"Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice" Trailer Breakdown

By now, everyone has seen the latest “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice” trailer that was released Wednesday. The clip has been met with mixed reviews as many fans have criticized the trailer for releasing too much of the plot. Based on the hype for this film, the interest from audiences, and discussion, I think it may be a case of you can't have your cake and eat it too.

Obviously the biggest reveal was that Doomsday would appear in the movie. Even more than that, the trailer seems to quite clearly lay out the progression of the film from Lex Luthor orchestrating the conflict between Batman and Superman before drastically intervening when the Son of Krypton is not destroyed by the Bat of Gotham.

However, with all the rumors, exclusives, and theories that have come out, it was hard not to see this coming. Once General Zod was featured in a previous trailer, many fans were quick to suggest that his remains could be used to create Doomsday. Also with enough evidence in comic book storylines, Doomsday was even more so the best threat to use in an effort to bring Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman together.

With that being said, there are still many things left to be discovered in the film. Remember, the subtitle to this film is “Dawn of Justice.” It will be interesting to see how characters like Aquaman and Flash are weaved into the main story. I think the most important part of this film will be establishing the relationship between Batman and Superman and how that dynamic will inform the rest of the DCEU. Yes, I think the Doomsday plot line was predictable, but I am more excited to see Zack Snyder's version of Batman, Ben Affleck's performance, and how Lex Luthor progresses into a villain.

A couple other things stuck out to me in the trailer. First of which were scenes that related to the teaser we first saw of Batman chained up in some sort of desert bunker operated by Superman henchmen. In the full trailer, I think we see enough evidence to confirm speculation that this scene is actually a nightmare had by Bruce Wayne and not, as others suggested, a Bizzaro Superman plot. We've seen the outfit worn by Batman in this scene referred to as “Knightmare Batman” and now with this new footage I think that is strongly supported. Take a look at this screenshot in which flying creatures are picking up people surrounding Batman as he fights off Superman's guards:

While the sight of strange, flying alien creatures wouldn't exactly be out of place in a film about an alien, it seems more likely that these are Parademons. I can't imagine that a Darkseid/Parademon invasion would be included on top of Doomsday. The whole look of the scene lends itself to being a vision or nightmare.

The other thing I found interesting was Batman's voice. Much was made of Christian Bale's growl in the Dark Knight trilogy and enough people seemed curious about what Ben Affleck would do for his Bat-voice. We got a preview of it in the original trailer when he delivered the line “Tell me: Do you bleed? You will.” When I first heard that and noticed the alteration, I assumed it was due in part to the mechanical armor he was wearing in the clip. But in this newest trailer, we see Batman in his primary costume and the voice is the same. Clearly some part of his cowl is equipped to mask his voice, evidenced by how he sounds when telling Superman “I thought she was you.” I don't think this voice will become as distracting or mocked as Bale's eventually was, but it may be hard to bear over several DCEU films.

There is no word on when/if another trailer will be released before the film hits theaters in March. Perhaps it will be for the best if no new footage comes out in order to keep fans guessing. We'll have to wait and see!

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