Avengers: Age of Ultron discussion thread

[Jace911]

Blessedly I missed that :L

Also I found Ultron to be the most human and relatable character on the cast after Hawkeye/Black Widow

e: edited because how did I forget Aunty Nat??????

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Yeah, they really made up for Hawkeye's partial absence in the first film with this one. I think the line from his wife sums it up best:

Clint: "You don't think they need me."
Lauren: "I think they do, and that terrifies me."

He's the closest thing the team has to an everyman: he has no dark tragic past, he has a family, he has no superpowers. Whether or not everyone else on the team is a god or a monster, he's just a dude with a bow.

What are people's thoughts on Natasha and Bruce? I personally thought it worked, but I'm given to understand that some people had slight issue with it

 

[Claudette Savagely]

Yeah, they really made up for Hawkeye's partial absence in the first film with this one. I think the line from his wife sums it up best:

Clint: "You don't think they need me."
Lauren: "I think they do, and that terrifies me."

He's the closest thing the team has to an everyman: he has no dark tragic past, he has a family, he has no superpowers. Whether or not everyone else on the team is a god or a monster, he's just a dude with a bow.

What are people's thoughts on Natasha and Bruce? I personally thought it worked, but I'm given to understand that some people had slight issue with it

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Further, only he, out of basically all of them, gets seriously physically injured, and only he and Banner are visibly exhausted after battle/angry rampage 'round Jo-berg (delete as appropriate). He's frail, comparatively speaking. Even the Widow manages some serious bullshit in this one what with being the Hulk-whisperer.

And on that note, I'm...eh. A few of the moments between them felt off, a couple worked, and Hulk legging it at film's end felt like the only instance of justifiable man-pain in the whole thing. What "slight" issues we talking about? I mean aside from the whole uterus thing because that strikes me as icky and I'm not quite sure why (unnecessarily whacking the only recurring female character with angst, perhaps?).

Also Black Widow film fucking when

I goddamn know Johansson can carry it off

 

[Jace911]

And on that note, I'm...eh. A few of the moments between them felt off, a couple worked, and Hulk legging it at film's end felt like the only instance of justifiable man-pain in the whole thing. What "slight" issues we talking about? I mean aside from the whole uterus thing because that strikes me as icky and I'm not quite sure why (unnecessarily whacking the only recurring female character with angst, perhaps?).

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Most of the criticisms I've seen of it so far have been shippers whining that Whedon sank their Clintasha ship, but there are some that accuse him of derailing Black Widow's character, of giving her the Other M treatment of being "obsessed" with children, of making her the Love Interest, etc etc.

Which is silly, IMO, because none of that actually happens.

One, her character doesn't take a sharp turn, we just see it develop from her previous outings. People bitch about how she wouldn't abandon the Avengers, but seem to forget that this is her talking after Wanda massively fucked with her head. Of course she's not going to be thinking straight, and at the climax of the film it's her who has to convince Bruce not to run from the fight.

Two, she isn't "obsessed" with having children; the only reason she brings up the sterility thing is because it represents what the Red Room took from her, which was "anything she might value more than the mission". Visiting Clint's family right after seeing the visions of her training just drove home what was stolen from her, which is why she reached out and asked Bruce to leave with her: in that moment she was desperate for something besides the Avengers and the mission.

Three, I seriously can't grasp why a female character having romantic feelings for another character is automatically a bad thing. She isn't devalued as an individual, she isn't demoted to a prize for Bruce to win, and isn't stripped of her narrative agency.

I mean pretty much the only valid complaint I have of Black Widow in this film is that she was kinda briefly turned into a damsel by being captured by Ultron, but she ends up cluing the team into his location so I'm okay with it.

 

[Claudette Savagely]

*snip stuff*

I mean pretty much the only valid complaint I have of Black Widow in this film is that she was kinda briefly turned into a damsel by being captured by Ultron, but she ends up cluing the team into his location so I'm okay with it.

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Aight, thanks for cluing me in.

It's a brief damselling so I'm not overly annoyed by it. Sure, it made no sense for him to nab her specifically and nothing much comes of their interaction, narratively. It's unnecessary but not offensively so.

