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“Terminator: Dark Fate” Trailer!

One of the words that comes to mind immediately while watching this trailer is…wow. Just…wow.

I don’t even know if it’s a good “wow” or not. On the one hand, this is just James Cameron trying to breathe life into a tired franchise that feels generic in our modern world, over-saturated as we are with action thrillers, and sci-fi dystopians. He’s really not giving us anything new with this trailer, and that’s a shame. But on the other hand – well, it’s still got Arnold Schwarzenegger and Linda Hamilton reuniting one last time, and nobody’s going to want to miss that. I’m not even a Terminator fan, and it still feels like a big moment to me: Hamilton’s entrance, equipped with bazooka, is probably the best scene in the trailer.

But seriously, how can it not be? When Sarah Connor’s car screeches to a halt and she faces down the new Terminator (played by Gabriel Luna of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., here just barely managing not to reprise his role as Ghost Rider, creepy skull-mask, reckless driving and all), you immediately prepare for an epic showdown. Unfortunately, that suspense is lost pretty quickly – Connor guns down Luna’s character in a matter of seconds and carries away our protagonists, the half-human, half-robotic assassin Grace (Mackenzie Davis), and Dani Ramos (Natalia Reyes), a half-human, half-Terminator girl. The trailer is pretty light on action, even though it can’t afford to be. Seriously, you’ve got these robots and androids and cyborgs running around – use them! Luna’s Terminator is this really cool and terrifying liquid-metal skeleton creature that is able to detach from his body – use that!

But no, the trailer’s “money shot” is instead Grace whacking Gabriel Luna’s Terminator over the head with a hammer. Like…a literal hammer, too, not some Hammer of Thor or anything. Just the most boring weapon imaginable. Unsurprisingly, we see Luna’s character shrug off the impact.

Where’s the fun in that? Especially after Cameron’s latest project Alita: Battle Angel, which featured very inventive high-tech robot weapons, this seems like a downgrade. Cameron and director Tim Miller better have something truly incredible up their sleeve: the shock and awe of seeing Schwarzenegger and Hamilton reunited is only going to last so long.

Trailer Rating: 6.5/10

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Amazon Finds A Director For “The Lord Of The Rings” Prequel.

Game of Thrones is over, and has left a gaping hole in the fantasy genre – a hole that multiple film and TV studios are eager to fill. Amazon is the favorite to achieve that, with their upcoming Lord of the Rings prequel series based on the novels and other published works of J.R.R. Tolkien, a five-season, billion-dollar commitment that apparently will also spawn a number of spin-offs and sequels.

That all sounds fantastic, but so far we’ve had barely any indication that this project is even still alive. They confirmed the show’s setting and time-period earlier this year through a series of posts on their official Twitter page, which was followed by a report that shooting would begin in Leith, Scotland, later this summer. John Howe, art director on Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy, and Tom Shippey, a Tolkien scholar, both boarded the project at some point as well. There has been very little online chatter about the show, unless you (like I) habitually frequent sites like TheOneRing.net. But that might be about to change with the news that broke today, that Bryan Cogman is rumored to be either the director or a chief consultant for the show.

Cogman’s involvement with the series is interesting news for Tolkien purists who want the core themes of the book to be transferred to the screen – he served as “loremaster” for Game of Thrones, working to maintain fidelity to the George R.R. Martin novels, and has won multiple Emmy Awards. This is not going to please everyone, though – Cogman is now the third white male to board the project, following the firing of Sharon Tal Yguado at Amazon Studios. Jackson’s famous trilogy was extremely progressive in that it was largely written by two brilliant women; Jackson’s wife Fran Walsh and friend Philippa Boyens. Cogman, on the other hand, is in part responsible for some of the most controversial scenes in Game of Thrones history, such as the brutal torture and rape of Sansa Stark, something that (a) is undeniably a key element of Sansa’s brilliant character arc, but (b) was not in the original books and does have some suspiciously sexist overtones. Tolkien’s world is much “cleaner” than Westeros, and one wouldn’t expect to find such acts of violence in Middle-earth – though, then again, this series is not going to be set in the Middle-earth we know from the books and movies: this is going to be a story of an empire falling into decadence and decay, a civilization obsessed with death to the point of madness. This is a subject that has already been debated and argued for years, so I’m not going to dive too deeply into it, but I’ll leave it up to you to decide: is Cogman’s involvement a problem, or are you excited about this news?

