In the past few weeks, Marvel has been actively marketing Captain America: Brave New World—understandably, as the movie opens next week. (Already!) I thought these two featurettes below were worth linking to. (Note that a spoiler warning is in effect!)
We get a few more glimpses of President Ross’s Red Hulk, more walk talk—in fact, SO much war talk—and perhaps a few second’s worth more of Sam Wilson.
More tantalizingly, however, a fleeting hint that appears at the very end of the older of these clips (the one saying Get Tickets Now—cue to the 1:20 mark) seems to be saying that Joaquin Torres from the MCU series The Falcon and the Winter Soldier (played by Danny Ramirez) will get his own wingsuit. And, indeed, the IMDB cast listing confirms it: he’ll become the next Falcon. That should be interesting, since we’ve only ever seen Sam’s take on how to make use of the wings.
BNW releases on February 14, 2025 in the U.S.
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Sounds like the plot will be grimmer than the teaser intimated. There are a few funny moments, too, like the Marvel Cinematic Universe prefers, for instance when Sam lands with a *whump* in the middle of a handful of soldiers guarding a mansion, quips “Wait for it”, and just pauses while the concussive blast from his landing knocks the soldiers back.
Liv Tyler makes a comeback as Betty Ross according to IMBD, even if we haven’t seen her yet—yay! In the cast listing there is also a whole bunch of new-to-me characters with superhero names, like Sidewinder (played by Giancarlo Esposito), Rachel Leighton / Diamondback (Rosa Salazar), Samuel Sterns / The Leader (Tim Blake Nelson), and Ruth Bat-Seraph / Sabra (Shira Haas). Looking forward to finding out more about them.
On one hand, topic-wise this would not be my nr. 1 pick for entertainment while two wars are being fought in Europe: the teaser mentioned shifting global power, and now this official trailer straight-up talks about coordinated terrorist attacks and President Ross being a wartime president. Brr.
They are also clearly trying to imply something by the repetitive division of the screen into two halves during the trailer. It could be just a way to stuff more material in, of course, but I suspect something more nefarious is intended, especially with the line about the President’s inner circle being compromised, the scratching “Reset Ross Reset America” on the wall, hints of brainwashing or other kinds of manipulation, etc.
On the other hand, the MCU movies really aren’t that deep or complex even when they pretend to be. I’m sure they’ll serve a nicely enough wrapped-up solution, if not in this movie, then in a future installment. A simple, black-and-white action romp may be just the thing to while away a couple of hours.
Just one little snarky hint to President Ross, though: if you don’t want a variable out there that you can’t control, do not be a president. A soldier should know that.
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Based on director Denis Villeneuve’s Dune movies, the spin-off series Dune: Prophecy premieres in a few days on HBO (also to stream on Max). Here is the official trailer:
Dune: Prophecy | Official Teaser – Influence | Max by Max on YouTube
Dune: Prophecy | Official Teaser 2 – Control | Max by Max on YouTube
Ok, wow. Not sure how to unpack it all.
I read the original Dune trilogy at an impressionable age, so I have fond memories of the world, even if I wasn’t then able to grasp all the bleaker implications. I’m also in general of the opinion that published stories including—if not especially—the SFFnal ones need more women who are active in their own right.
On one hand, D:P is specifically a creation story for Bene Gesserit, i.e., it should be full of active women. As Bene Gesserit can use their training for impressive physical feats as well as truthsaying, it should also have potential for women being awesome, which is always, well, awesome. 🙂
On the other hand, while I find their training conceptually intriguing, the major goal of Bene Gesserit is a breeding program. Women used as broodmares turns me off (as does considering men little else than sperm donors or cannon fodder), and the fact that the perps here are women makes it only very slightly better.
Furthermore, these clips have numerous unsavory-to-me details: e.g. the imperative “Sisterhood above all” sounds incredibly obnoxious, dancing around a fire pseudo-mystic claptrap, screaming with messy hair and scribbling edgy art projects in black borders on unhinged. (Then again, trailers always lie, so who knows.) Nor do I care for brutalist concrete architecture, nor an arid planet after a desolate one—there just doesn’t seem to be enough variety in this supposedly interstellar empire’s culture or environments.
