The Trailers That Played Before STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI

If you’re anything like me, you consider one of life’s great joys to be plopping your little buns down into a seat at your local movie house and enjoying the latest that Hollywood (or Hollyweird!) has to offer. I adore the entire experience, from seat selection to talking myself into overpaying for snacks. Often, the slate of coming attractions on display prior to the feature film are very nearly as entertaining as the feature itself!

I recently saw the very entertaining and ultimately too long new entry into the Star Wars franchise of films. Josh has already very capably covered this film for our very website, and I don’t intend to take up your time with more thoughts about it. The screening that I attended was preceded by four trailers for upcoming films, though.

And boy howdy, did I have some thoughts about those.

READY PLAYER ONE
My feelings about Ready Player One as a book and an intellectual property in general are already a well-worn matter of public record. On Twitter. Constantly. Upon seeing the brand new trailer for the soon-to-be released Steven Spielberg adaptation, I’ve really got to admit: I’m even more right about this horseshit that I thought I had been previously.

Another in the very long pantheon of stories that maintain that only a white dude can save the world (which the new Star Wars films are actually instrumental in challenging), RPO the film appears to have taken the jumbled and clumsy orgy of fan-fic fantasy of the novel and turned it into a jumbled and clumsy fuck-fest of CGI lunacy. It basically looks like they’ve merged the visual style of the recent TRON film and a SquareENIX Japanese RPG. It all looks so forced and dark and boring, in ways that even outstrip how I pictured it while reading the terrible novel.

I’m sure that people will flock to it, but this looks like an absolute piece of shit.

JURASSIC WORLD: FALLEN KINGDOM
I haven’t been opposed to seeing Jurassic World. I love Jurassic Park and have seen the other (bad) sequels. I’ve just been so ambivalent about the film, that it always seems as though I could pick something better to watch. Even on the cruddy in-flight entertainment screens that I occasionally use as an excuse to catch up on blockbuster films that I’m sure will be lame. It made a bajillion dollars, so it is unsurprising that they would wish to further cash in on the property. It is also unsurprising that this film looks like a giant pile of dino-shit.

The previous film came out at a time when the Chris Pratt train was already running on fumes for me. Now that it appears he’s Hollywood’s go-to “Oaf who saves the day!”, I’m even less likely to care about whether or not he gets the girl or gets bitten in half. Some would point the Jeff Goldblum’s involvement as a positive, and I would be quick to point them to the last Independence Day film.

This will just be another unending string of action sequences rendered in dollops of CGI nonsense, although the CGI seems much better than what is on display in the Ready Player One trailer. I would rather just re-watch the original Jurassic Park.

A Wrinkle In Time
I’ve only vaguely been aware that this adaptation was being made. I’m not sure that I had ever finished reading the book. I seem to remember it being a bit of a confusing mess, which would point to this film adaptation being very faithful to the book. It’s impossible to determine what’s going on here.

Piles and piles of well-known actors show up and say things that make no sense, flanked by acres of CGI fairy dust. This might look even more like a video game than Ready Player One. Bizarre and off-putting.

This won’t be for me, but I will concede that this one may wind up being very important to its target audience. Kids could fall in love with it, and will hopefully want to read the book after seeing it. As a kid-pleasing spectacle, this film could hold value and I’m fine with that. As long as I don’t have to watch it, ever.

AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR
The only real thing that the Marvel Films Universe has had going for it with any consistency have been brief moments of comedy and humanity delivered by extremely affable actors. This is the only twist of flavour that these films have had that truly separate them from the dour wank-fests of the DC Comics Universe of films. The trailer for Avengers: Infinity War contains exactly 0% levity and as a consequence, this movie looks like a flat, boring slog and a total piece of shit.

The best films in these franchises are the light ones. The first Guardians of the Galaxy was a lot of fun. Antman was very entertaining. Even the first Avengers film leaned heavily on comedy and was pretty fun to watch. The new Thor, which I haven’t seen yet, (but hope to see soon) looks like it carries a jovial tone and people have been raving about it.

I expect that the film itself will contain plenty of little fun moments, and will not actually be as mercilessly serious as the trailer makes it seem. The trailer makes the film look like about as much fun as Justice League, and the CGI rendering of Josh Brolin as Thanos somehow looks even dumber than a great big rubber suit would.

Sorry, guys. This trailer sucks!