(Benioff & Weiss, the Game of Thrones showrunners who have been the target of a LOT of backlash these last couple of weeks, are not involved in the show, by the way – nor are they likely to be, since they’re joining the Star Wars franchise).

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“Toy Story 4” Final Trailer!

On June 21, for the last time, we will join Woody, Buzz Lightyear, Little Bo Peep and their gang of toys on an epic adventure to save a spork.

While the previous trailers for this final Toy Story outing have mostly been designed to bring tears to our eyes and leave us heartbroken, this one is a fun and goofy callback to this franchise’s golden age and the characters we love – with a few new additions, like the aforementioned Forky the spork, as well as Canada’s Greatest Stuntman, Duke Caboom (Keanu Reeves) and a plushy duo voiced by Jordan Peele and Keegan Michael-Key. Bo Peep herself might as well count as a new addition, considering how much she’s changed since her last appearance in 1999.

The new trailer gives us a lot of great humor but very few plot details, so there’s not exactly a lot to discuss. Woody is taking a leap of faith on the back of a toy-motorcycle, Bo Peep is a daring adventurer who seems to have great proficiency at zip-lining, and Bunny and Ducky ambush an elderly lady – which, to me, is the most interesting moment in the trailer: in all the previous Toy Story movies, the toys have kept their existence a secret, “playing dead” when a human would enter a room – but here we see them literally attacking a lady. I’ll be interested to see if that has any consequences, or if it’s a purely hypothetical scenario, as it’s edited to look like in the trailer. Even if it is, Bunny and Ducky imply in their conversation with Buzz Lightyear that they’ve done “the ole’ plush rush” before – so…how does that work? Do the human residents of this town know about the animated toys waiting to attack? Why does this sound like the premise of a horror movie?

The trailer doesn’t bring much to the table, but it reinforces my tentative faith in this upcoming movie. I’m going to need that faith when walking into the movie theater – endings are the most difficult part of any story. I don’t expect Toy Story 4 to be a perfect finale to my favorite Pixar franchise, but it needs to be better than Toy Story 3. Fingers crossed.

Trailer Rating: 8/10

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“Downton Abbey” Trailer!

The Crawley family has been expecting us at their iconic English country house, and this time around they’ve got company. The Downton Abbey movie places these familiar characters in a new predicament – preparing for a royal visit from the King and Queen.

If you ever doubted whether interior decorating could look epic, you should watch this trailer: you are wrong, I assure you. The situation might seem like proper fare for a comedy, but not here. There is drama and elegance in every folded sheet, every polished banister, each and every meticulously-scrubbed silver dish. There is suspense as Violet Crawley (Maggie Smith) holds the family together even as the tension threatens to break them apart. There is a palpable sense of fear as the dreaded car arrives at the very end of the trailer – the music swells to a crescendo. Will the King and Queen be properly entertained by the royal luncheon, parade, and dinner? To quote Mrs. Patmore – “I think I might have to sit down!”

Downton Abbey knows the kind of audience its targeting – the audience that will cheer and gasp when all of the characters are revealed at the opening of the trailer, getting out of their fancy automobile; the audience that watched the TV series and will recognize every little Easter-egg hidden throughout the trailer, tiny British callbacks to the show. Downton Abbey‘s new status as a feature-length film, however, also means it’s targeting another type of viewer – the critic. The show broke the Guinness World Record for the highest critically rated TV show of all time, winning 3 Golden Globes and 15 Emmys, and an 86% Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Focus Features, the studio behind the Downton Abbey movie, is itself a critical darling, and star Maggie Smith has two Oscars to her name. Is this small-stakes, charmingly antiquated movie about laundry-folding and royal brunch actually going to aim for an Academy Award? It would certainly be a triumphant way for all involved to finally leave the show.

Well, I am certainly intrigued by the possibility that this movie might be more of an event film than previously guessed. It’s time to polish up the silverware and pour yourself some tea, sit back and eagerly wait for September.

Trailer Rating: 7.5/10