Trailer Talk: 'The Amazing Spider-Man 2' Spoils Surprises

《超凡蜘蛛侠2》首发预告剧透打消惊喜

For the record, since I’m talking about how a marketing campaign has spoiled a number of big surprises, a “spoiler warning” is in place.

事先声明，既然要讲的是一部电影如何在推广过程中因剧透而破坏众多惊喜，那么文中包含剧透的事实自不在话下。

Not that it was that surprising considering the banner that dropped over the weekend, but yes, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 trailer indeed reveals that the film will have no shortage of villains. Considering that pretty much no one outside the hardcore fan community knew about this, I cannot help-but-wonder why Sony

既然预告片已经公开发布，现在看来，这些并不算什么巨大的“惊喜”，但《超凡蜘蛛侠2》（The Amazing Spider-Man 2）的预告片的确透露了一点，那就是这部电影将不缺反派角色。考虑到除了铁杆影迷群体以外，几乎没人知道这一点，我不禁感到疑惑，为什么索尼（Sony）的营销团队要提前透露出来——这原本会给众多观众带去惊喜。没错，我们在预告片中看到了全新亮相的“绿魔”，还有保罗·吉亚玛提（Paul Giamatti）饰演的犀牛人和杰米·福克斯（Jamie Foxx）饰演的电光人。我们甚至在预告片中看到了章鱼博士的机械义肢和秃鹰的机械翅膀（据传闻称这是片尾彩蛋）。这就是宣传机器提前开动的弊端。要是索尼公司在首发海报和首个预告片中就把这些东西亮出来了，那么今后四个月里，他们还要披露哪些素材？

Sony marketing decided to spoil what should have been a fun surprise for so many. Yup, we’re getting a new Green Goblin along with the Rhino (Paul Giamatti) and Electro (Jamie Foxx). And we even get a glimpse of Doctor Octopus’s tentacles and Vulture’s wings (in what is rumored to be the post-credit teaser). This is one of the negative sides of having the publicity machine start this early. If Sony is giving this stuff away in the first posters and first teaser, what will they have to reveal in the later material four months from now?

遗憾的是，目前看来，唯一悬而未决的问题就是艾玛·斯通（Emma Stone ）饰演的角色是否会在电影中死去。可是，说到这个细节，就连普通影迷也知道，在漫画书中，格温·斯泰西（Gwen Stacey）就是死在了绿魔的手中。自格温·斯泰西在上一部影片中被宣布为爱情女主角后，影迷都屏息静气地等待艾玛·斯通被扔下大桥，然后因为安德鲁·加菲尔德（Andrew Garfield）饰演的蜘蛛侠救援不力而扭断脖子当场死亡。几乎每个人对此片感兴趣的人都表示，希望看到新电影对这个著名情节的演绎。上部《蜘蛛侠》系列的导演山姆·雷米（Sam Raimi）避开了这个情节，将克里斯汀·邓斯特（Kristen Dunst）饰演的玛丽·简·沃森（Mary Jane Watson）置于同样的危险境地，但每每让她死里逃生。

So sadly the only open question is whether or not Emma Stone in fact dies in the film. Oh yes, that detail. Even casual fans will know that Gwen Stacey is best known in the comic books for dying at the hands of the Green Goblin. Ever since Gwen Stacey was announced as the main love interest in the last picture, fans have been waiting in baited breath to watch Emma Stone get tossed off a bridge and have her neck accidentally snapped by Andrew Garfield’s botched rescue attempt. Pretty much everyone involved has expressed their desire to play out this infamous scenario in the new franchise, something Sam Raimi shied away from last time around, placing Kristen Dunst’s Mary Jane Watson in similar peril but keeping her alive through the entire series.

现在唯一的问题是，这起“谋杀”究竟会发生在这部影片还是下部电影里头，但是所有的迹象表明，这将是艾玛·斯通出演的最后一部《蜘蛛侠》影片。我呢，我只希望随着斯通在本片第三幕被残忍杀害，观众席上不要爆发出雷鸣般的掌声。“忠于原著”的心情我能理解，但对于无辜的女旁观者在一部超级英雄电影中惨遭杀害的情节，观众只感到刺激兴奋和“迫不及待”，这还是让我感到不舒服。

The only question is whether the murder happens in this film or in the next film, but all signs point to this being Stone’s last Spidey adventure. I can’t help but hope that I don’t end up in a situation where the audience breaks out into rapturous applause as Stone gets brutally murdered in the third act of the picture. I get the pleasure of source fidelity, but I can’t help but be discomforted over the sheer excitement and “I can’t wait!” enthusiasm over the idea of an innocent (female) bystander being murdered in a superhero picture.

不过从目前来看，这部预告片看起来还是一部大家再熟悉不过的续集预告片。它并没有被剪接成支离破碎的镜头，把重点放在了叙事而非动作场面上，这一点我很欣赏。奇怪的是，在这部时长2分30秒的预告片的大部分镜头中，杰米·福克斯饰演的大反派电光人都没有露面，怪就怪在他是大多数观众已经了解的一个角色。就营销角度讲，这部预告片还算过得去，只是这些超级英雄续集预告片都开始变得越来越类似，越来越难以区分了，这有点让人不安。它没有《蝙蝠侠：黑暗骑士》（Dark Knight）第一弹预告片那般刺激，也不像画面精彩、简洁明快的《蜘蛛侠2》预告片——伴随着丹尼·艾夫曼（Danny Elfman）激动人心的主题曲，十年前跟电影《指环王：王者无敌》（The Return of the King）一同首发。

But for the moment, the trailer above looks like an all-too-familiar sequel trailer. I like that it’s not cut to ribbons and places the emphasis on plot rather than action. Oddly enough it spends most of its 2:30 running time hiding its prime villain, Jamie Foxx as Electro, which is odd since he’s the one that most audiences already knew about. It’s a fine piece of marketing, it’s just a little disconcerting how generic and/or similar these superhero sequel trailers are starting to feel. It’s not quite the excitement-booster of the first Dark Knight teaser or even the deliciously brief Spider-Man 2 teaser, set to Danny Elfman’s stirring themes, that debuted with The Return of the King ten years ago.

