I personally have felt that all marketing related tropes should be trivia, as you can watch your favorite movie a hundred times while never actually seeing the original trailer used to promote it. It doesn't make much sense that Never Trust a Trailer is a main trope and Missing Trailer Scene is trivia.
Do you not know that in the service one must always choose the lesser of two weevils!
Blapper of Water
Do we no longer have a dedicated thread for trivia items and deciding whether something is trivia?
Look at all that shiny stuff ain't they pretty
We no longer do. It was too inactive and too superficial.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
Discarded and Feeling Blue
We closed it to tackle issues at TRS.
Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness
Now a lurker. Thanks for everything. | he/him
And if Never Trust a Trailer is to be made Trivia, a TRS thread is needed. I have heard a wick check isn't necessary for something like this (as was the case with Dummied Out), but a while back I raised the point again in the TRS meta thread (because I wanted to bring Abandonware in to be moved to Trivia) and was told that a wick check is still recommended so that A. the number of wicks in Trivia can be counted, and B. other patterns of misuse/other potential tropes hidden in the offending trope can be found.
TRS Queue | Works That Require Cleanup of Complaining | Troper Wall
Gonna advertise this thread over at the Wick Check thread.
Edited by JHD on Dec 28th 2021 at 11:55:27 AM
Blapper of Water
Ah, okay, that makes sense. I guess that thread was an outdated holdover from the earlier eras of TV Tropes.
I would think this has stayed as a trope due to its sub-tropes, since there's the typical belief that a subtrope/supertrope pairing needs to be either both a trope or both not a trope (such as YMMV or Trivia). However, there are so many subtropes that are still tropes that this is the likely culprit.
Subtropes that are tropes:
- Advertised Extra (and its subtrope)
- Clickbait Gag
- Covers Always Lie (and its subtropes)
- Real Trailer, Fake Movie
- Sir Not-Appearing-in-This-Trailer
- Tonight, Someone Kisses
- Trailers Always Spoil
- Trailer Spoof
Subtropes that are not tropes:
I'm not saying all of these should remain tropes or should be changed to trivia items, but there they are...
It also looks like Misaimed Marketing is its supertrope? But MM is trivia as well.
[EDIT:Thinking it over some more, this is actually quite a pain to deal with. We trope advertising campaigns, and this trope would be an objective trope in advertising campaigns for the movie / show, but this would not be an objective trope in the movie / show itself, strictly speaking. Looking over the archived discussion, it seems like we've all just assumed for nearly a decade that trailers are necessarily part of consuming film or television, as though you'd have to see the trailer before seeing the movie. However, with the advent of Netflix I think we're all starting to see that this simply is not the case. Titles certainly are tropeworthy, and I'd argue that covers are also tropeworthy (if only as "paratext"). But I honestly don't see how trailers are necessarily part of the work itself.
Would there be an equivalent Advertising Tropes idea here? Like Results Not Typical but for movies. It's still a bit early considering there's not a wick check but on the face of it I do agree that this is a weird situation.]
Edited by WaterBlap on Dec 28th 2021 at 1:34:34 PM
Look at all that shiny stuff ain't they pretty
I don't know a whole lot about Advertising Tropes, but I do agree trailers are not a part of the work. This is indeed a weird situation.
Bumping to raise awareness of this thread. Only time I'll do this, I promise.
I agree that it seems more like trivia
NaNo 4328 / 50,000
Go one step further and compare the advertising for a work to the sequel to a work (except it is generally released the other way around). We only split the sequel away from the main work article when it has enough content to make a separate article.
Don't forget that DVD/VHS/cartridge/book covers are also part of the advertising, and generally cannot be missed before enjoying the work.
Another point is that if you remove advertising from the main work article, which includes posters/trailers/previews, then we won't be able to trope unreleased works because the only part of the "unreleased work" that is released is the advertising campaign.
Link to TRS threads in project mode here.
There is a difference between tropes that are used in promotional material and tropes that are about promotional material. There is Never Trust a Trailer and "The promotional footage is showing a Spider Tank." Some works like Star Wars struggle to not get overwhelmed with the supplemental factoids that aren't actually in the work, and were likely made by two completely different teams.
Do you not know that in the service one must always choose the lesser of two weevils!
I'm confused. Are you simply pointing out something, or are you responding to Crazy Samaritan?
NaNo 4328 / 50,000
NTAT isn't about the trailer, it is about the contrast between the trailer and the final product. It is closer to Continuity Tropes, which are about the contrast between a description of events in chapter three versus chapter seventeen, than it is to Fade In, which is about a specific effect used at a specific time. Continuity Creep and Continuity Drift don't happen in a specific chapter (even if this is chapter 233), but provide a contrast between earlier and later parts of the franchise.
