R&P: This Is the End Trailer

  The main unique selling point of this film is the large amount of well known celebrities featured, including Seth Rogen, James Franco, Jonah Hill, Rhianna ect. Unlike most other films, the celebrities are playing themselves, this adds more of a comical aspect to the film because throughout it, they are constantly poking fun at themselves.

The plot of the film is basically an apocalyptic setting, where the world is ending around the characters and they are forced to take refuge in a barricaded house. The equilibrium is shown at a party with all of the celebrities dancing and doing drugs, they are not done with much seriousness however, as drugs are a relatively serious subject within the media (heroin and cocaine especially) it gives the whole situation more of a jovial air to it. This darkly comical air is replicated later as the large hole appears in the floor, as people are dying there is a comical scene where one of the characters is kicked back into the hole, as death is being treated less seriously than it normally would, it is obvious to see that this film will be a dark comedy.

As the apocalypse comes, the characters have to make plans for fortification and survival, They are shown using duct tape to cover up gaping holes in the wall and their survival rations amount to a small amount of water, beer, narcotics and candy. This seems like something 8 year olds would do when they camp out in their tree house  (minus the beer and drugs) and it makes it even more comical as the characters doing this are grown men. In the apocalyptic genre, this scene of preparing a survival cache and fortifying the perimeter is constantly repeated throughout the genre, supplies generally consist of things like weapons and medical supplies and barricades are generally very strong and sophisticated, this makes the contents of their supply cache and pitiful barricade even more ridiculous.

The music to this trailer is a rap track, which plays throughout the entire trailer, it is relatively laid back and has the undertones of being tough and unfazed. This track would seem very inappropriate if the movie was taking itself seriously, because in the conventional apocalyptic genre the music is generally either very melodramatic or just depressing, the rap music generally makes the viewer believe the film is not taking the mass death particularly seriously. The presence of this track is also completely out of place atop the trailer because it seems like a very tough gangster song and the trailer consists very frequently of  the main characters being cowards and screaming like children, this contrast between the sound and image instils a  greater sense of comedic value to the piece.

As a whole, I believe that this trailer is adequate in portraying the main unique selling points of this film, the quirky twist to a generally morbid genre of films. It also reveals an adequate amount of humour to the audience to make them interested in the film without spoiling some of the main jokes of it. Any conventions within the trailer that have been overplayed by previous films can be excused to the fact that this is a spoof of the genre. There are some similarities between this film and others (e.g The Worlds End, Disaster Movie, Epic Movie ect) but all in all this film is relatively unique