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Superhero Fatigue... With a Chance for Something New
The long-awaited trailer for Avengers: Infinity War was released this morning. People all over the internet lost their collective minds once they began to watch the trailer. All of their favorite characters appearing in the same movie! Action! Thanos without a helmet! Captain America's beard! There were so many things to react to. And I saw almost all positive reactions. Of course, I didn't look at every reaction there was, but most of what I saw was people loving what they'd seen and not being able to contain their excitement for this movie.
I had a very different initial reaction.
When I first watched the trailer, I was significantly underwhelmed. In fact, the first text I sent after watching it was to my brother and it said, "Meh..." I was not blown away with crazy anticipation as I was when, say, the trailer for Star Wars The Force Awakens first came out.
I really didn't feel like it had shown me anything that I hadn't seen before. In the last 10 or so years, I can't even count how many different movies or movie trailers I've seen where a big base from space was floating in the air over some city with bad guys coming out of it. There are faceless bad guys and a bunch of superheroes that we all have seen and love, which is cool, but nothing looks particularly new.
But for some reason, just seeing all these heroes doing something "different" isn't enough for me. I've seen so many cool action scenes with these heroes before. From Iron Man's escape from his Middle Eastern cell in the first Iron Man movie all the way to the airport scene in Civil War, these guys have been involved in lots of cool looking and well-made action sequences. I really liked Thor Ragnarok because it strayed so much from the typical formula that these movies have been following. It didn't take itself too seriously and it dared to be different. It was fun, humorous, had good action, and a simple and engaging story. But now I'm worried that the characters who appeared in Ragnarok will seem out of place in the new Avengers movie, which seems to have a darker tone.
But that is what can make this movie different when it comes to the way that I see its quality: the tone and the stakes.
One of the biggest criticisms of the films in the MCU is that there is nothing legitimate at stake for the main characters. They fight the bad guys, get some bruises, make some jokes, and then the movie ends and we are on to the next. Infinity War could be different. There are so many new, exciting, and fun characters that are ready to take center stage in the Marvel Universe from Iron Man, Captain America, and Thor. This big names that have become mainstays for these movies aren't needed anymore. They're expendable to the story. I'm expecting to see some main character deaths - but I have no idea who that might be. And that's what excites me. That's what gives me hope that this movie can be great. I won't know what to expect because any one of these characters could bite the dust at any moment.
Avengers: Infinity War has the chance to become one of the best superhero movies ever, just based on spectacle and star power. But add in this new level of unpredictability and it could be even better than hoped for.
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