Trailer Talk Thursday: The Beaver, Transformers 3 and Real Steel

Hey everybody Travis from The Movie Encyclopedia here to bring you the latest edition of Trailer Talk Thursday where I bring you the latest trailers to hit the silver screen.

If you're wondering what's happened the last two weeks well it's pretty simple. Thanksgiving I was in a turkey coma and rendered unable to do my weekly post (a lot of people were probably in the same position) and last week my choices on Thursday were two underwhelming animated features that nobody probably wanted to hear me talk about. Well a lot can certainly happen in two weeks. We get a trailer for Mel Gibson's new movie where he talks to a hand puppet, the debut trailer of Transformers 3, and a futuristic boxing movie with Hugh Jackman. That's quite the haul there.

So let's dig in starting with the Beaver-

Right off the bat I have to say this film is going to divide audiences in more ways then one. Needless to say Mel has received a lot of attention in the media lately and most of it hasn't been too good for his career. For those who don't pay attention to the tabloids he's basically been on a dangerous and violent path the past few years. He's gotten himself arrested multiple times, made misogynistic comments towards women, yelled at his girlfriend using extremely vulgar language, made racist and homophobic comments and has been the poster child for antisemitism in America. He's made more enemies then friends lately it seems.

But I don't let a persons personal life sway me on what I think of their work. I'm apparently in a minority because people haven't been hiring him and people certainly haven't been seeing his movies (Edge of Darkness anyone?) Anyway his newest movie, in which he teams up with Jodie Foster (who also directs) has received notice for another reason: he's talking to a beaver puppet like it's real. Now I have no problem with the idea because sometimes people go into deep depressions and need outlets to express themselves (which seems to be the direction this movie is taking). But at the same time it's really easy for people to see this and scratch their heads or laugh. Therefore a lot of people are naysaying this movie, without having actually seen it.

Personally I think it looks good so far. I do like Mel Gibson the actor as well as Jodie foster and the under-appreciated Anton Yelchin and it looks like it could be a good psychological story (in the sense I mentioned above).

I'll let you decide


Now onto Transformers 3-

Obvious Pink Floyd jokes aside, I actually like the title. It ties in well with the plot (or what I've gathered so far) and has an air of mystery to it. The trailer itself doesn't really tell us much besides Shockwave is the villain (I'm that nerdy that I recognize the Transformer) and that it involves a government conspiracy 40 years in the making. And if you were going to pick an ongoing conspiracy that's still debated to this day, if you're a sci-fi film you should probably pick the moon landing. The only other big one around that time is JFK and it's not like there has ever been any JFK movies...wait.

But I have hope for this one. For one they replaced a large nagging point for many, Megan Fox, as well as the overtly racist robots (or so I've heard) and most of the stupid sub-plots that never went anywhere. They also went with different writers, instead hiring the guy who wrote Reindeer Games (God help us all) who besides that blunder has had a decent track record. Also Michael Bay said this would be the finale so we should hopefully get some closure. I'll need to see more before I pass judgement but I'm somewhat optimistic.


Finally is Real Steel-

It's Rock em Sock em Robots the movie! In all seriousness though it's the remake (or re-imagining) of the Twilight Zone episode "Steel" which itself was an adaptation of a short story called "Steel." The plot, surprisingly, has remained consistent though and honestly why not? It's fighting robots! If Transformers has proved anything it's that people love robots. And if you make a boxing movie with robots where most of the movie is fighting robots, even if the part is sub-par the movie will be awesome. It helps though that they have someone who knows metal pretty well in their film: Hugh Jackman.

And the human element seems good as well. Former champ forced into retirement when robots took over the boxing ring decides to team up with his son and build a badass robot. Simple, easy to understand and bound to be action packed I am really looking forward to this film.

Here is the trailer-


But this is just my opinion. What do you think? Leave your comments below and I'll see you next week