The Batman vs. Superman trailer was released last month and, well, it’s fair to say that the internet wasn’t very happy. Not necessarily because it looked like a bad movie, but because it seemingly gave away everything. It felt like one giant spoiler dump; the entirety of the movie condensed down to two minutes and 30 seconds. Fret not, Batman and Superman fans, because Batman vs. Superman director Zack Snyder hears you and swears that his trailer really wasn’t as heavy on spoilers as you might think.

Regarding the backlash, Snyder told MTV:

It’s cool that [fans] think it’s too much and I appreciate people not wanting to know, but there’s plenty that they don’t know. There’s a lot of movie that’s not in the trailer. In the trailer, of course [Lex Luthor] comes across in a very specific way. In the movie, he’s like a million times more sophisticated than what you get in 30 seconds. But that’s also the fun of it. That’s why you go to the movies, so you can actually see the context and understand the depth…I want people to see the movie without knowing.

While, yes, there is most assuredly a lot of Batman vs. Superman that is not in the trailer (one would hope at least two hours more), that is not necessarily a defense of that trailer. It’s not that the trailer showed us everything, it’s just that it showed us too much. Perhaps, as we’ve heard, Doomsday is not as much of a spoiler as fans may have originally thought. But, it certainly feels like too much, and when you’re cutting a trailer, you’re almost entirely relying on feels. That’s what the Star Wars: The Force Awakens trailers did so well; evoke a very specific feeling, regardless of how honest to the film that feeling might be. When a trailer leaves you with a negative feeling — even if incorrectly, as argued by Snyder — it was a failure. People won’t know that the trailer actually didn’t give very much away until it’s too late.

There are still a good two-and-a-half months until Batman vs. Superman opens in theaters and plenty of time to right the ship. But, it’s also plenty of time for even more spoilers to leak out until audiences feel like they know anything and everything about the movie before they buy their ticket. And, at that point, why buy a ticket?

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