It makes sense that for a cinematic game they want a cinematic trailer, and film trailers have been bad for a long time. Marketing is made to grab maximum attention in minimum time but the most attention-grabbing parts of a story are usually further in. The big dramatic moments need some build-up and so you aren't going to see the most impactful of them in the first act, so trailers start spoiling events further into the plot to get to the meat. And nuanced characterisation can never really take place when you're summing characters and plots up in montages that are, at most, a few minutes long. There are plenty of good films that had bad trailers. For example, the Blade Runner 2049 trailer made it look like a mindless action film and not the slow, thoughtful work it actually was, because that's unfortunately, the nature of the medium. So the trailers for Detroit haven't bothered me nearly as much as Cage's previous work, the longer demos, and Cage's statements about his writing in the press. I think those were the real bad omens.
Log in to comment