 

[Richardson]

Just got back. They nailed this movie from orbit. Missed whatever rape joke Tony made, or it might have just been subtext read into it.

But yeah, the whole Ultron going "I have no clue what the hell I'm saying or doing, but who gives a shit, let's have some FUN!" thing as he just wings things is great. Especially his semi-offscreen moment when the Hulk ambushes him is just side-cracking. "Oh what the FUCK is this!?" *paraphrasing his off-screen WTF*

But the best part is that other than the three characters who have logical reasons not to be a part of the events (Jane, busy working on nobel prize for starting to figure out how the convergence works and that whole 'saving everything' thing), (Pepper, who's busy trying to keep Stark Industries together AGAIN when, well, you know, and her small issues with 'don't want to do that again' stuff), (and Falcon, who was busy chasing Bucky and didn't/couldn't get there in time), everyone you could reasonably expect was in the movie. (and hell, Falcon was there earlier and helping in the first Ultron fight)

You wanted Rhodes? YOU GOT MOTHERFUCKING WAR MACHINE. LOTS OF HIM. You wanted Selvig again? Yup, helping Thor figure out his freaky mind-trip. Fury? Heh. HEHEHHEHAAAAAAHHAHAHAHA. Oh, that was just an epic cock-block to Ultron.

And 1000% less Helicarrier disrespect! Can't forget that!


I mean, I get where some of the detractions are coming from for the movie. Yeah, they could do with a bit less angst from everyone, but it's not angst for the sake of angst, it's actually pretty deep and everyone makes good points (especially Stark and Rodgers both), the Ultron-bots come off as mookish to Thor, Stark, Hulk, or Vision, but to everyone else they're a major threat even if they do get taken down pretty often. Fury's Kirk moment does undermine AoS a little, but it's made pretty clear that he pulled a Scotty with the [REDACTED] and mothballs, and fuck it, it was a hell of a moment, even if it could have been done better by ramming Ultron with the [REDACTED] as a Dynamic Entrance. Romanov and Banner was an interesting ship I never saw coming, and it surprisingly works masterfully, even if I think it could have been polished just a little more. And yeah, I do wish I could have gotten the opening I came up with a few months before, but it ended up coming at the end, sort of. And yeah, the Mind Stone. I can see where people might say something about it, but at the same time, Thanos's defining character traits are 'Arrogance Unbounded' and 'YES, HE IS A BADASS. STOP ASKING AND ASSUME THE POSITION.' He had track of the thing the whole time, and honestly, anyone who can safely handle an Infinity Stone is pretty much 'your armies, your champions, all of your defenses are going to be tasty', so he's not actually worried. He's arrogant as hell, and now we know when he's coming to go 'knock knock' on Asgard. Boy, that's gonna be a downer movie.



Oh, and the hammer lift scene. Lots, and lots of nice callbacks, especially when Vision makes Thor a sad puppy. (not to be confused with the jerks who are busy ruining the Hugos)

Pretty much in the 95+ rating range. Bests the original Avengers easily.

 

[Jace911]

Missed whatever rape joke Tony made, or it might have just been subtext read into it.

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When he's about to try and lift Thor's hammer he says "I will be reinstituting Prima Noctis", which is the ancient tradition that says a King has the right to sleep with a newlywed virgin before her husband.

It's not, like, an outrageous thing unless you're on tumblr but it was still just a really jarring and out of character thing for Tony to say that I was like

 

[Richardson]

When he's about to try and lift Thor's hammer he says "I will be reinstituting Prima Noctis", which is the ancient tradition that says a King has the right to sleep with a newlywed virgin before her husband.

It's not, like, an outrageous thing unless you're on tumblr but it was still just a really jarring and out of character thing for Tony to say that I was like

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It's Tony...

In what universe would an extremely obscure joke back to a sexist old institution not be in character, even with his marrying Pepper? Who would even get it?

 

[Jace911]

It's Tony...

In what universe would an extremely obscure joke back to a sexist old institution not be in character, even with his marrying Pepper? Who would even get it?

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The one they've been building?

I mean yeah he used to be a womanizer and all, but there's making flirty jokes and there's joking, however obscurely, about literal institutional rape. Like, of all the jokes they could've picked it just seems bizarre that they would go for that one?

