Superbowl Movie Trailer Roundup

Captain America! Redefining Modern Myth is not meant to be a superhero "rehash" blog site although if readers want to pose questions or direct lines of reasoning to areas they are interested in, you will find an exploratory tone here. Our primary objective is to delve deeply into a particular character from a view point of developing suitable material for a screenplay.

This post does not fit in the regular continuity of the blog yet is a timely, direct response to the Superbowl. During the course of it, many movie trailers will be shown. With the huge world wide audience for the sporting event, studios are shelling out as much as $3M for a thirty second spot to create brand awareness. Will this translate later into ticket, DVD or T-shirt sales? It surely is a gamble but one that several studios are taking with their properties.

I would like to direct my efforts here to giving my fresh impression of the Captain America trailer shown tonight, Feb. 6th on the FOX network. This is the material the studio is picking. They are paying a great deal to air it and insights into the character, story and look of the film have been carefully managed. This is what they purposefully intend to show us as potential ticket buyers. It is what they what us to see. I must also note here that several other films are putting their trailers out including but not limited to Fast and Furious 4, Cowboys and Aliens, Transformers 3, Super 8, the Pirates of the Caribbean prequel and Thor.

Cap's thirty second spot gets high marks for it's look and feel. Set in the WWII era, it has a heavier than expected overall texture. There are already signs in the short time that the new film is setting out a revisionist agenda. I am curious to see where it goes and how faithfully and respectfully the characters are treated. Steve Roger's transformation is shown and looks suitable. The round shield makes it's debut as well. Actual scenes of Cap or real dialogue are brief but in thirty seconds that is fine. Some drawbacks include a muddy voice over by foreign accented Stanley Tucci, a don't-blink-or-you-STILL-might-miss-it glimpse of the Red Skull and peeking at us in one distracting yet brief clip is Tommy Lee Jones as a general(?). Still, pretty solid. My wife watched it in a separate room and she liked it overall saying it was probably worth seeing in a theatre. An impromptu polling of college students suggested a pretty good awareness of the Cap movie and a positive feeling toward going to the movie. This surprised me a little.

I would rate myself as interested but I want to see more. Naturally.

In our blog, Ben and I pose the question, 'How do you adapt 70 years worth of material into a two hour movie?' This set of filmmakers and screenwriters have already made their decisions. What would Ben & I do? What journey does Cap have to take to become a hero? What is the guiding principle as a writer about what stays and goes from that compiled and sometimes contradictory history?

Thanks for your indulgence,

RICK