Tuesday, September 18, 2012

Dystopian Trailer



I, Robot.  Alex Proyas.  PG-13.  2004
In a future version of earth, robots live peacefully with humans and are programmed not to harm anyone.  When a detective, who is mistrustful of the robots, is assigned to investigate the apparent suicide of the robots' designer, he uncovers a conspiracy that could threaten all of humanity.

This trailer effectively communicates the dystopian premise of the movie through its organization.  The beginning of the trailer focuses on the main character, a police officer, and the inciting moment: the death of the robots' creator, which the main character suspects is murder.  Then it goes back and fills the audience in on the robots' code, role in society, and other things that make it hard to believe the robots could commit murder.  Following this, there is a series of clips highlighting the main character's singularity in suspecting the robots and his fulfilling of the role of dystopian protagonist.  Another character is shown to be at least villainous, if not the villain.  Finally, the trailer reveals a final, big problem: if the protagonist does not convince humanity of the robots' defection, the sudden upcoming increase in robot population will threaten the lives of all humans.  The increase in speed of the clips follows the quickening of the pace of the movie.  The focus on action scenes and characters more than the plot is mainly for marketing purposes.  In my dystopian trailer project, I will likely use the same acceleration in pacing from the beginning to the end.  We will also likely follow a similar organization, with the main characters and premise at the beginning, then the problem, then the bigger problem.  The trailer for I, Robot will be a good model for my group's dystopian trailer.

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