Especially given that they apparently changed the original line, which was "I will be fair but firmly cruel" in the trailer.

 

[Richardson]

You know, I just realized:

Spoiler: Greatest Story Untold in AoU

HOW IN THE FUCK DID FURY GET BACK HIS HELICARRIER? I'm just trying to figure out what it must have been like for the mooks who were watching it in drydock while the US tried to decide whether or not to convert it to being a flying navy vessel or not. Just imagine watchign that big sucker, and then out of nowhere Nick Motherfucking Fury shows up back from the dead with a small army of his own mooks to drive off in his carrier. Would you tell him NO? TELL FURY NO? For that matter, just trying to get her running again, even in a makeshift manner, and flying under the radar of the US sensor nets, avoiding detection, and then flying through the european air defense grid to reach their destination. Seriously, that's 'Stealing the Enterprise' grade CMoA. Worse is 'what the hell do you tell your boss when they see the carrier on TV'. How do you explain that it was for a good cause, or would the poor mooks have been tied up and their embarrassment compounded by the fact that somebody has to go rescue them when they notice the carrier by the floating island on TV. Or the image of some poor schmuck getting yelled at over the phone, with super-loud angry phone noises as their supervisor goes into Adamantium Rage at the fact that somebody STOLE A SUPERCARRIER and flew it around the world.

 

[VolantRedX]

Just got back and while I think it's a fun action movie I will say outright that Joss Weadon still manages to be the most over rated director working today. He can not for the life of him keep anything close to a consistent tone. Perfect example is just after Tony and Hulk wreak that building, there's these long pans of human carnage, people are weeping, blood is flowing, and the 9/11 imagery is as blatant as ever. Then suddenly it's slap stick comedy as Tony's fist comes from off camera and hits the Hulk, funny sound effect and cut to black. Then cut to a nearly silent scene of the Avengers, laying exhausted and freshly mind raped. Either make it a dramatic look into the fragility of the human spirit or make it an action comedy. Don't try and make it both unless you're a far better writer and director then Joss Weadon is on his best day.

Also can we please have villains with some fucking presence and menace? Please? I'm sick of all the villains either being ineffectual whiners or sarcastic joking cartoon characters.

 

[Silversun17]

I enjoyed Ultron's wise cracking personally.

biggest thrill for the movie to me though was when Fury rolled in with the heli-carrier.

 

[Xero Key]

You know, I just realized:

Spoiler: Greatest Story Untold in AoU

HOW IN THE FUCK DID FURY GET BACK HIS HELICARRIER? I'm just trying to figure out what it must have been like for the mooks who were watching it in drydock while the US tried to decide whether or not to convert it to being a flying navy vessel or not. Just imagine watchign that big sucker, and then out of nowhere Nick Motherfucking Fury shows up back from the dead with a small army of his own mooks to drive off in his carrier. Would you tell him NO? TELL FURY NO? For that matter, just trying to get her running again, even in a makeshift manner, and flying under the radar of the US sensor nets, avoiding detection, and then flying through the european air defense grid to reach their destination. Seriously, that's 'Stealing the Enterprise' grade CMoA. Worse is 'what the hell do you tell your boss when they see the carrier on TV'. How do you explain that it was for a good cause, or would the poor mooks have been tied up and their embarrassment compounded by the fact that somebody has to go rescue them when they notice the carrier by the floating island on TV. Or the image of some poor schmuck getting yelled at over the phone, with super-loud angry phone noises as their supervisor goes into Adamantium Rage at the fact that somebody STOLE A SUPERCARRIER and flew it around the world.

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I think Coulson and hi SHIELD control the original Hellicarrier as a base, so episode 21 should be them getting involved in the Ultron plot. That said I am so far behind on Season 2 of AoS I'm not completely sure. All I know is they've set up Civil War and Inhumans.

 

[maskedanddanger]

Best line in the movie is right before Hawkeye's trailer speech.

"The city is flying. The city is flying, we're being attacked by an army of robots, and I have a bow. None of this makes sense."

It's such a wonderful freakout, and you can practically hear Barton muttering it throughout the rest of the battle.

It's shortly followed by "No one would know."

