The Avengers!, JOSS WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEDON!!

WWWWWWWWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAH!!!!!

THE ACTION!!!

THE DRAMA!!!

THE ACTION!!!

THE LOL!!!!

THE ACTION!!!

WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!

WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!

WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hands down the BEST Marvel movie yet
everyone pretty much gets equal amount of time
GO SEE IT NOW, if you have not already

So frickin' good, dudes. The Joss Whedon funny is in, but it also has the best and most satisfying action out of ALL the Marvel movies. And while some characters get shortchanged (Hill, Foster), they are obviously the best picks to do that with given the time constraints and so on. This movie is often comprised of pure joy beamed into the brain of anyone who's ever enjoyed a comic book.

No spoilers highlights:
-Best Hulk moment since (some comic thing I forgot about)
-Looking at where his shots are going is semi-optional for Hawkeye
-lol 2nd best Hulk moment
-Too many Tony lines to count
-Cap giving orders on two separate occasions
-Dat end credits scene. FUCK YEAH

This post has been edited by shoeboxjeddy on May 4 2012, 02:32 PM

which one?

I said it after seeing Thor and I'll say it again, I love how Marvel is completely unafraid to let their freak flag fly

Hulk vs Loki was some of the funniest shit I've seen in forever, the theater was laughing so hard i couldn't even hear Hulk's line afterword.

We also need a Black Widow film....now.

Only negative thing: I guess Joss can't resist being Joss. :|

Y'mean with the kick-ass chicks? Yeah totally.

As for other thing, 1) totally in service to narrative and any writer would go there -- they need something to Avenge after all, and, 2) I kinda think Fury's pulling a con.

The first one. The end end scene was amusing but pointless.

Yeah, trying not to spoil that for anyone but I involuntarily made a loud noise of shock and amusement right as it started. The sound equivalent of "ha ha ha wtf yes." No idea what that line was, apparently it was funny? That actually happened a lot, the jokes were so good we couldn't hear the next line or two after them.

Thor: Take care with your words, for all else that he is, Loki is still a member of my family.
Black Widow: *mildly* He's killed 80 people in 2 days.
Thor: *abashed* He was adopted.

And more like a SHIELD movie. MOAR Hawkeye, tons more Black Widow, Fury using a gun larger than a pistol (and smaller than an RPG lol), Hill having a character arc, and Coulson being revealed totally still alive, screw Whedon's druthers.

apparently puny god

I loved Coulson fanboying over Cap however it did raise the huge, "dude gonna die" flag in neon colors. Of course Fury did fake the cards, and he does have schemes within schemes.

After the movie, me and my friend were like

"Wait, so did Fury use like a die cap or ketchup on the cards? Or did he like go over to Coulson's body after the fact and give them a good coating, really making sure to rub that one in there pretty good? Cuz... that's creepy as fuck, lol."

But yeah, seems like they could easily say his death was a fake. Like maybe he disappeared in order to run the Secret Avengers (rather than a SHIELD movie, call it that and introduce Luke Cage and whoever else you want for that). Seems like a weird plan to kill the guy right as he's become a major character in the Ultimate Spider-Man cartoon and has now even appeared in the comics themselves.

But what was with the weird pistol obsession everyone had in this movie? Oh no, Loki is escaping in a jeep, shoot at it ineffectually with a tiny pistol! Shit, helicopter, shoot it with a tiny pistol. The Hulk? Um... tiny pistol? A second plane?! TINY PISTOL ATTACK! Only Cap used a proper weapon (except for that thing Fury does), and it was stolen from the bad guys.

Plus if he lives Joss will have subverted Jossing which is just his speed I think

To be fair, a lot of those instances they didn't have time to grab a bigger gun. Plus you forgot Coulson and his "I don't even know what this does."

I guess that explains it since you know, that happened right after. And also Nick Fury's big gun insistence was also somewhat of a fail. Not that small guns worked either... Okay only Iron Man guns and bows do anything unless you are Black Widow. New rule.

