Editorial 20/04/15- This Week in Trailers

Well, guys, if you've been wondering why I haven't been posting too frequently lately, I have three reasons. 1) I'm trying to get into a better work/school schedule and it leaves little room for other activities, 2) creative block is a pain in the neck to get past, and 3) there's just been a mess of trailers. Over the last week, no less than six trailers for major blockbusters coming out this year and next have been released. It's asking for a whole mess of speculation (except on Terminator's end) and gave me and my family a lot to talk about and think on. With that, and the hope that this will get me in a more creative mood, let's take a look at the big bombs that dropped this week in order of release, and see what works, what doesn't, and what to expect.

Ant-Man

This whole mess seems to have started with Marvel's reveal of their next big adventure. Sure, the first trailer already came out a month or two ago, but it didn't show much to get me excited- it lacked a certain "fun" tone that Marvel movies are known for. That's almost completely rectified here. Not only do we have a better idea for characters and situations (and a sweet villain reveal), but we also have a better look at the action. We can see now how to use ant-telepathy and shrinking powers to effectively take mooks out with extreme prejudice. That, and it's all fun again. It's not that I was worried about it before, but I can sleep the night before the premier knowing that Marvel won't let us down.

Terminator: Genisys

Then, of course, comes what happens when you stuff too much into a trailer. Leaving no room for speculation, this seems to want to show us the whole movie- last year's "the Amazing Spiderman 2" can tell you that that's a bad marketing strategy. The fact that Arnold plays the good guy here should have been enough, but they keep on going with the fact that John Connor is a bad guy, he's some form of robot himself, and even showing the outcome of certain action sequences... shot by shot!

I was interested to see how this would turn out beforehand, but this makes me (along with hundreds of fans, doubtless) feel like I saw the whole thing. This trailer alone may be enough to ruin the film's box office earnings.

Star Wars: the Force Awakens

Sorry: The publisher of this video has disabled embedding. However, you can watch the full trailer here.

On a more positive note, I haven't seen anything about "Star Wars VII" that has disappointed me yet. Director J.J. Abrams has been pretty secretive about his project, but what we've seen so far is very promising. It carries a lot of the charm that the original series had with a completely different tone in terms of cinematography and visuals. The animatronics and set design are great, the computer imagery makes it look like somebody put effort and heart into this, and we never know too much about what's going on. Why are TIE- Fighters attacking their own base? Why does Luke say his father has the force? What's really going on behind enemy lines? In all honesty, especially after the last shot, my biggest is "when's the earliest I can see this?"

Batman Vs Superman: Dawn of Justice

With how quickly this came out after "Star Wars"' trailer, it's pretty obvious that DC is just riding the bandwagon. Of course, that's not to say we don't see anything interesting here. The idea of a cult around Superman is a good one, and the opposite- full-on rejection of the Hero of Metropolis- opens to a quite a few possibilities. In a different light, the 'Batman' segments of the trailer were equally impressive. I never thought I'd say this, but Ben Affleck is rocking the Bat-suit, and his stare-down with Superman says enough. It sells its concept well enough, but it's not entirely convincing yet: casting choices like Jessie Eisenberg as Lux Luthor are still questionable at best. I'll simply have to see more to make up my mind.

Fantastic 4

Let's face it: the Fantastic 4 are some of the hardest superheroes to sell. Even in the Marvel Universe, there's no easy way to invite people to a movie about a rubber-band-man, an invisible girl, a man who sets himself on fire, and a stone giant. So, it's a bit understandable that this project hasn't gotten me quite hooked yet. The tone is just so serious for a film about trans-dimensional travel and superpowers. Then again, you could argue that the original launch had the problem of being too campy. I'm still cautious, but I'm willing to give the benefit of the doubt. After all, this was made by the team behind last years' "X-Men: Days of Future Past" which had relatively unimpressive trailers compared to the scope and power of the final film. For all I know, we could be seeing a similar story here.

Jurassic World

That's right. This one only came out hours ago, so this may be the first thing I really hear from it. As I speak from uninfluenced opinion, though, I have to say that I'm still excited for this. We get to see more of a fully-operational Jurassic Park, which is always something cool. It's also fun to see more of Chris Pratt's character here. Before, he's always seemed your generic "kill-them-all" "clever girl" Muldoon-style keeper, but now I'm starting to see hints of Dr. Malcolm. He's a great deal more methodical, but he's also not afraid to bring a little irreverence to the table. That, and his taming of the Raptors scene felt a lot more tense this time around.

As for the new dinosaur, I can't say I was quite as happy with the reveals centered around her. I was personally hoping we wouldn't get to see her design until the film proper, but we get a wide-shot, daylight scene here, and it didn't have too much gravity to go with it. On top of that, they seem to be hyping her up a bit too much. After all, most of her descriptions were used in the first film to describe the Velociraptors to an arguably better effect. However, with the confirmation that we will see T. rex again in this, and the shots of the park retaliating against the new threat, I'm glad to see the director is still keeping to the spirit of the original films.

So, now that you've seen these trailers, what do you think? What are your ideas on how these films will turn out? Let us know in the comments section and, hopefully, check back for new art pieces, films, games, and looks at others'!

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