In a World

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"In a World..." —Don LaFontaine on everything.

In a World... where movie trailers and common phrases collide... one article... describes this practice.

That article... is this one.

There are certain conventions when creating movie trailers; these differ depending on whether the trailer is for comedy or for drama. Usually, you can tell which kind you're going to get depending on the first few voice-over lines of the trailer; if it starts with "In a World" or no voiceover whatsoever, you can expect drama, especially Speculative Fiction. However, if it begins with cheery music, it's going to be a comedy, even if the soundtrack turns sour as the narrator discusses the plot's primary conflict. In both cases, the voiceover is Always Male.

These archetypes are increasingly becoming Subverted Trope and may even be leaning toward being discredited.

The trailer for Comedian does a good job of showing how certain styles of trailer-talk do not mix. See They Fight Crime for this kind of plot-pitching used for Television.

Named for a line commonly attributed to "That Guy from the Movies", the late Don LaFontaine, who very likely single-handedly brought this trope into being.

Common Dramatic Elements, in order:

• "In a World [Where]"
  • And its related forms, "In a Land", "In a Time", etc.
    • Or possibly a land before time
  • Often (immediately) followed with "...where X and Y collide"
• "When your life is no longer your own"
• "One man/woman/boy/girl [must]"
• "Will change the world"
• "Will embark on a journey"
• "Things are about to get..."
  • Or: "...until NOW".
• "A hero will rise"
  • Often followed by "... and an Empire will fall."
  • Or the other way, "An Empire/Civilization will fall... and a Hero will rise."
• Darker lighting, tends to feature very few speaking portions of the film
• Taglines said/shown one word at a time, interspersed with kickass clips.
• Monologue from the lead character will summarize their struggles.
  • It's been 42 Days since...
  • I keep on running...
  • But I can't...
• "One Woman's Journey"
  • "from Milan to Minsk..."
• An increasingly frantic soundtrack for action/adventure movies, abruptly silencing for a character to make an ironic remark, then finishing with one last BUM-BUM-BUM BUMM!!!
• A fairly recent addition has been the use of whooshes (as in sound effects) and plenty of them, usually punctuating cuts from scene to scene or scenery pans. Expect on occasion a boom hit to mix things up.
• Chanting or cheering. Especially common for sports movies.
• Montage increases in speed as the trailer progresses, until what you get is a succession of one-second shots, often followed by a Fade to Black, and then the movie title.
• Whatever the movie's actual soundtrack is, the trailer's own soundtrack will be Carmina Burana, Lux Aeterna or scratchy, tension-filled electronic music.
  • Unless it's a Sequel, in which case it will usually use the first film's soundtrack.
  • Or a guitar-heavy rock song that doesn't appear on the soundtrack playing over action-packed, fast-cut footage from the movie. This is usually done in TV commercials for the the movie instead of the full trailer.
  • A popular choice in films made since 2004 has been the track "Hello Zepp" from the Saw soundtrack. You'll know it when you hear it.
    • In the six Saw sequels since then, perchance?
• "Nothing could ever prepare you for what you're about to see." (common in trailers voiced by Nick Tate)
• Paramount/Columbia/Whatever Pictures [proudly] presents...
• When is the film coming? It's usually Coming soon...
  • Or it is Now in theaters [everywhere].
  • Or possibly This summer...
• Often finished with one final tagline and possibly a split-second shot of the titular monster/hero.
• "....and this time, it's Serious Business/personal...."

Common Comedic Elements:

• "Meet [Character's Name]!"
• "[Character's Name] was just an average [name of profession/title]"
• "...until, one day..."
• More footage of the actual film, almost to Trailers Always Spoil levels.
• Any of the Dramatic Elements used in a way that is subverted.
• The Record Needle Scratch.
• The Overly Long Gag has become surprisingly common, too. Austin Powers might have had something to do with it...
• "Walkin' On Sunshine" is frequently used for the music.