That I expect, of course, but I should have known that Joss would <snip>

Putting aside that, it was the movie I waited for most of my life. Everything is spot on and more. At this point, the only proper response from WB would be the a World's Finest movie followed by the Justice League.

This post has been edited by kenshin on May 5 2012, 09:52 PM

I'm totally on an avengers high right now. My favorite superhero movie ever. Finally, Whedon breaks his unlucky streak. I nearly stroked out when Loki tried to deliver a villainous denouncement to "The other guy." Anyone else would have known to just shut the fuck up, but not poor Loki.

I was thinking that too. Although, I just took it to inappropriate subtext with this. Even though the weapon is flaccid, they still have to whip it out.

Yo dude, way to break the streak of being considerate to people popping in for an impression of how good it is before going to see it. Please edit that part into tiny text.

One thing that was great in retrospect is how thematically similar (and basic plot similar) it ended up being to the original comics despite being very different.

*Outline of movie spoilers follow*


-Loki accidentally forming the Avengers
-Loki assuming the Hulk will prevent the team from stopping him
-The team concentrating more on impressing each other than solving the problem at first
-Iron Man coming up with new armors on the fly (always true, lol)

Only thing missing is Giant Man getting punked in front of his girlfriend. Maybe in Avengers 2...

I think this might be relevant to your interests (spoilers I suppose)

That is awesome! No chance it won't get taken down though.

That is Whedon for you. He arranges a double trope and subverts big time for laughs.

It has been asked and raised by DC fans why WB can't figure out how to do their movies where The Dark Knight appears to be more of an exception than the rule. If the reboot-reboot of Superman doesn't do well then there is little chance anyone will want to fund a live action Justice League and maybe we are better off without it. I personally think it is more a reflection that the basic underpinnings of Marvel characters and stories are more grounded than DC's characters and stories. It isn't that Thor is more "realistic" than Superman but it seems those at Marvel who are shepherding the stories and characters consider more questions and ideas that are in our real world.

This post has been edited by Tomar on May 5 2012, 11:38 PM

I need to say nothign more. Loved the film, but can't stand the idiots here in Australia who refuse to see it because "of that lame-o who was on Neighbors" (---eg Chris Hemsworth). I can't wait for the next one, this was definitely worth more than the time and money I spent lining up to watch it on opening day.

Although I definitely suggest to save your cash and watch it in 2D. The 3D version isn't worth the extra cash and headache.

BTW, on DC movies---Green Lantern was probably proof positive that DC doesn't know what the hell to do with any of their characters not named Batman.

Saw it again with people who hadn't seen yet. The guy I went with the first time did the same thing. Likely, this sort of behavior on a wide scale helped Avengers become the best opening weekend for a movie ever (not adjusted down for 3D or inflation or whatever of course).

Joss Whedon's next tv project sure as hell isn't going to be aired out of order and cancelled early, I can tell you that.

DC fails because they are owned by a movie studio, compared to Marvel which is the studio.

Of course only Joss could make a Wash moment for Marvel... I both love it and mourn it. Good show.

The swarma at the end didn't feel right. Like everyone was pissed. Or maybe the food was just bad.



Also you lampshade/handwave how Thor comes back to earth, but not how he knew to? Should've been mention of Heimdal.


Was there ever a miniepisode about the cellist?

uhhh, isn't Marvel owned by Disney?

This post has been edited by errantrogue on May 6 2012, 07:39 PM

They were probably just tired.

Marvel is a studio owned by Disney, that produces its own movies.

DC is a content factory for WB studios to make movies out of.

There is a difference.

So a good question is "What do they do next?" Clearly some sequels are in the works but would it be a good idea to add another movie and character into the mix? Who would that be? I'm not a comic expert so I honestly can't say.

According to stuff there's Iron Man 3 on the works.

I think it's fairly obvious that there will be separate movies followed by a team up taking on Thanos.

I'll open that up to something wider~

Who from the vast Marvel stable of characters CAN be featured in the movie?

Big Name or not. Who is there that can be used as a character?

They've announced release dates for Iron Man 3, Cap 2, and Thor 2.

There's always Squirrel Girl.

