What We Learned/What You May Have Missed In The Captain America Civil War Trailer

The Captain America: Civil War trailer was unleashed last night, and now that we've watched the teaser a few times we're ready to assess the damages. Hit the jump to find out what we learned as we breakdown the details of the first trailer.

You might remember that William Hurt played Thaddeus "Thunderbolt" Ross in the 2008 film The Incredible Hulk where he posed as Hulk's opposition in the US Military. Well, Hurt reprises this character, who seems to be the the catalyst for the superhero registration act that sparks this whole Civil War. And his appearance might have been a long-time coming. Remember the Robert Downey Jr cameo scene in that 2008 film? Here is it:

Thats General Ross meeting with Tony Stark, who makes a snarky joke before telling Thaddeus that "we're putting a team together." That scene is later explored in a Marvel One-Shot short film. Here is the official synopsis of that short film:

Agent Coulson walks into a restaurant where Agent Sitwell is eating breakfast, and informs him that the World Security Council wishes Emil Blonsky released from prison to join the Avengers Initiative. As they see him as a "war hero", and blame his fight in New York City with Bruce Banner on Banner himself. They order S.H.I.E.L.D. to send an agent to ask General Thaddeus "Thunderbolt" Ross to release Blonsky into their custody. The two agents decide to send a patsy to sabotage the meeting, so Ross will refuse to release Blonsky. At Sitwell's urging, Coulson reluctantly sends the consultant: Tony Stark. As partially depicted in the post-credits scene of The Incredible Hulk, a disgraced Ross sits drinking in a bar, when he is approached by Stark, who ends up annoying Ross so much that Ross tries to have him removed from the bar. In reply, Stark buys the bar, and schedules it for demolition. The next day at the restaurant, Sitwell arrives to Coulson eating breakfast. Coulson informs him that their plan worked, and that Blonsky will remain in prison.

But now Thunderbolt Ross returns to the Marvel Cinematic Universe to introduce into motion a bill that will spark this Civil War. And while Tony Stark and Ross have had an adversarial relationship thus far, it looks like they might be on the same side this time around. Ross tells Steve Rogers "You have operated with unlimited power, and no supervision. That's something the world can no longer tolerate."

We see Ross hand out a large piece of legislation called "The Sokovia Accords," which is the Marvel Cinematic Universe equivalent of the Superhuman Registration Act from the comic book story ark. This piece of legislation is the result of the events of Avengers: Age of Ultron, where the unsupervised ungoverned work of Tony Stark and Bruce Banner created Ultron, which as you may remember, left Sokovia in a bit of a mess.

This isn't the first time we've heard about "The Accords" as the bill is name dropped in the Ant-Man post credits scene (which yes, is a clip from later in this movie). In that scene, Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) and Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie) have captured and are interrogating Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan), who it is revealed has been set-up (we also see this in the trailer). The duo want to go to Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) but they doubt will believe him because it is revealed that Stark has already sided with the government. Wilson comments "who knows if the accords will let him help," to which Cap responds "we're on our own."

Apparently Stark has sided with the government because of all that has happened and another international incident that has occurred (which we have yet to see). Its worth noting that the scene in the trailer shows the Sokovia Accords being passed to Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen) who lived in the war-striker fictional Eastern European country of Sokovia and has a very personal connection to the Sokovia incident which resulted in the death of her brother Quicksilver.

The Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan) has somehow regained his memory and is no longer being brainwashed and controlled as a paid assassin. But the actions of the Winter Soldier and whatever international incident has gone down means that Bucky is a fugitive.  Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow (Scarlett Johnasson) advises Steve to stay out of this one despite his personal childhood friendship with Bucky, but it looks like Steve will stand by his friend.

When Marvel announced the Black Panther movie and revealed the character would first debut in the third Captain America film, they also released a concept art image of what the costumed superhero would look like in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. We've seen photos from the filming of the movie, but this is our first look at Chadwick Boseman in the black superhero costume. What do you think of the new costume in action?

Since it was announced that Martin Freeman would be joining the film, we haven't been told much about his character — we don't even know his character's name. And you probably think he doesn't appear in the trailer, but he can be seen for a split second at about a minute and 22 seconds into the trailer, during a confrontation with Steve Rogers and Sam Wilson. Here is a screenshot:

All we know about Freeman's role is that he supposedly a "grey" character who is tasked to tame the superheroes. We know nothing more about what role he will play in the upcoming film, or possible later films.

Also of note: Cap's new love interest Sharon Carter/Agent 13 (Emily VanCamp) who was introduced as a SHIELD agent in Captain America: The Winter Soldier also appears in this screengrab standing next to Freeman. An early concept art revealed that Carter was on team Cap, so why is she standing next to Freeman's character?

Lets get to the Civil War itself and the two sides:

This trailer left out a bunch of characters, including a lot of the confirmed cast. We didn't see The Vision (Paul Bettany), who was introduced as a new member of The Avengers team in The Avengers: Age of Ultron.

We know that Paul Rudd reprises his role as Ant-Man in this film, yet we don't see him in this trailer (despite what some pranksters may have you believe). Sure, he may have been sharing the screen with the larger than life superheroes and we wouldn't even know it, but there is no proof of that just yet. That said, we have already seen footage of Scott Lang in Captain America: Civil War, as the post credits scene in Ant-Man was an actual scene from this upcoming movie. Watch that scene again above.

And while its never been formally confirmed by Marvel or Disney, the worst kept secret in Hollywood is that Tom Holland will make his first appearance as Marvel's new Peter Parker /Spider-Man in this film. We don't see the webslinger in this first trailer, but I imagine he will be seen in some form of marketing before release, however small his part may be.

Also missing are the film's actual villains: Baron Zemo (Daniel Brühl) and Brock Rumlow aka Crossbones (Frank Grillo), who we saw previously in Captain America: The Winter Soldier.

Update: /Film reader Chris B points out that there is one quick shot of Crossbones in the trailer, as seen in the screenshot above.