The main foil seems to be this scruffy dude. He generates no interest at all in me, just a fleeting bafflement of how can someone apparently lacking merit of any kind have the gall to appear before the emperor looking so scruffy. (Harrison Ford’s Han Solo at least had the charisma and skills, even if he supposedly was scruffy-looking. He was well cast; the young Solo wasn’t. On the basis of these clips, this dude isn’t either.) What is this great power he’s supposedly gifted with, anyway? Being able to bore others to death?
Olivia Williams and Emily Watson (playing the founding sisters of Bene Gesserit, Tula and Valya Harkonnen, respectively) plus Mark Strong (as the emperor) are the only actors I remember seeing elsewhere. In addition, I have previously seen the work of only one of the named series writers.
Also, while in general I want my entertainment to involve brainy plots, at the moment I’m not too keen on stories about power acquisition, political intrigues, or backstabbing.
All of the above put together (plus my lukewarmness towards Villeneuve’s adaptation) means I will nope out of D:P. I really would’ve wanted to like the movies more, and consequently this series, especially since it tells us more about Bene Gesserit.
Anyone here planning to see D:P?
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Looks at least borderline interesting; even if 18th-century England or outlaws aren’t really my cup of tea, stories of women with unusual lives can be intriguing. Here there is also a hint of magic in the shape of a spirit called Billy (Billy? really, though?!?) that seems to grant Nell her extraordinary powers.
Other than the trailer, so far I’ve only the Frock Flicks post on the series to judge by. Have you seen Renegade Nell? What did you think—is it worth seeing?
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(I guess the asterisk is a thing? At least it is appended to the name not just on YouTube but also in IMDB.)
First thought: huh? I had thought a version of the Fantastic Four was coming next. I must’ve gotten my notes mixed up, or missed an update somewhere. Second thought: Thunderbolts? Huh? This says absolutely nothing to me. At least I can recognize most of the MCU characters in the trailer: from Black Widow, there’s Yelena Belova (faux-sister to Natasha Romanoff), the Red Guardian, and the Taskmaster (Dreykov’s daughter Antonia), then Ava / Ghost (from Ant-Man and the Wasp) plus Bucky Barnes.
I kinda love how at the 1:05 mark when the building explodes, Yelena just matter-of-factly turns and starts walking calmly away, almost a bored look on her face. Or maybe it’s a here-we-go-again face? Anyway. Also, that Bucky had his metal arm in the dishwasher.
It’s hard to grasp what’s supposed to go on other than these bad guys who are not necessarily bad guys entirely through faults of their own perhaps now trying to be good-ish guys are being hunted by even more bad guys? Maybe?
I don’t care for the character Valentina Allegra de Fontaine—the corporate suit lady towards the end (earlier seen in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Black Widow, and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever)—so I’m miffed we’ll see more of her. Meh.
Otherwise, this trailer has a little of the same feel I get from the early MCU ensemble stories. If we’re really lucky, the movie might capture some of the same magic.
At this writing, Thunderbolts* is set to release on May 02, 2025.
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I have to say that I’m not wowed. It’s very pretty to look at, beautifully cinematic, even breathtaking at times. However, it really doesn’t seem to be a movie for me.
We’re not in the 80s or 90s anymore, when just about any SFFnal movie was sure to get my eyeballs simply by existing. Then, for a while during and after the aughts, handsome effects and CGI often got me to see a movie I wouldn’t necessarily have seen at the theater otherwise. Now we have reached a saturation point. For a good long while I have just not been able to be bothered about seeing a new release at the theater unless there’s something special about it, or a movie hits a very particular interest of mine.
(I will certainly not take the trouble, if trailers merely make a movie look like a whole bunch of men doing man-things and relegates women to the sidelines. It’s one thing to place your story in a society where minorities aren’t formally given recognition by the society, but there’s a huge difference between writing or filming those minorities in a dismissive way and a respectful way. I found Oppenheimer, for example, a wonderful example of the latter.)
Even reading that Megalopolis is loosely based on Roman history (the Catilinarian Conspiracy in 63 BCE involving an aristocrat attempting to overthrow the Republic) didn’t make it more interesting to me. Granted, the time stop gimmick is slightly interesting, but I confess that it, too, lost its appeal by the end of the trailer.
It is a shame I won’t see more of Nathalie Emmanuel, whose work in the Fast & Furious franchise and in Game of Thrones I’ve liked. Perhaps I’ll find Megalopolis in the library, if it’s ever imported to Finland. At this writing it doesn’t look like it, but we’ll see.
