Alex Sirna

Ms. Ouderkirk

ENG 170

4/16/21

Humanity is always pushing the boundaries of the environment for its own expansion and improvement. There are plenty of times where people exploit the environment for their own personal gain, yet the negative effects on the natural world seem to be forgotten or left out when people make plans to destroy the natural environment. The trailer for the movie The Lorax, based on Dr.Seuss’s book called The Lorax,  addresses this issue and does so with an emphasis on pathos to make the audience feel sympathy for the environment and the creatures negatively affected by human actions. These different emotions in the trailer are a sense of calm, a sense of curiosity, and enjoyment. All of these feelings are attempted through the creators use of music, images, and dialogue along with its placement in the trailer. There is also the use of ethos through the text that the creator uses to try and get the audience to watch the movie because of credibility. 

The trailer is about a movie called The Lorax which is based on the book that Dr.Seuss wrote. The trailer revolves around some kind of artificial town that appears to have no nature whatsoever. The scenes show the town having modern looking buildings and vehicles, yet also having fake plants and animals. The trailer also shows some kind of dark side to this town where there is nothing but black wasteland. There is no grass, trees, or other form of life, and no sign of civilization with the exception of one house in the middle of this wasteland. The trailer then shows some kind of natural forest that has trees, grass, and animals living in it that appears to be disturbed by people cutting down trees. 

The first feeling that the creator tries to make the audience feel is a sense of calm. This is shown mainly through the music and images. The music at the start of the trailer is upbeat, while also calming due to its low volume. The music can clearly be heard at the beginning of the trailer, but is lower at the beginning of the trailer when compared to the ending of the trailer. The music’s low volume and calm tempo are meant to make the audience feel calm and want to see what happens in the rest of the trailer and the rest of the movie. The images that are shown in the trailer are also meant to be calming since they are full of bright colors. The images also show what looks like a normal town that has buildings, roads, lawns, and fake plants. The images are meant to show the audience something that they are familiar with since it shows a lively town with cars driving around and kids playing outside. By showing images that the audience would be familiar with, it is meant to make the audience calm since there is nothing new for the audience to break down and determine what is going on yet.  

The second feeling that the creator is trying to convey to the audience is curiosity. The creator is trying to invoke the audience’s curiosity by showing us scenes and images that seem out of place or drastically different from what was shown earlier in the trailer. This is mainly attempted through the use of images and happens during the middle part of the trailer. The music during this part is louder and there are lyrics being sung now, but the music itself still suggests a mainly happy and pleasant tone. This is in stark contrast to the images shown during this part of the trailer. We see one of the characters riding in what looks like a dead world. The ground of the area is gray and the sky is cloudy, likely meant to make the audience feel curious as to why there is the stark contrast between not only the images and the song, but also earlier images that showed bright colors and a more cheerful environment. There is also a lone house in the waste land which one of the characters approaches. The character then approaches the house, rings the doorbell, and gets launched up into the air and then falls. The trailer cuts to the next shoot before the audience can see the results of the characters fall. The camera is also looking up at the character as he is falling head first towards the camera and the floor. This is attempting to make the audience curious since the results of whether or not the character survived the fall or if something will save the character or not are left unanswered due to the fact that the trailer moved on to the next shoot. This and the house itself are also trying to make the audience curious since these two things are very out of place when compared to earlier parts of the trailer. 

The sense of enjoyment that the creator tries to make the audience feel is likely to get people to watch the movie. The moments of enjoyment that I refer to are the comedic moments in the trailer that are throughout the trailer. While the comedic scenes of the trailer might have different specifics, but have very similar approaches. An example of this is that for every comedic scene in the trailer, the music is abruptly cut off. This is an attempt by the creator to put emphasis on what the characters are saying to each other and what is happening on the screen. If the loud music was playing at the same time as these scenes, the audience would likely not hear the joke or not be as focused on them. The comedic scenes also seem to be longer than other scenes of the trailer. Towards the very end of the trailer, one of these comedic scenes appears. The music cuts out, and the scene itself has a conversation between two of the characters in the movie with one getting confused about one character being a woman. There is even a small pause in the scene to further emphasize the comedic value of the scene. The creator is trying to make the audience feel enjoyment in watching the trailer to get them to watch the movie.

The creator also makes use of ethos in a number of ways. First is by listing all of the actors that will be playing the different characters. This gives credit to the movie since it lists its major actors that are well known for being in other movies or pieces of media, giving the movie credit and to encourage the audience to watch it because it stars actors that they may know. Ethos is also used in another way, by crediting Dr.Seuss in the trailer saying the story is based on one of his books. This gives the movie credibility since it is saying that it is getting its story from another source that can draw an audience that enjoys Dr.Seuss and his works. There could also be some ethos connected to the author’s main point of human actions affecting the natural environment by showing Dr.Seuss. Since Dr.Seuss is well known for making books that are meant to teach kids lessons, it could be drawing attention to the fact that this is a lesson that is important for people to now. 

The overall message that the creator is trying to get across is that human actions have effects on the environment that need to be taken into consideration. This is shown in the trailer through the trailers use of contrasting images meant to use pathos. The trailer contains images that show a bright and colorful civilization containing people living everyday lives, which is contrasted with later scenes that show a dark and dead wasteland. These contrasting images are an attempt by the creator to make the audience feel sympathy for the environment that is suffering as a result of actions that the characters take in the trailer. A later scene also shows a character chopping down a tree and another character questioning him about it. The scene is then played off comically by having the character that chopped down the tree blame an animal. However, the scene does show that the trees are important to the story, and the creator was trying to put emphasis on this by cutting the music abruptly as we see the tree fall. This also appeals to pathos since it is the creators attempt to say that the tree falling is important and to make the audience question human actions that are similar to this that negatively affect the environment. 

The trailer for the movie The Lorax has the main messages of getting the audience to see the movie and informing the audience of the environmental issues that are being caused by people and corporations. Both of these messages are delivered through the creator’s use of pathos and ethos. Pathos is attempted by the creator to give the audience a sense of calm, enjoyment, and curiosity to get the audience to see the movie, but also to feel sympathy and concern about the environment in our world by showing contrasting images of different environments that have been created by nature and destroyed by people. The creator also attempts to use ethos to give the movies credibility to encourage the audience to watch it by listing the actors starring in the movie, but to also draw attention to Dr.Seuss who created the original story, which may have been done to draw attention to the fact that Dr.Seuss also saw the issue that humanity has on the natural world and was trying to teach this lesson to others to inform them on it. The message that both Dr.Seuss and the creator of the trailer had in mind is an important message, and one that the world must take seriously if it is to reverse or halt the effects of humanity on the natural world before we destroy what is left and be left with nothing but a wasteland. 

 

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