I know I am in the minority, but I preferred the trailer. I loved how the trailer set up the location and situation, introduced us to the main characters, hit you BAM BAM BAM with hopes and defeats, and finished with the line about home.
My comments about the prologue (which so far, I have only seen in lower quality)...
Some things that bothered me about the prologue were first, the editing. I found the points at which it jumped between scenes to be annoying. First time I watched it I couldn't even remember being shown, after all of that stretcher-bearing, whether the stretcher actually made it onto the boat. On second watching I realized it sort of looked like Fionn & Aneurin were on a boat and they no longer had the stretcher with them. I think you were supposed to get the impression that they were hoping to just stay on that boat, a mental argument between salvation vs following orders and waiting their turn. But it certainly was not clear. That's a big thing and I think to not even make it clear that they were on the boat was confusing. The part with Mark Rylance suffered from a lack of clarity of his lines, particularly the most important line about his intention to pilot his own boat to Dunkirk. From having read about Dunkirk, I know the boat owners could let the military commandeer and pilot their boat to Dunkirk, but many civilians chose to pilot their own boats into battle to help save the soldiers. To me, this is central and huge to the whole story of Dunkirk. I have seen many people saying they could not understand the dialog in that spot. That is quite a loss.
I think the problem is with the sudden jumps between locations, my eyes go right to the characters and I don't get an immediate sense of where they are if the scene has changed since we last saw them, as it did between the end end of the mole cutaway and then the return to Aneurin and Fionn when they are now in a different place. A wider view of their location might have helped.
I am really impressed. The cinematography is stellar, just the general look of it, the shots of Aneurin and Fionn on the beach. It just looks so beautiful. And about the editing: I actually thought it was really good. I was able to follow everything and it was really clear to me what happens.
But most important: THE TENSION. The ticking is really nerve-wrecking, you can just feel the chaos and panic.
YFR3 wrote:I watched it ! Brilliant ! At least we are seeing French soldiers and even some African "tirailleurs". Aerial scenes are great. It's amazing to think that Hardy and Lowden are actually filmed from the top of a cliff in Calfornia, above the Pacific Ocean. Perfect illusion.
Great prologue. Cinematography was beautiful and you can feel the tension through the music and Fionn's demeanor. The sense of being trapped hit hard. Just wish I could understand anything Rylance said.
Ah I hadn't seen that one of Lowden. Still, pretty damn cool. Nolan's films age so well, I don't think this one is going to be any different from that.