Space Jam 2 trailer: Klay appears as both fire (Human Torch) and water (Hydro-Man?)
Space Jam 2 trailer: Klay appears as both fire (Human Torch) and water (Hydro-Man?)
…oh, and Luc Mbah a Moute as well, unfortunately!
Have you seen the new Space Jam 2 trailer released at exactly 9:00AM EDT Saturday morning? It looks good! “Meh, LeBron James,” you say? Well, Klay Thompson seems to be playing a pretty dope character, so DubNation might actually be all in on this one.
And get this, he’s the Human Torch! Is that sacrilege, though? If I recall correctly, that was one of Stephen Curry’s early nicknames, circa 2012-13.
That was my first thought when Klay himself posted an Instagram story that was a repost of a post from Uninterrupted, one of LeBron’s media companies. It had a picture of cartoon Klay in fiery form. “The Goon Squad is stacked!” wrote Klay in the IG story. From just Klay’s repost, there was no indication that his character was more than just a Human Torch:
But then you watch the rather exciting trailer and you see a water-based “hero” (actually, it’s a villain, as the Goon Squad are obviously the bad guys, just like they were in the first Space Jam) and that guy really looks like Klay as well.
By the way, I’m not really a “comics” guy, but I googled around and found that the most popular water-borne comic book character seems to be Marvel’s Hydro-Man.
Meanwhile, Anthony Davis makes his grand appearance as some sort of bird, or eagle, or I guess the favorite word from the comics is hawk (why is that?). Then there’s Diana Taurasi as a spider and later a, gulp, serpent 😬. And then Damian Lillard as a cyborg. Wow! Dame! Cool. Very cool:
So what I did was copied the trailer and went slowly, not frame-by-frame but close to it, and located Klay in various parts of the trailer.
Assuming it’s a continuous segment, when Klay appears as Hydro-Man then abruptly transforms into The Human Torch, Daffy Duck’s jaw drops — literally, because he’s a cartoon. Dope intro for Klay’s dope character!
Later, he’s sitting on the bench to the left of Dame the cyborg and Bron’s son (not Bronny, but his son in the movie). That part might be late in the film because they all seem dejected, Dame and Diana included as well as Klay, and maybe I can wildly speculate that his seemingly rebellious son coached the antagonist Goon Squad, so there was obviously some reconciliation after the end of the game — perhaps that’s a spoiler alert, but I think everyone can put 2 and 2 together on that one, right? Which means I’ll probably be way off! #jinx
Then the worst part in the trailer happens for Klay, despite being a dope character: Lola Bunny (I had to Google her) flips an alley-oop to LeBron in exactly the same fashion as Dwyane Wade did on December 6, 2010 in Milwaukee, famously captured by photographer Morry Gash of the AP.
In that photo, the “posterized” victim is Luc Mbah a Moute of the Milwaukee Bucks. And it just so happens that Klay is standing in the exact same spot in Space Jam 2. Oh well!
Without a doubt, though, the inclusion of Klay in this film makes me want to watch it on its premiere day, which is July 16. This trailer is being billed as “the first trailer”, so we can probably expect more glimpses of Klay in further trailers leading up to July 16th.
Watch our slowed-down 15-second TikTok and Instagram Reels versions (neither has a preview on this Substack platform) of just the Klay segments of this first Space Jam 2 trailer. The TikTok version has some of the trailer’s (slowed down) audio, like Lola Bunny’s wink:
https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMePaSkmX/
The IG Reels version drowns out the original sound of the clip when you add music to it:
https://www.instagram.com/reel/CNPD0EBA9pO/?igshid=25wenyfpg5e2
Damion Lee just told us he thinks it’s Sue Bird, not Diana Taurasi. Either me or him: OOPS!!
Good sleuthing!