Step 2: When the Armistice is called, Odin tells him that Jotun aren't evil and that he's half-Jotun.
Step 3: Loki has a freakout and wants to sabotage the peace, because if it's a peace with a bunch of Evil Monsters (of which he's half-one) then they'll betray it and so it's better to win peace by conquering them.
Perhaps even have Odin being willing to tell everyone about Loki's heritage once the peace treaty is signed? Then Loki has a very personal reason to want to keep the war going - he doesn't have to face people's reaction to his half-blood heritage.
[X] [Pitch] Use James Wan's Pitch for Thor; It only needs some additions and changes to make it great.
Johnny Blaze is a renowned motorcycle stunt driver alongside his father. They tour across America doing show after show until the inevitable happens, a stunt goes wrong for Johnny's dad. His father on life support, Johnny is approached by a man with a contract promising to save his father's life. He signs it without hesitation and in the process sells his soul to the dark lord Mephisto.
The devil forcefully inserts a spirit of vengeance into Johnny's soul, turning him into the Ghost Rider and demanding he travel the world, harvesting damned souls in the name of vengeance. And ensuring said souls go into Mephisto's embrace.
For months Johnny does his dark master's bidding unwillingly, goaded on by the spirit who only cares for accomplishing vengeance on sinful men.
Eventually however, the spirit and Johnny's goals align. In the city of New York Mephisto's son Blackheart corrupts and destroys the lives of innocents using a gang/cult that serves him. Mephisto demands his son be left to his work, the spirit doesn't like that.
Seeing the chance to free himself, Johnny convinces the spirit to join him in rebelling against the devil. For revenge. They wage a war against Blackheart and his followers.
Throughout their assault more is revealed of the demonic being Blackheart. He was forged using a dark ritual by Mephisto. Using the misery and suffering felt within the bowels of the city's darkest corners he created a spirit of despair. Blackheart. For mere entertainment. The creature is pure in a way, it doesn't bend to any morality. It simply creates suffering, hatred, and pain whenever possible because that is the purpose of its birth. It is ambitious though. It seeks its father's throne. Creating a grand and unholy ritual circle across the city Blackheart and his followers intend to sacrifice the entire city's population to Blackheart, creating a font of despair and elevating it to a level of power equal or greater than his father's he believes.
Johnny of course gets in the way. Disrupting the ritual by destroying necessary relics, runes, and beating the crap out of cultists with flaming chains. Blackheart eventually faces Ghost Rider head on, in a battle across the rooftops of New York City with Johnny on his bike and Blackheart clawing across the cityscape on all fours like a beast. Johnny is knocked from his bike and through the roof of St Paul chapel. Where the pair continue their battle. Blackheart is trapped in a penance stare, and slain.
Mephisto sends an avatar, enraged but also begrudgingly thankful for the slaying of his spawn. Ordering Ghost Rider to serve him once more by completing the ritual, only for the souls to be sent to him. Ghost Rider uses the PG-13 rating's allowed F-bomb to tell Mephisto to go fuck himself and cuts the avatar in half with his chains.
Movie ends with him revving his bike and riding into the morning sun.
[X] [Pitch] Use James Wan's Pitch for Thor; It only needs some additions and changes to make it great.
It sounds like we are wanting Loki's Masters of Evil for phase one/Avengers. I think, for setting up past that, we put in some elements of Odin having prophesy of some kind, and this was his plan (even if just as a tag). If we wind up doing infinity stones, i'd like to stick one in Odin's sacrificed eye, and him being an excuse for why everything converges on Midguard/Earth.
[X] [Pitch] Use James Wan's Pitch for Thor; It only needs some additions and changes to make it great.
I like the pitch. All we need is that hopefully he does the same kind of amazing cinematography that he did in OTL Aquaman and we have an amazing-looking movie on our hands.
Always had the idea since the Kevin Fiege quest for a Ghost Rider trilogy.
Each one having a different rock n roll theme for visuals and music. Blackheart has heavy metal. Bit of rock opera vibe. Heavy blacks and greys, lot of references to classic album covers etc in visuals and demon designs.
Well he doesn't need to fall off the bifrost exactly. Could escape using illusions, get locked up only to escape in another movie etc. Besides we don't absolutely need Loki to be the Avenger's villain. He definitely should stick around, but there's a ton of ways to do it.
