Yesterday, the teaser trailer for Marvel’s next Avengers film, ‘Age of Ultron,’ was leaked ahead of schedule. Marvel responded to the leak by… releasing the exact same trailer a few hours later. They also blamed the leak on Hydra, the fictional terrorist organisation featured in Agents of SHIELD and the first Captain America film. The latter move was actually quite funny. The former was… kind of pointless.
In a review of the trailer, The Times 2 highlighted the sheer number of stars featured in the advert. This shouldn’t be a surprise; the film is based on an ensemble comic book. The average team roster in comics is between six and eight. Marvel’s business plan with the films is to introduce individual characters in their own films (Captain America 1 and 2, Iron Man 1-3, Hulk, etc) and then bring them all together for great big showdowns in their blockbuster films. The whole premise of the film is that it ties early appearances together. So no wonder that there are so many actors and characters featured.
More surprising was the admonition of the lack of a plot. Excuse me? It’s a teaser trailer. It runs for exactly two minutes and seventeen seconds. I’ve had sneezing fits that have lasted longer. How much plot do you want? The idea that the film has ‘explosions and robots’ means that it doesn’t have a plot is nonsense.
For those who don’t know, Ultron’s story is actually quite an interesting one. Ultron first appeared as a villain in the Avengers comic book in 1968. In an attempt to keep the earth safe from harm, and aid the Avengers in their missions, super-genius Hank Pym (aka Ant-man, aka Giant-man, briefly the Wasp, occasionally Goliath) creates a super-powered robot and names it Ultron. And then, with all the predictability we expect from sci-fi, Ultron turns on his creators. Chaos ensues.
The title, ‘Age of Ultron,’ comes from 2013’s summer comic book event of the same name. The story features a lot of time travel, with Wolverine (because it has to be Wolverine, doesn’t it? Because no other superhero is capable of being centre stage for more than five minutes if Wolverine is in any way available to growl and cut things up) eventually saving the day by travelling back in time and convincing a younger Hank Pym to program in a fail-safe program which allows them to destroy the dastardly villain in the present. Meanwhile, another group of heroes travel into the future to… you know what? Never mind…
Both the original Ultron storyline and last year’s big event can hardly be called plotless, as The Times seems to think. Ok, so the plots may not stand up too well to a close examination, but that’s a separate issue. Ultron’s story draws heavily on classic tales such as Mary Shelley’s ‘Frankenstein’ with its ideas of science gone wrong and a creature turning on its creator. The idea of technology rebelling against humanity is a stalwart of the sci-fi genre, and remains a hot topic in a world where fashion designers are creating jewelry that turns the blood in our veins into a power source.
So yes, of course the trailer features explosions and robots. Film, and particularly when based on comic books, is primarily a visual medium. Teaser trailers give away just enough to hook the audience’s interest, not divulge the entire story in one go. ‘You didn’t really expect a plot, did you?’ No, no we didn’t. Your condescending tone? We definitely saw that coming.
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