How The Infinity War Trailers Lied To You

If you walked out of Avengers: Infinity War scratching your head about the timeline of certain events, don't worry. You're not alone. To protect the film's many surprises from getting out, Marvel and the directors Joe and Anthony Russo didn't just orchestrate the viral "Thanos Demands Your Silence" anti-spoiler campaign — the studio's marketing team also apparently flubbed on a few of the finer details in the film's trailers.

In other words, yes, Marvel Studios did mislead you during the film's promotional campaign, so no, you weren't imagining that things were different in the theater than they were in the commercials. While some of the adjustments were slight and might've merely been a result of editing choices from the film's final cut, others were red herrings placed in the trailers to throw us all off by design. To help keep everything straight, we've rounded up some trailer moments that were either missing or completely different in the theatrical version of the film. Here's how the Infinity War trailers lied to you.

While Bruce Banner's mean green alter ego the Hulk does appear in Avengers: Infinity War, it's not for long. Following the events of Thor: Ragnarok, the Hulk is shown on board the Asgardian refugee ship, hopping out at a critical moment to help Thor (Chris Hemsworth) and Loki (Tom Hiddleston) take on Thanos (Josh Brolin) and his minions. Unfortunately, he's easily defeated by the Mad Titan, and Heimdall uses the last of his strength to send Hulk back to Earth by way of the bifrost before he can really be disposed of.

When he arrives at the New York sanctum, it's as Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo), and the Hulk doesn't fully return to the film again. Even as Bruce tries to summon "the other guy" to various battles throughout the film, the Hulk resists and makes Bruce go it alone. It's not clear if Hulk's just afraid to get beaten up again, or if Bruce's words in Ragnarok about identities being lost in the transition are inspiring Hulk's hesitation, but for whatever reason, he declines the invitation to help out at the Battle of Wakanda, so the first trailer's memorable tracking shot of the Hulk racing to war with Captain America (Chris Evans), Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan), Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), Black Panther (Chadwick Boseman), Okoye (Danai Gurira), War Machine (Don Cheadle), Falcon (Anthony Mackie), and the Wakandan forces appears to have been fabricated just for hype's sake.

Another misleading Bruce Banner bit from the first Infinity War trailer is when he's shown standing beside the the wrecked Hulkbuster suit, apparently offering a smile to Natasha Romanoff, whom he's surely missed after the two years he spent away on the planet Sakaar. The implication is that the suit has fallen apart, and maybe the Wakanda battle is done, but in the film, that's not how it happens.

Once Bruce puts on the suit, it's pretty much go time for the battle to begin, whether Bruce is ready to command the suit or not. The suit does get some wear and tear at the hands of the Black Order's monsters, of course, but Bruce is still shown wearing it after the surge has subsided. Chances are this was an alternate take on how to reintroduce Bruce and Nat that didn't make it into the final edit, but it's hard to see how the broken Hulkbuster suit could fit into that scenario considering what comes later in the film.

Another major preview moment that was clearly meant to mislead us all came in the second trailer, when Captain America, who's just been shown slaying some of the Black Order's monsters on the field in Wakanda, confronts Thanos. Thanos is seen wearing the Infinity Gauntlet, but all is not as it seems. Sure, Cap gives him as much of a go as we witness in the trailer, but what's missing is just how many of the Infinity Stones Thanos has filled the glove with by this point in the film.

Most of the marketing materials made it seem as though the Battle of Wakanda might take place earlier in the film, but in actuality, it stretches through much of the second and third acts. By the time Thanos arrives to finish what his minions Corvus Glaive (Michael Shaw), Proxima Midnight (Carrie Coon), and Cull Obsidian (Terry Notary) could not, he's collected everything but the Mind Stone that's still lingering in Vision (Paul Bettany)'s forehead. The fact that just two stones are shown in the shot is sleight of hand, to say the least. Similarly, the gem count is also off in the first trailer's glimpse of Thanos flexing his gauntlet on his home planet of Titan. In the film, he's already added the Reality Stone and the Soul Stone to the two shown by this point, and quickly collects the Time Stone from Doctor Strange as well.

Although there were some Avengers: Infinity War-themed toys that hinted at Thor having a healed eye in the film — following the events of Thor: Ragnarok, when his sister Hela relieved him of it — the trailers betrayed no such development. Instead, every shot seemed to show him walking around with his pirate-esque eye patch.

After seeing the film, of course, it becomes clear that very few of those moments featured Thor wearing the eyepatch in the film, since Rocket Raccoon (Bradley Cooper) decides to give him a new eye to replace the one that's missing shortly before they journey off to Nidavellir to forge Stormbreaker with the help of Eitri (Peter Dinklage). The misleading shots include the first trailer's frame of Thor holding open the forge and the Super Bowl spot's shot of Thor asking Eitri if he was ready. In one TV spot, the cover-up on of Thor's new eye is so terrible that it appears to be a simple smudge across the screen rather than an actual eyepatch CGI-ed into place.

Perhaps the most egregious misdirection regarding Thor's new eye is in a moment from the second trailer when he's shown wielding his lightning power while reaching for the sky. Not only is his eyepatch not present in the scene, but his newly-forged weapon is nowhere to be seen.

Not only did Avengers: Infinity War show us Peter Parker's (Tom Holland) "Spidey Senses," as we saw in the trailer, but he finally got to make use of Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.)'s newfangled Iron Spider suit — which came with some cool new customizations, including metallic spider legs designed to come out and give him some key support in battle. However, the trailer misled Spidey fans in two ways. The second trailer's final glimpse at Spider-Man slinging his way around Titan lacked some legs (and some of the Guardians who were in the scene). 

Additionally, there's also a shot of him sling-shotting himself beneath a bridge, surfing on the river with his sneakers, that didn't make it into the movie at all. Chances are, the latter bit was simply cut for time to get Spidey on the Titan ring quicker, but the decision not to show off the coolest feature of Spidey's new suit seems to be a case of the filmmakers saving something special for theatergoers. 

One of the strangest cases of CGI-enhanced misleading by the Avengers: Infinity War trailers comes in the second trailer, when we see a quick glimpse of Shuri (Letitia Wright) holding up a hologram version of Vision's head. The scene does exist in the film, with a very similar look, but what she's gaping at instead of techno-Vision is a 3D version of the yellowed Mind Stone, which she's hoping to successfully separate from Vision's body without compromising his integrity as a sentient being.

The reason for showing his blued-out head instead of the stone itself in the trailer is unclear. Perhaps the filmmakers didn't want to give away her entire strategy with the shot while still reminding everyone that Disney's newest princess would be involved. However, the holographic version of the stone also came into play in a later TV spot, as she quickly adjusted her computer version of it before being attacked by Corvus Glaive.