New still images from Avengers: Infinity War's San Diego Comic-Con trailer offers fans their look at the alternate version of Thanos' moon throwing scene. In 2017, Marvel Studios began rolling out the marketing for the much-anticipated Joe and Anthony Russo's culminating movie. With the script written by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, the film brought together all heroes of the franchise as they geared up for an intense battle against the Mad Titan.
Due to Infinity War's massive cast, the filmmakers had to be crafty in making sure that all characters get their screen time, hence, they decided to group the heroes into smaller teams while keeping the main focus on the villain. While the beginning of the final battle began in Wakanda with Black Panther and Captain America leading the charge against Thanos' minions, the Mad Titan was on his home planet of Titan, where he was dealing with Iron Man, Doctor Strange, Spider-Man and some of the Guardians of the Galaxy. This was where the iconic moon throwing scene took place, as Thanos hurled a whole planet at Tony Stark. Prior to the release of the movie's first trailer, this particular scene was already a conversation-starter among fans as it was the main takeaway from its previously debuted first-look at D23 Expo and subsequently, Comic-Con.
The said Infinity War trailer was shown exclusively to those events and was never released in public. Now, fans who weren't in attendance of either of those conventions can check out some high-resolution images of Thanos' throwing a moon at Iron Man from that aforementioned promotional clip. Check the images (via one of Marvel's official Twitter accounts) out below:
This particular scene was never featured in any of the official trailers, which was odd considering that it was a big talking point for Infinity War coming out of D23 and SDCC. The event-exclusive trailer debuted July 2017 - four months before Marvel Studios rolled out the first official look at the movie in November of that same year. Given the time-frame, it makes sense that the VFX artists were still able to do major effects polishing in this shot (and potentially in the movie in general). Some of the computer graphics were still rough, especially when one looks very closely at Thanos. The Mad Titan's look was particularly important for Marvel Studios to nail since he's essentially a new character for them, and yet, much of the story hinged on him. Fortunately, they were able to clean these shots up in time for Infinity War's release.
The VFX work on the Comic-Con trailer wasn't all that polished but it didn't matter for those who were in Hall H or at D23. The excitement surrounding Avengers: Infinity War and subsequently, Avengers: Endgame, was so intense that fans were just happy to see any footage from those movies leading to their respective releases. Obviously, the conversation would be very different if Marvel Studios didn't fix their shots for the movies' theatrical versions and while there were still some rough graphics work in them, overall both films looked good.
Source: Marvel
