Published on April 8 on YouTube and Marvel Studios’ official website, the new “Avengers: Endgame” film clip reached over 11 million views in 24 hours on YouTube alone. The clip, though only one minute long, packs a punch that will send ripples through not only space, but time as well in regard to the plot of the most anticipated movie of the year.
In one of Marvel’s most revealing teasers yet, audiences are gifted a precious gem of a clip from the movie sans the dramatic jump cuts, quotable one-liners and heavy-handed musical underscoring. While Marvel’s other “Avengers: Endgame” trailers were worthy of hype and cinematically achieved their goal to get fans excited to watch the film, they were disinclined to reveal any important thematic information that could lead to fans prematurely figuring out the final chapter of the story’s closely guarded plot.
This clip, however, appears to come from one scene in a logical, chronological fashion, revealing not only that Thanos used the stones again (for what, we have no idea, but Black Widow appears to be looking at a hologram of the Earth. Maybe he put some people back? Maybe there was a second culling after the first? Who’s to say?), but also that the Avengers want to try to get the stones to go back in time and save the ones they lost.
Bruce Banner nervously asks the room, “If we do this, how do we know it’s going to end any differently than it did before?” The “it” could refer to the first Snap from “Infinity War” or to an earlier attempt in the movie to take on Thanos. Carol Danvers, aka Captain Marvel, replies with a solemn “Because before you didn’t have me.”
This can lead fans to believe that the remaining super heroes in the room (Black Widow, Thor, War Machine, The Hulk, Captain Marvel and Captain America) are going to travel back in time to reverse the disastrous effects of the Snap or prevent it from happening all together. Who knows what the other surviving characters (Iron Man, Rocket, Ant Man, Okoye and Hawkeye, to name a few) may be up to, as it seems they are not a part of the inner war-room discussion.
All of this new information, however temptingly straightforward it may seem, should be taken with a very healthy dose of skepticism. Websites across the internet are in agreement when it comes to the Russo brothers and their trailers: Things are never exactly as they appear.
With explicitly tampered trailers from “Thor: Ragnarok” (Thor had both of his eyes), “Captain America: Civil War” (Spiderman was erased from one scene) and “Avengers: Infinity War” (A shot of Hulk running in Wakanda never even appeared in the film), fans should only assume the trailers for “Avengers: Endgame” will also suffer the same fate.
Directors Anthony and Joe Russo have been avidly defending themselves by saying that this is done to protect the integrity of the movie experience for fans, giving them the best chance to watch the movie in theaters without fear of preemptive spoilers. Not only are they withholding juicy details about major plot twists, they are intentionally misleading viewers into thinking one thing when the movie will actually focus on something completely different.
Joe Russo said in an interview that “audiences are so predictive now that you have to be very smart about how you craft a trailer, because an audience can watch a trailer and basically tell you what’s gonna happen in the film.” The stories that trailers want to tell are beginning to diverge from the stories of the films they are made to promote.
This is a fascinating — and probably very risky — new concept for the film industry that movie buffs like me should take into account when obsessively watching and re-watching trailers to tide us over as we wait for upcoming movie premieres.
Audiences now have virtually endless access to entertainment and sources of information from within the film industry, and they are constantly learning how to interpret content and make educated predictions about classic plot structures and character development.
They have been taught to expect the unexpected, and the Russo brothers are doing what they can to circumnavigate the minefield of well-informed, super-fan enthusiasts, much like how parents work to hide presents from their children until Christmas day.
When you think about “Avengers: Endgame” and how frustrated you are that the trailers are probably bogus and you can’t see what really happens until April 26, just remember that Anthony and Joe only have what’s best for you in mind. Yes, it’s fun to know what your gift is, but it’s the anticipation and the final surprise on Christmas morning that makes unwrapping the present (or watching the movie premiere) that much sweeter.
