I Could Be Wrong

I remember, when I was in college, seeing the ads for The Emperor’s New Groove and thinking, “Oh, that looks lousy.” It looked like it was hokey kids’ stuff. It looked like it would be broad humour and nothing aimed at anything but the youngest of children. There was no way. It also starred David Spade, after all, and I’ve never been able to stand him. This was just after Pocahontas and Hercules, which I still haven’t seen and which I have yet to be convinced I’m wrong about, and I was sure that it was just another Disney movie that I wasn’t going to bother with. And then my roommate rented it, and oh.

The purpose of a trailer is to convince you that you should watch a movie, but it’s still an established fact that sometimes, trailers are bad. The original Star Wars trailer is lousy. It’s not uncommon for trailers to make thoughtful, moody movies to look like action spectaculars. Drive, for example. Trailers hide that movies are musicals or make them seem like musicals; they hide aspects that are considered to be bad at the box office. You can’t necessarily trust the trailer.

Even more, though, you aren’t necessarily right about what you think. I didn’t think I would be as interested in Midsommar as I turned out to be. I spent years mocking Fame before I ever saw it, and I ended up loving it. Hell, when I was a kid, I even saw part of Citizen Kane and didn’t like it, doubtless because I was too young for it. Conversely, I thought I would adore seeing Hailee Steinfeld as Juliet, but the Romeo and Juliet she’s in is dreadful. What you think you believe about a movie going in might not be what you believe when you watch it; I wanted to be mad at JFK and was just bored.

And if you disagree with any of my opinions? That’s okay! I’ve come to love The Emperor’s New Groove and Citizen Kane, because I disagree with myself, or what my stance was years ago at least. What movies I love are not necessarily what movies you love. That’s why “what’s your favourite movie?” is even a question. If there were an objective reality about what movies are good and what movies are bad, we could all have the same favourite movie and some movies would drop from sight and never be seen again.

Oh, some movies do. And some deserve to. Every year, movies are made that sink out of sight, and that’s just fine. But some of the movies I think deserve to sink from sight are still popular, and some of the movies I love are movies you might think deserve to sink from sight. That’s okay. We have different preferences, because we are different people. We can agree that it’s a bad trailer and disagree about whether the movie itself is good or bad. Heck, we can even disagree about whether or not the trailer’s bad. Everyone is allowed opinions.