This post has been edited by -sam on May 7 2012, 05:15 AM

I would be really, really happy to see either Scarlet Witch or Miss Marvel in an Avengers 2 film, even if they didn't get their own films first.

Though since Thanos will be the villain for any Avengers 2 that may occur, I guess they could throw in Moondragon or something.

The talk of "new" movies has been Ant Man (with Wasp also in it) for some time now. I think it's a decent pick, growing and shrinking are visually very exciting powers so this idea that they "wouldn't work on film" is dumbtarded. If they actually let Edgar Wright do it, all the better.

Edit: Ms. Marvel is now Captain Marvel, so expect her to appear as such if she shows up.

This post has been edited by shoeboxjeddy on May 7 2012, 06:14 AM

I only asked that because although Iron Man 3 is coming and they can squeeze a new character into IM3 for Avengers 2, I suspect Marvel would rather introduce a new character with their own movie. Could we see something like Dr. Strange? I do wonder if they can pull in any mutants or is that locked under whatever standing agreements or plans for X-Men.

On the other hand, X-Men First Class was a stellar movie on its own and my mind cannon is melting under the idea that there is some way to combine the awesome goodness of both movies under one crazy umbrella. I don't mean take the First Class cast and crew but actually make strives to unify their "movie universe" farther. That is if they are going to do a The Scarlet Witch movie, let those guys do it.

This post has been edited by Tomar on May 7 2012, 07:30 AM

I'm really happy for Joss whedon. This is crowning-achievement-of-your-life stuff right here. They could have given this movie to any director and it would have been a hit, but I honestly believe that it became a massive hit because this is so very clearly a Joss Whedon script. I've been telling my friends and family for years that this guy is hilarious but I couldn't get them to watch Buffy, Angel, or Firefly. Now, they're borrowing my dvd sets and telling me that they're awesome. Feels good.

My hope is they can pull in Wolverine and the new Spiderman (trailers look promising). I mean, they were there to deal with Thanos/Infinity gauntlet with the Avengers, yes?

well, since it'll be at least 2-3 years off, I imagine Sony and Fox could find an equitable profit sharing arrangement to bring them in... but, that's expecting a LOT.

I'd like Thanos to at least have the illusion of a chance, kthx.


I would rather they keep the current film Avengers seperate and relatively small in number. Add in a couple new characters if they want, but keep them reasonable and not stupid. i.e. no ant man.

Also, they totally need to make a standalone with Fury/Hill/Hawkeye/Black Widow/maybeanothershieldperson.

This post has been edited by TheWinkel on May 7 2012, 04:46 PM

What I imagine people who have this stupid train of thought must think: "The guy who has no superhuman abilities but is real good at shooting bows is obviously a shoe-in. The girl with no powers and decent combat abilities is also a must. But the genius scientist with the ability to grow and shrink not only himself but also various pieces of equipment? I can't see any role for a guy like that..."

Or to be charitable, maybe you just don't like his characterization? In which case, that's just like your opinion man.

Black Widow and Hawkeye are pretty iconically Avengers, without the domestic abuse.

Er you can't get more iconic than "founding Avengers in both the original and Ultimate continuities." Which is Ant Man and Wasp. Yes there's the domestic abuse, but baggage is kind of Marvel's thing. Next you'll be saying Iron Man is a bad choice because of alcoholism.

Except that Ant Man sounds super lame. As someone who didn't necessarily read a lot of comics growing up but still likes good superhero movies, I don't really care about who the original Avengers were. I care more about an exciting movie with characters I've actually heard of.

Ant Man.

Dumb.

Srsly.

Counterpoint: Robert Downey Jr.

This post has been edited by TheWinkel on May 7 2012, 10:20 PM

See, now I'm getting the impression that neither of you know what the fuck you're talking about. "It seems lame to me just from thinking about it" is not a valid thing to say. Again, he can GROW TO GODZILLA SIZE. That is a really fucking useful power. Ant Man is not his only super hero name, he also goes by Giant Man (and various other things). And as for shrinking, Black Widow's stealth abilities are a joke compared to someone they can't even see. Plus, defeating the invincible bad guy by getting in their ear and damaging their brain is like its own super hero sub trope. Finally, Pym is in the top five of Marvel super scientists. This is a guy that Reed Richards is generally happy to work with. He is MUCH SMARTER THAN TONY.