Common for both:

• "(Coming) this year/summer/fall/winter/soon (to a (movie) theatre near you)"
  • This has since been condensed to simply 'This summer/fall/July/whathaveyou'; in particularly poisonous cases, this is followed several cuts later by an exhortation for the audience to PUNCH CRIME or otherwise do something that the characters in the film will be doing (rather than, more sincerely, exhorting them to purchase a ticket and see their film) They may also be asked to go on an adventure "beyond imagination", or beyond something similar. This was perhaps a fair cop in Zardoz‍'‍s advertising campaign (well, it was in keeping with the lunatic bombast of the film, at least), but when attributed to the Mummy films, it just looks desperate.
• The trailer often ends in a shot of the movie's title; it may or may not be spoken by the narrator.
• If the title shot isn't the end, there'll be The Stinger with a particularly cool or funny moment from the movie.
• The suggestion that "If you only see one movie this summer/fall/winter/spring, make it..." A Dead Horse Trope now seen only in subversion.
• "All [character, often a child] ever wanted was..."
• "From the creators/producers/director of (movie title) comes a story..."
• Starring [Academy Award winner/nominee] X, [Academy Award winner/nominee] Y, [Academy Award winner/nominee] Z...
  • Famous comedian/international action hero/star W1
  • And W2, as Fu Manchu/Bunny/The Witch/Dr. Whatever...
• Someone from Rolling Stone/Time/Whatever magazine says it's "Stunning/Awesome/The best film of the year".
• "If you liked (title), you'll love (other title)."
• Sometimes seen in remakes, or sequels of really old moves (Often promising the Duke Nukem effect), Several dark, quiet, or shaky camera shots, followed by a very quick glimpse of something recognizable from the previous film.
  • The best example would be the Star Trek movie (2009) teaser, where you couldn't see much, until the last shot showed that it was the Enterprise.

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Subversions, Parodies, and Lampshade Hanging:

Advertising

• Parodied by Geico Insurance with the late Don LaFontaine. Both our cars were under water...

Anime and Manga

• Played mostly straight in the English dub of Burst Angel, where a movie trailer seen by some characters gets an "In a world of violence, one man got a second chance..." narration.
• Played straight by John Avner's narration of Berserk, where every episode begins with Void's "In this world...".
  • Also parodied in the Hilarious Outtakes.

Comic Books

• This is lampshaded in an issue of Fantastic Four, where Ben and Sue go to the movies and are ready to count all the "In a World"s they hear when the Monster of the Week attacks them.

Film

• Most Real Trailer, Fake Movie examples.
• The Mother of All Trailers.
  • ...and Edward Norton.
    • Until now.
• The aforementioned trailer for Comedian, which actually features Hal Douglas, the other movie trailer guy.
  • Later, some Internet jokester interspersed it with appropriate clips from Cowboy Bebop The Movie. It totally makes sense.
• 5 Men and a Limo.
• The trailer for The Film of the Book The Hitchhikers Guide to The Galaxy was narrated by the titular Guide, as an entry in the Guide on movie trailers, spoken by Stephen Fry in a pleasant BBC-announcer voice, except for when he described the trailer as narrated by (cue Don LaFontaine himself) "a seven foot tall man who's been smoking cigarettes since childhood. *clears throat as he returns to normal*." It consisted of one continuous Lampshade Hanging and parody of science fiction action movie tropes, and included a shot of a beautiful scantily clad woman and a series of explosions from entirely different movies. It can be found here.
  • Also includes the line "Often, this section is preceded by the words 'In a world' ...[earth explodes] but sometimes not."
• Subtly invoked by the Australian trailer for The Proposition, which starts with a stark shot of the outback and Ray Winstone saying "Australia. What fresh hell is this?"
• The "trailer" at the end of Kung Pow! Enter the Fist was just scenes cut from the film along with this kind of narration.
• The trailer for Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, which came out the same summer as Star Wars Episode I, after doing a fake out bit about Star Wars, had the narrator say, "If you only see one movie this year... make it Star Wars. But, if you see two movies this year..."
• In The Holiday, Cameron Diaz's character Amanda works in Hollywood editing movie trailers, and even when she gets away on vacation a voice in her head (Hal Douglas!) sometimes reflexively narrates her emotional ups and downs using trailer-voiceover-speak, laden with this trope. The whole movie has numerous affectionate shout-outs to the film industry.
• Referenced in the Heavenly Creatures trailer: "But ours is not a world that believes in magic..."
• Like virtually every other Hollywood cliche, Team America: World Police (specifically, its trailer) satirizes this mercilessly.
• The trailer for Borat was narrated by the main character himself. ("See my moviefilm. If it is no success, I will be execute!")
• The trailer for Knights Of Badassdom:

In a world within our world they've created a world unlike any other world!

Literature

• In Moving Pictures, the standard phrase is "Against The Backdrop Of A World Gone Mad!" At one point Soll is attempting to negotiate with a group of dwarfs who object to being stereotyped as miners ("But most dwarfs are miners!" "Yes, but we're not happy about it."), a troll who wants to play the leading man, and various other people nitpicking the plot, when someone asks him why all Mr. Dibbler's pictures are set against the backdrop of a world gone mad. His response is "Because Mr. Dibbler is a very observant person."

