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Comic Con Trailer Reactions
Over the weekend, a bunch of new trailers were released at San Diego Comic Con, including five on Saturday. Since it would be a lot to devote a whole post to each one, I decided I would give brief thoughts on each one!
Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald (November 16, 2019)
I wrote about the first trailer for this movie when it was released in March. It is pretty unlike me to watch a second trailer for a movie I’m looking forward to, but since it was a Comic Con trailer, I decided to watch it. And just like the first trailer, it didn’t disappoint.
The magic of this trailer is how it shows a lot of footage from the movie – it is over three minutes long – but doesn’t give away much of the plot. We get to see much more young Dumbledore, as well as some callbacks to the original Harry Potter movies, including, but not limited to, a boggart, the deluminator, the Mirror of Erised (with Dumbledore seeing Grindelwald, not socks), thestrals, the Elder Wand, and Nicholas Flamel himself. These are all enough to make a huge Potter fan excited.
As a massive Potter fan myself, there is so much to be excited about with this movie. The effects look great, the action looks fun, and it looks like there will be no shortage of fantastic new beasts. I’m intrigued by this time period in HP history, so I’m extremely excited by this trailer.
Aquaman (December 21, 2018)
A popular opinion is that with all of the flaws in the DCEU, it is still extremely well-cast. I agree with that, apart from Aquaman. Aquaman was, in my opinion, the worst member of the Justice League in the Justice League movie. Because of this, I didn’t have a lot of hope before I watched the trailer for Aquaman, but I was cautiously optimistic. But after watching the trailer, almost all of the optimism I had is gone.
First of all, the effects look terrible (there is a shot of two tridents clashing that looks particularly bad). It is almost inexcusable at this point when VFX are done poorly in a superhero movie, but here we are. At least they look better than Justice League…
Also, the theme that I am getting from the trailer is that Aquaman needs to realize that he is a capable leader and that he needs to become who he was meant to be. That is such a tired theme, and one that this character doesn’t really earn, the way he’s been done thus far.
Finally, there are a few attempts at humor and all of them fall flat. When I’m not enjoying the stuff in the trailer that is supposed to be fun, I don’t hold out a lot of hope.
On the positive side, Atlantis looks pretty cool in the few shots that it is given.
Glass (January 18, 2019)
Unbreakable was incredible and Split was unexpectedly amazing. Now, this end to the trilogy looks like it has great things in store. Towards the end of Unbreakable, Glass’ mother says that there is always the villain that fights with his fists (Kevin Crumb’s Beast) and the one that uses their mind (Mr. Glass) to fight the hero (David Dunn). In Glass, we’re going to see them team up and it looks jaw-dropping.
When this movie was announced, I was skeptical at how the first two films could work together. I love them both, but I didn’t see the way they connected. But the early glimpses that this trailer have given me make me giddy and excited to see this culmination.
It looks like it is going back to that self-aware feeling that Unbreakable had. It isn’t hiding anything anymore the way Split was (though, with Shyamalan, you never know), so I’m very excited to see where this movie goes.
Shazam! (April 5, 2019)
The beginning of this trailer was underwhelming, to be honest. It is trying a little too hard to let you know that it is part of the DCEU and some other parts just seem pretty cheesy. But when Billy first becomes Shazam, the trailer becomes so fun and charming.
Zachary Levi just seems like he is having so much fun as a kid in an adult’s body who just got super powers. He acts just like every other twelve year-old would in that situation and you can’t help but smile while watching it. I hope that the whole movie is like the closing scene in the convenience store (“What’s up? I’m a superhero!). If it is, this movie could be a whole lot of fun and a whole lot of awesome.
Godzilla: King of the Monsters (May 31, 2019)
If anything, this trailer has beautiful visuals going for it. That, a star-studded cast, a fantastic musical accompaniment, and awesome-looking action are draws all on their own.
I almost wanted to dismiss the trailer right away based on the fact that it is yet another “save the world” mission. But, surprisingly for a movie such as this, it looks like it has a good amount of heart behind it. A good way to handle worldwide destruction is to focus on a few characters and make the audience feel something for them. It looks like that is exactly what this movie is going to do.