Last night Marvel dropped a new TV spot for Doctor Strange that didn't make a lot of sense. Now, however, the internet has taken to it and translated the gibberish into actual words. The new spot appeared to have been put online backwards, as it started with a title and release date, rather than ending with them. Also, while some words were distinguishable, others were not. But, if you run the entire thing backwards, what was hidden, becomes revealed.
Leave it to Reddit to figure this one out, specifically user broganisms, who did the reverse work for the rest of us. Both versions of the trailer end with Benedict Cumberbatch's voice telling us that "this is just the beginning." Beyond that, however, they're very different, When run the way that Marvel published it, just about the only other word that is distinguishable is the repeated refrain of the word "time." When played backwards, the star of the ad is actually Tilda Swinton's Ancient One, who tells Stephen Strange to "open your eye" and that "you can become so much more." We also get the on-screen text in reverse, which ultimately says the same thing, just in a different way. "His time is now," becomes, "Now is his time."
Of course, the ultimate goal of reversing the ad spot isn't to reveal some major secret or spoiler to the film, it has much more to do with the world building that Doctor Strange is trying to do. This is the first film in the MCU that is really delving into concepts of magic, but based on everything we've heard in the MCU previously, as well as from Marvel Studios in the run up to Strange the key to understanding magic isn't to believe in some otherworldly power, but rather to simply look at the world you know from a different perspective. Thus the added chore of playing the ad backwards in order to get everything out of it.
Doctor Strange certainly promises to be a very different sort of Marvel movie. Whether you're watching the new ad as it's run forward or backwards, the visuals are unlike anything we've seen in the Marvel Cinematic Universe thus far. There's a bending of reality that we're sure will look amazing on the big screen. Marvel has told us that the 3D presentation of the movie is so important to the visual style that they're actually having some difficulty making the same style work in traditional 2D. This gives us a great deal of hope that the spectacle that's being promised lives up to all the hype.
We're looking forward to the next installment of the MCU when Doctor Strange hits theaters next month. Are you looking forward to something a little different or are you already looking past Strange and onto one of the other films scheduled for next year? Let us know in the comments.
