Honest Trailers - Transformers- Age of Extinction (變形金剛4 灭绝重生)
Season 3 of Honest Trailers featured several significant episodes, including Transformers: Age of Extinction which was lauded as an "Honest Trailers masterpiece."
Season 3 of comedy web series Honest Trailers ran between 11 March, 2014 and 11 November, 2014. It consists of 27 episodes[1]. Season 3 is the most highly-viewed season of the series ever, and features many of the most popular episodes like Frozen, The Lion King and Game of Thrones Vol. 1. Season 3 is also a creatively innovative season of Honest Trailers. The writers included many twists on the established Honest Trailers formula to keep the series fresh, including: Transformers: Age of Extinction which was narrated partially in Chinese; Captain America: The Winter Soldier which took an unexpectedly glowing attitude towards the film; and Everything Wrong With The Amazing Spider-Man 2, a series swap with YouTube channel CinemaSins. Overall, Season 3 was critically lauded for its humor and keen analysis into film.
Watch Honest Trailers Season 3 on YouTube
Overview[]
Writing[]
12 writers are credited on episodes of Season 3: Spencer Gilbert, Marc Muszynski, Daniel Hartley, Dan Murrell, Andy Signore, Gilli Nissim, Ian Weinreich, Alexander Zeldin, Jason Mathews, Nick Smith, John Norris and Matthew Brian Cohen. Unlike earlier seasons in which the writing team changed significantly from week to week, Season 3 was when there became a core group of regular writers who consistently wrote the series: Spencer Gilbert, Gilli Nissim, Ian Weinreich, Dan Murrell and Andy Signore.
Film selection[]
Season 3 is when Honest Trailers fully embraced the search engine optimization tactic of trend surfing. During Season 3, they frequently produced new episodes of Honest Trailers to coincide with the theatrical release of related films, for example Godzilla (1998) was released to coincide with the theatrical release of Godzilla (2014); live action Disney reboot Alice in Wonderland (2010) was released to coincide with the theatrical release of live action Disney reboot Maleficent; while Green Lantern was released to coincide with the theatrical release of Guardians of the Galaxy, and so on.
Honest titles[]
Season 3 is when all Honest Trailers began to receive parodic honest titles on a regular basis. Season 3 is also when motion graphics artist Robert Holtby became involved with the series. Holtby has been with the series ever since and has produced hundreds of customized mock film titles.
Milestones[]
- First Disney animation musical episode: Frozen.
- Guest appearances/collaborations: The Lion King featuring AVByte; Transformers: Age of Extinction featuring guest Chinese language narrator Kai-Ting Tiffany Wu.
- First series swap: Everything Wrong With The Amazing Spider-Man 2 in 13 Minutes or Less, a series swap with popular YouTube series CinemaSins. The "Everything Wrong With" video was written and produced by Screen Junkies, while CinemaSins produced their own version of an Honest Trailer for the same movie.
- First wholly positive Honest Trailer: Captain America: The Winter Soldier. The incredibly positive take on this film was a creative innovation for the writers and marked a turning point for the series.
- First time a Hollywood filmmaker mentioned that they were fans of the Honest Trailers series: Joe and Anthony Russo, directors of Captain America: The Winter Soldier.
Critical reception[]
Several episodes of Season 3 were lauded as among the best Honest Trailers have ever produced. CinemaBlend described Season 3's The Wolf of Wall Street Honest Trailer as "Probably one of, if not, the best Honest Trailers they've ever assembled." Similarly, Slate described the Transformers: Age of Extinction Honest Trailer as a "masterpiece" and "the Citizen Kane of Honest Trailers."
In addition, many media commentators praised episodes of Season 3 for their deconstruction of nostalgia and fandom. For example, the deconstruction of childhood nostalgia in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Nurtles 2: The Secret of the Ooze Honest Trailer was critically well-received, with the Tech Times calling it a "five-minute masterpiece." Likewise CinemaBlend appreciated the Fight Club Honest Trailer for poking fun at fans of the film, writing "Honest Trailers don’t just make fun of Fight Club though. They lampoon its audience too, who lapped up its first world problems message with aplomb to such an extent that you couldn’t enter a college dorm room for the next decade without seeing a poster for it on someone’s wall."
Furthermore Fast Company wrote that Screen Junkies' decision to be overwhelmingly positive in the Captain America: The Winter Soldier Honest Trailer was "a major creative leap for a series that has made a name for itself by doing the opposite of sucking up... the departure also shows how, as a brand, Honest Trailers is not just about slinging snark for the sake of driving traffic...every criticism that’s lobbed is laboriously debated for its credibility and fairness, so that stings never feel gratuitous; they simply feel true."
Season 3 episodes[]
Notes[]
- ↑ In the Screen Junkies YouTube Playlist, the season consists of only 26 episodes. However, the Green Lantern Honest Trailer is not allocated to any season at all. Considering that Green Lantern was produced during this period, it seems like a case of simple human error.
- ↑ Technically, the Frozen Honest Trailer should chronologically be part of Season 2, however the Screen Junkies YouTube Season Playlists alter the order of some episodes. This wiki uses the YouTube Playlists as a guide, except when there are obvious omissions.
- ↑ Technically, Everything Wrong With The Amazing Spider-Man 2 wasn't really the last chronologically published episode of this season, however, it is listed last on the Screen Junkies YouTube Playlist. This wiki uses the YouTube Season Playlists as a guide, except when there are obvious omissions.