Thursday, 29 July 2021

Thoughts on the Trailers for Dune, Marvel's What If...?, Star Trek: Lower Decks Season 2, Star Trek: Prodigy, and Ghostbusters: Afterlife

 Hey everyone, I'm back. This time I'm going to do something a little different. Rather than do four individual posts for each trailer, I'm going to do this one post on all of them and then post it once I've finished each one. So let's get into it, starting with Dune.


When Warner Bros. announced they were making a movie based on the 1960s science fiction novel Dune by Frank Herbert, I thought they were crazy. David Lynch had directed a movie adaptation of the novel in 1984 and it was a flop because people didn't care. Most general audiences haven't read the book and the fans of it weren't numerous enough or saw it enough for the movie to break even at the box office. I've read the novel and I don't care for it. I felt it's boring, and too long with uninteresting, bland, characters and convoluted plots. Which is why I'm mystified that WB is not only making a movie, but splitting that movie into two parts like they did for the movie adaptation of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and expect part 1 to make enough money to warrant the release of the second one. According to Wikipedia, the budget for the movie is $165 million, which is actually pretty cheap given the cast of the movie and the special effects in the movie.

Visually the trailer looked gorgeous. But trailers are meant to attract your attention. And just because a movie looks amazing, doesn't mean the movie itself will be good. We can hope it'll be good, but it won't necessarily be good. Of the main cast of the movie, I think the only two people I'm not familiar with is Timothee Chalamet, who plays Paul Atreides, and Rebecca Ferguson, who plays Paul's mother, the Lady Jessica. Everyone else in the main cast are people I've seen in at least one movie in the last ten years or so. I have no interest in this movie at all. I hope it's good for those of you who are excited for it, but personally it's not for me. I might reread the book at some point before the movie comes out, to give it a second chance to win me over and I'll be watching the 1984 movie at some point as I have it on DVD.


How has nobody been talking about this trailer? I haven't seen a single thing about this trailer online at all. And it's been out for three weeks. How is that even possible? Obviously I knew it was coming out, but I didn't realize Marvel's What If...? is coming out in two weeks. Not that I've paid much attention to it since the MCU Disney+ shows are hit and miss for me, but even still I follow alot of bloggers and YouTubers and nobody, and I mean NOBODY, has even mentioned this trailer had dropped. Did people not know about it? I find that hard to believe given the immediacy of the internet these days.

This show looks amazing! I'm not a huge fan of "What If" stories, particularly in comic books. Mostly because many of them feel like fan fiction that anyone could've typed up on their laptop. Though I admit to being a sucker for some of the Batman Elseworlds stories that have popped up over the years. And I mean the whole premise of Spider-Girl is a "What If...?" story that started in 1998's What If...? #105 and I'm enjoying that world in The Amazing Spider-Girl. Like I said, the first episode drops in two weeks, so I'll definitely be checking it out. 


Season 1 of Star Trek: Lower Decks was probably the biggest surprise for me last summer. It was such a love letter to the 54 year legacy of Star Trek and was everything that the current slew of live action Star Trek shows weren't up to that point that I eagerly awaited each episode. With season 2 starting in two weeks (lots of shows coming out in two weeks) I am so excited to see the crew of the USS Cerritos again. My favourite part of this trailer is when Boimler is talking to a collector's plate of Tom Paris (voiced by Robert Duncan McNeill) while stuck in a Jefferies Tube. That would be stupid on any other show, including The Orville, but it works here because it comes from a place of love and that is why I love Star Trek: Lower Decks and am excited for season 2 to start.


I watched the teaser for Star Trek: Prodigy today for the second time, having watched it just after it dropped last week and my feelings on it are the same. The teaser is pretty generic, but I'm still looking forward to the show. At least to see what it's actually like since the teaser doesn't really give us a good sense of what it's going to be like. All it really did was reveal the starship that the new characters are going to be on. But take that ship out, and you've got a generic Sci-Fi series. Which is good, because you don't just want the kid version of the same old thing we've come to expect from Star Trek over the years. I also have to keep reminding myself that this show is for kids, and so it's going to be written differently than a show like Lower Decks or What If...? will be. Which is fine, but I don't know if it'll be written well enough that it won't bore the adults watching it as it seems shows aimed directly at kids end up doing sometimes. Even back when I was a kid, there were shows that were written with children in mind so much the writers forgot to make it interesting for the adults who would watch these shows with us. So hopefully Prodigy is more like the 2012 Ninja Turtles series, which was for kids, but adults could enjoy it too. 


My history with Ghostbusters is a little different than most people's. I didn't see the original 1984 movie until I was a teenager in the 2000s. However, I grew up watching Ghostbusters II on VHS, and The Real Ghostbusters and Extreme Ghostbusters on TV and loved all three of them. Not that I didn't love Ghostbusters when I finally saw it in 2002 or 2003 it's just I grew up with the more kid friendly versions of the Ghostbusters, and so, even though Ghostbusters II is considered to be an inferior film to the original, I still enjoy it for what it is because it's what I grew up with. So I don't have as much of a stake with Ghostbusters: Afterlife as some people feel they do. I still enjoyed the trailer though. The nostalgic elements didn't overshadow the new in this trailer, which is refreshing given how many trailers for movies that are sequels to, or reimaginings of, older movies, are overloaded with the old that the new elements don't get the chance to shine. One moment that I enjoyed is near the end of the trailer, when Ecto-1 is driving along and Mckenna Grace's character, Phoebe, pops out of the side of the vehicle, shooting her proton pack the way they used to do it on The Real Ghostbusters. It was usually Egon and/or Ray that did so while Winston or Peter drove. So that was REALLY cool. Sadly, I probably won't get to see it in theatres, but I'll definitely check it out once it hits home media.

That's it for me for today. What are your thoughts on these trailers? Let me know in the comments and we can talk about them. Otherwise I'll be back tomorrow for my review of the 1993 film, Matinee, starring John Goodman. Until then have a great evening and I will talk to you all later. Take care.

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