Live-Action TV

• Parodied on The Colbert Report in the intro to a segment on movies. "In a world - Record Needle Scratch until he met her!"
• On the pilot for Frank Caliendo's short-lived show, Frank TV, there is a segment parodying the Three Tenors where three movie announcers go on tour. It guest stars Pablo Francisco and Don La Fontaine, and begins, "In a world..."
• The opening narration for Xena: Warrior Princess.
• Played with in a commercial for Hogan's Heroes which was written by Stan Freberg. During a TV commercial where Freberg interviews star Bob Crane:

Freberg: Shall we say, "If you liked World War II, you'll love Hogan's Heroes?" Crane: No, let's not say that, no.

• When Chuck kinda almost proposed to Sarah.

Morgan: "In a world full of awkward Chuck and Sarah moments, comes a moment so awkward..."

• Lampshaded in Dollhouse.

Topher: "In a world where all men are guilty until proven dead, one man stands as our only hope in the fight against..."

• In How I Met Your Mother when Lily was forced to paint Barney nude. He imagined it would begin with "In a world that needed a hero..."
• "In a land of myth, and a time of magic, the destiny of a great kingdom rests on the shoulders of a young boy. His name... Merlin." ("Young man" as of Season 4.)

Recorded and Stand-Up Comedy

• Pablo Francisco's half-hour Comedy Central special featured an act based around this trope.
• Janeane Garofalo once pointed out all trailers seem to start with "In a world..." She then did her impression of a movie trailer in San Francisco: "In a world..." "HSSSSS!"
• Adal Ramones makes fun of trailers in one of his monologues (starts at 17:00).

Tabletop Games

• Warhammer 40,000: "In a world of Grim Darkness (Grim darky grim dark grim grim more grim, extra dark) there is only war"

Theatre

• The short play Check Please, Take 3 features a character named Dan who cannot stop talking like this. Right down to being unable to say the phrase "inside this planet."

Video Games

• Whiplash has this as one of its first jokes. A bunny starts with "IN A WORLD, WHERE A VOICE FROM THE HEAVENS TELLS YOU TO CUT LOOSE--", but he's promptly attacked by guards.
• IN A WORLD GONE BAD... Text example, not to ruin your happiness from listening The Thing I Hate in the intro of Time to Kill.
• The Narrator in House of the Dead: Overkill speaks every single one of his lines in this style, which is appropriate considering the game is a pastiche of seventies exploitation films.
• The Bionic Commando Rearmed soundtrack has an audio track called "One Man, One Bionic Arm," which is the audio track for the game and its premise as if it were a typical blockbuster film.
• The Onion Knight's story path in Dissidia: Final Fantasy begins with a dramatic narration that includes the phrase "In a world that was slowly decaying around them..."
• "In a world covered by endless water..."
• The trailer for Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots.
• A Gamestop ad for Mass Effect 3 had this style, to show off the Valkyrie rifle you get as a preorder bonus. At least until Shepard tells Garrus to cut the cheesy narration and help him shoot things.

Web Animation

• Homestar Runner spoofed this repeatedly in the Strong Bad Email narrator, where Strong Bad went around narrating the everyday lives of his friends and neighbors as if they were movie trailers: an argument between Bubs and Coach Z over napkins becomes a trailer for a post-apocalyptic action film, a tiff between Marzipan and Homestar over a goofy novelty chef's hat becomes a trailer for a romantic dramedy, the Poopsmith shoveling... whatsit becomes a trailer for a snooty French art film, and Strong Mad and The Cheat playing Battleship becomes a trailer for a buddy comedy. Butt Monkey Strong Sad is "fortunate" enough to get two trailers: one for a comedy where he gets hit in the face with an octopus, and one for a horror movie where he gets hit in the face with a dead Canada goose.
• Here Comes Dr. Tran revolves around a five year-old boy getting harassed by a movie trailer narrator.

Narrator: He...is a man of action... He...is a man of honor... Tran: Who is that? Narrator: He...is a man of duty... Tran: Are you talking to me?

Web Comics

• Evoked by Liquid in The Last Days of Foxhound: "He's a man. A man... who is covered in bees." "In a world gone mad, only one man had the courage to cover himself in bees. These are his stories."
• Well, it was only a matter of time before someone started making theater-style commercials for webcomics. Since the comic in question is The Adventures of Dr. McNinja, saying 'in a world where anything can happen' is rather an understatement. May be viewed here.

