The Green Knight Trailer Has Giants, Monsters, And A Talking Fox
The Green Knight looks like nothing you've ever seen.
This article is more than 2 years old
Only one day after revealing a character-specific poster featuring Dev Patel’s Gawain, A24 released a new trailer for its highly-anticipated fantasy film The Green Knight, inspired by a centuries-old Arthurian legend. According to the trailer and what we’ve seen, it would seem that the filmmakers have actually read the legends of King Arthur and the Knight of the Round Table, as the trailer features giants, monsters, and a talking fox.
Watch The Green Knight trailer right here:
It appears that The Green Knight trailer dropped in light of the movie’s impending release this summer, more specifically July 30, 2021, after a yearlong delay caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The trailer displays Gawain’s initial duel with the Green Knight, in which he decapitates the being and takes up his beautiful ax. At this point, the trailer reveals director David Lowery‘s abandonment of gallantry and magic in favor of darker and more sinister tones, as the now decapitated Green Knight holds his own talking head, with a promise that they’ll meet one year from that moment.
The trailer then resumes its narrative grimly, evolving Patel’s Gawain from an idealistic and headstrong young knight into a character that looks rather heavy beneath the weight of his crown. All while revealing stunning imagery conceived in the mind of David Lowery, one of the best visual storytellers responsible for releases like Ain’t The Bodies Saints, A Ghost Story, and Pere’s Dragon. As expected, the trailer depicts fragments of Sir Gawain’s misadventures on his quest to find the Green Knight, honoring the 14-century Middle English romance’s folk motifs and chivalric romance.
The Green Knight trailer reveals that the movie retains the poem’s original plot and follows Sir Gawain as a titular character, King Arthur’s headstrong nephew, who accepts the challenge from a Green Knight to try and strike him. However, the duel comes with a term: the person would have the blow returned to them in a year and a day. Sir Gawain, portrayed by Dev Patel, accepts the terms believing he won’t face any consequences if he decapitates the Green Knight’s head. This brings us to the beginning of The Green Knight trailer, in which the emerald being picks up his head and reminds Gawain that he will see the blow return to him.
The original poem then follows Gawain on a daring quest, filled with misadventures, to find and confront the eponymous Green Knight, contending with ghosts, giants, and thieves on his way, accompanied by a talking fox. This medieval fantasy also stars Alicia Vikander, Joel Edgerton, Sean Harris, Sarita Choudhury, Barry Keoghan, and Ralph Ineson (as the Green Knight). The Green Knight was scheduled to premiere at the SXSW festival, with a theatrical release in May 2020, but was later slated for a theatrical release on July 30, 2021. A24 didn’t want to release the movie to streaming but opted to wait for theaters to re-open. Another notable thing is that the film received an R-rating for violence, some sexuality, and graphic nudity, which indicates some deviation from the original story.
