New Avengers Trailers

From SRP author Cameron Cooper:

Why the New Avengers: Doomsday Trailers Left Me Cold

Or: How Hollywood Keeps Underestimating the Fans Who Actually Pay Attention

There’s a story Orson Scott Card tells in How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy.

He was sketching a city map—walls, towers, multiple gates—and he made a mistake. One of the gates didn’t have an opening. No gap between the towers. Just a solid wall.

Most people would’ve reached for the correction fluid and fixed it. But Card didn’t. He leaned in. He asked why that gate was sealed.

And the answer became a whole narrative: a once-magical, now-blocked gate, closed off by political decree, but still used in secret—if you had the right bribe. One small flaw turned into a fault line that cracked open the world.

The thing is, he didn’t treat the mistake like it didn’t matter. He made it matter more.

That story’s been on my mind lately—especially after watching the new Avengers teaser trailers.

They’re quiet, low-key, visually sharp. About ninety seconds each. And they’re clearly aiming to stir that old excitement: big reveals, crossovers, emotional weight. The return of the X-Men. Patrick Stewart back as Professor X. Thor. The Fantastic Four. Even some not-so-subtle hints about Iron Man.

And if these had dropped right after Endgame? Fans would’ve lost their minds.

But that was a long time ago. And there’s been too much traffic under the bridge since then. Too many mediocre or outright baffling storylines. Too many characters rewritten, replaced, or erased. Too many emotional arcs that were supposed to mean something… quietly undone.

Now, when I see these carefully crafted teasers, instead of a thrill of anticipation, I just shrug and think: Okay…?

Because I’ve stopped trusting that any of it will stick.

We’ve been told again and again that the story matters, until it doesn’t. That character deaths mean something, until the next multiverse twist. That consequences are real, until they’re inconvenient.

It’s not just Marvel. Star Trek has redrawn its own timeline so many times it’s practically a kaleidoscope. Star Wars has overwritten major arcs like someone flipping through different drafts and picking whichever one’s flashiest. And of course, TV isn’t off the hook, either. Who remembers how Dallas wiped away an entire season when they brought Bobby back to life in Season 10, in the famous (and most ridiculed) shower scene? “It was all a dream!” Say, what?

The message to the audience is clear: Don’t worry about what came before. We’re making it up as we go.

And for a while, maybe that worked. But even the most loyal fans eventually notice when the emotional investment stops paying off. When continuity is optional. When canon is just whatever gets the loudest cheer in the moment.

The result? A growing indifference. Not because fans are too demanding, but because we remember.

We remember what these stories used to feel like. We remember how much we cared. And when that care is treated like it’s disposable, it’s hard to get excited again, no matter how many legacy characters get dusted off for a cameo.

It’s moments like this that remind me why I keep going back to books.

Books don’t tend to hit reset on the fly. They carry the weight of what came before. When something matters in chapter three, it still matters in chapter thirty…and in book #6, too. The stories trust you to notice the details, and they reward you when you do.

That trust is worth something. And once you’ve had it, it’s hard to settle for less.

What about you?

Which franchise finally lost your trust? Which character’s arc got overwritten so badly you gave up?

Drop it in the comments—I want to know I’m not the only one shrugging at the screen these days.
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