Link to TRS threads in project mode here.
I can kind of understand that approach, as it would make it similar to any of the Adaptation tropes where it is "X is different than Y." At the same time, with the idea of "promotional material implies something different than what actually happens" is just a really vague line to draw, as it would also apply to things like Lying Creator or Billing Displacement.
I've always viewed trivia tropes as being about facts and information you can only acquire if you explore material separate from the work, ranging from trailers to interviews to visual dictionaries, etc. Hence if a trope only exists because of a conflict with supplemental material, it's not a trope innate to the work.
Do you not know that in the service one must always choose the lesser of two weevils!
In my eyes, if it's not a trope innate to a work, it's not a trope at all. And as we all know, Trivia items are not tropes.
NaNo 4328 / 50,000
Advertising isn't supplemental/additional material, but again, if that's the approach taken, then we can no longer trope upcoming works because if advertising isn't part of the work itself, then we cannot add trailer tropes to the work page.
Link to TRS threads in project mode here.
Blapper of Water
A sequel is its own work, but advertising is not. You are comparing apples to oranges here.
This is patently incorrect. Those things are paratext, whereas advertisements are separate (mini-)works that showcase some other work. We can trope advertising campaigns because the ads are works in and of themselves, but the question here is whether or not the ads are tied to a separate ad campaign or to the actual work being advertised.
This isn't about all forms of advertising for a movie or show, like the DVD cover or title. On another note I thought troping "unreleased works" was already deprecated a year ago (when I left the last time).
It seems like you are equating paratext (e.g. covers, titles, back-of-book blurbs, etc) with advertising. While, yes, a cover is part of a marketing campaign that is not the same as advertising. Ads are separate works, so when someone calls an ad "supplemental material" that is actually a fair description.
Look at all that shiny stuff ain't they pretty
"The question here is whether or not the ads are tied to a separate ad campaign or to the actual work being advertised."
No it isn't - the actual question is whether or not the advertisement lying about the actual work being advertised is tropable. Like I said before, Trivia items are not tropes, and thus are not tropable. Whether or not the ads are tied to separate ad campaigns (a.k.a. an ad campaign that has nothing to do with the first ad campaign) is irrelevant here.
Edited by JHD on Jan 2nd 2022 at 3:21:21 PM
Discarded and Feeling Blue
Doesn't that argument sort of rely on NTAT being proven as Trivia first, though? It's a bit circular if you say it's not a trope because it's trivia, and that it should be trivia because it's not a trope.
I have no personal horse in this race, I'm just a lurker who isn't sure what argument you're actually making here.
Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness
"Doesn't that argument sort of rely on NTAT being proven as Trivia first, though?"
No it doesn't. At all. I have no idea where you're getting that from.
"It's a bit circular if you say it's not a trope because it's trivia, and that it should be trivia because it's not a trope."
I never said that, though. I'm simply pointing out that Trivia items are not tropable because the issue of whether or not NTAT is tropable (i.e. not Trivia) is the entire reason I even made this thread.
"I have no personal horse in this race, I'm just a lurker who isn't sure what argument you're actually making here."
My point is that Water Blap is conflating an ad campaign-ad campaign relationship with an ad campaign-work relationship, when NTAT's definition is clearly referring to the latter.
Edited by JHD on Jan 2nd 2022 at 3:36:00 PM
Blapper of Water
Whether or not trailers are part of the work is the same question as whether or not trailers are tropeable. If it isn't part of the work, then it's Trivia (which is being asked here), but if it is part of the work, then it's not Trivia.
I agree with War Jay that your phrasing is confusing. Personally your explanation of Trivia comes out of nowhere since I haven't said anything that implies I don't understand what Trivia is.
"I said we can trope ad campaigns as separate works in their own right and tropes about trailers are tropes for advertisements. But the ads themselves are not part of the work, and fundamentally all Trivia items are "tropes" about elements that exist wholly outside of works."
By that logic, we should list NTAT on work pages about advertisements, and on Trivia pages for non-advertisement works. I'm not against the idea, but I'm just saying.
Blapper of Water
In theory that would be what I'm saying, but we don't have pages for movie ad campaigns so, speaking practically, it'd be on the Trivia subpages for works. At least, that's what I'm thinking would be appropriate.
And I'm asking if there's some reason not to put this sort of "trope" on Trivia pages for works. Or am I being too rigid. That's really what I'm asking about.
Look at all that shiny stuff ain't they pretty
Never Trust a Trailer is listed as a Main trope, but I think it fits better as Trivia. I'm creating this thread so that we can discuss whether or not we should reclassify this trope as a Trivia item.