The DC Universe streaming platform has revealed the first trailer for its ~dark and ~gritty series Titans, and it’s… basically the equivalent of a rebellious teenager acting out, against the backdrop of music that keeps repeating DARKNESS DARKNESS DARKNESS over and over. Or is that MADNESS? We can’t tell, because we can’t stop laughing watching it.
Never mind that there was an excellent Teen Titans animated series way back when. Nah, what we need instead is Dick Grayson (Brenton Thwaites), detective by day and masked vigilante by night. If him moodily throwing an R-shaped shuriken isn’t enough to let audiences know that he’s rejected being the Boy Wonder, then they’ll be sure to get the message with his growly response to baddies looking for the Caped Crusasder: “Fuck Batman.” Oooh, someone’s tough.
The series also looks surprisingly gory:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5dIwGAYcWk
The official synopsis from DC Universe is pretty bare:
Titans follows young heroes from across the DC Universe as they come of age and find belonging in a gritty take on the classic Teen Titans franchise.
The trailer fleshes more of this out, as wayward psychic teen Raven (Teagan Croft) tracks down Dick to help her figure out what’s behind her visions, and the evil that she fears lurks within her. Except that he might be more interested in helping her embrace that darkness rather than reject it. We also get glimpses of Beast Boy (Ryan Potter) and Starfire (Anna Diop) in action.
It’s certainly a lot grittier than anyone was expecting; it will be interesting to see how it does as one of the three flagship series from DC Universe. No word yet on premiere date, but interested parties can pre-order subscriptions for the streaming service starting today, with a special sign-up promotion for San Diego Comic-Con.
Is there a reason that DC has decided that all movies must be shades of blue and black? Heaven forbid anyone actually see what’s happening.
Wow, that looks totally unappealing……
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
If this was Jason Todd Robin I think I could get behind this series, cause it wouldn’t be out of character for him to be this violent, even before his Red Hood days. With Dick, the stronger violence seems… unnatural? I don’t know if I just have gaps in my knowledge with Dick/The titans, but this just seems wonky to me. Also if they are going for “Titans” and not “Teen Titans”, shouldn’t Dick be Nightwing by now?
I’m with KRAD and Daedylus; someone seems to have taken entirely the wrong lesson from Powerless having tanked.
Yikes. Hard pass.
“If there’s trouble you know who to call!”
Apparently, they didn’t.
It actually looks interesting to me. And I don’t watch any of the TV versions on network TV. I’ll give it a look.
Dark and gritty? More like dumb and wangsty. As a fan of lighter and camper it was always going to be a hard sell for me, but this is just so bad looking that I’m not even going to try. Hard pass.
I’m kind of half looking forward to showing this to my husband just to hear him rant about it (especially as he’s a big Robin fan, lol)…yikes!
As an aside, the actor reminds me a bit of a younger version of James Marsden/Cyclops. Maybe with a bit of a thinner face.
Honestly, it looks horrible and uninteresting.
Will give this the 2-episode test, but when the trailer looks this bad, that’s not a promising sign. I’ll probably stick with the animated teen titans, thanks!
Not only does this look bad, they stole the “no such thing as monsters” line from Aliens. Come on, guys, it’s not like that’s an obscure movie. People are gonna notice.
@8 Yes, it definitely plays as wangsty. Strange direction to take, but I guess they figure it appeals to any 13 year old begging their parents for the $75 annual subscription fee. It will feel like they got away with something if there’s blood and expletives. Though I feel even 13 year olds will pass on this.
…..
Having watched some of the cartoon with my son, (but not much, because the humor is not my taste), this is even worse. Nor will I be allowing him to watch this version.
Where is any of the fun of the cartoon? That Robin looks way too old to have a crush on this Raven.
And I agree with @1, why are so many shows so dark in colors? All details get lost on my TV.
Dove of Hawk and Dove is also visible in the trailer, to the extent that much of anything can be made out in all the “gritty” shadows and poor lighting. Like others, I will probably pass on this. I guess DC hasn’t learned lessons yet from the failures of nearly all of its “dark version” DC Universe films as compared to the successes of its much lighter in tone TV shows.
I don’t mind the violence. Adapting any of the Bat-family to live action with any sense of realism is going to hit hard. You can argue the realism isn’t necessary, but when you have a group of people who bludgeon criminals into submission, you’re going to get blood and broken bones. Even Dick with his escrima sticks regularly beats his enemies with these hardened rods. I have more problems with the overall dark tone, and the F-Bomb. Dick goes through a period of estrangement from Batman, and I wouldn’t be surprised if we see him take the name Nightwing during this show. But even at his angriest, when he says some harsh things to Batman, Dick is rarely vulgar. And this darker tone doesn’t fit Titans. At least in this small clip Beast Boy looks better than the leaked images. Though I still don’t like their look for Starfire. Overall, I think it looks okay. Not great, but not terrible, and since its just a teaser lacking a lot of context, I’m willing to give it a shot.
@13
Funny you should mention it being targeted at 13 year olds.
Someone on another site described this is as being every angry thirteen year olds first fanfic. I find it hard to argue.
This does not look good, but I would watch this and I would love it. But it would not be good. And I certainly would not pay for it
Keep in mind: trailers always lie, in part because they’re typically cut together by a team completely unrelated to the team making the movie or show, with different artistic sensibilities and motivations. It’s possible the darkest moments (in both mood and lighting) have been cherry-picked to falsify the average darkness of the show.
For example, Robin’s “F— Batman” might just be exasperation that his mentor gets all the mindshare among the criminal fraternity, and he hasn’t yet established his own to-be-feared rep.
I see that Starfire’s hair seem to be internally lit. That’s not like the cartoons (Teen Titans, Teen Titans Go, at least one appearance in the periodic direct-to-video DC movies) where it’s merely orange and voluminous — but it is somewhat consistent with (inspired by?) the way it was drawn in the comics in the 1980s, where it’s a GIANT! CURLY! FRO! that emits/is contiguous with an exhaust trail when she flies. (Frankly, that’s an aspect of the depiction I couldn’t figure out.)
Well, that was terrible. I had high hopes for this because of Brenton Thwaites and because Berlanti was involved, but this looks like the grim-dark suits at WB got hold of it and turned it into the playground of psychopaths that is the DC Cinematic Universe.
I can’t tell if this is the logical conclusion of the Snyder DC movies embracing “dark and gritty” storytelling, or a secret parody making fun of the Snyder DC movies. (And was I following the fight scene correctly – did Dick mow down a bunch of hoodlums with one of their guns?!)
–Andy
I tweeted my reaction this morning that it looks like all the worst parts of The CW, but at least it also has all the worst parts of Snyder’s DC movies.
And Dove supposedly used her costume to slash people. Yeah, that matches the character perfectly </snark>.
A trailer is supposed to make you want to see the main feature. This had the exact opposite effect on me.
Hard pass.