Super, Man - Best Teaser Ever?

So let me explain why this Beaverton article totally applies to me and I don’t even care.

First off, if you haven’t seen it, you need to see the teaser trailer for James Gunn’s Superman movie, due in theatres this July.

All right? So you watched it and you’re good?

No, don’t read this and then watch it, the rest of the post explicitly references it! Spoilers abound, man.

So if you’ve actually watched it, we can proceed.

All right, to begin with, the first superhero movie I ever saw in a theater was Richard Donner’s Superman, starring Christopher Reeve. I had read a few Superman comics by this point, but that brilliant portrayal cemented itself in my mind forever. The electrified homage to John Williams’ epic score is a pretty good way to get me sentimentalized.

Making the first image of Superman a vulnerable one, battered and bleeding, is a real counterpoint to more recent depictions of this character, which I thought was a bold choice in some ways. In some ways, not so much; it’s not like people watching this are going ‘who is this guy in the tights?’, so this is a great way to establish the level of threat he must be facing.

And then the close up, and seeing that the Last Son of Krypton bleeds red blood, just like us.

When he starts to whistle, it took me a split second to key in to what he must be doing, so I was expecting Krypto the Super Dog, but not for him to show up and have Kal-El desperately ask him to take him home. So when this goodest boy just grabs the cape in his mouth and does it, I honestly started to well up and I don’t care who knows it.

But the biggest thing for me was that the first bit of superhero action we see is not an enormous punch, or an astounding feat of strength, but someone being saved as Superman places his body between an innocent person and disastrous harm.

Because this is what sets him and Spider-Man apart from most of the other comic heroes; if there was no crime, they would still spend their days saving people.

The rest of the teaser races by, and each rewatch rewards me with another tidbit or Easter egg: Hawkgirl! Mr. Terrific! Nathan Fillion as Guy Gardner! Nicholas Hoult as Lex Luthor!

And though out the entire teaser, I didn’t see the title character punch a single other character. there is some wrestling, sure, and his state at the beginning suggests a significant physical alteration is indeed in store for him.

The flag being raised, the chanting of his name rising in volume near the end, and other scenes all give a palpable sense of decency and hope, which suits me right down for the ground,

That optimism doesn’t make everyone happy, unsurprisingly, but even that response just reinforces for me that James Gunn is going about this in precisely the right way.

I mean, there are still plenty of ways to screw this up, but solid comics trilogies are few and far between (Chris Nolan’s Batman and Captain America come to mind, and few others), and since Guardians of the Galaxy is in that club, James Gunn can count on my ticket purchase on opening weekend in July.

And yes, I will bring some tissues. Wanna make something out of it?