MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE - FALLOUT Trailer

As promised, Paramount released the full trailer for Mission: Impossible - Fallout today, the sixth film in the series starring Tom Cruise. A cut-down version of it also aired during the Super Bowl. Rather unsurprisingly after two truly stellar franchise entries, it looks pretty awesome. I'm not sure it's possible to top the airplane stunt in the last movie, but this helicopter stuff looks pretty cool. I am a bit worried that this entry will be even more Cruise-centric after Rogue Nation and especially Ghost Protocol had made such great strides toward the team dynamic of the TV show, but with such a solid (and large) supporting cast including returnees Simon Pegg, Ving Rhames, Rebecca Ferguson, Alec Baldwin, Sean Harris, and Michelle Monaghan, and newcomers Angela Bassett, Vanessa Kirby, and Henry Cavill, perhaps that won't be the case.

I'm a little more concerned (probably without cause) about who the handcuffed man in the hospital bed is that Luther (Rhames) restrains Ethan (Cruise) from lunging at. Because it's clearly not any of the people mentioned above, yet it seems to be someone who means a lot to Ethan Hunt. And it looks... sort of... like Jon Voight. We can't see his face clearly and I could be completely wrong here, but if it is, then would mean director Christopher McQuarrie plans to revisit one of the most controversial chapters of the film series' history--and my own least favorite. Many fans of the TV series were appalled and insulted by the twist in the original 1996 movie revealing Voight's Jim Phelps (the character originated on television by the great Peter Graves), Ethan's mentor, to be a traitor. (I don't think it's really possible to spoil a 22-year-old movie. There's a statute of limitations on such things!) It took the film series three chapters to dig its way out of that whole for me. If they are re-treading that particular ground (and the trailer makes it very clear that this mission is all about the ghosts who haunt Hunt, among whom Phelps would likely be foremost), it could go one of two ways. Either it could undo the damage done in Brian DePalma's movie by revealing Voight's Phelps to be a different character from Graves' (the franchise is, after all, famous for its use of doubles and disguises)... or it could double down on it. If the latter, it's likely to be enough to make me hate the film. (Yes, that's a little irrational. I understand. But I love Graves and the show so much that I can't help it, even if I recognize it.) McQuarrie mentioned in a very insightful interview last May that he had re-watched the first Mission movie in preparation for this sixth one, so it's certainly possible that Phelps could have been on his mind when scripting it. Furthermore, producer J.J. Abrams has mooted the possibility of revisiting the Phelps betrayal in the past... though he considered it when Peter Graves was still alive, and had hoped to bring him into the film series. Sadly that opportunity is now past. So despite the apparently definitive death of the Movie Phelps in Mission: Impossible (1996), I do think it's at least a possibility we could see his return. And such a return would likely be enough to set Ethan on the wild course he seems to be taking in Fallout, based on the trailer. (We clearly see scenes of him going up against his own teammates, and even, apparently, teaming up with Syndicate baddie Solomon Lane.)

Yes, I know... this is a lot of speculation from me over a quick image of a man in profile chained to a hospital bed. But these are the things I fixate on.