Style over substance he may be, but Zack Snyder undeniably creates knock-out visuals. His trailers for 300 and Watchmen were two of the most hype-generating previews in recent cinematic history (the lackluster exception being his upcoming CG movie Legend of the Guardians). Now, it looks like he’s turned the volume higher (all the way to eleven!), with this tease of nearly every geeky trope possible: girls with guns and swords, seedy mafia goons, giant samurais brandishing Gatling guns, steampunk zeppelins, fire-breathing dragons, spaceships, futuristic cities, and enormous robots.
But there might’ve been some things that slipped your notice in the trailer:
1. DON DRAPER APPEARS
Around the 0:19 mark, partway through the series of flashing images, who did we miss but Mad Men‘s Don Draper (Jon Hamm) himself, looking dapper as always, but also rather creepy in those spectacles as he looms over Babydoll (Emily Browning), who has been confined to an insane asylum by her stepfather. Hamm plays a mysterious gambling man named High Roller, and reportedly transforms into the owner of the brothel in Babydoll’s dream world.
2. SO DO WATCHMEN‘S SILK SPECTRE I AND THE TERRIBLE DRAGONBALL EVOLUTION‘S CHI CHI
Sure, you get a longer look at Madam Gorski (Carla Gugino), and at Amber (Jamie Chung) and her gunslingin’ companions later, dressed–er, undressed–in … revealing costumes, but you may have missed this quick shot, in which it appears Amber, another one of the wards at the mental institution, is rebuffing Gorski, a Polish psychiatrist in the real world that becomes the madam of the brothel in Babydoll’s fantasy.
3. WITH A LITTLE BIT OF COLOR CORRECTION, WE NOTICED THAT SUCKER PUNCH…
…may have been inspired by Quentin Tarentino‘s Kill Bill? Of course, Tarentino’s earlier Kill Bill films brought together a whole bunch of fangasmic genres as well: Sergio Leone Westerns, Hong Kong wushu, John Woo heroic bloodshed action, and even an anime sequence.
4. IRON MAN + NINJA + NAVY SEAL = DIFFICULT ENEMY
You might’ve been too distracted by the explosive dragon and the awesomely-rendered samurai to notice these equally awesome guys. Who are these creepy-looking robotic, Iron Man-like, gun-wielding ninja soldiers?
5. GABRIELLA FROM HSM CAN KICK ASS TOO
A first look at an action scene in which High School Musical‘s Gabriella (Vanessa Hudgens) takes down a pulp-scifi-styled soldier in full gas mask gear. At Comic-Con, Hudgens and the other three main girls told MTV they were trained by Navy SEALS for three months, with six hour workouts a day, to prepare for their roles. What’s more, from futuristic skyscrapers to war trenches in an alternative history, it really appears that Snyder has incorporated the whole gamut of genre environments.
And finally, to refresh yourself at the visual candy that is Sucker Punch, we’ve provided the trailer below:
