The Avengers (Page 1 of 2)

If I could open a temporal window to 1981 I would use it to send a betamax tape with the film's release date written on it and just this trailer from 2:00 to 2:07.

That suprises me, the trailer has done nothing but relieve some of my fears. Namely I now know that Joss is at least doing the character dynamicss right, in that they each want to be the main character and none of them will give ground. And plus it looks like he's doing good with the action stuff, so I'm excited.

I'm incredibly hard to win over with a trailer.

Like, really incredible. Even trailers I watch and go "some editor fucking rules," still don't win me over.

You're expecting the turn to be "and I loved this trailer," but no. This looked like every other trailer.

So. I'm still gonna go with the boys on opening night to see the movie, but this recent round of trailers does not have apparent quality above the last, for me. It looked like a movie about The Avengers then, and it looks like one now.

The selling point is Joss, for me. If this trailer was nothing but "you know Joss, right? Check out THESE line deliveries!" I'd be somewhere in the ballpark of excited. Right now, I'm sick of this stuff.

And to be fair, even if it was a Joss trailer, still probably not. I'm not a grouch, I just can't be bothered to give a fuck. It might become my favorite movie ever, but they're apparently having a hell of a time getting my mental demographic onboard. Put all the exploding buildings you want in a teaser, trailer, movie, even sequel - I'd be more happy to be fooled by something that looked like an interesting performance [or characterization, or attitude, perspective, premise, angle, or aesthetic, or style, or anything halp], not set piece.

I love Joss Whedon, and I've liked a lot of his work. His perspective and personality win me over even when his projects don't. Right now, I'm looking more forward to the question in a 2019 interview about The Avengers than the actual movie.

I know I'm supposed to be cautious about this; after all it's sort of like angry group sex with a stack of dudes, but there's almost a patois to the trailer that makes me wonder if it's all going to turn out alright.

The Avengers as an idea is retarded. It's a blend of mythology and origin stories that really don't have a place in the same universe. What gives me hope is the special sauce of Whedon and Downey Jr. If ever there was a perfect writey guy-speakey guy combination, that's got to be it. If there's some reasonable themes underpinning the action then I think this could be a pleasant surprise.

Or we the collective audience are going to wind up with really sore bums.

Thing is, if they would let the guys making the movie put together the marketing for the movie - or at least the trailer - then they'd probably end up with lots of awesome trailers. I dunno if they ever let the guys making the movies make the trailers, but it often doesn't appear that way, cause trailers are ususally just a mess of action shots and crap dialogue, give too much away, have no sense of "holy shit what's gonna happen next?" going on, etc. They usually don't answer the main question they're trying to answer which is "Why should I spend $10 and 2 hours to go see your movie?" If the answer you wanted was "We've got fights and group posing and special effects!" then this trailer pushed all your buttons.

I'm sure it will be at least in the above-average group of superhero movies, cause Whedon is good at making movies in general, and good at dealing with ensemble groups of characters who all have different personalities and functions and stuff. I'll bet you that Hawkeye is gonna go from "Who the fuck is that guy?" to "Holy shit, Hawkeye was my favorite character!" overnight. But the trailer is just a generic trailer. I dunno how it all works in the industry, but I wouldn't be surprised to learn that the same guy(s) cut the trailer for most of the other marvel movies in the last several years. They're all pretty much the same trailer.

edit

I thought of the Transformers films when I watched this as well. The vibe is made even stronger because they're literally ripping sound design from those movies and tossing it into the trailer.

Last edited by Squiggly_P (2012-03-01 06:36:51)

Apparently this film shall be known as Marvel Avengers Assemble in the UK so people don't confuse it with The Avengers tv series from the 60s and the crappy film version of said tv show with the same name. Bollocks.

Here's the exact same trailer but with the new UK title. Bollocks.

Bollocks.

I love this movement that's sprung up of drawing male superheroes like female superheroes to highlight the difference between idealization and sexualization. It's the best kind of satire, hysterical while still making a strong point.

The Spider-Man costume here is one of my favorites. I think it's the look of terror on the face of the guy he's saving that gets me.

I also don't tend to get excited by trailers -- in fact in the last couple years I've just stopped watching trailers at all, except the ones that play in the theater or that everyone is talking about. But some of my friends just go on the Apple site and browse, and I never do.

For my part, I've become jaded toward trailers not because I work in the industry, but because I've been burned too many times by an awesome trailer for a shitty film. If I don't get excited I can't be (as) disappointed. These days I treat trailers as stand-alone pieces. I appreciate the craft of a great trailer but it doesn't make me excited for the movie, though it can make me more interested if it looks better than I expected. There's also the factor that I've already probably decided whether or not I'm going to see it (with possibility to be swayed if the tomatometer goes hard the other way), so the trailer is mostly irrelevant.

Oh, and I'm sorry, but after the prequels, Matrix sequels, half of what Spielberg's been up to the last decade, and The Shyamalan, "from the makers of [thing I loved]" gets me cautiously optimistic at best.

I'll be the odd man out here. I love trailers. I love the concept of a trailer. The best ones are little works of art all by themselves. It's kind of like the sonnet; it's a really constrained format, but paradoxically shackling yourself to those constraints opens you up to a whole lot of creativity.

Wait, Hawkeye? Who the hell is Hawkeye?

His super power had better not be squinty vision.

Remember in THOR where Jeremy Renner was in one scene with a bow and arrow and it was like "lolwut"? Apparently that's a thing called Hawkeye.