Went to see the  “Terminator Salvation” movie the other day…

…so I’ll take the opportunity to make a few comments about the movie and also continue the series of taking a look at the trailer to see if we can get some tips for marketing videos.

What I’m going to do when looking at trailers in future is use the framework of a truncated “A-I-D-A” formula…

We know what the last A is (Action, of course)…

…so we’ll see how well a trailer stacks up in terms of grabbing Attention, creating Interest and stimulating Desire to go and see the movie.

The movie itself, first.

There’s a problem with movies like this where, basically, you know what’s going to happen.  We know the “good guys” are going to win…

…because basically the earlier movies told us that!

Now, in the Terminator series there is an element of uncertainty because of the time travel and potential alternate reality elements.

However, it’s a little flimsy so the writers have the problem of how to create drama and tension in the movie.

They do this by introducing a mysterious character, Marcus Wright, who we guess is a cyborg of some kind…

…but we’re not sure whose side he’s on.

By doing this, there is an element of uncertainty.  We haven’t heard of this character in the previous movies and the John Connor character echoes that uncertainty when he states that “this isn’t what my mother warned me about”.

For story buffs, the Marcus Wright character is the classic “Stranger comes to town” theme and, for me, it’s the best element of the movie.  Sam Worthington (playing the Wright character) steals the show, in my humble opinion.

As for the rest of the movie, it’s not bad.

It’s fast paced with plenty of action…but it doesn’t quite hang together to me.

Having said that, worth seeing if you’re a Terminator fan.

Now, as to the trailer.

Certainly grabs the attention with the obligatory “big bang” action scenes.

It then starts to develop interest by introducing the Marcus Wright character and the new element.

It then almost completely blows the whole thing by seemingly giving away the mystery…

…before retrieving the interest at the end and leaving you wondering.

To put some structure on these trailer reviews, I’m going to use a scale of 1-10, with 3 marks possible for each element of Attention, Interest and Desire…

…with 1 discretionary mark that I’ll award based on my overall impressions.

My marks are…

Attention – 2 (fairly orthodox but good enough)

Interest – 2 (good story development, almost loses it but a good recovery that sparks interest)

Desire – 2 (does a good enough job to want you to know more but really doesn’t have to work too hard given that there’s a ready audience for the movie from the existing legions of fans)

Extra Mark – 0 (the trailer’s OK but not outstanding, in my view)

TOTAL – 6/10

OK, here’s the trailer so you can judge for yourself.  Note that for some reason, the “official” trailers didn’t provide an “embed” at Youtube, so I’ve had to make do with this review video…