I will not say he or Wasp are my favorite Avenger or anything like that. But this "lol Ant Man sucks" is garbage from people who would have said the same thing about Iron Man pre-his movie and said that Cap was stupid until Civil War and then said that even though he was okay in comics, a movie with him would never be good.

And Winks, way to miss the point there. You mentioned domestic abuse as a reason that he shouldn't be in the movies, but personal problems are kind of Marvel's bread and butter. Hence, Iron Man being super cool despite being an alky.

Umm...no.

Go sit down with Netflix, watch the first season of Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes (which personally I think should've been the per-requisite viewing for anyone seeing the movie), then come back and try forming an opinion on Ant Man again.

Gettin' angry about superheroes up in this piece. I read lots of comics when I was younger. And to be honest, I didn't really like Ant Man, and I didn't care for Wasp. I understand Ant Man's importance, I just wasn't interested in him as a character or a superhero. I was way more fond of Iron Man, Scarlet Witch, Ms. Marvel, and Spider-Woman (the Julia Carpenter version).

Though thinking about the line-up that they used and the way they seem to be playing things, I'm not sure how well Scarlet Witch or Spider-Woman would fit into the movies. The movie people seem to want to go with characters whose powers are more based on physical ability. But that would still leave room for Miss(/Captain) Marvel~

I'm aware of their place in the roster. The thing is it's a hell of a lot easier to walk back from alcoholism (in a film at anyrate). Wife beating isn't exactly something you redeem a character from in the last act.

Of course the films haven't even really addressed Stark's boozing, IM2 he was being self-destructive because of the palladium(?) poisoning not because of alcoholism, and he's stayed the Nick Charles style charming drunk so I doubt any film version of Ant Man is going to involve smacking Wasp.

If I'm honest most of my objection is to be contrary to the Comic-Con types who were experiencing the vapours over the thought of an Ant Man film/role in the avengers/Nathan Fillian(yes, he's cool, but chill it with him), etc. Petty? Sure. Plus, Ant Man & Wasp weren't a part of the Avengers when I read the comic regularly (back during their...30th anniversary? Which ever one they did the four metal covers) so I don't consider them a part of "my" Avengers.

I'm a little out of the loop.

Yes, let me go do some research and watch cartoons for a prerequisite to my major Hollywood movie whose plot was already set up by other major Hollywood movies.

They don't make comic book movies for the tiny niche of spergs, they make them for the general public. I am a member of the general public, and I don't care about GODZILLA SIZE OH MY GOODNESS GIANT MAN LIKE ATTACK OF THE FIFTY FOOT WOMAN. I don't care about a superhero suffering from a terrible case of Honey, I Shrunk the Kidsitis. Ant Man is a dumb name.

it'll be fine. Edgar Wright is the one making it, so even if the innate concept behind Ant-man is lame, it'll still be a fun movie.

Another reason to dislike Ant-Man, it's standing in the way of the next Frost/Pegg/Wright joint.

You're not required to do anything to see Avengers obviously. But you are required to have SOME BASIS for disliking Ant Man/Giant Man/Yellowjacket/Wasp for us to take you seriously. That's all. Like "I hated him in this cartoon I watched or this comic I read or this game I played" or something. Not "I'm extremely unimaginative and can't figure out a way for him to be interesting sight unseen." Pretty much any character in the right hands can be exciting and appealing. For Ant/Giant Man, Avengers Initiative and Academy have done wonders. He's also apparently good in the cartoon (which I haven't seen either).

Hahahahahah, let me introduce you to a few people, they're called humanity.

Sapphy also didn't originally want to see Thor, because she thought Thor was a dumb character. Then I badgered her into seeing it, and I think it's probably her favorite Avengers-lead-up movie?

But seriously, Ant Man is a pretty damn stupid codename.