Web Original

• The trailer for Yu-Gi-Oh: The Abridged Movie started out this way. It ends, "By the way, does anyone have a throat lozenge? This voice is killing me."
• Pac-Man: The Movie. That is all.
• Go ahead and browse YouTube for recut trailers. People are familiar enough with this trope that they rearrange a movie's content to pitch it as the wrong genre. Some films, by merit of their quality lend themselves to this, such as the Narmalicious remake of The Wicker Man becoming a comedy.
  • Ten Things I Hate About Commandments being an example of said culture jamming.
• Parodied by the intro to Episode 50 of AllMovieTalk ^{[dead link]}, because that week's Top 6 list was on movie trailers.
• The "trailers" for The Way of the Metagamer 2: In Name Only.
• Cracked.com has a trailer of Every Academy Award Movie Ever Here.
• This trailer for "Pit of Death", a Platform Hell Super Mario World hack.
• Psychedelic Eyeball parodies this in the final video of his Let's Play for Prince of Persia 3D.

Western Animation

• South Park episode, "The Biggest Douche in the Universe": While the boys are on a flight to Chef's parents' house to release Kenny's soul from Cartman's body, they are subjected to a handful of trailers for Rob Schneider movies, most modeled after roles he played in The Animal and The Hot Chick, and given similarly ridiculous titles such as Rob Schneider is...A STAPLER!" and "A CARROT!" One particularly ridiculous trailer starts out like this:

"Rob Schneider derp de derp. Derp de derpity derp a-derp, until one day...a-derp a-derp a-derpa-derp."

• • The later episode "Stanley's Cup" takes it even further. Stan is forced to coach a Peewee hockey team to pay off a ticket, living out many Sports Movie tropes in the process. Meanwhile, the court clerk is following him around with a record player, narrating everything he does in the In a World voice.
• In a tragically hard-to-find-online clip, the Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends episode "One False Movie" climaxes with the Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot opening of Bloo and Mac's Colon Cancer-patient film, which appears to be a trailer for itself. "In a world where chaos reigns like cats and dogs in a hailstorm of... passion, a retired cop must settle one last score. [Against Ninja.]"
• A trailer for Brother Bear starring a moose where the moose and his friend narrated the trailer. It begin with, "If you only see one movie this year-" "Wait, hold on, if they only see one movie, wouldn't it be the movie they're watching right now?" And then a plea to stop watching the current movie and then watch their movie... or just watch two movies this year.
• Phineas and Ferb: "The Chronicles of Meap" did this little send-up trailer as a tribute to the late Don LaFontaine: "One Man, In A Land, In A Time, In A World... All His Own."
  • Then subverted by LaFontaine himself: "In a world...there, I said it. Happy?"
• Played straight (well, sort of) on Fillmore! when they have the man himself do the opening voice-over for every episode and every "chapter."
• In the DVD Commentary for Hoodwinked, the creators mention how trailers always seem to start with the phrase "IN A WORLD..." They go on to joke that all they know about the planned sequel to their movie is that it will take place "IN A WORLD."
• Parodied in Johnny Test. Susan and Mary build a machine that allows people to warp reality by beginning a sentence with "In a World..." and speaking into it. Things get way out of hand.
• Home Movies incorporated this in Brendon's first movie ever shown on the show, Dark Side of the Law: "In a world gone mad, there stands one cop fighting against evil and injustice!".
• The commercial for Cartoon Network's The Amazing World of Gumball seen here has one of its characters doing this over the trailer.

Darwin: In a world in chaos...where love has no place...two heroes fight for the power of friendship. Gumball: Dude, what's with the voice? Darwin: It's my movie voice.

• Metalocalypse's Blood Ocean starts with this very line. It has something to do with Space Vikings.
  • I KNOW WHO YOU ARE!!!

Real Life

• Frequently parodied by British film critic Mark Kermode, eg "in a world of queens, she was her majesty..."
  • And now for the trailer for Benjamin Sniddlegrass and the Cauldron of Penguins:

"In a world in which narrative coherence is under threat, it takes a real hero not to lose the plot, and in a world in which holding onto a penguin can mean holding onto the woman you love, one boy better make sure he doesn't lose the plot."

• The 76th Academy Awards present The Return Of The Host.
• On the Cineworld hompage is the byline Welcome to a world without booking fees.

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"...There, I said it. Happy?"