So it's best to make use of the already existing element to have Loki survive. I was specific on him falling off the bifrost because it requires little to be changed from Wan's vision of the movie.
Johnny Blaze is a renowned motorcycle stunt driver alongside his father. They tour across America doing show after show until the inevitable happens, a stunt goes wrong for Johnny's dad. His father on life support, Johnny is approached by a man with a contract promising to save his father's life. He signs it without hesitation and in the process sells his soul to the dark lord Mephisto.
The devil forcefully inserts a spirit of vengeance into Johnny's soul, turning him into the Ghost Rider and demanding he travel the world, harvesting damned souls in the name of vengeance. And ensuring said souls go into Mephisto's embrace.
For months Johnny does his dark master's bidding unwillingly, goaded on by the spirit who only cares for accomplishing vengeance on sinful men.
Eventually however, the spirit and Johnny's goals align. In the city of New York Mephisto's son Blackheart corrupts and destroys the lives of innocents using a gang/cult that serves him. Mephisto demands his son be left to his work, the spirit doesn't like that.
Seeing the chance to free himself, Johnny convinces the spirit to join him in rebelling against the devil. For revenge. They wage a war against Blackheart and his followers.
Throughout their assault more is revealed of the demonic being Blackheart. He was forged using a dark ritual by Mephisto. Using the misery and suffering felt within the bowels of the city's darkest corners he created a spirit of despair. Blackheart. For mere entertainment. The creature is pure in a way, it doesn't bend to any morality. It simply creates suffering, hatred, and pain whenever possible because that is the purpose of its birth. It is ambitious though. It seeks its father's throne. Creating a grand and unholy ritual circle across the city Blackheart and his followers intend to sacrifice the entire city's population to Blackheart, creating a font of despair and elevating it to a level of power equal or greater than his father's he believes.
Johnny of course gets in the way. Disrupting the ritual by destroying necessary relics, runes, and beating the crap out of cultists with flaming chains. Blackheart eventually faces Ghost Rider head on, in a battle across the rooftops of New York City with Johnny on his bike and Blackheart clawing across the cityscape on all fours like a beast. Johnny is knocked from his bike and through the roof of St Paul chapel. Where the pair continue their battle. Blackheart is trapped in a penance stare, and slain.
Mephisto sends an avatar, enraged but also begrudgingly thankful for the slaying of his spawn. Ordering Ghost Rider to serve him once more by completing the ritual, only for the souls to be sent to him. Ghost Rider uses the PG-13 rating's allowed F-bomb to tell Mephisto to go fuck himself and cuts the avatar in half with his chains.
Movie ends with him revving his bike and riding into the morning sun.
The pitch honestly feels rather empty to be honest. Like the movie kind of is missing an entire second act and lots of parts of the first. I don't hate it but it feels really incomplete to me and so I hesitate to call it good either.
I think if you could expand a bit on what happens in this movie a better assessment of its quality as a pitch could be made.
Where did you get this impression from? Literally all the conversation I've seen is that we don't want to do "Loki's Masters of Evil" for the Avengers movie. Heck there was even a conversation over whether or not we should include even one extra named villain beyond Loki and split the focus even further.
Please god no. This is just lazy writing and bad setup. Having Odin literally manipulate everyone else "because destiny said so" in order to arbitrarily bring about a hyper specific plot is not something I find myself particularly enthused about. Let Odin make mistakes and screw up and don't make him some all knowing manipulative mastermind who totally didn't get played by Loki when he banished Thor and instead was secretly manipulating everyone all along.
If we wind up doing infinity stones, i'd like to stick one in Odin's sacrificed eye, and him being an excuse for why everything converges on Midguard/Earth.
I have no issue with an Infinity Stone being in place of Odin's sacrificed eye but I in no way think he's the excuse for why everything converges on midgar/earth. After all Odin lives in Asgard which is very much not earth. I think it's simpler to just have things converge on earth somewhat due to chance and each stone just naturally making its way into a player in the final few movies hands before they are all brought together.
Edit: The reason why the stones converge is because someone is deliberately trying to collect them so if even a single stone ends up on earth, by necessity the villain must come to earth and thus the plot must at some point converge there.
