To Infinity and the Cosmos

Well its finally here boys and girls and its so devishly exciting I could squeal out loud hell I already did when watching it.

And that is the first official trailer for Avengers: Infinity War which dropped last Wednesday night Australian time and OH! MY! GOODNESS!!

It is a truly fantastic piece of trailer making and I love me a good trailer but this one was so good and so well cut together in terms of its beats both musically and editorially that I can’t help but want to watch it over and over and over again and save for the Frank Sinatra trailer for Kingsman the Golden Circle this is my favourite preview for this year.

But there also three huge reasons as to why I feel this trailer works so well:

- Firstly the glimpses of the spectacle on shown here look HUGE and not just in a “Aren’t these effects neat” kind of a way but it just feels like a huge movie in terms of its effects work both on Earth and in Outer Space but also its stakes in terms of “Thanos has to be stopped or he will destroy the entire Universe” and from what I’ve seen of his chief minions the Black Order they remind me an awful lot of the Ginyu Force from Dragon Ball Z.

- Secondly the characters and their interactions all look and sound terrific it feels like a real thrill to see Dr. Strange, Wong, Tony Stark and Dr. Banner together same with Captain Rogers, Black Panther, Black Widow and Bucky plus Thor meeting the Guardians of the Galaxy in the end of the trailer.

But it isn’t just that this is an exciting thrill it also feels very natural these interactions as Marvel Studios has spent an entire decade building this universe with not just 2 previous Avengers films prior to this one but also multiple films with Thor, Iron Man, Captain America and the Guardians of the Galaxy plus solo films for Doctor Strange, Ant Man, Black Panther and Spider-Man so by the time we get to this major movie we’ve seen plenty with these characters and their journeys so seeing them all together doesn’t feel rushed in any way.

And lastly it just feels right to see them all together even Loki who has a great great shot in this trailer holding the Tesseract in his hand while he has this look of complete fear on his face as if he’s seen some bad shit go down and also this kind of reaction is what happens when a studio like Marvel and its leader Kevin Feige have the patience, the discipline and the vision right from the beginning and set about executing it in a methodical way that yes has seen some changes along the way but the leadership did not crack so those changes were added seamlessly to the overall universe and its come out stronger as a result.

- Lastly Thanos and finally after so many times that I have written here and said on air in my Radio show Marvel Studios’s weakest link for me and it has hurt the long term replay value of their films in my eyes is their villains almost all of them save for Loki have been either meh or miserable failures but here Thanos looks great.

And its not just in terms of his visual look which looks very believable in terms of you can see and hear Josh Brolin under all that purple skin but also the glimpses we get of his dialogue are great as well and when he has lines like “In time you’ll know what its like to lose, to feel so desperately that your right yet to fail all the same.” And “Fun isn’t something one considers when balancing the universe.” I squealed big time.

Because here finally we get a proper villain in one of these films and it feels like its been so long since a movie villain really resonated with an audience the last one I can think of was maybe the Joker in the Dark Knight but since then it feels like the focus has been so much on the heroes that the villains have been forgotten about in terms of how much they can resonate with an audience but also their true importance to these kinds of stories and I fear that Thanos could end up potentially the same way as audiences now may well have forgotten what a good movie villain feels like.

Now I could be wrong and I hope sincerely that I am but I just can’t help but feel that way right now that audiences have become so used to villains being a forgettable part of the story that Thanos might not resonate with those audiences the way he should but we wait and see.

Now here is where I will not only start to wrap things up but also compare this trailer to the leaked trailer from Comic Con earlier this year and by and large they have a similar feel but the cosmic side of the story was featured more heavily and some of the glimpses we see in this trailer are extended out more but the combination of those and this official trailer give us a look at a film that will have plenty of the Marvel humour but also feel like a large spectacle with great character work and a memorable villain and that’s all you really want a film like this isn’t it.

Isn’t it?

So that was my take on the Avengers Infinity War trailer and it’s a great trailer and I cannot wait to see the movie next April.