November, Paris was subject to its worst terror attacks since World War II, killing over 100 people and causing the French government to declare a national state of emergency. - The Honest Trailer for The Emoji Movie remarks that Gene is played by the personification of the "meh" emoji, T.J. Miller. While this was probably a reference to his brand of anti-humor, the months following the release of the Honest Trailer saw a number of bad actions come to light about Miller, including sexual assault accusations, transphobia, and calling in a fake bomb threat. Needless to say, the original joke is rather generous about Miller's character now.
- On August 11th, 2020, the Honest Trailer for Avatar: The Last Airbender was released, and included an apprehensive acknowledgment that a live-action adaptation was in the works. The very next day, the creators of the franchise announced that they were dropping from the live-action series project because Netflix's Executive Meddling instilled Creative Differences.
- Epic Voice Guy: Why must we fly so close to the sun?
- In the Honest Trailer for the second season of The Mandalorian, the narrator predicts that Cara Dune might get written out of the show due to her actress Gina Carano's controversial social media activity. Only 8 days after it was first uploaded, Lucasfilm fired Carano after she shared a post many perceived as anti-Semitic, which was the final straw the studio had with her.
- In The Stinger of The Dark Knight Rises trailer, the Narrator, who disliked the film, muses "I'm really worried about Man of Steel now." Man of Steel ended up becoming even more divisive than TDKR, and received worse reviews from critics.
- In the Dragonball Evolution trailer "Starring" gag, Abridged Vegeta refers to Ernie Hudson as "Nobody's Favorite Ghostbuster". In November 2014, Hudson wrote an essay in Entertainment Weekly detailing how he and his character was forced into this role from a rather major one due to Executive Meddling and the bitterness that haunts him to this very day.
- The Game of Thrones trailer mentions memorable characters "who were still alive at the time this trailer was written." Right as he says it, the shot is of Barristan Selmy, who died in Season Five. Aww…
- The ending of the Avatar trailer has the trailer guy saying, "Ugh, we get it, we'll recycle! Please, just make another Terminator already!" Another Terminator movie (albeit not directed by Cameron) was released, but as discussed in one of the Movie Fights episodes, and eventually in its own Honest Trailer, Terminator Genisys isn't actually that good either.
- Among the many things derided in The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies are the obvious presence of a stunt double performing in Christopher Lee's stead during the White Council fight, and the trailer concludes that everything was Jackson's fault and that he did the film for the money. Anyone who had been keeping up with Christopher Lee in the last few years could see that Lee's health was clearly in decline (Lee couldn't even fly to New Zealand to film at his age, and had to be accommodated in London to participate in the trilogy, which he was excited and eager to do), preventing him from actually performing the fight scene himself, and the actor would pass away several months after the film's release; and in Jackson's case, there's the news that came out later of Warner Bros. Executive Meddling, the Troubled Production and that said things combined nearly led Jackson to have an on-set breakdown, which were confirmed by the cast and crew.
- One of the complaints that gets lampooned in the Honest Teaser for the first teaser of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice is "Eh, they should have shown more." When a full trailer was later released, it ended up being criticized for spoiling that Doomsday would appear in the movie.
- Before Suicide Squad (2016) premiered, the Batman (1989) Honest Trailer commented that previews of Jared Leto as the Joker made him seem potentially superior to Jack Nicholson, and subsequent Honest Trailers genuinely looked forward positively to Suicide Squad overall, such as when the Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice Honest Trailer ended with an excited "But at least Suicide Squad looks good!" despite Batman v Superman's polarizing reception. In the eventual Suicide Squad Honest Trailer, they have nothing nice to say about the 10 minutes ultimately shown in the movie of Leto's performance, and besides the performances of Will Smith, Margot Robbie, and Jai Courtney ("of all people," as they note, as Courtney's acting being perceived as bland by them made him a sort of Sitcom Arch-Nemesis to Honest Trailers), nothing nice to say about the movie at all.
