Fly Me to the Moon's Trailer Scam

When a Film Does the Opposite of its Trailer

Worse than a trailer giving away the entire film, is when a trailer completely misleads you about the premise of a movie.

Watch any trailer for 'Fly Me to the Moon' and you'll see a comedic film about NASA faking the moon landings. It's a hilarious premise - to take what all of the conspiracists have been saying for years - and run with it. It's a brilliant idea for a story, and the trailer does a good job of getting us excited about it.

But the trailer is a LIE!

*SPOILER ALERT*

In the film, they don't fake the moon landing.

Woody Harrelson turns up (he works for the government), and tells Scarlett Johansson (NASA Marketing Exec) that they need to film a fake moon landing for the broadcast.

Scarlett agrees, and the fake moon landing goes into production.

But then she has a change of heart and decides to disobey the government and broadcast the real footage instead.

THIS IS TERRIBLE STORYTELLING!

Here are two viable story options:

Idea 1. Tell a straightforward, truthful retelling of the moon landing, i.e. a film like 'Apollo 13,' but about Apollo 11, with all of its twists and turns and heroism.

Idea 2. Make a comedic film about how and why they faked the moon landing. This is a hilarious premise. It's essentially what we see in the film’s trailer.

'Fly Me to the Moon' starts out strong. Full of comedy, a little romance, and a touch of late 1960s nostalgia. And, I must say, the soundtrack is GREAT!

But then the film chickens out of its own beautiful premise.

Idea 3. NASA are planning to land on the moon. Then they decide to fake the moon landing. Then, after a while, they decide to not actually fake the moon landing. But they'll still film a fake moon landing version, just to keep one guy happy, but otherwise things will play out just like they did for real in 1969.

Huh?

It feels like the film changed its writers half way through. The tone changed. The comedy vanished, as did the conflict.

A movie without conflict is dead.

As soon as Scarlett has a change of heart and decides to NOT fake the moon landing, we then spend the final 50 minutes waiting for the Apollo 11 mission to play out the normal way.

There's a brief attempt at conflict towards the end.

They're still filming the 'fake' version to fool Woody Harrelson, but they're planning to broadcast the real version, from the moon. Then there's a bizarre mix up in the control room where they worry the fake version is being broadcast to the world. A cat runs onto the film set, but the cat doesn't appear on anyone's TV screens, so everyone is relieved, knowing the real footage from the moon is what's being used.

What???

'Fly Me to the Moon' was sitting on a brilliant comedic premise. In the very early stages of the film, it felt like they'd deliver.

But then they caved in on their own premise, they did the opposite of what the trailers suggested, and the film slowly died over a long two hours.

On the plus side, Scarlett Johansson and Channing Tatum are a joy to watch. If this was a straight comedy, or a romance, they could have saved it. Instead, the film gave up on its own great premise and dribbled along to the death. A missed opportunity.