The final trailer of the final Hugh Jackman Wolverine movie Logan has just been released, and naturally, everyone is buzzing about the trailer’s breakout star, Dafne Keen. Keen plays Logan’s young companion, Laura. And this trailer confirms what we’ve already long-suspected about her.
But just in case you haven’t seen the trailer yet, scroll up and watch it now! It’s definitely worth it. Warning: It’s the UK Red Band trailer – if you’re not into the kinda stuff that makes Logan an R-rated film, click here for the US Green Band trailer instead
And to avoid any potential spoilers (actually, you’ll probably want to stop reading if so) I’ll leave a lovely picture of Keen here:
Ready? Let’s do this.
1. Laura is no ordinary girl
The trailer opens with Laura in a convenience store, breaking open a a can of Pringles (and littering in the process), opening a can of Hypno (was Monster too cheap to fork out for the product placement?) and trying on a pair of shades. But if you thought her anti-social behaviour stopped at littering, she makes it clear to us who she is by physically assaulting the store clerk who tries to get her to pay for the items. Deftly taking him down to the ground, raising her arm, balling her hand into a fist ready to strike, hand-to-hand combat clearly is second nature to her. But it’s her guttural cry that drives home that she’s just a tad more animal than most of us.
Plus, when Daddy Logan swoops in to grab her hand and yell “Not okay!”, it’s not that hard to guess that Laura clearly hasn’t had much human interaction prior to this.
2. Laura is an “X-Men” fan
That’s literally Logan’s line. “We got ourselves an X-Men fan,” he says to Professor X (Sir Patrick Stewart) as he holds up several old-school tattered X-Men comics that belong to her. Except, I’m pretty sure those comics never existed. For one thing, the banner on the top of the cover reads “X-Men Comics Group” as opposed to “Marvel Comics Group”, for obvious reasons. Still, it’s a great homage to all that’s come before – the comic’s original 60’s logo adorns the cover, while a glimpse inside shows us an adventure featuring Rogue (strangely wearing a blue and gold costume – which she has never done), Wolverine, mohawk-haired Storm and Professor X. That’s right, pretty much the cast of characters from the first film (except that the mohawk-Storm look was only from X-Men: Apocalypse).
(UPDATE: Marvel’s Chief Creative Officer Joe Quesada later revealed that he drew a cover and some pages of the comics at the request of Hugh Jackman himself. They were inked by Dan Panosian, who himself drew other covers and interior art. All were done in the 80’s style of Marvel art. Here’s the page that shows up in the trailer, drawn by Quesada and inked by Panosian:)
As he looks at the comics, Logan says “Maybe a quarter of it happens, and not like this.”
So is this future dystopia more than just an alternate universe? Despite the possibility of wibbly wobbly timey wimey… stuff, perhaps Logan actually builds on all the X-Men films that have come before (or, more accurately, just the ones that we aren’t trying to forget, of course).
But if that’s the case, then where are all the other mutants?
3. Laura is obviously X-23, and she’s got the claws to prove it
This was the most squeeworthy moment of the trailer for me, because it confirms beyond a shadow of a doubt that Laura will be playing a pretty faithful adaptation of comics’ X-23. The giveaway detail? The signature two claws that emerge from Laura’s fist as she approaches the Reavers, the movie’s main antagonists.
“She’s like you, very much like you,” breathes Professor X. “She needs our help.”
The educated guess is that movie Laura, like the comics’ X-23, is a clone of Logan. In the movie, Laura has escaped her captors at Transigen, the organisation behind the Reavers, and presumably was also weaponised by their project head, Dr. Zander Rice (Richard E. Grant). Her claws aren’t bone in the trailer, which means, like the comics, they have been coated with adamantium.
This is all very much keeping to the essence of X-23’s origins – she was born from a cloned genetic sample of Wolverine and raised by her surrogate mother Dr. Sarah Kinney (I’m guessing this is Elizabeth Rodriguez’ “small but crucial role” – and based on reports after a media preview of Logan it seems I may be somewhat right.). Laura is trained from birth to be little more than a killing machine, and hence has very little of her humanity in her. She is, as X-23 writer Marjorie Liu often referred to her, a child soldier. Dafne Keen seems able to bring that character to life in a way that belies her young age, by giving her a gravitas that few other 11 year olds should be able to command.
In the trailer, Laura displays deadly skill in using her claws, and in a fight scene that will hopefully epitomise the film, Laura and Logan fight side by side like a well-oiled machine of a team. So do yourself a favour and go check out that trailer one more time, yeah?
Logan opens 2nd March 2017 in Singapore
