Trailers Always Spoil / Animated Films

• The TV commercials for 9 try their best to hide things by cutting rapidly from scene to scene, but they still manage to spoil 2's funeral, the destruction of the Fabrication Machine, the Cat Beast's death, and several of the dolls having their souls sucked out by the talisman.
• The trailers for the US release of The Adventures of Panda Warrior spoils the ending by showing Patrick fighting the villain.
• Some TV spots for Aladdin spoiled that The Genie is freed from the lamp.
• The trailer for An American Tail: Fievel Goes West is a special case. It didn't spoil itself so much, but the fact that the trailer of the sequel movie (which begins with the ending scene of the previous film, with Fievel riding a pigeon with his sister and asking if he could see more of America) was included at the beginning of every VHS release of the first movie after 1991 meant that it revealed the ending of An American Tail before the movie even started, spoiling that Fievel finds his family for anyone who was watching the movie for the first time.
• The trailer for Don Bluth's Anastasia spoils the fact that Anya is Anastasia, and then shows her in the palace, in formal attire, being addressed as "the princess" and "Your Highness". The previous spoiler isn't so bad, since it's to be expected, but the latter is a big spoiler.
  • The trailer for Bartok the Magnificent spoils Ludmilla's transformation into a dragon.
• The trailers for Big Hero 6 never really tried to hide the fact that Tadashi dies, although it happens early in the film. UK advertising reveals that Hiro wants to kill Yokai.
• The toy commercials for the BIONICLE's Glatorian Legends line of figures showed glimpses of the then-upcoming movie, The Legend Reborn. Among them, the very shot of the four heroes unleashing the final blast at the Skrall and Bone Hunter army, from the end of the climax! Website promos also spoiled Metus' transformation into a snake, thereby revealing that he was to be the traitor. This was also spoiled by the site's behind-the-scenes videos, which showed the actors recording lines — fans have narrowed the identity of the traitor down to Berix and Metus, and then the clips showed Berix's VA talking to the traitor.
• Near the end of the second trailer for The Book of Life, it happens in a brief second but one can see the Sanchez ancestors near the climax.
• Brave:
  • As beautiful as the "Mother's Day" trailer is, the trailer may have given away a few of the ending shots of the film at the (pun intended) tail end of it.
  • Some other trailers and in-movie shots also show Merida walking with, saving or jumping to the rescue of a bear, which is pretty spoilerish when the first trailers show the main antagonist, or one of the main antagonists, of the movie to be a giant grizzly. Apparently, sources have already revealed the smaller, more timid looking bear that's seen with Merida to be her transformed mother.
  • Several movie tie-in books were released before the movie itself, too. Naturally, reading them spoils the whole plot of the movie.
  • A toy commercial also completely spoiled the bear transformation.
  • The movie is being distributed with trailers for a video game that offers minor spoilers.
• Not as bad as most cases, but there are a few scenes in the trailer for Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie that show Captain Underpants with superpowers, proving that he does gain them at some point in the movie.
• Chicken Run: As shown in one of the TV commercials, the chickens manage to escape by making their own pedal-powered plane!
  • The trailers for the sequel spoiled the appearance of Mrs. Tweedy.
• Almost all the recent promos for Coco spoil the Sunrise Spectacular concert and Miguel's final song, where Héctor is shown attending the celebration.
• Coraline. The trailer shows the scene where the Other Mother gives Coraline the buttons and sewing needles.
• The second trailer for DC League Of Superpets spoils that Batman adopts Ace.
• Promotional material for The Emoji Movie barely tried to hide the fact Smiler was a villain. One trailer, for example, had her threatening the protagonists for leaving the phone.
• Encanto:
  • While it's early in the movie, Antonio's gift ceremony is supposed to build up suspense about what gift he gets and whether he has a gift at all, since the previous ceremony (Mirabel's) resulted in no gift. The effect is weakened by the trailers, which clearly show Antonio communicating with animals, spoiling his gift.
  • The first trailer clearly showed Bruno talking with Mirabel, even though the first half of the movie sets up his disappearance and the fact he's still in the house is meant to be a surprise.
• Finding Dory had a bad case of this:
  • Later trailers and commercials for the film spoil the scene where Hank gets poked by a kid and inks in the touch pond, causing the kids in the area to run away. It got to the point where said clip was shown during shows where Ed O'Neil, Hank's voice actor, was interviewed such as Entertainment Tonight.
  • The clip used to introduce Hank in this April Fool's prank is part of the scene where Dory reaches her old home at the Open Ocean exhibit.
  • This Subway commercial for kids' meals based off the film uses clips that spoil some major plotlines in the movie, including the fact that Marlin and Nemo wait for Dory in the tanks that are going on the truck to Cleveland.
  • The film's Japanese trailer shows the otters bringing Dory into the truck bound for Cleveland as well as Destiny jumping out of her enclosure, both from the film's climax.
