Honestly, the first time that movie trailer Kubo and the Two Strings hit the internet back in early 2016, nobody was really prepared. Stop-motion usually feels small. It feels like Wallace and Gromit or maybe the spooky, spindly world of Coraline. But this? This felt like an epic. It felt like Kurosawa met a fever dream.
I remember watching it on a tiny laptop screen and feeling the hair on my arms stand up. It wasn't just the animation. It was the music—that haunting, plucked cover of "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" by Regina Spektor. It signaled that LAIKA wasn't just playing around with puppets anymore; they were making a high-stakes myth.
The Trailer That Changed the Stop-Motion Game
If you go back and watch the movie trailer Kubo and the Two Strings released by Focus Features, you'll notice something weird. It doesn't follow the typical "action-comedy" beat of most animated trailers. There are no fart jokes. There’s no talking animal sidekick cracking one-liners in the first thirty seconds. Instead, you get a boy on a beach, a massive wave, and a shamisen.
It was bold.
LAIKA’s CEO Travis Knight, who also directed the film, has talked extensively about how they wanted the marketing to reflect the "monomyth" structure. They weren't just selling a kid's movie. They were selling a Japanese-inspired folklore odyssey. The trailer leans heavily into the visual of the paper origami coming to life. That’s not CGI—at least, mostly not. It’s thousands of hours of physical labor. When the trailer shows Kubo’s mother parting the ocean, you’re looking at a practical effect involving literal garbage bags and clever lighting.
Why the Music Choice Was a Masterstroke
Most trailers use "epic" stock music. You know the kind—the "BWAHHH" sounds from Inception or generic orchestral swells. The movie trailer Kubo and the Two Strings took a massive risk by using a Beatles cover. But it wasn't just any cover. By using the shamisen—a three-stringed Japanese instrument—to play the melody, the trailer bridged the gap between Western audiences and the Eastern setting.
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It felt familiar yet completely foreign.
Regina Spektor’s vocals don't even kick in until the back half. The first minute is just atmosphere and the rhythmic snapping of strings. It’s quiet. In an era of "loud" trailers, that silence was deafening. It forced you to pay attention to the textures—the wood grain of the boat, the fur on the Monkey (voiced by Charlize Theron), and the terrifying, porcelain-masked Sisters.
What Most People Get Wrong About the Trailer's Promises
There’s a common misconception that trailers "spoil" movies. While the movie trailer Kubo and the Two Strings showed the Giant Skeleton, it didn't tell you the scale. That skeleton is actually the largest stop-motion puppet ever built. It’s over 16 feet tall. In the trailer, it looks like a cool creature. In the context of the film’s production history, it’s a feat of engineering that nearly broke the studio.
People also thought, based on the trailer, that it would be a straightforward "hero's journey."
It’s not.
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The film is much darker. It deals with dementia, loss, and the literal erasure of memory. The trailer hinted at this with the line, "If you must blink, do it now," but it masked the emotional weight with stunning action sequences. The marketing was clever; it gave us the spectacle to get us into the seats, then hit us with a heavy meditation on grief once the lights went down.
The Technical Wizardry Behind Those Two Minutes
Let's talk about the "Water" problem. Stop-motion and water are natural enemies. You can’t frame-by-frame a liquid. When you see the storm in the movie trailer Kubo and the Two Strings, you’re seeing a mix of high-tech rapid prototyping and old-school theater tricks.
- The waves were made of oscillating wires and fabric.
- The spray was often replaced by digital effects in post-production, but the physical interaction was real.
- Kubo’s hair? It’s made of human hair and wire so it can be "posed" for every single frame.
Every second of that trailer represents roughly a week of work for a lead animator. Think about that. By the time you finished the two-and-a-half-minute teaser, a team of hundreds had spent years of their lives just to make those specific frames move fluidly.
The Cultural Impact and the "White-Washing" Debate
You can't talk about the movie trailer Kubo and the Two Strings without acknowledging the elephant in the room. When the cast list dropped in the credits of the trailer—Matthew McConaughey, Charlize Theron, Ralph Fiennes—there was immediate pushback. Why were there so few Japanese actors in a story set in feudal Japan?
It’s a valid critique that still follows the film. While the art department went to painstaking lengths to research Japanese woodblock prints (specifically the work of Kiyoshi Saitō), the voice cast remained very Hollywood-centric. George Takei and Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa are in there, but in smaller roles. It’s a tension that exists within the film's legacy: a visual love letter to a culture voiced by people outside of it.
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Despite this, the trailer won over many skeptics because of its sheer reverence for the aesthetic. It didn't feel like a caricature. It felt like a tribute.
Comparing the Teaser to the Final Product
If you watch the teaser (the "Strings" teaser) versus the full theatrical movie trailer Kubo and the Two Strings, the difference is energy. The teaser is a poem. The theatrical trailer is an adventure.
One thing that the trailer actually undersells is the humor. Beetle (McConaughey) is barely in the early marketing, likely because LAIKA wanted to maintain the "epic" tone. When you actually watch the movie, the chemistry between the Monkey and the Beetle provides a much-needed levity that the trailer ignores in favor of showing off the technical "wow" shots.
And those shots? They hold up. Even in 2026, the animation in Kubo looks better than many modern CGI films. There is a "tactile" reality to it. You can see the thumbprints if you look close enough. You can feel the weight of the puppets.
Actionable Takeaways for Cinephiles
If you're a fan of animation or just someone who appreciates the craft of a good movie trailer Kubo and the Two Strings, here is how to truly appreciate what went into it:
- Watch the "Making Of" for the Giant Skeleton. It puts the trailer's scale into perspective. Seeing a human being standing next to a puppet's skull is a reality check for how much effort goes into a "cartoon."
- Listen to the soundtrack separately. Dario Marianelli’s score is a masterclass in blending traditional Japanese scales with Western orchestral arrangements.
- Compare it to LAIKA's later work. If you look at Missing Link or their upcoming projects, you can see the DNA of Kubo—the push toward larger, more open-world environments in stop-motion.
- Look for the "Easter Eggs" in the trailer frames. Many of the background characters in the market scenes are modeled after actual LAIKA employees, a tradition they’ve kept since Paranorman.
The movie trailer Kubo and the Two Strings remains a high-water mark for how to market a "difficult" film. It didn't treat the audience like they were bored. It treated them like they were ready for a story that actually meant something. If you haven't revisited the film since that first trailer hooked you, it’s time to go back. The strings are still playing, and the story is just as sharp.