Let’s Count All the Christopher Nolan-esque Moments in the ‘Doctor Strange’ Trailer
The first trailer for Marvel’s Doctor Strange premiered last night on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, and — as far as superhero movies about neurosurgeons-turned-astral-tripping-sorcerers go — it looks pretty cool. But it also feels, well, a little familiar.
Oddly enough, Doctor Strange doesn’t bear much of a resemblance to any of the other MCU movies, which are often at fault of treading the same ground over and over. Instead, the Benedict Cumberbatch-starring blockbuster appears to borrow heavily from the oeuvre of a filmmaker most closely associated with that other comic-book colossus, DC: Christopher Nolan.
More specifically, the teaser trailer plays like a mash-up of scenes from Nolan’s Batman trilogy and Inception. Given how outrageously popular those movies were — along with the fact that DC’s moved on to Zack Snyder’s peculiar brand of slow-motion nihilism and Nolan is off making a WWII epic with Harry Styles in tow — it’s a smart, calculated move on Marvel’s part to pepper their Universe with a little Dark Knight flavouring.
But just how many moves from the Nolan playbook was Marvel able to cram into a single two-minute teaser trailer? We took a closer look and broke it down trope by trope.
1. Morose rich guys in window-walled penthouses!
Doctor Strange
The Dark Knight
2. Bearded white dudes in foreign prisons!
Doctor Strange
Batman Begins
3. Epic overhead establishing shots!
Doctor Strange
The Dark Knight Rises
4. Bald mentor figures in remote Asian temples!
Doctor Strange
Batman Begins
5. Snow-capped mountains!
Doctor Strange
Batman Begins
6. Bending cities!
Doctor Strange
Inception
7. And, of course, Hans Zimmer-y “BRAWNG!”s over the title card!
Doctor Strange
Inception
Bonus round: Backlit backside posters!