Hey, I was trying to be reasonable. You CAN dislike anything for any reason, but it seems fair you have to at least have witnessed, observed, or partaken of that thing first. Like I dislike CoD, but I played 1, 2, 4, World at War, and Modern Warfare 2 before fully forming that opinion.

Well, DC went with "The Atom" for its shrinking hero. Which is good until you also realize they have a Captain Atom. And their powers are... slightly different.

(Batman calls for "Atom" to use his powers on the enemy, intending for them to be slightly shrunken down, instead they are exploded with a blast of radioactive power. He frowns, vengeancely.)

Oh and Pym's code names not being the best is canon and talked about in story. He has a nervous breakdown about people thinking he sucks. Honestly done right he's very interesting for story purposes.

Very enjoyable, much more so than I expected.

Still very formulaic, predictable and lacking in originality, but that's expected given the source material. I really liked it, but a few beers would have made it a lot easier to ignore the tropes and just enjoy the spectacle.

Yes, what this film clearly needed was more nerdy science arguments. Tony being an engineering genius and Bruce being a physics/chemistry genius covered most bases. I think the films need to be somewhat grounded - not in terms of 'realistic' superpowers, but simply in having a core cast that are very different to each other whilst small in number. All of Ant Man's character traits could be incorporated into the characters of the other Avengers.

I did really enjoy the film - far more than I was expecting to after the dull stupidness of Iron Man 2, Hulk and Captain America - and most of that came from how well the core cast worked together. As Crioca said it was pretty straightforward and heavy on tropes, but it was definitely good fun. The long tracking shot in the climax of all the heroes fighting together was gorram epic.

One of the surprising "details" built into the movie is how "bro-buddy" Banner and Stark turned out to be. And really that is the strength of the film where it wasn't about how cool it was for Hulk to beat crap up because we already know that. Instead it is stellar because of how the characters interact with Banner and how Banner interacts with them. Anyone new that gets added needs to be handled like that.

This post has been edited by Tomar on May 10 2012, 06:57 AM

I hereby open this topic to expanded discussion of WMG for the suquel movies coming next year and beyond.

I've been catching rumors that some form of the Ectremis idea will feature in the IM3 film. I've also heard theres singifigant filming being done in China. One of the actors slotted to appear has something of a Fu Manchu vibe going...

I suspect that, maybe, just maybe, Fin Fang Foom will appear in this movie. Mainly because as of Avengers, they've established Really Huge Monsters in the Marvel Movie-verse, thus it wont be a huge leap the way it would be if Avengers HADN'T come before IM3. As in the comics, much Sufficiently Advanced Technology will be involved.

As for why Iron Man would need Extremis...I think it'll be so he can go toe to toe with Mandarin, who already has Charles Atlas Superpower and the Ten Rings, and so will right out of the gate fight like someone Extremis enhanced and utterly maul Tony the first time they meet.

The second act would cap with IM Extremis enhanced and taking on Mandarin and winning, only for the Fin Fan Foom to awaken and then the need for IM and War Machine to go all out to destroy/subdue it.

Oh and The Foom will look like a cross between one of those big flying things and a Xenomorph.

By the way, late to say this, but did anyone else here who played Chrono Cross get HUGE "Time Devourer/Divine Dragon" vibes from those things?

Pretty sure they've confirmed Mandarin is NOT the villain for Iron Man 3, but they are very much looking at him for the future. Which is bass-ackwards of course, but it's the same thing they're doing with the whole alcoholism subplot. I'm mainly worried about how the stage 2 directors will fair for all the movies. Because pretty much none of the surprisingly good directors they got for the earlier movies are coming back (no for Iron Man 3, no for Thor 2, ? for Captain America 2). At least they aren't recasting anybody important yet.

As for the upcoming movies, I'm a lot more excited for more Thor and more Cap. Iron Man 2 was kind of ehhh for me, so they could bring it back and get me thrilled again, or let it slide to the point where I love RDJ as Iron Man, but sadly think that he's only really got good stuff to do in the Avengers stuff. I'm also curious about the new stuff. Both Ant Man and Guardians of the Galaxy (which should have Nova in it as the perspective character if they have any sense at all) are heavily rumored to exist before Avengers 2. Will people continue buying in? Will those ones be any good?

