Let’s be honest, did you expect anything else out of this week’s Trailer Tuesday?  I have personally been dying to write about this one, so bare with my over-dramatic, fanboy antics.  You’ve been warned. It was originally announced that the new trailer for Avengers: Age of Ultron was supposed to air during the newest episode of Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and would not be released before then.  However, in today’s unpredictable world of technology, the trailer was unexpectedly leaked almost an entire week early. Props to Marvel, as they went with it and shortly thereafter released higher quality versions as opposed to scrambling to rip it off of every major website in cyberspace. I’ll start by saying, there is so much going on in this “teaser” trailer that it’s hard to break it down in a way that wouldn’t take up 30 pages in Microsoft Word, so I’ll give a general overview. As a massive fan of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (and everything Joss Whedon touches), I have been a dedicated follower of this franchise since the beginning.  In the first Avengers film, we were eased into a world that was mostly a fun family film, where all of these superheroes co-exist and ban together to conquer the day.  With this trailer, now we’re not so sure.  From the opening shot, we see a cantered aerial view of what looks like a normal, pretty metropolitan city.  However, when it’s accompanied by a sinister voiceover from the evil robot villain, none other than Ultron (James Spader) himself, we get the hint that things aren’t going to be so lighthearted this time around.  Ultron is a seriously freaky villain.  As we witness the Avengers’ first encounter with him, their peaceful dinner party is interrupted as he enters the room claiming, “You want to save the world but you don’t want it to change.  You’re all puppets, tangled in strings.”  All of this is followed by a series of bleak shots of our lovable Avengers clearly up against a villain that they’re not only unfamiliar with, but that they might not actually be able to stop.  This trailer does a fantastic job of cranking up the stakes from the first film.  Although it clocks in at over 2 minutes, it is less of a revelation of story and more of a glimpse of what to expect in tone and atmosphere.  And it’s looking to be a dark one. Joining the wonderful cast of characters, which originally included Captain America, Iron Man, Thor and Hulk among others, we now have two morally ambiguous characters coming in to play.  The Maximoff twins, Quicksilver (Aaron Johnson) and Scarlett Witch (Elizabeth Olsen) are two troubled young adults with extraordinary gifts.  However, after being held captive and experimented on by some bad, bad people, I think we’ll see them start out as strong opponents of the Avengers, but ultimately end up as powerful allies. With very little dialogue aside from Ultron’s voiceover, what I found to be most effective here was how well the analogy of “puppets and strings” was written and delivered.  One could interpret Ultron’s claim of these strings being the emotions that come with being human, and that give us a moral sense of right and wrong, thereby inhibiting us from doing things that, say, a robot would have no qualms with.  Then we end on one last powerful line from Ultron saying “There are no strings on me.”  Freaky deaky! This dude has zero remorse or emotional capacity, which makes him the perfect adversary for our (mostly) inherently good Avengers. Whew! Got a little winded with this marathon.  But this trailer did nothing but spark my interest to the fullest.  I’m now more excited than ever for May 1, 2015 to roll around so we can see how the Avengers fare against the psycho robot Ultron! Anyone else catching this at a midnight screening!?