NEW Spider-Man 3 trailer!

From iFilm:


And the direct link:
http://www.ifilm.com/presents/spiderman3

So... Color me interested.

First, it's a cracking good trailer. Second, like most good trailers for a film of this type, it's very good at saying two very different sets of things to fans and non-fans.

To non-fans (or, more accurately, those with decidedly less than Official Hanbook of The Marvel Universe-level familiarity with the pre-movies history of the franchise) it says: "Yup, Spider-Man is back! The story continues! Check out our big new villian, he's made of SAND! And the cool new black costume is made of some kinda creepy living goo, betcha' wanna know what THAT'S about! Coming Soon!"

To fans, on the other hand, it's designed primarily to bring up talking points and questions about canonical fidelity, the better to keep it at or near the forefront of the Film Geek collective experience until the next big trailer and/or casting announcement.

In this case, the main "WTF!??"-generating element (NOT a spoiler cuz it's in the trailer) is the apparent revelation of what is at least part of the film's main storyline: Sandman (Thomas Hayden Church) is apparently responsible for the murder of Uncle Ben Parker back in movie #1 (not sure how that works yet... the car-thief guy had an accomplice?)

Make no mistake, letting this point out early is probably very deliberate: The "bad guy just happens to have had hand in heroes formative-tragedy" bit was a groaner waaaay back in the 1989 "Batman" and has remained a sore-spot for fans ever since (see: "Daredevil.") So getting it out of the way now is a preemptive move. Also, going back to the non-fans, it allows them to set up the idea of Sandman as the film's major source of evil... and in doing so, give fans a peek at what might shape up to be an interest plot-point involving the mysterious Black Costume.

Fans, y'see, are pre-aware that the Black Costume is not only alive, it's a bad thing and the eventual heralding of super-baddie Venom (aka "the BAD Spider-Man.") They also know that, in most tellings of this story, the Black Costume (aka "Symbiote-Suit") causes trouble by driving Peter Parker toward his darker, nastier impulses. If you watch the trailer close, it's clear that Sandman isn't exactly a master-of-evil... he's a thug, scared witless and out of his league, and doesn't even seem to have much enjoyment over his newfound super-powers.

Translation: This will be a big part of the "inner conflict" being represented by the classic-suit vs. black-suit outer conflict; Spidey fighting the urge to revenge-murder Sandman and instead do the right thing and bring him to proper justice.

I like it.