Last night, the Batman V. Superman trailer leaked a full four days early (you can watch it here if the upload is still available), and while it’s extremely low quality, it still tells us a lot about the film.
Before going any further, it bears reminding that the footage was very blurry and nowhere near hi-res, and had Portugese subtitles overlaid to boot. If that’s going to bother you, don’t worry, an HD version is set to arrive Monday night/Tuesday morning, and we’ll revisit it then.
If not, onward!
“Is it really surprising that the most powerful man in the world should be a figure of controversy?”
This voiceover plays over black. I can’t identify the voice, but I think it’s someone interviewing Lex Luthor (who we’ll hear from in a second).
Our first actual bit of footage is this cityscape. It’s probably Metropolis and not Gotham, given the outline of a statue that we’ll see in better detail in just a sec.
“We as a population on this planet have been looking for a savior,” says the disembodied voice of Jesse Eisenberg’s Lex Luthor.
And here is that savior:
People in a crowd our reaching out to him reverently. Some are wearing what looks like Dia De Los Muertos-themed face paint.
“We’re talking about a being whose very existence challenges our own sense of priority in the universe”
I can’t identify the voice, but we’re slowly inching closer to the statue.
You can also hear a female (sounds like Amy Adams’ Lois Lane) saying, “you are not telling us the truth.”
Cut to: Superman lifting a… thing. Maybe a satellite? I can’t make out the writing at all.
“Human beings have a horrible track record of following people with great power.”
Underneath that we can hear things like, “tragedy,” “terror, chaos,” and “absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
Does something happen that undermines Superman’s reputation? Or is this just more fallout from the Zod incident from Man of Steel? As we hear all of this, we continue to push in on that statue.
Men, who appear to be uniformed and armed, bow to Superman.
It’s a super interesting shot, and it begs the question, is Superman inadvertently creating a cult of personality, or is he actively fostering one (a la the video game Injustice)?
“- just a guy trying to do the right thing.”
“We know better now, don’t we? Devils don’t come from beneath us, they come from the sky,” replies Lex Luthor.
Here we see Superman flying above a man reaching out to him. Again, a ton of god-like imagery here.
“The world has been so caught up in what he can do, that no one has asked what he should do,” says another female voice, maybe Holly Hunter (who plays a Senator in this film).
Over chants of “Go Home!” we finally see the statue, spray painted with “False God.”
“That’s how it starts. A fever, a rage. A feeling of powerlessness, that turns good men cruel,” says Jeremy Irons’ Alfred, over an image of Ben Affleck as Bruce Wayne, and the Batman costume.
The music builds as we see the logo begin to come together.
This looks like Batman and the Batmobile.
Lightning flashes to reveal graffiti, and what just might be a Riddler mark…
A plane (the Batplane?) opens fire on an armed man and a vehicle with a gun mounted on it. The car clearly explodes, does Batman not have a “no kill” rule here?
The Batmobile drives through an explosion.
Batman being Batman.
An extremely Nolan-esque shot of the character perched high above the city.
Armored Batman. This actually looks like the exact same shot we saw at Comic-Con last year.
Lightning flashes to reveal Superman.
“Tell me, do you bleed?”
Superman drops down to confront Batman. Goosebumps.
“You will…”
Oh it’s on.
The logo is revealed, first Superman’s, then Batman’s, growing behind it out of the darkness.
So all in all, a ton of stuff to chew on there. What we haven’t seen yet though is Lex Luthor (although we pretty much know what he looks like), or any indication of why Superman and Batman eventually put aside their differences and work together. Doomsday is still rumored, but given the tone of this trailer, I’d say it’s pretty unlikely. Could Lex himself be the ultimate threat that pulls them together?