Please god no. This is just lazy writing and bad setup. Having Odin literally manipulate everyone else "because destiny said so" in order to arbitrarily bring about a hyper specific plot is not something I find myself particularly enthused about. Let Odin make mistakes and screw up and don't make him some all knowing manipulative mastermind who totally didn't get played by Loki when he banished Thor and instead was secretly manipulating everyone all along.
It wouldn't be hard for Loki to play Odin in that sense. Both sons are very sketchy on the peace treaty at all, but Thor is loud and dramatic while Loki is quiet (and melodramtic), and so Thor sabotaging the Peace Conference is something Odin would be primed to believe because he knows Thor isn't happy with the way things are going.
It wouldn't be hard for Loki to play Odin in that sense. Both sons are very sketchy on the peace treaty at all, but Thor is loud and dramatic while Loki is quiet (and melodramtic), and so Thor sabotaging the Peace Conference is something Odin would be primed to believe because he knows Thor isn't happy with the way things are going.
I have no issue with Loki sabotaging the peace conference. I'm all for that.
I do take issue with having Odin mention that as part of a prophecy he was deliberately setting events into motion to get Loki on Earth. It completely undermines Loki's ability to fool Odin if Odin's deliberately working to bring about a scenario that has Loki and Thor on midgard. Making what happens in Avengers all be part of Odin's plan makes the Thor movie into total nonsense or just completely undermines the threat of Loki since apparently he was only ever doing exactly what Odin wanted him to do which sucks as a narrative element to introduce in order to for some unknown reason provide a completely unnecessary justification for Avengers.
I want Loki to be able to play Odin, not have it be revealed that actually Odin was playing Loki by making Loki think he was playing Odin because prophecy bullshit which is just a complete and total asspull and utterly undermines everything that happens in Thor.
I have no issue with Loki sabotaging the peace conference. I'm all for that.
I do take issue with having Odin mention that as part of a prophecy he was deliberately setting events into motion to get Loki on Earth. It completely undermines Loki's ability to fool Odin if Odin's deliberately working to bring about a scenario that has Loki and Thor on midgard. Making what happens in Avengers all be part of Odin's plan makes the Thor movie into total nonsense or just completely undermines the threat of Loki since apparently he was only ever doing exactly what Odin wanted him to do which sucks as a narrative element to introduce.
Oh, I agree with you and wasn't actually countering your claim.
I was just providing evidence/thoughts on the chain of thinking/actions for Odin getting tricked/not believing Thor if he goes, "Loki made me do it" or whatever?
The pitch honestly feels rather empty to be honest. Like the movie kind of is missing an entire second act and lots of parts of the first. I don't hate it but it feels really incomplete to me and so I hesitate to call it good either.
I think if you could expand a bit on what happens in this movie a better assessment of its quality as a pitch could be made.
Eh fair enough. Honestly just slapped it together in about twenty minutes. Will probably rework it sometime.
Edit: any opinion on the basic concept though? Blackheart being the villain and all? Thought it would be better to have the Spirit and Johnny having a basic alliance due to a mutual enemy for this movie rather than get buddy-buddy. Save that for later movies and all.
[X] [Pitch] Don't use James Wan's Pitch; you have another idea that can be used.
- [X] [Pitch] Thor and Loki are brothers whose relationship has been one of one sided rivalry since they could first walk. Jealous of his older brother always winning, Loki finally manages to have him banished, and in a fit of panic at his eventual return gives powers to the mortal Carl Creel to kill him and get rid of him once and for all. (King crimson's Pitch)
[X] [Pitch] Use James Wan's Pitch for Thor; It only needs some additions and changes to make it great.
It sounds like we are wanting Loki's Masters of Evil for phase one/Avengers. I think, for setting up past that, we put in some elements of Odin having prophesy of some kind, and this was his plan (even if just as a tag). If we wind up doing infinity stones, i'd like to stick one in Odin's sacrificed eye, and him being an excuse for why everything converges on Midguard/Earth.
I don't think this is an accurate assessment of the thread's opinion. IIRC only you were outspokenly against the idea of incorporating at least one of the prior villains in addition to Loki in the first Avengers movie. Although I'm willing to admit that there is some merit in the alien invasion idea.