Finally, not the same thing, but will Amazing Spidey be any good? I mean, it has mountains of hate to overcome for... Sony continuing to make Spider-Man movies. Yeah, the logical move for them was clearly to give up their most profitable franchise (by a factor of like 10 probably) because Spider-Man 3 was bad. So I wonder if it'll be good despite all the HATEEEE or be okay to the point where the haters can maintain their pre-drawn battle lines safely or suck to where the decision making is criticized over the actual product.

Oddly enough, Movie Bob did an episode of "The Big Picture" on this very topic. And in stark relief, the situation WB and DC are in is much better than Marvel which is made even more remarkable they seem to really suck at the movie thing.

This post has been edited by Tomar on May 11 2012, 07:48 AM

The DC situation is better? Da fuck do you mean by that? They have ONE Batman movie in the can and then jack and shit. Green Lantern flopped, and they haven't even managed any others.

Without bothering to watch the thing, I can only assume he means that there are no messy rights issues with the DC characters since they are all owned by WB.

The relative merits of the films being put out goes back to what I was saying before about the difference between being owned by a studio and being the studio.

And yes, all three are going to have different directors, though in IM3's and Cap2's case I don't think that's a bad thing. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang was a great movie, and Cap2 needs to have a different feel than Cap1 because it's not going to be a period piece.

This post has been edited by -sam on May 11 2012, 08:13 AM

Shesh I can't figure what is with you sometimes. Better in the sense they haven't scattered their IP across multiple studios.

"The situation" was extremely unclear. Not trying to carry over hostility from other thread, it's possible (nay likely) I did so anyway.

Anyway, that's the only way that DC/WB has a leg up for sure. And even that they seem to be determined to shit down the drain.

As for the new directors, yeah it's a maybe good, maybe bad thing. Honestly the Iron Man director was probably not that good in the scheme of things. I don't know that he was a "true believer" in the whole shared universe thing, he really failed to sell it in 2. I dunno that all Joe Johnston can do is "period pieces" but it's certainly his favorite thing. And Kiss Kiss was a great movie. The main one I'm annoyed about losing is the Thor director. Getting that guy was a coup, not shocking he didn't want to do sequels. Game of Thrones is a good show, so a director from there isn't a total panic situation, but I guess we'll have to wait for results to know for sure.

Yeah, not bringing back Brannagh surprised me. With the exception of IM3 -- which is more RDJ doing his bro a solid -- Marvel seems to be treating directors like middle relievers, fungible assets you can pick up on the cheap and are entirely replaceable (movie directors, the new Extra 2%?).

On the other hand, that strategy has been immensely successful for them when it comes to money made, good movies made, not being harmed by bad movies.

And it gave us The Avengers, soooooooooo...yeah

No it didn't, we got Avengers because Marvel formed their own studio and built a film continuity.

...and that's part of their strategy. They wouldn't be where they are today without first testing the waters by licensing IPs. They needed the cash flow because they were really, really bad at making their own content and managing their IP.

It's also a benefit because they can focus on their Avengers property while still raking in the dough from their licensed IPs and not having to worry about the films themselves.

This post has been edited by TheWinkel on May 11 2012, 08:35 PM

On this point, after seeing the trailer in prior to Avengers. I have to say I think it looks like it'll at least be good.

If only for this line.

"Oh No! You've found my weakness! Tiny little knives!"

If this is a sampler of a Spidey who does much more GOOD snarking and messing with his enemies with lots of jokes. I may well be sold on charm alone.

The only weird bit is that it looks like their setting up that Peter was essentially always going to be Pider Man and was part of some secret project~


As for the Mandarin stuff. I'm hopeful their only saying that because China won't let them film there if the DO use him as a villain. Thus they are keeping it under wraps...Oh well~

Scattering their IP also got us Fantastic Four and Ghost Rider and Punisher which were mixed bags. It seems like the short term gain was good for Marvel to let everyone and everyone bid on their IP but now that their focus has changed they might regret it. And I definitely don't mean to imply one strategy is better than the other only that it seems like DC is freer to try things which is reflected in their animated shows. Everything has been kept "in house" for WB/DC and that seems to have a dubious track record as well.

