They Have Teasers For Teasers For Goddamn Trailers Now

Here is a teaser for the upcoming Ant-Man teaser, which I don't want to watch on principle, because FOR FUCK'S SAKE. How desperate for a goddamn Ant-Man movie do you have to be to get a boner over an ad for an ad for an ad?

It's a remarkable work of corporate brainwashing that anyone could give a shit about something like this. Everyone in the universe loathes advertising EXCEPT when it comes to movie advertising. They don't even call it advertising: It's a TEASER or a TRAILER, a little bit of linguistic jiu-jitsu that tricks you into thinking that you what you are watching is somehow more substantive than a standard 30-second spot for boner pills or tampons.

But it's not! That Ant Man teaser teaser above (I gave in and watched it) is cleverly designed to show you show you nothing in hopes that, at a later date, you will see SOMETHING. And then the regular teaser will come, promising more of something in the trailer, and then the trailer will come out and give you a bit more something (and spoil the movie in the process), and then the movie will come out and get tepid reviews and turn out be NOTHING, and you may not even bother to see it. Or someone may drag you along to see it, because there will always be a base audience of people who go see a new movie every week, regardless of what's out.

A couple weeks ago, Mark Harris over at Grantland wrote a long diatribe about how these movies are rolled out now, and the gist of it was that all franchise movies are designed to whet your appetite for the NEXT movie and its panoply of trailers and teasers and posters and graphic novel figurines … all to keep you waiting for something EPIC that never actually arrives. It serves to distract you from the movie you are currently watching, which is probably loud and bland and shitty.

In fact, the trailers are usually significantly better than the movies, because all a movie can do, at this point, is crush your expectations. I watched both the and the , and I damn near shit my pants in excitement, because both trailers were entertaining advertisements: quick, loud, expensive, etc. I am pre-sold on the trailer, and thus the quality of the movie itself is now beside the point, because my 10 bucks have already been set aside to spend.

But that's just for those two. I'm not gonna get into this cycle with every two-bit comic book movie that Marvel shits out in a carefully planned 28-stage campaign. You will not hook me with a teaser for a teaser for a featurette for a DVD extra for a trailer for a teaser, Marvel. You hear me? YOU CAN GO TO HELL. And I'm not watching any goddamn PARODY gifs of any of this shit, either.

Unless you got a Silver Surfer movie coming soon. I'll eat that shit right up.