Dark Phoenix Trailer: Jean Grey Fights Her Fellow X-Men

Dark Phoenix or Jean Grey vs. the World?

In the first trailer for 20th Century Fox's Dark Phoenix, which lead actress Sophie Turner helped unveil on The Late Late Show with James Corden on Wednesday night, Jean Grey becomes something she once feared she would be: broken, dangerous, the enemy. 

The footage opens on Turner's Jean as a youngster, standing in front of James McAvoy's Professor Charles Xavier and telling him that he can't fix her. Though he outwardly assures her she isn't damaged and seemingly comforts the juvenile mutant after she unintentionally causes a car accident that kills her parents, Professor X has different thoughts swirling in that genius brain of his. 

"The mind is a fragile thing. Takes only the slightest tap to tip it in the wrong direction," McAvoy's Professor X says in voiceover as the trailer shifts to show an adult Jean. Jennifer Lawrence's Mystique then questions him, "Charles, what did you do?" 

After he defends his actions — keeping her "stable" and protecting her through methods that were likely radical and really unsavory — Mystique fires at Professor X, "There's another word for that." (Torture? Betrayal? Immorality? Yeah, those would all work.)

Feeling hurt and double-crossed, Jean meets with Michael Fassbender's Magneto to finally get some answers and to learn the unfiltered truth. Except, that's not really what's going on. As Magneto says, "You didn't come here looking for answers. You came here looking for permission." 

And that's apparently what she gets. 

The Dark Phoenix trailer teases Jean's intense metamorphosis from vulnerable mutant to the unbalanced, unhinged Dark Phoenix — the alter ego that emerges after Jean is struck (and nearly killed) by a cosmic force during an intergalactic rescue mission. The usually kind Jean is now a big ball of anger and pain that's "all coming out at once," and is unable to stop the darkness inside her from manifesting and pushing her to destroy the world around her. 

Of course, many members of the X-Men team believe that Jean turning into Dark Phoenix is all Professor X's fault — and he seems to agree. "The world is on the brink. I'm sorry. I didn't stop it sooner," he says. 

The clip ends on a powerful shot: Turner's Jean standing half-shrouded in shadows, her eyes glowing gold and her skin crackling with electricity in the sun. 

Check out the full Dark Phoenix trailer, which also features Jessica Chastain making her X-Men movie debut as a silver-haired shape-shifter, above.

Thanks to the film undergoing reshoots and subsequently getting pushed back from November 2018 to February 2019, fans have had to wait quite a while to get the first look at Dark Phoenix. To some, like Twitter user @livresjaunes, the trailer was "epic" and "amazing." But to others, including ShortList social media editor Regan Okey, everything about it was disappointing — especially the storyline, which aligns with the eyebrow-raising plot details that leaked online earlier this year. 

"Oh God, the Dark Phoenix trailer has basically confirmed that the (really bad) plot leak from a few months ago was pretty accurate. Disappointing, especially after reshoots could have changed this?" Okey tweeted after watching the trailer, referencing the Dark Phoenix dirt that indicated the film will feature Jean's parents dying, Professor X taking her under his wing and lying to her about a whole bunch o' stuff, Jean getting smacked by cosmic rays, and (possible spoiler alert) Mystique dying.

Okey added, "Also, killing Mystique off for absolutely no reason other than to make Beast temporarily join Magneto, ONLY TO THEN GO BACK TO THE X-MEN AFTERWARDS is RIDICULOUS?????? WHY BOTHER??????"

As the split reactions on social media prove, people have a lot of feelings — both good and bad — about the Dark Phoenix trailer. Many are hoping that Dark Phoenix will make up for the disappointment that was X-Men: Apocalypse, while others have already written the movie off as taking "one of the most epic, philosophical, existential, cosmic stories in comic book history" and turning it into "generic garbage" and are praying to the movie-making gods that once Disney's multi-billion-dollar deal to acquire Fox goes through, the X-Men will join the Marvel Cinematic Universe and Jean Grey's Dark Phoenix storyline will get the reboot treatment. 

Form your own opinion on Dark Phoenix, directed by Simon Kinberg, when the film opens in theaters on February 14, 2019.