 

[horngeek]

I mean pretty much the only valid complaint I have of Black Widow in this film is that she was kinda briefly turned into a damsel by being captured by Ultron, but she ends up cluing the team into his location so I'm okay with it.

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On a side note, I'd be perfectly happy with more damsels handled like this- the damsel in question manages to take advantage of their captivity and clue in allies to her location, then kick ass.

 

[Richardson]

I think Coulson and hi SHIELD control the original Hellicarrier as a base, so episode 21 should be them getting involved in the Ultron plot. That said I am so far behind on Season 2 of AoS I'm not completely sure. All I know is they've set up Civil War and Inhumans.

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Nope. They don't.

Spoiler: A little more protection against spoilers?

Fury explicitly mentions stealing it from mothballs and getting it just barely running again. Coulson doesn't have the manpower to run it without compromising his operations, and if he left it on the water it'd be sunk in short order by governments fearing a resurgent HYDRA using it as a base. Thankfully, it should be a little safer under the command of the Avengers.

As for Vision:

Spoiler

This is the part where I just have to laugh at DC, AGAIN. Because he's basically how Superman should have been done again. He has Superman's Gooder than Good beliefs and actions, most of the snark and personality from his time as JARVIS, a great deal of humbleness as he fully admits he doesn't deserve his power and that he explicitly isn't someone to solve all of humanity's problems for them, a noble depression as he knows Thanos is coming and is pretty sure humanity is doomed because of him but intends to fight for human survival anyway, and he's willing to kill if he must to save lives. Not because it's easiest, but because he will give you every single chance to turn aside from your path, give you every chance to be better and encourage you to join him. He's on the side of life itself. But, if he can't, and he can't safely imprison you, he will stop you, cleanly and efficiently without remorse, but with a great deal of pity. It's basically what everyone wants in a modern superman, and once more completely shits all over DC's choices.

Addendum: Does anyone find it humorous that usually in the comics and animated universes, DC is the one that is basically 'everything is all right, life is good, life is awesome' with paragons of pure pureness and hope and light; while Marvel is a dark and grim landscape of fucked up people fucking up so hard that it keeps getting darker and darker, with the people hating them, the universe out to kill them all, and otherwise generally fucked?

But then we turn around to the cinematic universes, and the relationship is pretty much reversed, with the MCU being 'fucked up people going around making the universe a brighter, safer place to live in even if they have to fix their own mistakes, hope and happiness for everyone, EVERYTHING IS AWESOME!'; while DC is going full grim-dark in their imagery and movies?

Oh, yeah, and 'Superman is too simple for modern audiences, GRIM HIM DOWN!'

MCU: "Hell, we need a counter for Ultron, let's see..." "Well, what if we take this Vision guy, stick JARVIS into him, and make him an ally of all life and a generally happy go-lucky guy who's for truth, justice, and peace?" "What, like Superman?" "Yeah, but let's stick the mind stone in his head." "FUND IT!"

 

[VolantRedX]

Oh, yeah, and 'Superman is too simple for modern audiences, GRIM HIM DOWN!'

MCU: "Hell, we need a counter for Ultron, let's see..." "Well, what if we take this Vision guy, stick JARVIS into him, and make him an ally of all life and a generally happy go-lucky guy who's for truth, justice, and peace?" "What, like Superman?" "Yeah, but let's stick the mind stone in his head." "FUND IT!"

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MCU 1: Do you think there should be some kind of weight or drama to any of this stuff?

MCU 2: Sure kill off a character randomly and have a bunch sad music play.

MCU 1: That's not the same as drama.

MCU 2: Fine have some wacky comedy thrown in right after.

MCU 1: I don't think you understand.

MCU 2: Oh and don't forget to have everyone cracking wise constantly even if it's at total odds with established character or context.

 

[Triggerhappy]

I liked it. But I've gotta say we've probably reached Peak Superhero with this one.

Iron Man
Captain America
Thor
Hulk
Black Widow
Hawkeye
The Twins
Warmachine
The Vision

And I'm sure I'm still forgetting someone.

 

[VolantRedX]

And I'm sure I'm still forgetting someone.

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Falcon

 

[Jace911]

MCU 1: I don't think you understand.

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Evidently.

