The Amazing Spider-Man New Trailer Analysis

With the release of The Avengers came two new comic book movie trailers: The Dark Knight Rises, and in IMAX 3D showings, The Amazing Spiderman. Fellow blogger Peter already looked at The Dark Knight Rises new trailer, and now I'm going to look at the new Spiderman trailer. Instead of going through every single tiny scene and detail, I'm just going to look through some of the newer material.  Here we go!

Opening Monologue

The opening monologue can tell us a lot about this movie.  Peter Parker (Andrew Garfield) is talking in the past tense about his struggles as Spiderman.  We can assume this means the death of Uncle Ben (Martin Sheen), the enemies he's made, the impact it had on high school, how his loved ones are in danger, and a bunch of other really serious stuff.  Then we get the same plot point that Marc Webb has been drilling into our minds in every trailer so far.  "But the one thing that has haunted me...my entire life...is finding the truth about my parents..."  This is going to be a huge part of the movie.  Peter Parker's parents left him with his aunt and uncle at a very young age.  We know from enough previews already that Peter's father worked with Dr. Curt Connors at Oscorp, which we get to see a massive image of in this trailer. The speaking in past tense also means that the film will cover a pretty large time-frame. It's my opinion that we'll see Peter's beginnings as Spiderman, as well as quite a few flashbacks, a la Batman Begins, which is okay, since Nolan and DC have decided to copy the Spiderman viral campaign....

But, you know, this graffiti will actually be in the movie...

Wanted Man

Girlfriend level: Infinity

In the next little bit, we hear Gwen Stacy (Emma Stone) talking with Peter about being wanted by the NYPD.  Apparently Captain George Stacy (Denis Leary) has 500 men out looking for Spiderman.  Unless there's a scene where Peter himself, not in costume, threatens to blow up the city, I think we can safely assume she means 500 men looking for Spiderman.  This give us a pretty sizeable difference from Gwen and Peter's relationship in the comics.  In The Amazing Spiderman comic books, Gwen goes to her death never learning that Peter is Spiderman.  In the movie, it looks like she definitely knows it's him, and helps him when he's hurt.  Again, due to the timeframe, we can guess that they've been together for a little while.

Spider-snark

Not the switchblade!  Anything but that!

Next came my new favorite scene.  We've seen Spidey be a tiny bit funny so far "If you're going to steal cars, don't dress like a car thief."  The same line is in this trailer, but then we get even more.  Outside of the car, the car thief pulls out a switchblade.  Spiderman cowers in fear, claiming (sarcastically) that "you've found my weakness!  It's small knives!"  I was laughing so hard when I saw that!  I hope they have numerous scenes with Spidey's signature sarcastic snark.  We get only a little more humor in this trailer when Peter jokes that 500 men after him might be "excessive" with Gwen.

New Plot Point

We know that the Lizard (Rhys Ifans) is going to be the main villain, and it appears his transformation is due to a serum that Peter and Connors come up with together.  Peter's dad appears to have played some part in this as well.  "You want to know the truth about your parents, Peter?  Come and get it!"  That's old news.  What's new news is that shot where something explodes over New York city, and the Lizard is throwing around some sort of canister spewing out green gas.  Then we see and hear a news reporter saying that "there's been a biological attack on New York City".  Is it possible Lizard releases this serum on Manhattan?  Will Spiderman have to fight multiple lizard-men?  That would be awesome.  One scene that really caught my attention was what looked like an interrogation of Curt Connors.  It doesn't look like just a police interrogation room either.  Apparently Richard Parker was pretty deep in some stuff if he had to disappear because of it.  I'm excited to see what they do with his story.

My theory

The next part in terms of plot is going to be really important.  We get a monologue by Lizard near the end talking to Peter.  "Do you think what happened to you, Peter, was an accident? Do you have any idea...what you really are?"  It seems to me that The Lizard is going to discover Spiderman's identity, and after working with Peter on science stuff, that could get real complicated real fast.  Look for Lizard to g after his loved ones, just like every other Spiderman story.  Lastly, the giant falling tower thing on top of Oscorp's building: Captain Stacy was killed by falling debris in the comics.  This could happen in this film, at said scene, driving Peter and Gwen apart.  It would really put an emotional twist into this movie.

Effects and Imagery

At this point, we can easily say this movie will be a 3D masterpiece.  A friend of mine saw The Avengers in IMAX 3D, and his first words to me after were "Holy **** that trailer was 100x better than when we saw it at your house!"  This is a good sign, given that Marc Webb decided to use 3D technology when filming, instead of just post-converting.  A character like Spiderman can be used in a lot of cool ways in 3D, and we get to see another POV shot with Spidey swinging around.

Yes please

Speaking of web-swinging.  Look at those mechanics!  We get to see what looks like real physics!  Peter bouncing around at the begining of one of his swings, an intricate web he spun in some kind of sewer, and some other incredible scenes involving his webs!  I'm especially a fan of when he was making the web shooter and it blew up in his face.  Even geniuses can make mistakes!

My favorite part of this trailer is the colors.  At night, we get these really dark shadows, but then there's bright costumes, bright flames, bright characters, bright lights.  It's really cool to look at.  Peter (blogger) had issues in his early preview for this movie with how dark everything was.  It's true in the first trailer there isn't so much contrast between the character and his surroundings.  Everything was dark.  Now we really get to see the studio do their work in making this a remarkable visual spectacle.  The daytime shots are pretty cool too, with the clothes and characters a little darker, and everything that was in shadow now looks like it's brightly lit by the sun.  Contrasting lighting equals contrast in Peter between his identities?  I think so.  +1 for Webb and co.

Conclusion

The Amazing Spiderman trailer number 3 doesn't take as much analysis as this new trailer, merely because we aren't trying to discover character's agendas, what all the new gimmicks are, and basically every plot point.  Chris Nolan did a great job, and this movie looks to follow in the footsteps of Batman Begins, in the sense that we take a character who really learns how hard it is to be a hero, and we follow him through his journey of becoming that hero.  The movie looks dark and grounded in as much realism as possible.  The characters seem very real.  On top of all that I feel like we're going to get a really good story.  But it also has more effects.  They are my favorite part so far (I will be loving those night-shots in 3D).  This film will probably have more humor, some less complex themes, and a lot more color as well.  This summer's hero-movie younger brother looks to impress.  Look for The Amazing Spiderman in theaters on July 3.

Your Friendly Neighborhood Spiderman,

Zack