I did get a chance to catch this movie again when a different set of friends wanted to see it. A second viewing allowed me to catch some smaller details. How much Whedon took pains to show scenes in pairs and threes. How Stark trying to call Potts at the end mirrors what Cap did at the end of CA especially after Cap's challenge to Stark. How hurt and exhausted everyone really was by the end and the scene with them going to out for shawarma afterwards made sense.

For some reason we in the UK didn't get that scene (they're known as kebabs here, and are more a late-night drunk food than appropriate superhero food, but I guess that's the joke...)

They filmed it after the international prints for the film were in production.

On the contrary, I think they got tired of other studios interfering with past movies and Stan Lee and the rest of the execs at Marvel decided to create their own production company so they had more control over how the characters were handled. Then they struck the deal with Disney so they have a media outlet with the financial backing and distribution network to create the movies they want. On a side note, I am wondering how long before Disney adds a Marvel characters themed area to one of the parks.

More Interesting to me would be seeing Marvel appear in Kingdom Hearts.

Naturally they would arrive their in the midst of Civil War...

Goofy would register. It's the law. Donald would let drafted into the thunderbolts, and Mickey would join the rebellion like a putz.

Disagree. When the Keyblade says to pick Riku instead of Sora, Goofy hesitates immediately and then defects first. So he's kinda like Spider-Man if anything.

And despite it sucking, I kind of think Fear Itself would be the KH Marvel storyline. It has all the themes needed to stick the Keyblade and "strength of heart" in there.

Really? I didn't pay much attention to Fear Itself cuz I felt like there were too many 'LOLCrisis!' happening when things are just coming up from the last one~

Should I invest in it? Does Iron Man do cool things with his new powers?

Oh it's a fucking terribly done story with really solid art. I just think "Fear consumes the world, only courage and friendship can save the day" couldn't be any more perfect for Kingdom Hearts if they had planned it that way. And the baddies in it might as well have been Heartless...

Whereas Civil War themes don't match KH AT ALL. The closest we've seen to government is Jasmine in Agrabah and that's not much. Mickey is the kind of King who just ups and leaves without even telling his advisors. Line of succession? HA HA HA, what's that?

So we just got home from seeing the Avengers again. With all the laughing in the theater after the Hulk/Loki scene when we first saw it, we didn't hear the next minute or so. Hearing that little painful wheeze from Loki as he lay there was utterly hilarious.

I still couldn't stop laughing during the entirety of the schwarama scene.

The only way they could have improved the schwarama scene is to have Loki tied up in the background waiting while they ate.

Like this?Loki'd

Saw it, enjoyed it.

One thing did bother me though: Did anyone else feel deeply underwhelmed by Captain America? Now, next to the Hulk or Thor, sure, I can understand why he stands in their shadow. He doesn't fly, he isn't a Norse God, he can't toss a semi truck like it's a cinderblock.

However, he seemed second fiddle to Black Widow. I know Joss Whedon likes to write super powered women, that's his schtick, but Captain America didn't really do shit in the movie. Black Widow was doing "Neo from the Matrix" shit while the only successful recipient of the super soldier serum kinda just stood around and said "Go get 'em, champ." Hawkeye greatly overshadowed Captain America. He just seemed to be a not-especially-super soldier.

Reading back on earlier arguments in this thread: The reason why Ant/Giant-Man would be good for this whole movie universe is less to do with Ant-Man, more to do with his villain: Ultron is a pretty classic Avengers villain, and would work well being a serious threat to the group. Having Ultron established in an independent Giant-Man (Call him Giant-Man, I agree Ant-Man sounds absolutely stupid) film would be good for a potential Avengers follow up. Ultron is sort of a Skynet/Braniac style entity, and poses a pretty credible threat to humanity and could be pretty well done imo.

