Sometimes the best trailers can be derived from the simplest of means. One of the best examples would be a film like The Devil Wears Prada where, instead of playing up multiple comic hijinks, we get to see Meryl Streep’s “Devil” character make her introduction to her fashion magazine empire with Anne Hathaway as a new hire with no fashion mag experience.
With that in mind, for those who watched the first teaser trailer for Alfonso Cuarón’s Gravity and got a 2001: A Space Odyssey vibe (the character font used is a big giveaway), this second trailer – scene, really – that played at Comic-Con is further evidence that Cuarón has set out to redefine what’s possible when you have visual effects at your disposal.
This “Detached” scene released by Warner Bros. has our two stars, Sandra Bullock and George Clooney, and you can clearly make out the voice of Ed Harris on the NASA com-link. I’m not one for watching clips of movies as I feel it dilutes the overall enjoyment of the finished project, but this singular moment works as well as any two-and-a-half minute trailer with all the accoutrements (ahem, scene snippets, music transitions) could hope to accomplish.
Dr. Stone (Bullock) is a brilliant medical engineer on her first shuttle mission with veteran astronaut Matt Kowalsky (Clooney). But on a seemingly routine spacewalk, disaster strikes. The shuttle is destroyed by meteor debris, leaving Stone and Kowalsky completely alone—tethered to nothing but each other and spiraling out into the blackness. The deafening silence tells them they’ve lost any link to Earth… and any chance for rescue.
Alfonso Cuarón has said in interviews that he wants to use visual effects as a means for creating long, extended takes without cutting. He’s even gone as far to say that the opening sequence of Gravity should last in excess of 17 minutes without a single transition. Having seen what he’s capable of in Children of Men, sign me up. What can I say, I dig extended shots.
Gravity is scheduled to hit theaters in IMAX and 3D on October 4th.
