I’ve just witnessed a first look at the Avengers: Infinity War trailer at Disney’s D23 Expo 2017, and it damn near blew my mind. As I piece back together the exploded fragments of my brain, here’s everything I saw…
Head honcho Kevin Feige assembled pretty much every Avenger on stage, including (deep breath) Robert Downey Jr, Benedict Cumberbatch, Tom Holland, Elizabeth Olsen, Chadwick Boseman, Sebastian Stan, Pom Klementieff, Karen Gillan, Dave Bautista, and more, but, significantly, Thanos, aka Josh Brolin (sporting his Cable haircut for Deadpool 2) was the first on stage.
It starts, oddly enough, with the Guardians of the Galaxy. The tone felt pure GOTG as Chris Pratt’s Star-Lord quipped, “This might be dangerous, so let’s put on our mean faces,” but it's not long before Thor hits the Milano’s windscreen with a thud (what does that mean for Ragnarok, then?). Before the tone gets too serious, Rocket shouts, “Wipe it off, wipe it off!” After that, it becomes a little blurry, as it the trailer quick cuts through some insanely cool images.
Notable among them, Tom Holland’s Spider-Man proving that he does have Spidey sense. Riding in a school bus, the hairs on his arm stand up and he looks off at something in the distance. There are couple of shots of Cap, looking a little fugitive-like with longer hair and a rugged beard. He doesn’t look like a man in a good place. Black Widow sports a striking platinum white hairdo in the brief scene she's glimpsed in. Loki is seen presenting the glowing blue Tesseract to someone unseen, but it’s got to be Thanos, right?
Iron Man - naturally in a sleek, streamlined suit upgrade - and others including Black Panther and Doctor Strange, are all briefly glimpsed, before the trailer’s main event. Thanos’ ship comes crashing down to a desolate landscape, which looks otherworldly to me. As the Avengers look on, unsurprisingly a bit ruffled, Thanos stomps out, sans helmet and starts dispensing threats, ominously promising, “I know what it’s like to lose...” While Thanos was still a fully CG character, he looks more impressive and weighty than he has done in any of his previous MCU cameos. He looks like a serious threat.
The rest of the trailer was basically made up of a montage of foreboding action. The Avengers team up in little combos (I think I saw Star-Lord stepping on Strange’s energy shields to get a better vantage point to shoot from), but nothing seems to compare to Thanos’ power – he literally uses a planet as a projectile at one point, drawing it in from space and directing it squarely at the Avengers. Spidey also takes a couple of the more significant remaining moments in the trailer. Not only is he seen wearing the advanced suit that he (Spider-Man: Homecoming spoiler upcoming) turns down at the end of Homecoming, but at one point he looks seriously injured on the floor, and is emotionally apologising to a character off-screen. Oh, and Iron Man gets punched in the face by Thanos...
All in all, it very much hinted at an Avengers line-up that will be shaken up considerably. Judging from this footage, I found it hard to imagine any of the heroes surviving. Avengers: Infinity War opens in summer 2018, and you can expect to hear a bit more about it at SDCC next week, so stick with GR+ for further updates. Who knows, the trailer might even be released online.
