User blog:DarkClaw3/So, the New Titans Trailer...

So, San Diego Comic Con has came and went, leaving behind a mass of exciting news and screaming fans in its wake. There's tons to talk about from every angle, from the White Diamond reveal, to the trailer for Glass, to even the footage of the upcoming DuckTales episodes, and so, so much more. But DC in particular had a lot to show off this year, with tons of news regarding their upcoming films and TV series'. I plan on getting to the trailers for Aquaman and Shazam! soon enough, but right now I wanted to talk about the trailer for DC's streaming service's new show, Titans, and its, um....well, let's just have a look. You can watch the trailer right here if you haven't seen it before, as that'll probably add a whole lot more context to what I'm about to say.

Analysis
The trailer starts off with the series' most bizarre aspect; the mature rating. Yeah, really. Now, it sounds like a weird thing to bring attention to, but if you think about it, why the actual hell is a series about the Titans only suitable for an adult audience? A series that is best known for its traditionally more campy and less serious moments in comparison to the grimmer DC Universe is now only for those 18+. And when you have time to ponder that, some of the things we see in the trailer become a little more questionable. Next, we see Rachel Roth/Raven investigating the Haly's Circus tent, finding an advertisement for the Flying Graysons and possibly experiencing some sort of vision or flashback to the earlier years of the circus. Then, in presumably a police interrogation room (possibly one set in Bludhaven, too), Raven tells Dick Grayson/Robin that everything has lead her to him, implying that whatever she was investigating involved a whole lot more than the circus, and asks him to help her.

We then get a look at a flashback displaying the death of Robin's parents, and a scene of him angrily disregarding his Robin symbol presumably following his fallout with Batman. Then we get a look at Robin deciding to strike out on his own and beat up some bad guys without Batman's help. And, if I do say so myself, Robin gets just...unnecessarily brutal here. I know the mature rating allows them to go to new avenues and all, and Robin's probably pissed off that the thugs think he needs Batman along for the ride, but why in the hell is he being so goddamn hard on them? He stabs them in the throat, redirects gunfire into them, steps on their skulls. Jesus. Keep in mind that many versions of Robin separating himself from Batman involve the latter becoming too violent in his methods (such as the DCAU version), and here Robin is making sure many of these low-level goons will never walk or consume food properly again. And he concludes with the line that everybody is talking about. He says, and I quote; "F*ck Batman."

Yeah, seriously. This is not a joke. They actually let that line slip in there. They couldn't have simply gone with a "I don't need Batman," or a "I'm better than Batman." or even a "Screw Batman". No. They just had to curse out Batman with a line so stupid and so out of place with Dick Grayson's character that it draws more attention than literally anything else in the trailer. It straight up sounds like something a fan wrote. A poor fan, at that. I hate to get so hung up on it, but this line is probably the worst thing in the entire trailer. It shows us clearly how mishandled Robin's character is, ignoring what we have seen previously and will see later on, how the series is trying to be grim and gritty to the point where it is totally ridiculous and out of place with most of the characters, and how poor the writing is in only ten letters. Moving on, Raven displays how she is possessed by something evil, which cases her to nearly kill some guy who is trying to talk to her (maybe he's really a bad guy or something), Robin consoling her, and a shot of two sinister looking people who I assume are either trying to grab something or attempting to kidnap someone (probably Raven) from their point of view.

Next, we get a shot of Garth Logan/Beast Boy jumping out at something and Starfire burning some guys. Now, Beast Boy looks pretty alright. He looks a little too much like a green version of Sabretooth for me, but I can deal with that. Starfire on the other hand...yeah, I'll be honest, she looks pretty crap. And it appears that she only turns her proper skin color when using her powers. Great. We get another scene of Robin beating people up, this time with assistance from Dove and Hawk, and I can already tell that Dove's characterization might be the worst yet. Historically, between her and Hawk, she has always been the peaceful one. The passive one. The one to stop and think before starting a fight. Hell, her personality is literally in the name. And here she is slicing a person's knee open, smiling while holding a knife, and (assuming its supposed to be her) doing nothing as a bearded guy cracks another guy over the head with a baseball bat. I really don't understand how they could screw up her character so badly, as its as if the writers literally had never encountered any Hawk and Dove stories before and just wrote whatever came to mind. Are they doing a personality swap thing where Dove is aggressive and Hawk is peaceful? If so, I have absolutely no faith in them as characters.

We continue on and see more of Raven's dark side, a brief glimpse of Dick's Nightwing costume, another display of just how bad Starfire's design is, a slow-mo gunshot, Dove straight up killing a guy (c'mon, really?!), the guy with the bat from earlier being carried into the air, some guy super-throwing who I believe to be Dove into some stuff, a look at a guy with green hair and eyes, and a scene so dark I literally can't tell what's going on. The only thing of note here is the green eyes/hair guy who appears to be Beast Boy, confirming that he, like Starfire, only turns the right color when using his powers. I know its a budgeting thing and that they probably can't have these people green/orange all the time, but if you want to use a character, could you make them actually look like how they do in to comics? We conclude on Robin and Raven talking about monsters and if they exist or not, and a final shot of Raven screaming while in her weird dark form as the title breaks through glass.

Thoughts
Form your own opinions as you wish, but, from my perspective, this indications of this trailer are...troubling. It totally baffles me that this is the direction that DC chose to go with, especially considering that everyone has criticized them for how unnecessarily dark and edgy their movies are, and that they've tried to atone for this by being more lighthearted and including more jokes, only to then slap us with a dark and edgy rendition of something that actually deserves to be lighthearted. Even ignoring that, this series has so much wrong with it. The characters are all disturbingly mismanaged in terms of personality and/or design (Raven's supposed to be the aggressive, evil one, and yet Robin and Dove of all people are coming off so), the lighting is so dark that I can't tell what's going on half the time, and the trailer itself has a noticeable overuse of stock sound effects, which doesn't add much to its quality. Every time I rewatch this trailer I feel as if I'm supposed to be viewing Ghost Rider or freaking Watchmen because the dark atmosphere is so off putting and so unfitting of these characters that its hard to believe that this is even an official DC product. And the genius, edgy writing we've seen doesn't help convince me of that fact very much either.

Even so, this series still has clear potential. The costumes, for the most part, are actually really good, Robin's especially, the acting from what we've seen isn't half bad, and the story seems interesting enough that it deserves a watch. The Robin/Raven relationship isn't delved into all that much, so its intriguing to see that as the main focus, just so long as they don't alienate the strong, family-like relationship that the Titans are famous for having. The members of the Doom Patrol and Donna Troy/Wonder Girl are supposed to appear at some point, which is also interesting, and beyond the mass of easily killable goons we see, Trigon and probably some of his disciples are presumably going to be the main antagonists (though it is disappointing that Deathstroke, Brother Blood and H.I.V.E will more than likely not have a role, given their appearances in the Arrowverse and DCEU). Overall, this trailer scares me, but I will give it a shot. Because if I don't, Robin will probably tear my eyes out of their sockets.