New Dark Phoenix Trailer: Jean Grey Unleashes Her Destructive Side
Contains spoilers for Dark Phoenix
If there was any doubt about just how dark the upcoming X-Men flick Dark Phoenix will be, this new trailer has cleared it away.
On Wednesday night during The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, 20th Century Fox released the second full-length look at Dark Phoenix, which sees Sophie Turner's Jean Grey losing control of her mutant abilities and unleashing her destructive alter-ego the Dark Phoenix after a powerful cosmic force strikes into her while she and her fellow X-Men are on a rescue mission in space. Her powers (which include telekinesis, telepathy, and astral projection) grow stronger following the collision, but they soon become too powerful for Jean to handle. That kind of inner turmoil lights up a primal rage deep within Jean, a towering storm that sees her lash out against the X-Men team in a way she never thought imaginable.
Previously released footage for Dark Phoenix made it clear that Jean would fight against her X-Men family after succumbing to the effects of the cosmic force crash, with the Dark Phoenix's paroxysms of fire and fury tearing the gang of mutants apart as they attempt to salvage Jean's soul. But this new Dark Phoenix trailer pulls a rare and shocking move by revealing a huge plot point months ahead of the movie's release: Jean, actively contesting with the darkness brewing beneath the surface of her skin and taking over her mind, murders Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) in broad daylight, in front of the X-Men crew.
The moment happens right at the start of the new trailer for Dark Phoenix, and takes place after Mystique tries to console Jean in her time of anguish.
"Look at me, focus on my voice," Mystique tells Jean, who isn't wearing the same blue-and-yellow X-Men uniform that the other mutants are. Standing on an empty suburban street littered with rubbish and pieces of wood — physical evidence that suggests Jean may have just had a Dark Phoenix fit ahead of this scene in the clip — Mystique continues, "I'm not giving up on you, Jean. You're my family, Jean, no matter what."
The blue-skinned mutant gently rubs Jean's arm, but physical touch sets her off instead of calming her down. Telling Mystique to "stop, stop, stop," Jean lifts her hands to her face — which is now crackling with yellow and orange lightning, her eyes all aglow — and uses her telekentic powers to send Mystique flying backward. The trailer cuts to black before we see where Mystique ends up, though her fate is clear based on what Jean says after the incident takes place.
"Why did you make me do that?" Jean asks out loud while sitting slumped in an alleyway, her hair and clothes soaked with rain. "She was my friend."
From there, we see Jean/Phoenix struggling to find the balance between the dark side and the light. Jean wants to be good, while her sinister alter-ego and the extraterrestrial entities attempting to control it want her to be evil. Chief among these manipulators is Smith, an alien shapeshifter played by Jessica Chastain, who attempts to convince Jean to give into the storm within her, the wicked nature she can no longer keep contained.
"You're special, Jean. And if you stop fighting that force inside you, if you embrace it, you will possess the very power of a god," Smith tells Jean in the trailer. She adds that "what they don't understand, they fear," referring to Jean's X-Men family. Jean understands that fear will lead to destruction, and the Phoenix won't allow that to happen.
The rest of the X-Men squad are terrified of the possibility of Jean assuming her final Dark Phoenix form, since they've already gotten a taste of what she can do when she merely dips her toes into the darkness of Phoenix. Worried that she'll kill every member of the team, and grappling with the complicit role he played in the creation of the Dark Phoenix and Jean's dangerous transformation into it, Professor X (James McAvoy) must gather up the mutant forces — including Cyclops (Tye Sheridan), Beast (Nicholas Hoult), Storm (Alexandra Shipp), Nightcrawler (Kodi Smit-McPhee), Quicksilver (Evan Peters), and Magneto (Michael Fassbender) — to save Jean from herself before it's too late.
Watch the new Dark Phoenix trailer in full above.
Reactions to this fresh footage have been split — with some fans outraged that the trailer would spoil Mystique's death, as it's seemingly the biggest twist of the story as we know it so far, and others arguing that it looks better than the first Dark Phoenix footage that Fox rolled out last year. It's a bold move undoubtedly, but whether it will remain a mystery until the film opens wide on June 7.
Given that Dark Phoenix is more than likely the final X-Men film to come from 20th Century Fox before Disney absorbs the majority of the company's assets in that gigantic merger deal shareholders approved in July, there stands a chance that Mystique might return in some other form (maybe with a new actress playing her, since Lawrence is quite busy these days) once the X-Men characters move to the Marvel Cinematic Universe under the care of Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige. The head honcho is reportedly aiming to recast Wolverine, the mutant made famous on the silver screen by Hugh Jackman, as soon as he gets the keys to the X-Men movie franchise. Maybe he'll do the same with Mystique.
In any case, if Dark Phoenix does mark the end of Fox's X-Men series, it will be a punchy final chapter. What bolder way to go out than by having Jean become the Dark Phoenix and Mystique bite the dust?