However even if we do have Loki with aliens for the phase 1 Avengers movie, I think Masters of Evil is the most logical choice for the Avengers movie at the end of phase 2. We have left a lot of villains alive so far and if we continue the pattern, we could have a solid group of them come together (~5-6 I'm thinking) with the singular goal of destroying the Avengers that have stood in their way in the past, paving the way for their future ambitions to flourish.
I think doing it in phase 2 is probably the absolute latest we can do it while keeping the stakes high (doing it before things ramp up like crazy in the MCU otherwise some members of the MoE might seem like a joke in comparison), to keep each member of the Masters of Evil relatively balanced to each other power-wise rather than having to throw in a bunch of overpowered villains to keep audiences engaged. Doing it then also means we have two phases of villains to pick from to create the group rather than just one. They will fail by the end of the movie but that makes a potential "civil war" breaking the Avengers up when "even the Masters of Evil couldn't" much more impactful.
Phase 1 - Loki & Aliens
Phase 2 - Masters of Evil*
*Civil War at some point after Masters of Evil, not before
Masters of Evil
Loki
Samuel Sterns aka The Leader
Eric Williams aka Grim Reaper
XYZ from Hawkeye Movie (Bullseye? Trick Shot? Lots of Hawkeye enemies to use)
XYZ from Captain America Movie (Zemo (Descendent of elder Zemo)? Time-Displaced Red Skull? Lots of Cap enemies to use)
XYZ from Iron Man 2 (MODOK? Madame Masque? Mandarain? Lots of Iron Man enemies to use)
Stane would refuse to join such a team. Perhaps have him coordinating with US authorities to help combat the invasion / Masters of Evil and earn a pardon?
============= Completely different train of thought =============
Another thought I had is how maybe we could try to build towards adapting the Serpent Society into the films (or television might make more sense). Introducing Snake themed characters here and there over time, starting small with the first Serpent Squad and having it grow from there, with them eventually coming together to form the Serpent Society. Perhaps this could work as our first villain protagonist movie or series? (Considering in the comics their first mission was to assassinate MODOK, another villain) I think the workplace/business aspect of the Serpent Society could inject a bit of comedy that would make a villain protagonist more palatable, more like "superpowered criminal" protagonists instead of villain protagonists.
The Serpent Society is a business enterprise of criminals and mercenaries whose costumed identities are based on snakes. The Society remains one of the best-organized, most successful coalitions of criminals in operation today. At an introductory meeting at a Manhattan hotel, Sidewinder laid out his plan: the various snake-criminals would band together as a single society. This society would function not unlike a labor union in that it's members would receive a guaranteed pay, better access to technology, and insurance and health benefits.
I could see a 'beginning of movie action sequence' in a sequel film involving the titular hero taking out the first Serpent Squad of Cobra, Viper, and Eel doing some kind of minor to moderate level crime operation to be a decent way to establish their existence.
I don't think this is an accurate assessment of the thread's opinion. IIRC only you were outspokenly against the idea of incorporating at least one of the prior villains in addition to Loki in the first Avengers movie. Although I'm willing to admit that there is some merit in the alien invasion idea.
However even if we do have Loki with aliens for the phase 1 Avengers movie, I think Masters of Evil is the most logical choice for the Avengers movie at the end of phase 2. We have left a lot of villains alive so far and if we continue the pattern, we could have a solid group of them come together (~5-6 I'm thinking) with the singular goal of destroying the Avengers that have stood in their way in the past, paving the way for their future ambitions to flourish.
I think doing it in phase 2 is probably the absolute latest we can do it while keeping the stakes high (doing it before things ramp up like crazy in the MCU otherwise the MoE might seem like a joke in comparison), to keep each member of the Masters of Evil relatively balanced to each other power-wise rather than having to throw in a bunch of overpowered villains to keep audiences engaged. Doing it then also means we have two phases of villains to pick from to create the group rather than just one. They will fail by the end of the movie but that makes a potential "civil war" breaking the Avengers up when "even the Masters of Evil couldn't" much more impactful.
