The past few days have seen a steadily increasing drumbeat of speculation and rumor and “news” regarding when the trailer for the next Avengers movie is coming out. The hottest new rumor has it coming out on Wednesday, December 5th, although if it doesn’t come out then it wouldn’t be the first (or second or third) time that the rumors have been wrong. Either way, interest in the trailer for the next Avengers movie is starting to reach a fever pitch:
Whether the rumors are correct or not, though, and with the release of the latest Captain Marvel trailer during Monday Night Football this week, this seems like a perfect time to address something that has been bothering me since the last Avengers movie: Did watching the trailer negatively impact my enjoyment of the movie?
I want to make a few things perfectly clear before going on. I thought Infinity War was an incredible movie. Considering how many characters (both old and new) were crammed into the movie and how much development that Thanos was given, it’s amazing that it works at all, let alone that it’s one of the best MCU movies to date. I also absolutely loved the trailers, and probably easily watched both of them dozens of times in the weeks and months leading up to the movie. It can almost be said I got more enjoyment out of the trailers than I did the movie itself…. Almost.
I’ve written before about my love/hate relationship with movie trailers and how too many of them give away too much. Terminator 2 trailers blew the big twist that the fearsome T-800 from the first movie played by Arnold Schwarzenegger was the good guy this time around. The Hulk was plastered all over marketing for Thor: Ragnarok despite the fact that the movie itself played it close to the vest until the big reveal. Batman v Superman trailers were tossing around spoilers like they were candy on Halloween, giving away Wonder Woman’s dramatic introduction and the existence of Doomsday as the big bad.
I actually didn’t think the Infinity War trailers did a bad job in terms of keeping secrets despite the surprising amount of footage that it ended up showing. The shockingly depressing ending was kept unspoiled. None of the deaths were given away and there were even a few misdirects. They even kept Red Skull’s big surprise cameo as just that: a surprise.
At the same time, though, so many smaller things were spoiled by the trailers. The one that is most prominent to me that I keep coming back to was the featured image for this post: the scene where Steve Rogers makes his dramatic entrance.
Captain America is my favorite avenger, and one of my favorite snippets from the trailers is when T’Challa points off-screen and says, “get this man a shield” as it cuts to Steve Rogers emerging from the shadows to the relief of Wanda. That moment from the trailers was seared into my memory going into the movie to the point where I have little doubt that it detracted from my enjoyment of that scene from the movie. During most of the battle between Wanda/Vision and Corvus/Proxima I was less invested in the drama going on in front of me and mostly just anticipating when Steve Rogers would show up to save the day. The heroes never felt truly in danger because I knew how the battle was going to end. And then finally, when Steve does show up, it almost felt anti-climatic because it was a scene that I had seen dozens of times already.
Additionally, even though the trailers didn’t directly give away many plots points, it was surprising by how many little things could be inferred from scenes from the trailers. Shots of Shuri working on an injured Vision gave away the sanctuary that Steve Rogers would seek out. We already knew Tony, Peter, and Doctor Strange were going to have an adventure off-planet thanks to scenes of them and the Guardians of the Galaxy together. The epic battle of Wakanda was also completely spoiled ahead of time as well. Many people also accurately predicted the early demise of the Asgardians and creation of Stormbreaker based on scenes from the trailer as well.
That’s not the only small, but important moment that I thought the trailers ruined:
- Tony’s new nanotechnology based suit
- The Iron Spider suit
- Return of the Hulkbuster armor
- Huh, this list is pretty Iron Man-centric, huh?
How amazing would it have been to have witnessed Tony’s new transformation or the epic Wakanda battle for the first time in theater? Without knowing exactly when Steve Rogers was going to show up, would I have been more invested in the fight in Scotland? Since by definition we can only ever experience something for the first time once, it’s impossible to know for sure. However, the imminent (?) Avengers 4 trailer might provide the next best opportunity.
When the new Avengers trailer comes out, should I decide not to watch it in order to see if it heightens my enjoyment of the upcoming movie? Can I even resist watching it? The movie is 6 months away. That’s a long time to not only avoid any trailers, but also commercials or even rumors online. I’m frankly not even sure it’s possible, but a part of me is excited over the thought of it. Because I see fewer movies these days, I generally only see movies that I am pretty sure I will like and that I’ve seen trailers for. Going into a movie completely blind is almost a foreign experience for me these days. How amazing would it be to go into Avengers 4 knowing basically nothing about what is going to happen.
So what do you all think? Should I try? Is it even possible? Leave your thoughts and comments below. Don’t take too long, though, my hand might be forced very soon.
easy answer is to get really drunk and then watch the trailer and then watch the movie sober and you most likely won’t remember what you saw but will have enjoyed it nonetheless.
Do I have to get really drunk every time I want to watch the trailer? Or is the idea that I only watch it once? Because one of those is not going to be good for my liver….
I personally wouldn’t. Trailers always give too much away and Marvel has not got a good track record with them. I plan to avoid anything that might end up being spoilers.
I’ve managed to stay strong so far. The only thing I’ve seen are a few pictures and blurbs from scrolling through Google News. It’s not easy. Google has (accurately) figured out that I’m really into movie trailers and really into Marvel movies so I keep getting reminders on my phone and elsewhere that the new trailer is out and “Do you want to watch it?”. I don’t suspect my willpower will last, but we’ll see.