• Frozen:
  • Frozen:
    • A fan-edited trailer parodies this. The video makes some Retraux attempts at emulating an ad from The '90s, with a love ballad playing in the background, some idents from Disney's VHS tapes serving as bookends, and a clip revealing some major points about the climax (the scene in which a freezing Anna tries to stop Hans from killing Elsa) appearing before the title card.
  • Official trailers also show some spoileriffic clips, though. This includes Elsa bringing back summer and saving Olaf from melting. A more subtle example is Elsa giving Anna a hug, when Elsa had previously been too scared to approach, much less touch, Anna. It's also apparent on closer examination that this happens after Anna's aforementioned Heroic Sacrifice frees herself from the curse.
  • Home release trailers for Frozen II reveal the costume change Elsa receives in the last fifteen minutes of the film. There was also a Disney Music ad that had the same spoiler that first appeared a week after the film's theatrical release.
• The Good Dinosaur: Most of the trailers spoil Poppa's death, Arlo's friendship to Spot, the meeting of Forrest Woodbush, Arlo helping the cowboy T-Rexes, Arlo encounters the main villain, Thunderclap and also the climax. In short, the trailers just showed you the entire movie. This could be one of the reasons why the film didn't perform so well at the box office.
• The trailers for Hoodwinked Too! Hood vs. Evil stress the fact that Red and co. are trying to save two innocent kids from a wicked witch. Save for the one which shows said "innocent" children with creepy grins saying: "You've been hoodwinked! Too!"
• How to Train Your Dragon 2's trailer takes no issue with spoiling The Reveal of Hiccup's mother.
• Inside Out:
  • The Japanese trailers run on this, so they aren't to be seen by anyone (besides people who don't mind about spoilers) before seeing the film itself.
  • Some of the American trailers spoil the movie as well. Two notable examples were the clip where Joy rides in Bing Bong's rocket to the top and we can clearly see that he is not in it, and the scene where Joy and Sadness return to Headquarters.
• Jonah: A VeggieTales Movie:
  • This trailer spoils the Wham Line uttered by Khalil.
  • Several trailers included a clip of Jonah flopping on the ground and crying, which comes from the scene where Jonah is upset that Khalil ate the plant he used for shade.
• The first American trailer for Kiki's Delivery Service spoils the entire climax.
• Kung Fu Panda:
  • The DVD trailer for Kung Fu Panda 2 completely spoiled the fact that Po's biological father, and several other pandas, are still alive, which isn't revealed until the last few seconds of the film.
  • The DVD trailer for Kung Fu Panda 3 spoils literally almost the entire movie, including Kai's destruction of the Jade Palace, Po training of the panda village to fight against Kai, and the final battle in the Spirit Realm.
• The original trailer for Lady and the Tramp, all the way back in 1955, shows that not only do Lady and Tramp get together, but have puppies to boot.
• One preview of The LEGO Movie showed bits from Emmet's vision, including a live-acted human hand. Also, Bad Cop's fate was revealed by his toy, released prior to the movie. The LEGO sets actually gave away many details, such as Bad Cop's parents getting frozen in glue or Uni-Kitty disguising herself as Business-Kitty, but not always the exact interpretation of the scenes.
• The trailer for Life's a Jungle: Africa's Most Wanted clearly shows the ending of the movie.
• The Lion King's trailer spoils most of the plot. Movie posters tend to show Mufasa's ghost as well.
• Meet the Robinsons had a trailer that showed the future Lewis in a group with the Robinson family, with his arm around Franny from one of the final scenes in the movie, making the big reveal completely predictable.
• Megamind probably had one of the worst offending trailers, in which it showed that Metro Man was not dead and had simply given up superheroing after his confrontation with Megamind at the beginning of the film. The entire main plot kicked off with Megamind trying to cope over believing he had killed Metro Man.
• This official preview for Monsters University spoils the entire plot.
• This Mulan trailer in which it shows the Emperor's big speech at the end, which in turn gives away big chunks of the movie. It even shows the scene with her turning around and all of China bowing to her.
• The original BMG Video trailer for Mumfie's Quest shows Mr. and Mrs. Admiral being reunited, Whale being freed from a net by the electric eels and part of the scene where Secretary of Night gets turned into stone by the Cloak of Dreams.
• In ParaNorman, the trailer spoils nearly every joke, even if it does not spoil the plot for the most part. However, the Japanese trailer did spoil the plot.
• The trailer for PAW Patrol: The Movie spoils the scene at the end where Humdinger gets a wedgie, leading to his underwear showing for a second time.
• The second trailer for Postman Pat: the Movie spoiled Wilf's redemption and the fact that Postman Pat won the singing competition.
• Watch any of the commercials for The Powerpuff Girls Movie and you've basically watched the whole thing (which could've been why the movie didn't do so well). It also doesn't help that Cartoon Network aired these commercials on practically every commercial break back when the movie came out.
• Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken has its narrative depict Chelsea as a twist villain, going from a new friend of Ruby to her Arch-Enemy at the film's climax where she reveals her true colors. Unfortunately, this was spoiled from the very first trailer outright saying that mermaids are evil, and following trailers and marketing heavily emphasizing krakens and mermaids being enemies and even showing the climax where Chelsea has become a giant sea monster destroying the city. In fact, the marketing was so blatant that many thought the trailers were deliberately hiding a major twist, such as Chelsea turning out to not be the villain.
• A Sausage Party trailer spoils Carl's death and Druggie's appearance.
• Shrek:
  • The nature of Puss in Boots (a cute little kitty who just happens to be a mercenary) is clearly meant to be a comedic twist, but the trailers for Shrek 2 practically made it the main selling point.
  • TV spots for Shrek 2 also showed Donkey as a white stallion, though they didn't show Shrek in his human form.
  • Shrek the Third's merchandise spoiled the birth of the Ogre Triplets (Shrek and Fiona's children), as well as the Distressed Damsel princesses going Action Girl. Some of the trailers showed the princesses' action sequence in its entirety.
• The first trailers for Sing depicted the most emotional moments of the film, including most of the finale concert. The scenes of Johnny and his father were probably the worst offender, as they show the father in prison rejecting Johnny through phone call and then show him at the end of the film, proud of Johnny's performance, effectively summarizing their entire arc.
  • Sing 2 is even worse about it. The only thing that the trailers DON'T spoil is that the wolf boss is even more of a bad guy than he seems. Slightly. And that's about it.
• A French trailer for Song of the Sea spoils the plot from beginning to end, even going as far as to include the last shot of the film.
• Even the earliest trailers for Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse showed the scene of Miles finally taking his "leap of faith" and nearly mastering his powers. Granted, that plot point's a bit of a given, but it's still giving away a huge plot point.
• One of the trailers for The Sponge Bob Movie Sponge Out Of Water clearly shows Plankton as Plank-Ton.
• The trailers for Strange Magic: The scene where Roland makes out with some kind of insect is frequently shown in trailers.
• The trailers for The Thief and the Cobbler had clearly shown the entire plot of the film which included the three golden balls being stolen from the kingdom, the climatic battle with the main villain One-Eye and Tak and Princess Yum-Yum getting married at the end of the film.
• A home video trailer for Titan A.E. showed the entire movie, start to finish, in order, including the final scenes of a new Earth being formed and the lead characters on it. As a result, some didn't bother to see the movie. Indeed, the movie didn't do well in theaters; this might have been a factor.
• Toy Story 3:
  • Toy Story 3 had trailers that spoiled that the new toys were the villains. And while they never explicitly stated who the Big Bad was, many viewers were able to tell just from what was shown (and if not that, then from the other marketing). In the later trailers it almost revealed that the real plot was an emotional rollercoaster.
  • The Japanese trailer was even worse about this, as is showed every main plot point.
• The Transformers: The Movie:
  • The promotional material for the most part did a good job of hiding Optimus Prime's death, except for one TV advert that felt the need to give kids a head's up with the line "Does Prime die!?" Then the very next question the Narrator asks is: "Then, who will lead the Autobots?" There's not much need for a new leader unless the old one dies, ya know...
  • The 20th Anniversary DVD set prominently shows Hot Rod opening the Matrix on the inside cover art. This literally happens in the last scene of the film. And while all the other chapter titles are deliciously subtle, "Megatron Transformed" might have been playing its hand a bit too much.
• Trolls:
  • Trailers for the first movie advertise new songs by Justin Timberlake, who voices a character that does not sing at the beginning of the film. What are the chances this will change by the end?
  • A few trailers and promos of Trolls World Tour basically hinted at Barb's Heel–Face Turn, especially when some commercials showed her on good terms with Poppy and the others.
  • Some trailers for Trolls Band Together advertised a brand new song by *NSYNC, kind of giving away that Justin Timberlake's former bandmates appear at the end of the movie as trolls.
• The main trailer for Turning Red spoils some of the funniest scenes like Mei breaking her bed, Abby punching Mei, and the bathroom "OMG!" scene, it also spoils Mei giving Tyler a Close-Call Haircut.
• Up:
  • One trailer spoiled that Charles Muntz is the villain.
  • Most other trailers for Up were actually a remarkable aversion to the trope. Aside from the presence of a talking dog and a floating balloon house, nothing else was really shown.
• Wallace & Gromit:
  • A TV spot for The Curse of the Were-Rabbit spoiled that the were-rabbit is Wallace, showing fuzzy fur popping out of his trademark sweater-vest. It even had the announcer say "What started as a little mistake became a big problem" over scenes of the mind-manipulator accident and said transformation scene.
  • The theatrical trailer was even worse. At one point, it shows Wallace with long, fuzzy rabbit ears. Doesn't get more spoiler-y than that.
• The second trailer for Wolfwalkers gives away Bill's wolf form, spoiling that he would become a Wolfwalker as well.

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