SuperMegaDio links to the trailer for the upcoming Iron Man movie. (Update: When i went back to re-watch the trailer while writing this post, the official site wasn't working. The trailer is also on youTube.)

I recently had the revelation that trailers are entertaining in their own right. I think they are often better than the movies that they are advertising. I think Hollywood should start making trailers without any movies behind them. Lots of movies, like Balls of Fury, are probably terrible, but the trailer is a lot of fun. Trailers should be their own artform. (Reminder: i don't watch TV so i don't have to watch the same trailers over and over again every commercial break. I only see them when i go to the theater).

I hope that the Iron Man movie itself is as good as the trailer, but here's another idea: The problem with a lot of super-hero movies is that they waste too much time on the set-up/origin aspect. I put it to you that the trailer that SuperMegaDio links to tells you everything you need to know about Iron Man. They should play that trailer before the movie, and then tell a 2 hour story about Iron Man that assumes we know what we need to know about his origin.

Other than that possibly being too expensive, the only problem i see is that since i'm already familar with Iron Man, i may be watching the trailer and filling in the blanks where a newcomer may be confused. So if anyone in my imaginary audience isn't familiar with Iron Man, i request that you go watch the trailer and then come back here and let us know how many of the points below you were able to gather about Tony Stark/Iron Man (highlight to see):

• - He was a rich, possibly immoral, weapons manufacturer.
  
• - He was arrogant, and possibly drank too much
  
• - While on a demonstration of one of his weapons programs in a combat zone, he was fatally injured and captured by the enemy. He was forced to build weapons for them, but instead created a crude suit of body armor that he used to defeat his captors and prevent his injury from killing him.
  
• - When he got home, he built himself a sleeker suit of armor.
  
• - He prefers Ozzy era Black Sabbath to the Dio years
  

Final question: now that you've seen his entire origin summed up in 2 and a half minutes, do you really want to sit through it again stretched out over 45+?

White-spaced spoilers revealed:

I think that the preview falls just short of explaining the origin to those unfamiliar with it, but that if the 'making weapons for captors bit' could be expanded, it would do just fine. It would likely be too expensive, though. The origin is usually the drag part of super-hero movies.

I'd like to see the origin done in revealing flashback, interspersed among action scenes, rather than the more linear story-telling which tends to make the story more disjointed as we 'skip ahead' to the post-origin action. Has this (more flashback style) been done? Would this work better?

And while Tony does prefer Ozzy, he, like all right thinking people, think Holy Diver is the greatest album cover ever!