“Let me show you something… beautiful”.
Marvel Studios announced plans this week to release the very first teaser trailer for ‘Avengers: Age of Ultron’ during next Tuesday’s episode of ‘Agents of SHIELD’… at least that was the plan. It seems that someone at Hydra (you know who you are!) leaked a low resolution version of the trailer online almost a full week early! Never ones to be outdone by the internet, Marvel decided to go full on ‘Iron Man’ and release the official HD trailer immediately!
Without further hesitation, feast your eyes on the beautiful high definition trailer for Marvel’s ‘Avengers: Age of Ultron’ below!
So now that you’ve seen the trailer, what have we learned? The trailer itself is just a teaser, but it certainly alludes to quite a few things we have to look forward to in the highly anticipated film. Here’s what stands out so far:
Darkness Falls
In ‘The Avengers’, we saw the formation of the world’s first real mega crossover superhero team on the big screen. The whole experience was bright and shiny, it had never been done before, and it was new. The first movie was, overall, a light in the darkness that is the gritty world of comic book films that movie goers have grown accustomed to. ‘Age of Ultron’ looks to take a step back from that, and takes The Avengers team to what looks like some relatively dark places.
As a matter of fact, the entirety of Marvel’s ‘Phase Two’ initiative has been about taking these characters in a darker direction. ‘Iron Man 3’ saw Tony Stark’s life completely turned upside down, ‘Captain America: The Winter Solider’ blew up SHIELD as a concept and changed the MCU as we know it, and ‘Thor 2’ was even subtitled ‘The Dark World’ (it doesn’t get darker than that people!). ‘Age of Ultron’ looks like it will see The Avengers in a much darker place than the Marvel Cinematic Universe usually is. There looks to be a lot of in house “Avenger on Avenger’ fighting, on top of ‘the twins’ making an appearance, and Ultron himself wreaking all kinds of havoc! It’s sure to be a game changer for the MCU as we know it.
Iron Man: Frenemy?
With Downey’s contract up after ‘Age of Ultron’, and the rumors that he’s now signed on for ‘Captain America 3’ as the potential villain of the ‘Civil War’ storyline, could this be the last we see of the loveable Tony Stark we all fell in love with in the first ‘Iron Man’ film? We see him gripped up by Thor while wearing his civilian clothes, and then later we see him throwing down with The Hulk in the infamous ‘Hulk Buster’ armor that we’ve all been dying to see hit the big screen for years, so could the events of ‘Age of Ultron’ be the thing that pushes Stark too far? Could this be what turns him from the genius billionaire playboy philanthropist into the new heavy hitting antagonist of the MCU?
The very first glimpse of Ultron that we see in the trailer is comprised of what looks like old Iron Man armor pieces, so it’s entirely likely that Tony is directly responsible for the creation of Ultron. It seems likely that Tony (and probably others) will hold himself directly responsible for the events of ‘Age of Ultron,’ which could easily carry over into the events of ‘Civil War’ for ‘Captain America 3’ (and quite frankly, this reasoning gives him more of a reason to be for the ‘Superhero Registration Act’ than the comic book version ever had). “It’s the end. The end of the path I started us on”; Or at least the end of the Marvel Cinematic Universe as we’ve come to know it.
Banner Is On The Outs Too
Yes, him too. You have to figure, the only scenes we see in this trailer featuring The Hulk are him going toe to toe with Iron Man. Granted, this could just tie further into the whole ’well Iron Man is going to be leave The Avengers’ thing, and that could be why they are fighting. But really, with the way those two have been portrayed as ‘besties’ now in the MCU since the end of the first ‘Avengers’ film, it’s hard to come up with a good reason why they’d be going at it so heavily.
It doesn’t help matters that we only really see Banner in this trailer when he’s wandering half naked through the woods, or sitting on a plane wrapped in a blanket looking like he went through hell while the entire team seems to be turning their backs to him and trying to find just about anything else to look at. Maybe this could lead to Hulk departing the team too? Possibly for his own solo film? (‘Planet Hulk’ anyone?)
The Twins
While we saw them briefly in a post-credits stinger on ‘Captain America: The Winter Soldier’, this trailer offers us our very first look at the MCU incarnations of Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch! But whose side are they one here?! The ‘Winter Solider’ stinger implied that they were under the control of Hydra, and it looks like we see them fighting on both sides of the battle throughout this brief teaser trailer. At one point, it looks like they’re sided with Ultron (which implies that Ultron’s creation could be just as much Hydra’s fault as it is Starks), while we later see Quicksilver fighting Ultron’s robots alongside Captain America. Could they be sticking close to their comic book roots and starting off as villains only to become the heroes they are meant to be? Hell, Whedon pulled it off with Hawkeye by making him a villain for the first half of ‘The Avengers’, so it makes perfect sense he’d do it again here.
Spader Nails It
WOW. James Spader. Who knew? When he was first announced for the part, there was little speculation that he wouldn’t quite pull it off. Realistically here, the dude is following Huddleston’s Loki as the lead villain here, it’s going to be hard to top. But wow does Spader have what it takes. His voice has just the right level of ominous graininess to it, that perfect level of contempt and propriety that Ultron needs. The amazing CGI work done to bring the character to life certainly helps in this matter, with Spader’s face showing through completely recognizably in the final glimpse of the character in the trailer. That final glimpse is unmistakably Spader’s face made to look like Ultron. It’s a nice nod though in the early versions of the character we’ll be seeing look like an old Iron Man helmet broken in exactly the right ways to look like the original Ultron head design from the comics. Very subtle Whedon, well done!
Overall, this trailer does it’s job really well of making it look like this film is going to be everything the fans are hoping for. As one last surprise, Marvel also decided to release the very first teaser poster for the film, which you can check out below!
‘Avengers: Age of Ultron’ is slated to hit theaters on May 1st, 2015.