Quicksilver's death was hardly "random" given the rivalry they had been building up between him and Hawkeye, and I don't particularly recall any wisecracks in proximity to his death that would ruin the tone; not like, say, Man of Steel which goes from Zod's death to Superman spiking drones into the desert with zero transition.

 

[Richardson]

Evidently.

Quicksilver's death was hardly "random" given the rivalry they had been building up between him and Hawkeye, and I don't particularly recall any wisecracks in proximity to his death that would ruin the tone; not like, say, Man of Steel which goes from Zod's death to Superman spiking drones into the desert with zero transition.

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There's the refrain of 'Bet you didn't see that coming', but it WORKS. And it hurts and drives the knife in a little further.

 

[Jace911]

There's the refrain of 'Bet you didn't see that coming', but it WORKS. And it hurts and drives the knife in a little further.

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Is that what he was referring to? I was straining my head trying to remember any jokes that were within at least five minutes of Quicksilver's death that would have jarred the mood and that didn't even occur to me because I really didn't take it as a joke.

Neither did the rest of the theater, incidentally; I heard like twenty people gasp out loud and someone went "noooooooo" when he said it.

 

[Richardson]

Is that what he was referring to? I was straining my head trying to remember any jokes that were within at least five minutes of Quicksilver's death that would have jarred the mood and that didn't even occur to me because I really didn't take it as a joke.

Neither did the rest of the theater, incidentally; I heard like twenty people gasp out loud and someone went "noooooooo" when he said it.

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It's Voliant. Hell if I know. He's been spazzing out a lot lately over things, and I still haven't figured out why. Like the Hulk scene. That's not a mood whiplash. Sure, it was funny seeing him get clocked like that, but only mildly next to the moment just before it of Banner coming back to being in charge and realizing 'oh shit, I dun fucked up', and it serves its purpose in the narrative as a further traumatizing moment to cement that feeling in him.

 

[VolantRedX]

Is that what he was referring to?

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No it's the other wacky comedy. Look the Avengers needs to either be an action comedy or a dramatic film because Weadon doesn't have the talent to blend both.

Like the Hulk scene. That's not a mood whiplash.

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It's total mood whiplash. Weadon can't seem to help himself from jamming wacky slapstick and constant annoying tone deaf quips into every scene. If Avengers was just an action comedy fine, but it clearly is trying to have drama in it, so the comedy undercuts the dramatic moments, and the drama makes the comedy out of place.


Like why did Quicksilver die at that moment in the story? What purpose did it serve? It was just there to have it. It comes right out of nowhere (and by nowhere I mean everyone was expecting someone to eat it because "oh drama") and the only one that seems at all effected by it is Scarlet Witch.

 

[Tempera]

Two, she isn't "obsessed" with having children; the only reason she brings up the sterility thing is because it represents what the Red Room took from her, which was "anything she might value more than the mission".

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Actually...

Natasha didn't even bring up the sterility thing, Bruce did that. Bruce said something like "I can't even have kids, for obvious reasons", and Natasha countered him by telling him about being made sterile.

It's pretty clearly meant to be a big spike at Natasha being an assassin, though, you're absolutely right. That's the entire damned point of the scene; Bruce is angsting over the Hulk being a monster, and Natasha is pointing out that she's been trained as an assassin as a kid and she has an entirely fucked-up life because of it, and that she's honestly probably more of a monster than he is- she's just not, you know, green and angry.

 

[VolantRedX]

Actually...

Natasha didn't even bring up the sterility thing, Bruce did that. Bruce said something like "I can't even have kids, for obvious reasons", and Natasha countered him by telling him about being made sterile.

It's pretty clearly meant to be a big spike at Natasha being an assassin, though, you're absolutely right. That's the entire damned point of the scene; Bruce is angsting over the Hulk being a monster, and Natasha is pointing out that she's been trained as an assassin as a kid and she has an entirely fucked-up life because of it, and that she's honestly probably more of a monster than he is- she's just not, you know, green and angry.

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What I don't get is why Bruce never brings up the fact he can't have sex, much less kids. It's established in the other Hulk movie that his heart rate spikes to much and he'll Hulk out if he's intimate with someone. Why isn't that brought up. I think that has far more bearing on a relationship early on than children do.