Megalopolis opens on September 27, 2024.
Hey, look! We found a thing on the internet! We thought it was cool, and wanted to share it with you.
Obviously the story somehow weaves in shifts in global power—there are a lot of Asian faces, but not many specifics at this stage—and the Red Hulk. The latter is completely unfamiliar to me, so it should be interesting to see how Marvel is able to introduce us non-comic readers to the character. (As far as I can tell, their track record so far is hit or miss.)
I am looking forward to learning what (beside wings!) Anthony Mackie’s Sam Wilson brings to Captain America the character and the franchise. It’s been quite a while since we properly saw him in action. Looks very cool so far!
At this writing, BNW is expected to release on February 14, 2025.
Hey, look! We found a thing on the internet! We thought it was cool, and wanted to share it with you.
“I sense this is only a small part of a larger plan. Some sort of shift to tip the scales.” Now, that sounds interesting—is it a nod to some sort of a loooong-time change in the force whose end we see acted out in the three movie trilogies? I have no idea.
Perhaps more interesting to me is the whodunnit portion of the story, however. I wish a little more about that was included in the trailers.
Sadly, it’s quite short. I’d be happy to have a much longer piece to whet my appetite.
Joonas Suotamo is still listed at IMDB for SW:TA, but unfortunately only for two episodes. Maybe that’s why I haven’t spotted him in either trailer. Looking forward to seeing more of him.
The two-episode opener for SW:TA premiers on June 4, 2024.
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Deadpool isn’t one of my favorite superheroes; the stories tend to be too explicitly violent, and the humor is about half and half hit or miss for me. I’m therefore not really following any DP news, so the fact that the third DP movie is called Deadpool & Wolverine was, well, news to me. It also made me perk up my ears, so to speak—Hugh Jackman’s performance as the mutant superhero that goes snikt was fabulous and got me to care about the character more than I otherwise would have.
The first trailer for DP&W was released last month:
Looks like the violence isn’t going to be any less gory this time either (even if the trailer itself was relatively clean as DP movies go). The bratty humor is also still there, as you’d expect—gotta keep the fans happy and the character consistent, right? But what I can’t yet figure out is how they’ll interweave the X-Men and DP.
It’s always a joy to see Morena Baccarin and Hugh Jackman. According to IMDB, however, Patrick Stewart will make an appearance, presumably as Professor Xavier, as will Jennifer Garner as Elektra. Whoa. I’ve mixed feeling about Matthew Macfadyen on the basis of past productions of his, so we’ll see what he makes of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
It should also be interesting to see how, exactly, is Marvel going to untangle (if at all?) their multiverse mess, which certainly hasn’t gotten easier with Jonathan Majors being dropped from the role of Kang. DP&W might actually hold my interest longer than the previous DPs. Here’s hoping!
At this writing, the movie is set to release on July 26, 2024.
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“This isn’t about good or bad. It’s about power… and who is allowed to use it.”
Sounds intriguing. Apparently, however, SW:TA takes place towards the end of the High Republic era, well before The Phantom Menace. That’s completely new to me. Not all new-to-me settings in the Star Wars tv series have been winners, IMO, so whether SW:TA will work for me or not is still very much in the air.
Also, I’ve never been interested in the Sith, and it sounds like the Sith will feature heavily in the series. (Not that I’ve watched much outside the movie trilogies anyway.) However, it looks SW:TA just might provide a more refreshing backstory than a vague ‘they want power and that makes them evil’ handwave. (And I’m sure I’m grossly misrepresenting some SW writers’ thoughts here, but that’s what the Sith appear to this non-superfan.)
What worries me to some extent is they seem to have cast another woman of color as the main antagonist. (Compare to Inquisitor Reva in Obi-Wan Kenobi.) The last thing we need is more typecasting.
(Speaking of negatives: I’ve looked very little into the series and have already seen quite a bit of waah-waahing about too many wimmen starring or whatnot. Look, m’dudes: my money is green, too. If the production is good and shows people like me as active characters and people in their own right, I will pay to see it, and so will many others. Di$ney will love our money just as much as yours.)
One source of joy is that we get to see Carrie-Anne Moss and my countryman Joonas Suotamo in the series, too. 🙂
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Co-Geeking 
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