All the Hints and Details Hidden in Avengers: Infinity War's Cosmically Gigantic Trailer
A decade of movies has brought us to the end of a long road in the form of Avengers: Infinity War, an epic undertaking we finally got our first, glorious look at today. The trailer paints a grim future for our heroes as Thanos makes his long-awaited move, but it’s also jam-packed with hints at the war to come.
The trailer opens with a nostalgic, yet ominous recollection of how the Avengers Initiative first began. “There was an idea,” Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) intones, as we fade in from an alien world—it’s definitely not Earth, given the binary star system—to a distraught Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) Given the background, it’s reasonable to assume that Tony is on this alien world, and it’s this planet we see the Avengers fighting on later in the trailer.
“To bring together a group of remarkable people...” Tony continues, as Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) and his fellow mystic Wong (Benedict Wong) find an interloper in the Sanctum Sanctorum: Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo), who’s come in via the roof.
“To see if we could become something more” comes with the first real surprise of the trailer, in the form of android Avenger the Vision (Paul Bettany). Except, we don’t just see any other synthezoid superhero here: We see Vision in human form, embracing the Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen). In the comics, Vision has used a human form as a disguise, with the alias Victor Shade, to better blend in with humanity, but presumably the reason here is an attempt to hide the Mind Stone implanted in his head from detection by Thanos.
“So when they needed us, we could fight the battles...” is given to Thor (Chris Hemsworth), staring out of the portholes of a spaceship. This doesn’t appear to the ship we last left the Odinson on at the end of Ragnarok with his fellow Asgardian refugees. The decor implies it’s the Guardians’ ship, which we see him on at the end of the trailer.
The statement ends with a “...that they never could” from the Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson). This shot is huge for a number of reasons. Not only do we get to see Natasha’s platinum blonde hairdo, first debuted in Infinity War’s gorgeous Comic-Con poster earlier this year, but this appears to be the first time Bruce and Natasha have encountered each other since he ran off in a quinjet during the climax of Avengers: Age of Ultron. The background looks Wakandan, and Bruce is standing next to the severed arm of Iron Man’s Hulkbuster armor.
Our first look at Avengers: Infinity War is jam-packed with a spectacle that’s a decade in the making, but it’s surprisingly light on giving us any pertinent information beyond what we already know: Thanos is coming, and the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s heroes are not prepared to stop him. While we know there’ll be teams of heroes across the word—and in the stars—spread across the movie, it’s going to take all of them coming together to pose a real threat to the Mad Titan. We’ll see more of that, presumably, before Avengers: Infinity War hits theaters in May 2018.