现在看来，《超凡蜘蛛侠2》代表了《古墓丽影》（ Tomb Raider ）系列陷阱的典范。没错，电影《超凡蜘蛛侠》在2012年获得了7.5亿美元的全球票房，但是火爆程度远远低于原先的《蜘蛛侠》电影或实力相当的系列电影的首部影片。效仿华纳兄弟公司（Warner Bros.）在电影《超人：钢铁之躯2》（Man Of Steel 2）加入各路英雄（蝙蝠侠、神奇女侠、闪电侠等等）的做法，《超凡蜘蛛侠2》似乎也希望在这部电影中让所有反派人物悉数登场，以此吸引那些不喜欢上一部电影的观众再次尝试续集。

As it stands, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 stands as a core example of the Tomb Raider Trap. Yeah, The Amazing Spider-Man made $750 million worldwide back in 2012, but the excitement level was far below that of the original Spider-Man or comparable franchise starters. Similar to how Warner Bros. is filling up Man Of Steel 2 with copious heroes (Batman, Wonder Woman, The Flash, etc.), The Amazing Spider-Man 2 seems to be hoping that jamming the film full of villains will entice those who didn’t care for the last installment to take another go.

不过，即使这部续集比上集更好，但由于前作表现太过强劲，续集是否依然会遭遇票房低迷？显然，只要索尼公司对拍摄预算稍加控制（让成本更接近2亿美元，而不是2.5亿美元），就算票房收入持平或略低，最终结果也不会那么惨。索尼公司已经把下两部续集的上映时间分别确定为2016和2018年暑期档，看来他们对此次投资充满了信心。本片演员阵容非常强大，而且据说有了一个更好的剧本，没有再拿原著老调重弹的必要，加之另外一些积极的迹象（比如白天的动作场面，而且索尼允许导演马克·韦布采用2D格式的35毫米胶片变形电影，而非3D数字电影），我只能对它的上映抱以乐观的期待。

But even if the sequel is a better film, will it suffer a lower box office fate due to the bridges burnt by its underwhelming predecessor? Obviously as long as Sony keeps the budgets a little bit in check (closer to $200 million as opposed to $250 million), a similar or slightly smaller box office take won’t mean the end of the world. Sony already has two more sequels on tap for summer 2016 and 2018 respectively, so they are convinced of their investment. The cast is beyond solid, and I can only hope-but-be optimistic at word of a better script that no longer feels the need to rehash the origin story and other hopeful signs (daylight action scenes, the fact that Sony let Marc Webb shoot on 2D anamorphic 35mm film, as opposed to 3D digital).

每次《蜘蛛侠》系列电影拉开暑期档序幕，都会打破首映周末的票房纪录（《蜘蛛侠》获得了1.14亿美元的首映票房，《蜘蛛侠3》获得了1.51亿美元的首映票房）。当然我并不期待它能够打破票房首映记录，但由于暑期票房的疲软表现（加上《速度与激情7》的损失，票房收入就更低了），《超凡蜘蛛侠》已经从2012年表现平平的超级英雄系列影片摇身一变，变成了好莱坞最大规模的电影。是的，这就是《蝙蝠侠前传》（Batman Begins）2005年卷土重来的方式，不过相比《超凡蜘蛛侠》，人们更喜欢《蝙蝠侠前传》。《超凡蜘蛛侠2》将于2014年5月2日以2D、3D和IMAX格式正式上映。跟往常一样，我们将拭目以待。

And every time a Spider-Man picture kicks off the summer season, it breaks the opening weekend record ($114m for Spider-Man, $151m for Spider-Man 3). Obviously I’m not expecting anything near a record debut, but thanks to a somewhat lackluster summer slate (made even smaller by the loss of Fast & Furious 7), The Amazing Spider-Man has gone from the wimpy middle child of superhero franchises in 2012 to one of the biggest games in town yet again. Yes that’s how Batman Begins was too back in 2005, but people liked Batman Begins a lot more than The Amazing Spider-Man. The Amazing Spider-Man opens in 2D, 3D, and IMAX 3D on May 2nd, 2014. As always, we’ll see.

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excitement [ik'saitmənt] video n. 兴奋；刺激；令人兴奋的事物

budget ['bʌdʒit] video n. 预算，预算费vt. 安排，预定；把…编入预算vi. 编预算，做预算adj. 廉价的

villain ['vilən] video n. 坏人，恶棍；戏剧、小说中的反派角色；顽童；罪犯

installment [in'stɔ:lmənt] video n. 安装；分期付款；部分；就职

fidelity [fi'deliti] video n. 保真度；忠诚；精确；尽责

publicity [pʌb'lisiti] video n. 宣传，宣扬；公开；广告；注意

enthusiasm [in'θju:ziæzəm, in'θu:-] video n. 热心，热忱，热情

franchise ['fræntʃaiz] video n. 特权；公民权；经销权；管辖权vt. 给…以特许（或特权）；赋予公民权

scenario [si'nɑ:riəu, -'næ-, -'nεə-] video n. 方案；情节；剧本

accidentally [,æksi'dentli] video adv. 意外地；偶然地