The trailer for Jordan Peele’s Nope has got his fans talking about aliens. Here’s why his third movie might just be a genre switch-up.
Looking back, 2017 was a huge year for blockbuster cinema and cinemagoers flocked to see The Last Jedi, Wonder Woman, Spider-Man: Homecoming, The Fate of the Furious, and beyond.
These are colossal projects, but in hindsight, many horror fans will think of the modestly budgeted Get Out from Jordan Peele when reminiscing that year. It was a box-office smash and its imagery has swiftly become ingrained in popular culture.
The directorial debut marked the arrival of a remarkable new talent and Jordan’s success was cemented with his follow-up Us, which continued the filmmaker’s exploration of intelligent, imperative themes within the genre landscape.
His third feature has been shrouded in mystery for some time, but the new trailer might just tell us that Nope is all about aliens…
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Nope trailer just may tease aliens
Since the long-anticipated trailer’s arrival, audiences have been scrambling to analyse this rather ambiguous slice of marketing.
It’s a brilliant trailer because it doesn’t spell out exactly what to expect from Nope other than a terrifying mystery. However, many amateur sleuths and film fans have come to the conclusion that Nope might be about an alien invasion.
There are a number of reasons to suspect this, but you have to pay close attention.
Looking through the trailer, there are a number of shots that evoke the alien invasion sub-genre; unsuspecting people being pulled into the air and others looking up in bewilderment etc.
Sure, you could argue that this could be a non-alien related phenomenon. Indeed, the film’s poster – the ominous cloud over a town – encouraged some to speculate that the film may have something to do with the manipulation of the weather.
This seemed more likely before the release of the first proper look, and this brings us to the most intriguing and promising element of the trailer.
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All signs point to… invasion?
Who exactly are these mysterious, black-eyed figures?
There is a shot in the trailer that foreshadows some kind of tourist attraction, reinforced by the “Book Your Next Experience Here”.
There are a bunch of toys on sale of martian-looking figures all dressed in black with absent or deep black eyes.
If you pause on this shot, you can see in the top right of the frame that a sign begins to read “Alien ‘Viewer’” but is cut off.
The shot suggests that aliens have landed on earth and the appearance of merchandise suggests that humans have found a way to monetise and exploit their arrival.
It’s uncertain what these things are, but we do actually see one appearing in the barn as an onlooker stares in surprise. You can see the top of its head poking up and its appearance resembles the sea of plush toys in the aforementioned shot.
Not Of Planet Earth?
All of these details suggest that Jordan Peele has crafted an ambitious sci-fi horror that will explore the existence of aliens and what their arrival on earth may look like.
This is arguably given more weight when you consider the film’s title.
Some believe that the name of his previous film Us was an acronym for “United States”, which fits in with the project’s fascination with identity and uniformity. Well, it may just be that Nope is an acronym for “Not of Planet Earth”.
Either way, we can’t wait to see it in theaters on Friday, July 22nd 2022.
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