Phase 1 - Loki & Aliens
Phase 2 - Masters of Evil*
*Civil War at some point after Masters of Evil, not before
Masters of Evil
Loki
Samuel Sterns aka The Leader
Eric Williams aka Grim Reaper
XYZ from Hawkeye Movie (Bullseye? Trick Shot? Lots of Hawkeye enemies to use)
XYZ from Captain America Movie (Zemo (Descendent of elder Zemo)? Time-Displaced Red Skull? Lots of Cap enemies to use)
XYZ from Iron Man 2 (MODOK? Madame Masque? Mandarain? Lots of Iron Man enemies to use)
Stane would refuse to join such a team. Perhaps have him coordinating with US authorities to help combat the invasion / Masters of Evil and earn a pardon?
============= Completely different train of thought =============
Another thought I had is how maybe we could try to build towards adapting the Serpent Society into the films (or television might make more sense). Introducing Snake themed characters here and there over time, starting small with the first Serpent Squad and having it grow from there, with them eventually coming together to form the Serpent Society. Perhaps this could work as our first villain protagonist movie or series? (Considering in the comics their first mission was to assassinate MODOK, another villain) I think the workplace/business aspect of the Serpent Society could inject a bit of comedy that would make a villain protagonist more palatable, more like "superpowered criminal" protagonists instead of villain protagonists.
I could see a 'beginning of movie action sequence' in a sequel film involving the titular hero taking out the first Serpent Squad of Cobra, Viper, and Eel doing some kind of minor to moderate level crime operation to be a decent way to establish their existence.
Ngl having a fakeout of Stane being involved only to refuse to work with them, having turned out to be under orders of the U.S. government for a pardon could be a cool twist - keeping him as a villain with standards; it'd need to be balanced with ensuring we don't outright make him into a hero, as that's something that needs a good deal of character development.
Ngl having a fakeout of Stane being involved only to refuse to work with them, having turned out to be under orders of the U.S. government for a pardon could be a cool twist - keeping him as a villain with standards; it'd need to be balanced with ensuring we don't outright make him into a hero, as that's something that needs a good deal of character development.
I think it could be balanced well with him choosing to retire after helping defeat the Masters of Evil. He would probably be old enough for it by then, and having the satisfaction of saving the day his way one last time to end his career on a good note could be a satisfactory conclusion to his story for now. (Insert heartfelt conversation between him and Tony years after his retirement before Iron Man's sendoff or something)
I don't think this is an accurate assessment of the thread's opinion. IIRC only you were outspokenly against the idea of incorporating at least one of the prior villains in addition to Loki in the first Avengers movie. Although I'm willing to admit that there is some merit in the alien invasion idea.
However even if we do have Loki with aliens for the phase 1 Avengers movie, I think Masters of Evil is the most logical choice for the Avengers movie at the end of phase 2
Um what? Yes I was the one outspoken anti-leader person but as far as I know nobody has been asking for a Masters of Evil movie in phase 1. You yourself go on to state that you want Master's of Evil for phase 2. I was responding to ClawClawBite coming out of nowhere and claiming that "It sounds like we are wanting Loki's Masters of Evil for phase one/Avengers." which as far as I know has no support for it.
Thread opinion on how many villains should be in Avengers is split but I don't think anyone has expressed any strong desire for the Masters of Evil in their entirety to appear in the phase 1 movie specifically.
I mean if we want to be better with things we could have it be:
Phase 1: Loki and Aliens
Phase 2: Masters of Evil
Phase 3: Civil War
Phase 4: The final villain
Now before people jump down my throat that four phases is not feasible, four phases is very much feasible if we don't have the third phase be literally nearly double the length of the other two like in OTL (Phase 1 is 6 movies, Phase 2 is 6 movies and Phase 3 is 11 movies). If we were to split things to be a little more evenly distributed across phases we could have four "phases" without actually altering the number of movies involved.
I don't mind this structure though in the grand scheme of things and do like it.
Why Eel though? Eels aren't snakes/serpents in any meaningful way. Why not Diamondback, Asp, Black Mamba, Death Adder or any number of the actually snake themed villains we could pick?
Unless you're going for comedy with Eels inclusion I don't see a reason to include a member who pretty blatantly breaks the rest of the teams snake theming.
Why Eel though? Eels aren't snakes/serpents in any meaningful way. Why not Diamondback, Asp, Black Mamba, Death Adder or any number of the actually snake themed villains we could pick?
Unless you're going for comedy with Eels inclusion I don't see a reason to include a member who pretty blatantly breaks the rest of the teams snake theming.
