Blockbuster movies have changed a hell of a lot in the last 20 years - but I'm not just talking about visual effects and plots that reflect our modern world. The advertising for these movies was extremely different too, and big differences can easily be spotted looking at old trailers online. But what if a modern blockbuster like, say, Joss Whedon's The Avengers: Age of Ultron had come out in 1995? Well, the previews may have looked something like this:
This fun little edit, rather bluntly titled "If Avengers: Age of Ultron Came Out In 1995," comes to us courtesy of the folks over at New York Magazine, and anyone who lived through the 1990s will probably see this as a fairly accurate representation of what movie trailers looked like back then. They nailed pretty much everything from the Don LaFontaine-like voice-over, to the 90-degree turning blockletters revealing the stars of the awesome ensemble. Even the picture quality is degraded, and the film's title logo is more '90s-esque.
What weirdly lends a degree of credibility to this trailer, however, is the fact that Avengers: Age of Ultron is all about a terrifying technological threat, and Hollywood was all about that back in 1995. After all, that was the year of Iain Softley's Hackers, the Sandra Bullock-fronted thriller The Net, and the Denzel Washington vs. Russell Crowe digital adventure Virtuosity. The industry didn't have had the visual effects back then that could realistically bring a villain like Ultron to life, but in retrospect you get the feeling like they might have actually tried. The robotic menace probably just would have looked a whole lot crappier, and bringing him to life would have involved a lot more lightning hitting servers:
And protagonists using floppy disc drives:
Instead of coming out in back in the 1990s, The Avengers: Age of Ultron will be dropping on May 1st - just a few weeks from now. Surely we will see many more fun videos in this vain in the run-up to the blockbusters release, so stay tuned!
