OK, this is not exactly ethics with a capital "E" here, yet I wonder how far this practice can be carried. I refer to movies that do NOT have scenes that the trailers DO. I just got home from Men in Black, so it's fresh in my mind. First of all, I recall seeing not one, but TWO different versions of the same dialog in trailers for this film. You'll recall when Smith & Jones (now THERE'S a coupla high powered movie-star names for ya!) pull out these huge, high tech blunder-buss weapons and Smith asks, "You know how to use these?" To which deadpan Jones replies, "No idea whatsoever." All right, in the movie, as they pull out the guns, I'm thinking, which version did they use in the movie, inasmuch as there are TWO versions in different trailers. And the answer is (TA DAAHHH) -- NEITHER! The dialog does not appear in the film at all! It also happened with Romy and Michele a couple of months ago. The trailer had a scene with the Lisa Kudrow character (I can't remember which one she was) confonting some old classmates and not realizing that they were pregnant (or was it just one, I don't recall). But the line she used in the trailer was not used in that film either. Now, I suppose trailers are being cut before the movie is finished, or at least while it's being fine tuned. Still, I don't recall seeing this before, certainly not twice in two or three months. Perhaps this is simply a reflection of shortened deadlines? As I say, I don't expect any theses on the ethics of this to be written. I promise not to lose a wink of sleep over it. Still, is anyone else the slightest bit bothered by this trend? BTW, MIB IAFM. ____________________________________________________________ ALAN BELL Santa Rosa, California ============================================================ British Left Waffles on Falkland Islands -- Actual newspaper headline ---- Online resources for film/TV studies may be found at ScreenSite http://www.sa.ua.edu/screensite