I think in this case it might be best to break with the comics in the adaptation here. Much like how we altered the original lineup of Avengers, I think we ought to alter the lineup of original Serpent Squad members so that Eel isn't there to be a jarring exception to everyone else's theming unless we've got a really strong reason for keeping a guy who breaks the theming specifically. He's not a bad character or anything he's just very pointedly not like every other member of the group in that he lacks snake theming (Eels are fish not serpents) and that makes him stand out.
I think in this case it might be best to break with the comics in the adaptation here. Much like how we altered the original lineup of Avengers, I think we ought to alter the lineup of original Serpent Squad members so that Eel isn't there to be a jarring exception to everyone else's theming unless we've got a really strong reason for keeping a guy who breaks the theming specifically. He's not a bad character or anything he's just very pointedly not like every other member of the group in that he lacks snake theming (Eels are fish not serpents) and that makes him stand out.
The Eel is the brother of the Viper. The Eel's background also has him stand out not only as the "tech guy" of the group (his powers all come from the technology he invented integrated into a suit he built, while Cobra was transformed by a snake bite and Viper is a mix of skill and equipment like a Hawkeye type) but also makes each member come from different walks of life: Cobra was an ex-con, Viper was an advertising executive, while the Eel was a marine biologist.
So they each have things that they contribute to the group: Cobra's innate powers, Viper's money and resources and leadership charisma, and the Eel's intelligence and inventions.
And him 'breaking the theme' could even be a point of contention / mockery. Perhaps Viper realizes that an Eel isn't technically a serpent makes fun of his "genius brother" for getting such a simple thing wrong.
And him 'breaking the theme' could even be a point of contention / mockery. Perhaps Viper realizes that an Eel isn't technically a serpent makes fun of his "genius brother" for getting such a simple thing wrong
This was all I was really looking for. Its not a problem anymore if we acknowledge that Eel is different and isn't really a serpent despite being part of the team. So long as we do something with that discrepancy (which the quoted section accomplishes) then I've got no issues with his inclusion.
After all Odin lives in Asgard which is very much not earth. I think it's simpler to just have things converge on earth somewhat due to chance and each stone just naturally making its way into a player in the final few movies hands before they are all brought together.
Edit: The reason why the stones converge is because someone is deliberately trying to collect them so if even a single stone ends up on earth, by necessity the villain must come to earth and thus the plot must at some point converge there.
I tend to find the big chain of coincidence much more jarring, and we have the lead time to set things up ahead of time with a plan, something that gives viewers a chain of ah-ha moments. I also want to set Odin up as important so we can have him die and have it feel important and high stakes without needing to loose a headlining hero.
I tend to find the big chain of coincidence much more jarring, and we have the lead time to set things up ahead of time with a plan, something that gives viewers a chain of ah-ha moments. I also want to set Odin up as important so we can have him die and have it feel important and high stakes without needing to loose a headlining hero.
I mean it's not a big chain of coincidences in order to get the plot to converge. It's literally just "there is a stone on earth, someone who has been collecting stones decides to come to earth". That's not a huge chain of coincidences and you've got your natural convergence right there and then. You don't need to give everything some grand cosmic meaning or incredible plan behind it, sometimes stuff can just happen.
I also don't think we need to give extra weight to Odin, Thor's dad and the king of Asgard, to make his death feel important and high stakes. We get less than an hour with Ho Yinsen in Iron Man but his death still mattered and felt important because both we and the characters were invested in it.
I think what you're arguing for is coming from a place of good intentions but it is unnecessarily complicating things for little to no benefit. Just put one stone on Earth and then fundamentally any individual who wants to collect all the stones needs to go there in order to get all the plot rocks. Whether or not Odin should have another stone is a separate argument but I don't think it really adds much to an explanation of why things ended up converging on earth (logically it leads to the antagonist needing to head to wherever Odin's corpse is as opposed to earth specifically) and it doesn't really add much to his potential death save that it ties it to a MacGuffin instead of having faith that character interactions could get people to care about it.
Edit: I would like to clarify that I only want one stone to naturally be hidden on earth to avoid contrivances but once you've got the one there the bigger plot involving them needs to come to earth and you can have antagonists bring stones with them as part of the plot.
