All advertising stretches the truth to some extent. But some advertising are far more egregious than others.
First one that comes to my mind was the American version of Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind dubbed Warriors of the Wind.
The movie poster represents a whole slew of characters not in the film, and misrepresents elements from the film.
There's indication of a Luke Skywalker character riding a huge Sand Worm like monster from Dune. A Pegasus out of Clash of the Titans, and a Doctor Doom looking villain.
The copy was also completely made up. There are no "band of warriors" fighting together in the film. At least not as represented here.
The boy was a minor character, and there is only a brief appearance of the monster. (which no one rides like a Sand Worm) Other than the girl and her flying machine, (which looks a bit different in the film) the rest was a total fabrication of the advertising department.
Warriors Of The Wind is the reason why Miyazaki refused to allow American dubs/edits of his film until Disney acquired the rights in the late 90's and swore to not cut a frame from them. That poster is such a BLATANT lie.
And speaking of film advertising that LIES, check out this hilariously misleading trailer for the 2007 William Friedkin thriller Bug:
Watching that, you'd expect some horror film about some sort of parasitic infestation, but instead it's a slow-moving character drama about two people going crazy in a hotel room and imagining they have a parasitic bug infestation. Talk about flagrant misrepresentation of a film's actual content.
'From Alan Dean Foster' = WRONG, he wrote the novelization. 'First 2001: A Space Odyssey' = That's a stretch... but I guess that was one thing the film parodied. 'Then The Poseidon Adventure' = How in heaven's name has that got anything to do with this film?
And then, to cap it all, the poster features some sort of daft-looking flying saucer covered in greeblies, doohickeys and laser guns, which bears no resemblance to the spaceship in the film... unless you looked at it from one end with your eyes crossed, having never seen the film.
I managed to find a much cooler German version, which hangs in a frame in my living room:
Remember this? Kong straddling both of the Twin Towers, swatting jet fighters?
I always wondered, what is that in his right hand?
That's been long debated! It's neither an airplane or a helo. A spaceship maybe? There was also some discussion about his apparent foot placement. Some suggest he is not actually straddling both towers. But instead its badly drawn force perspective, where the behind leg is actually in the air as he comes down on the tower in the forefront. (Finishing his leap)
Berkey was asked to, for instance, replace the jets with helicopters and remove the shadow from beneath Kong’s right foot.... Berkey corrected the painting by working right on top of his first draft, sanding and repainting. He remembers having to labor over the “wreckage” in Kong’s right hand in order to avoid tension with The Canadian air force, from whom DeLaurentiis hoped to get the use of some fighter jets. “They didn’t want their aircraft shown in flames,” Berkey recalls. “So I was told to make it ‘unidentifiable rubble.’ It ends up being sort of a blob”....
