DARK PHOENIX: Let's Take A Closer Look At That SPOILER-Filled New Trailer
The new Dark Phoenix trailer debuted last night, and it's most notable for spoiling (or appearing to spoil, at least) a major character's death. Here, we take a closer look with a shot-by-shot breakdown...
A second full trailer for Dark Phoenix was released late last night, and while it certainly wasn't terrible by any means, the general consensus seems to be that it was a mediocre tease for a movie that really needed something epic to get fans fully on board.
Putting aside the fact that the plot looks far too similar to that of the much-maligned The Last Stand, the trailer contains some very clunky dialogue and line delivery. Plus, it (seemingly) spoils the death of a major character outright - although we think there could be some misdirection at play there.
It's not all bad, though, so have a read through our shot-by-shot breakdown and let us know what you think in the comments.
Jean Distraught
The trailer opens with a clearly distraught Jean Grey (Sophie Turner) asking The Phoenix Force (presumably) why it made her "do that."
Do what, exactly? Well, it's soon made very clear that the friend Jean is talking about is shape-shifting co-leader of The X-Men, Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence).
Mystique's Death(?)
There's no doubt that the trailer wants us to believe that Jean murders Mystique in this scene, but is there a chance that some misdirection is at work?
Well, aside from the fact that it'd just be plain idiotic to spoil something like this in a trailer (we're not putting it past them), the previous teaser included a shot of Raven running away from the destruction Jean had wrought with the rest of the team, which may suggest that she actually survives her encounter with the Dark Phoenix here.
Master Of Puppets
Not just the name of Metallica's best album, but pretty much all we know about Jessica Chastain's mysterious villain after this trailer.
It's made very clear that this malevolent alien is manipulating Jean for her own purposes, and a big part of her plan would seem to include encouraging the confused young mutant to do away with her teammates.
Is Chastain playing The Skrull Queen, Lillandra, or a completely new character? We'll just have to wait and see.
Phoenix Force
In a scene that should make fans of Chris Claremont's comic book arc happy, we see Jean overtaken by The Phoenix Force while on a mission with several of the other X-Men.
What the team is actually doing in outer space in the first place remains to be seen, but director Simon Kinberg has previously hinted that it's some kind of rescue effort.
Could The Shi'ar Empire factor into the plot after all?
Magneto's About To Have A Very Bad Day
In one of the coolest moments from the trailer, we see Jean begin to crush Magneto's (Michael Fassbender) helmet.
That metal headpiece has come in very handy for Eric in the past as it's designed to block Xavier's telepathy, but it looks like one of the power mutant's most reliable tools may become the instrument of his destruction.
Okay, so we doubt Jean will actually kill Mags here, but it looks like he's definitely going to need some help to get out of this one.
Funeral For A Friend
Here we revisit that scene from the first teaser that got everyone speculating about who was in the coffin, and now we appear to have confirmation that it's Mystique.
Again, there is a chance that Raven's death is a fake-out and we lose a different character (there are a few other team members not present at the funeral, after all) but given everything we've seen so far, that does seem highly unlikely. Unless...
Quicksilver Steps Up
Another awesome shot sees Quicksilver (Evan Peters) use his ultra-fast abilities in an attempt to get close enough to Jean to take her out of action.
Is there a chance Jean actually kills Peter here and that's the funeral we see Charles, Beast, Storm and Magneto attend? There are several shots in the trailer that feature the rest of the team but don't include Quicksilver.
Just putting it out there!
The Blame Game
Another callback to The Last Stand here, except it's Beast (Nicholas Hoult) and not Wolverine blaming Charles (James McAvoy) for what happened to Jean.
In X-Men 3 Xavier was most directly responsible for Jean breaking bad because he repressed her burgeoning abilities from an early age and lied about it, but we're not sure what hand he plays in The Phoenix Force taking hold of her in this movie.
Perhaps he simply insists that the team venture into space before they're ready?
More Deaths?
As the trailer nears its end, we see various shots of the people Jean cares about being made to suffer, presumably by her own hand.
Is it possible that we'll lose more than one X-Man in the movie? This is almost certainly the final installment of the main franchise, after all, and even if Kinberg and co. weren't fully aware of that while filming, remember that there were extensive reshoots!
You Homo-sapiens And Your Guns
Mags has never been particularly fond of firearms, but needs must!
Here we see a clearly desperate Eric using his power to unload a whole cache of machine guns at Jean as she advances towards him. Probably won't do much good, but it certainly makes for a cool visual.
Storm At Full Power?
We've heard that Storm (Alexandra Shipp) gets a lot more to do in Dark Phoenix than she did in Apocalypse, and there are a couple of shots in the trailer that suggest as much.
At the very least, it looks like we'll be getting one scene in which Ororo let's loose and really gets to demonstrate the full extent of her power.
The X-Men Caged
The final moments of the trailer are very interesting, as we see several of our heroes - including Charles and Erik - being held captive in an armored transport via inhibitor collars.
This suggests that there will also be a human (or at least, earthly) threat involved. Could it be The Hellfire Club, perhaps? That villainous group plays a large role in the source material, and might well be introduced as secondary adversaries.