- The Starring section in the Honest Trailer for The Mummy (2017) ended mentioning Brendan Fraser, followed by a black screen with the words "FOOTAGE NOT FOUND", which led a disappointed Epic Voice Guy to ask "Where is he these days?" As an interview with GQ months later after the trailer was released revealed, not doing very good.
- During the Blade Runner Honest Trailer, the narrator comments on how Deckard has no problem with forcing himself on Rachel, showing a clip of Han Solo (also played by Harrison Ford) during The Force Awakens and saying "That's not how consent works!", a play on a phrase Solo says during the movie. This was the last Honest Trailer produced before a stream of sexual harassment and abuse allegations against Andy Signore, creator of Honest Trailers, were made public. The show took a hiatus after the fact, making many fans think Andy's ousting had brought an end to it.
- Deliberately invoked at the end of the Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, where "Mouse" explains how a whole herd of vicious, carnivorous albino rhinoceroses were chasing after them, accompanied by a news article of how the entire species itself was now at risk of complete extinction with the passing of the last surviving male white rhino in the world not even a full week before the trailer was released.Epic Voice Guy: Good news, Kevin. We've got them on the ropes. Umm... Yay?
- In the Honest Trailer for The Last Jedi, one of the narrators asks the question: "Should we do this again for Solo?" which is answered "Nah... I'm not gonna see that crap". Later that year Solo was released and became the first Star Wars movie to lose money at the box office. Made even harsher with the title at the end:
- "Star Wars: The Last One You'll Pay To See (until the next one comes out... Maybe...)"
- In the trailer for Avengers: Infinity War, they doubt that any of the deaths in the film will be permanent, using several examples from the comics where characters were brought back. Among them: the death of Tony Stark.
- In the Honest Trailer for Ant-Man and the Wasp, they say that Sonny Burch (Walton Goggins) is such an Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain that even Iron Fist could take him down, referring to the fact that the character's Netflix series had then recently been cancelled after two seasons. At the time, Iron Fist's cancellation didn't come as a huge surprise since the series was the worst critically received Netflix Marvel series in both of its seasons. However, after that, Netflix went on to cancel Luke Cage and Daredevil, and later Jessica Jones and The Punisher as well, all of which were much better received critically, leading some to suspect that the cancellations were part of a pattern rather than the result of poor reviews; a theory is that it has something to do with Disney's then upcoming streaming service, Disney+, which will compete with Netflix.
- Their Honest Trailer for Avengers: Age of Ultron jokes about the emotional toll that the movie's production apparently took on Joss Whedon, leading him to deactivate his Twitter account and temporarily drop off Hollywood's radar. As the narrator puts it: "Uh... Guys? I think we broke Joss Whedon. He needs a hug..." That comment seems even more apt now, since his marriage also fell apart shortly after that video was made.
- While doing Pacific Rim, the narrator is looking forward to the sequel. Fast forward to 2018 and the narrator felt that the sequel, Pacific Rim: Uprising, was such let down that they combined it with Tomb Raider (2018) (another film seen as non-remarkable and by-the-numbers) in one Honest Trailer.
- In the Honest Trailer for The LEGO Movie, the narrator denotes some horror in the fact that Finn and The Man Upstairs could destroy their sentient LEGO universe at any time. In The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part, such horror is realized when Finn is forced to destroy the LEGO universe by putting it into storage as punishment for ruining his sister's creation. The narrator adds that the LEGO universe can't be completely imaginary because Emmet is able to move in the real world. The villain is a version of Emmet from an alternate timeline where he got stranded under a dryer and learned how to move through his own anger.
- During the Honest Trailer for the first three Men in Black films, the Narrator makes it clear that he's not looking forward for the fourth film, Men in Black: International (which was about to be released at the time of the video's release), citing as a reason what he sees as "diminishing returns" as the first three movies progressed, at one point even straight-up asking "Are we sure we want more sequels to this thing?" His comment seems even more apt now, since International ended up being poorly received, complete with reports of Troubled Production, Executive Meddling, and Creative Differences.
