by J.F. Sargent
The trailer for The Wolverine hit last week, and everyone who loves violence in their comic book movies got pretty excited since Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) is the only superhero appearing in movies right now who isn’t afraid to scream in someone’s face as he stabs them to death.
But after you watch the trailer, you might get a sense of deja vu. That’s because almost everything in The Wolverine trailer has already happened in an earlier X-Men movie.
I’m talking about stuff like…
6. Wolverine Goes to a Bar Somewhere Cold, Gets in a Fight With Two Men and Meets a Mysterious Woman
The trailer starts off with a pretty classic Wolverine moment – he’s angry, and alone, and hanging out in some dive bar somewhere cold…
until some bald guy picks a fight…
And he has a, “Hell Yeah! I’m Wolverine!” moment…
And then a strange woman appears to take his life in a brand new direction…
Haha! Fooled you guys – that’s actually the beginning of X-Men (2000). The trailer for The Wolverine actually starts out…
…somewhere cold…
…with Wolverine fighting in a dive bar…
…”Hell Yeah!”…
…okay, it’s the exact same thing, the only difference being that Rogue is now an Asian Lady and Wolverine has grown a pretty impressive Melancholy Beard.
5. Wolverine Meets a Guy During a War Who Offers Him Some Relief From The Guilt He Suffers For Killing Someone
Yeah, these moments are pretty specific.
I’m sorry that I have to put you through this, but I need to talk about X-Men Origins: Wolverine for a second. The plot for the first fifteen minutes of that movie is that Wolverine is upset about the fact that he killed his father, and he’s been fighting in wars ever since. Then, he survives execution by firing squad…
…which impresses a man named William Stryker (Danny Huston), who is obviously in the military since his name is “Stryker”…
…who offers him a position on a “special team with special privileges.” Turns out “special privileges” involve going on precisely one mission before dramatically walking off into the jungle, because this movie has the attention span of a fucking goldfish.
In The Wolverine’s trailer, the exact same thing happens, only instead of feeling bad about killing his father he feels bad about killing Jean Grey at the end of X-Men: The Last Stand, and instead of surviving a firing squad he survives a nuclear explosion (which is admittedly far more badass)…
…and instead of impressing a military official, he impresses a weird Japanese guy.
Which, if you’re counting, is the second time this trailer has taken a character and arbitrarily made them Japanese to hide the fact that they were already a character in an earlier X-Men movie.
And then…
4. Wolverine strapped into a Machine, Screaming About Something, Talking to a Blonde Lady
Later on in Origins, Wolverine’s brother pretends to kill Wolverine’s girlfriend (because that plot doesn’t care about you following it at all) and Wolverine, naturally, gets Stryker to inject his body full of metal so he can more easily go after his enemy. Also naturally, a pretty blonde lady performs the procedure.
But oh no! Things go wrong and Wolverine does what he’s best at: throws a tantrum, but with claws.
And you’ve watched that trailer by now, right? So you know…
And then…
You’d think “don’t let people strap you to weird devices” isn’t the kind of lesson you’d need to learn first hand once, let alone twice, but hey, it’s not like Wolverine’s superpower is intelligence.
3. Mutants Have the Opportunity to Lose Their Powers
So what’s the Wham Line from this trailer? “I can make you mortal.” As in, “Wolverine, I can take away your powers.”
Man, that sure would be dramatic is it wasn’t the exact plot of X-Men: The Last Stand, huh? This movie clearly takes place after that one, since it has those references to the death of Jean Grey (Famke Jannsen), so why is the existence of a mutant cure news?
Okay, okay, let’s not nitpick – back to jokes.
2. Wolverine Gets Slashed on the right side of his Face, and then Turns to Look at the Camera
This actually happens twice in the trailer, first here when he picks some broken glass out of his cheek:
Then here, after getting hit with a katana:
Both times, it’s awesome. And both times, you know shit’s about to get real (as the kids say). You know how? Because this is exactly what happens in every other X-Men movie.
Here’s the scene from X-Men, right before his first fight with Sabertooth:
From X2, right before he brutally murders some poor hired part-time security guard who was seriously just doing his job:
… and here’s a shot from Last Stand, right before Pyro leaves to join the Hellfire Club:
That’s a bullet hole on his forehead. And here’s a shot from near the end of X-Men: The Last Stand:
He looks sort of zen there, but don’t worry – he gets right back to killin’ in no time. I’m starting to wonder why Wolverine gets so angry whenever anyone cuts up his face, considering a) it happens all the time and b) it doesn’t seem to cause any problems for him at all.
1. Wolverine Uses His Claws to Hang On to Something Moving Way Too Fast
Here, we’ve actually taken a step backwards, since in Origins we got to see Wolverine dangling from a helicopter…
But this time all we get is a train.
Oh well. At least we know he’s gonna yell a lot.
JF Sargent has a Twitter and a Blog
Related Topics: Hugh Jackman, Wolverine
