Trailer Park (Updated)

The recent Star Wars teaser trailer took the internuts by storm. People are going absolutely Lady Gaga over all the tiny little details. Ooh, new stormtrooper armor. Ahh, a black stormtrooper! Eeeeeh, a claymore lightsaber!! BWAAAAAAH!!! Harrison Ford isn’t dead!

Okay, okay, that last one is pretty cool, I admit. Despite the way George Lucas broke all our hearts when he put out the Star Wars prequels, people are getting their feathers ruffled and pruned in anticipation of this flick as it looks like a semi-decent return to the world of Star Wars we all grew to love during the originals.

Please, please, please, Capricious Movie Gods, don’t let this movie suck. I’ll be sacrificing some lesser movies on the silver screen altar I’ve erected in the back alley later this afternoon to appease those vengeful deities. Feel free to join me, there will be plenty of popcorn to go around.

But you know what? Star Wars isn’t the only thing to drop like a hot potato recently. So what I present for your viewing pleasure are some radical looking trailers. (I’m trying to bring back the word radical, by the way. Please help me by A) not making fun of me and B) using radical in daily parlance. Find unexpected ways to slide it into your conversations and you’ll notice it’s the adjectival spice of life!)

First up!! Ant MAN!

Ant Man is sort of a silly superhero, a fact the movie-makers point out in this trailer. But you know what? Silliness aside, this looks amazing. Paul Rudd is pretty much the perfect pick to play Ant Man in my mind. His humor and delivery are ideal for a character who, going by the name Ant Man, has to be at least a little self-deprecating.

The story line isn’t terribly clear, or compelling, but this could be one of those movies that’s simply great fun to watch. The screenplay, from what we’ve seen, is fantastic. Snappy dialogue everywhere.

Also, that train scene at the end of the trailer made me snort. Very funny stuff.

NEXT UP! Batman v Superman!!

Let’s be honest, this really doesn’t give us much to work with. Then again, this movie isn’t slated for release until April of NEXT year. Holy buckets, Batman, that’s a long time out.

Quick tangent: is it just me or are “teaser trailers” kind of stupid. They tell us nothing and leave us wanting more for a really long time. Case in point, I keep seeing stuff for The Avengers 2 and all I can think is, “Wait, is that not out yet? Seems like it should be out by now. Been seeing trailers for the better part of forever.” This is all a personal preference, I realize, but hey, I want the movies now! Gimme, gimme, gimme.

Back to Superman v Batman. I’ve had serious reservations about this movie since it was announced Ben Affleck would be our caped crusader in black. Ugh, again I say, didn’t anybody see Daredevil? Probably not, which is good, ’cause it sucked.

Second tangent: Daredevil, the new television series, is fantastic. Ermagherd! Go watch it. Gritty and intense from beginning ’til end.

I’ll try and give old Ben “I get my insurance through” Affleck a chance, but I’m not optimistic. I leave the door open to be proven wrong.

Besides some intense background noise, heated bass, and that electronic siren thing that everybody and their grandmother have been using since the first Transformers movie came out, there isn’t much to this trailer. We get to see Batman’s costume which looks dark and mean and scary and grouchy. This isn’t going to be your George Clooney Batman, that’s for certain.

I continue to find it interesting the fundamentally opposite directions that Marvel and DC keep going with their movie releases. Marvel (AntMan, Guardians of the Galaxy, and the Avengers) has taken a more light hearted, humerous, open to all ages approach. DC (Batman, Superman, the new WonderWoman) are dark and gritty and scary and sort of depressing. Neither approach is bad, but I’m guessing Marvel is making substantially more money off each of their flicks, so neither are the two approaches equal, either.

(EDIT) Not ten minutes after I posted this review, DC got in touch with my people and expressed deep regret for having disappointed me with the above teaser trailer. As a result, they decided to let drop the full-length trailer which can be seen below. Just a couple quick take away thoughts: for those who don’t know, this looks like it might be a mashup of Frank Miller’s Dark Knight Returns series of graphic novels. There’s a bit of a twist as it seems Superman is now the “evil one” instead of Batman, but whatevs.

I’ll admit, I am interested to see how this movie pans out. If nothing else, the effects look top notch!

NEXT!!!! Terminator Genisys!

This, in a nutshell, is why I don’t like time travel stories. Their more convoluted than a Gordian knot. Every action has a ripple down consequence that changes the entire sequence of events to follow. Sure, that can be cool, but more than likely, it’s just annoying.

Now, that’s perhaps misplaced criticism for a movie like Termination which, at its core, is just good old action packed fun. So I’ll give it a pass and reserve judgement day until I see it. <– see what I did there? eh?

Couple things though: Old Arnold fighting Young Arnold? Meh, feels gimmicky.

Bringing Old Arnold back, after killing him off so beautifully back in Terminator 2 when he goes into the magma with a thumbs up, can only be bad. He left us on a high note in that story. Should’ve stayed dead.

I’m psyched to see they bring back that liquid Terminator, but they creators will be faced with the problem of how to use him effectively without just copping out and reproducing everything they did in the first films. Hard to do, and from the looks of the trailer, they failed. But it’s still early, who’s to say for sure.

The, John Connor is a new sort of robot, doesn’t make sense to me in context of what we’ve seen, but I’ll try and stay open-minded. I want to like this movie–if for no other reason than nostalgic purposes–but sometimes a franchise should *clears throat and does best Arnold impersonation* “Stop coming Back.”

Alright, that’s all Folks. Let me know your thoughts. Which films are you excited for in the next year? Any of the above mentioned? Some other ones I didn’t even mention? How do you feel about the upcoming Star Wars? These are important questions I need answered!