Without a doubt, there are a lot of expectations going into the Assassin’s Creed this winter. For decades, video game fans have been waiting patiently for a film based on one of their favorite franchises to hit it big on the big screen. Like comic book fans before them, it’s taken a lot of misses in Hollywood to get to this point, but Assassin’s Creed seems to have all the ingredients for a hit film.

It has great-looking action, an amazing star in Michael Fassbender, cinematic, story-based source material, and a potentially compelling narrative. 

In my humble opinion, while the first trailer managed to confirm those first two points, it was severely lack in taking advantage of the second two. This new trailer, however, successfully checked off all the boxes that I require to make a sweet trailer. Of course, with some questions answered, the trailer also managed to raise new ones, both good and bad.

So here are five questions that the new trailer raised.

WHAT DOES ABSTERGO INDUSTRIES FROM CALLUM LYNCH?

It’s very clear that this organization that has Cal Lynch held prisoner wants something very specific from our lead. His origins go all the way back to the Spanish Inquisition, and in tapping into his ancestor’s past, they clearly want something…but what? 

What could they all want from him so badly that it’s worth faking Cal’s death and having him live out a specific time period? Will this be an instance be treated like a MacGuffin (i.e., where what they want doesn’t matter, so long as it sets the plot in motion)? I hope not. That would be quite the letdown, and could potentially break the entire plot. Regardless, it’s a mystery worth tapping into.

WHAT IS THE ASSASSIN’S CREED?

In the trailer, Jeremy Irons’ character delivers a cringeworthy line when he states that they traced Cal Lynch’s back to “the Assassin’s Creed.” Not only did the line sound like something out of the 2007 Golden Compass adaptation (“This is an aletheiometer…also known as a Golden Compass), but it sounds like a ton of absolute nonsense. While I’m by no means an expert on the game’s mythology, I was under the impression that the Assassin’s Creed was more of a set of rules, not a period in time.

So what is this Assassin’s Creed? Are they group of assassin’s that this mysterious organization needs in order to pursue whatever goal they have? This also raises the question of how this movie connects with the video games. From what’s been said, this movie takes place in the same universe as the games, and if so, what does this change in jargon mean?

HOW STUPID IS ABSTERGO INDUSTRIES FOR TRAINING PRISONERS AS ASSASSINS?

On today’s episode of Los Fanboys, I asked Mario (one of the editors on the site who had a chance to visit the Assassin’s Creed set some months back) if the main plot surrounds Callum Lynch rising up against the organization that’s keeping them held hostage. He confirmed that it seemed like that was the main thrust of the plot, which sounds pretty intriguing to me.

This does seem to leave one big gaping hole, however. Why would Abstergo Industries hold prisoners against their will and then proceed to train themto be badass assassins that are sure to rise up against them? As of this time, we don’t know if they did install some sort of fail-safe to fight a potential uprising, and as such, it remains one of my bigger concerns coming out of this second trailer.

IS THERE ANY PLOT THROUGHLINE IN THE SPANISH INQUISITION?

As mentioned above, the main thrust of the plot seems to come from all the present day events in the film. More than anything, all the scenes taking place during the Spanish Inquisition feel more like “missions” than actual time period sequences. While this is all well and good for a standard movie narrative, I wonder if this is the way it’ll come across in the film. Will we actually only head into the past in order to push the plot forward, or will it have its own self-contained narrative?

In this trailer (not to mention the first), the scenes during the Inquisition look like little more than a sizzle reel used to get butts in seats for the action, but I’d like to think there’s a denser plot going on that can weave together the past and present in a rewarding, yet unexpected, way. 

WHO IS CALLUM LYNCH?

Yes, apparently Callum Lynch has a really important lineage that makes him important to Abstergo Industries — that much has been made clear. My question has to do with Cal himself, and not his ancestry. What kind of crimes did he commit to get locked up in the first place? Does his occupation somehow tie into his ancestor, or was he captured simply because of his connections to the “Assassin’s Creed”?

While that would certainly be enough to justify his capture from Abstergo, I’d like to think there’s something else special about this guy to make him worth being the lead of the flick. What can Cal do that I can’t?

What did you guys think of the new Assassin’s Creed trailer? What questions did you have about the film after seeing it? Let us know all your thoughts down below!

Don’t forget to share this post on your Facebook wall and with your Twitter followers! Just hit the buttons on the top of this page.