- In the Honest Trailer for "Every Streaming Service", Epic Voice Guy compares Quibi to a sick dog that needs to be put down, saying that "Someone should take old Queebs for a run around the block before it's too late". Exactly one month later, Quibi was officially euthanized.
- In the Honest Trailer for Captain America: Civil War, the narrator criticizes the movie for a lack of lasting stakes, stating that Steve's apology letter at the end of the movie makes everything good again between him and Tony and by extension the rest of the Avengers. Avengers: Infinity War opens with revealing that Steve and Tony still have not talked since the end of Civil War and their lack of contact is a major contributing factor for the movie ending with The Bad Guy Wins as the heroes were divided between Wakanda and Titan. Granted, Tony was going to call Steve early in the movie before being interrupted (by Ebony Maw and Cull Obsidian's arrival), but it still would have been 2 years of no contact, a far cry from "no lasting stakes".
- In the Honest Trailer for The Social Network, the Narrator expresses pleasant surprise at the movie being much more entertaining than he expected it to be, noting that he wouldn't mind watching another movie about Facebook. Since that video was released, Facebook has been at the center of several major scandals related to its business practices (most notably the Cambridge Analytica data scandal and the Haugen leak), which arguably make the events depicted in The Social Network look pretty tame by comparison. With that in mind, it's not hard to imagine that there could actually be another movie about Facebook someday.
- In the video for G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra and G.I. Joe: Retaliation, Bruce Willis is described as doing the least to collect his check. This joke became uncomfortable with the revelation, less than a year later, that Willis was forced into retirement due to aphasia, a disability that interferes with his speech, and was quite literally taking any role he could to pay his medical bills.
- In the combined trailer for Tomb Raider (2018) and Pacific Rim: Uprising, the similarities include "end[ing] with a tease for a sequel that'll probably never come." At least for the former, he couldn't have been more right: A sequel was in development, but it suffered delays by the COVID-19 Pandemic and Alicia Vikander's pregnancy, before it was entirely scrapped when MGM lost the rights to the IP in May 2022.
- The Hulk Honest Trailer invites the viewer to "travel back to a time when Kevin Feige could still f*ck up a superhero movie." Later Marvel Cinematic Universe Honest Trailers would treat the Multiverse Saga as the return of such a time, expressing dissatisfaction with such movies as Eternals, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, and Thor: Love and Thunder.
- In the Honest Trailer for the Marvel Cinematic Universe, one of their punchlines is that, using rock documentaries as a comparison, it would peak in Phase 3 while Phase 4 would have it be "puking in the gutter wondering where it all went wrong". To say that this aged very poorly would be an understatement for the actual reception of Phase 4 in the years to come.
- The Frozen (2013) Honest Trailer refers to the movie as the first good Disney musical since Pocahontas. Eight years later, the Pocahontas Honest Trailer would instead refer to its subject as, "an absolute stinker that kicked off more than a decade of garbage", specifically referencing Tarzan, Home on the Range, Brother Bear, Chicken Little, Meet the Robinsons, and Bolt.
- The Honest Trailer for Thor: Ragnarok praises Taika Waititi's comedic direction and Lighter and Softer tone as the things that made said movie, saying that Marvel should "don't reject the weirdo, embrace the weirdo". Come Thor: Love and Thunder, one of the most common criticisms of the film, including from the Honest Trailer, is its overuse of jokes and refusal to give the more serious elements their due respect.
- In the episode for Captain Marvel (2019), Epic Voice Guy expresses some anger at the Skrull's Adaptational Heroism and says that this means that there won't be an adaptation of Secret Invasion (2008) in the MCU. In late 2020 it was announced that actually that storyline is being adapted into a Disney+ TV show in the MCU. Unfortunately, the Honest Trailer for that show doesn't make it seem much better than a non-existent adaptation; it dismisses the series as "a spy thriller without any tension," inconveniently released after most of the public forgot about Captain Marvel.