This post has been edited by jw on May 22 2012, 06:04 PM

He was in the awkward middle ground, with regard to powers. He can't dominate screen time by blowing things up with his hands, he's not immortal, he's not the most highly paid actor - but he's still too much of a star for the audience to seriously worry about him, which is where the 'norm' characters have the advantage. Unfortunately, they're also more interesting by default - interrogation skills and trick arrows were rather more useful to the plot than 'throwing a shield', and the command role in the movie went to Nick Fury, not the Captain.

But hey, he did a good job pulling that lever, right? And recognising electricity?

He was sort of overshadowed by a lot of the other characters, but I still liked Cap in the movie. The Agent Coulson gag regarding the playing cards (Black Widow mentioning them, then cutting later to Coulson talking about them) worked very well.

One thing I noticed in the movie is the way they used him for action scenes. He's helping out a lot of the other characters who are otherwise doing their own bit of the battle Redirecting one of Iron Man's blasts to hit the baddie, using his shield as a lift for Black Widow, and even helping to break up/put some calm into Iron Man and Thor during their little squabble in the woods.

They used him well as an asset to bring the action together and to help keep order among the heroes (and the police, as he gave them instructions).

Yeah, I remembered that after finishing my last post. He does have a few good scenes, they're just not as stand out as those focused on other characters. I'm not really sure if it's the best use of his character (he is a Captain after all, and wasn't the Cap more of a dominant hero in the comics?) but he's fairly affable in that role at least.

Comedy 'is a Christian despite personally knowing two gods' reference here. Although that was actually a nice bit of characterization.

As was mentioned elsewhere on the web, Steve Rogers has 30 minutes of extra screentme that was shot for the introduction of the film. This is cut out to make the film shorter, but will be put back in the DVD/Bluray. Hence Steve got less screen time in the cinema; he had his moments already, though off screen to us.

Also, I don't think having Captain America wander around dazzled by computers and lasers would add much to the story either. There might have been more to play with the idea that just weeks ago he was in WW2 fighting for his life and that he thinks everyone is not taking the threats seriously but that could get melodramatic. They also could have tried to show off more how much better a field commander he is than the others but I'm not what kind of setup they'd need to do this.

There is a lot of second guessing here. Tinkering with the movie in an effort to "make it better" could possibly break it by messing with the pace further or adding distractions.

This post has been edited by Tomar on May 23 2012, 07:29 AM

That would make sense, since it seems clear from the film that the Cap has been catching up since he woke up - he's not technically knowledgeable, but nor is he totally ignorant of the modern world. A missing 30 minutes(!) would not be a jarring introduction to the film, and would fill in some holes as well as give him more presence in the story.

Saw the movie, think shawarmas are overrated, enjoyed it, didn't think it's nearly as good as most of you think it is.

Best part of the movie for me was the final battle in SPOILER SPOILER City because I know like, half of the SPOILERS and there are probably as many places selling shawarmas as I can spit at from the top of the SPOILER building.

May they continue to make epic battle scenes in SPOILER SPOILER.

Agreed about diminished role on Cap'n. He is important and a major attraction to this work, and can use more help bringing him up to balance. This is tricky when you have to balance plot dosage in a limited amount of time to an increasing number of characters. To be honest, it's the actors that makes the characters; the rest is a strange new franchising effect. As a character-driven film I think the Avengers is pretty lousy. As a mindless blockbuster it's pretty delicious..

I think it would make the film sucky. It's good they cut it! Not that more material for him is bad or anything, but com'on.

I mean, at this point, why even bother? I should just wait until they release all of it and treat it like some TV miniseries. Because this is kind of what it is going to end up being.

Bleh, that much extra to the film itself wouldn't be good, but as an optional extra on the Bluray it would have been nice to see.

Perhaps this is some kind of advanced joke telling technique, if so I apologize for stepping all over it. But if not, umm 90% of the Marvel Universe orbits New York City. Saying there's a big battle there is so not spoilery it's not funny. Also, the trailer clearly showed the final battle in New York City like three times.

As for Cap, yeah more Cap would be nice, but the pretty excellent pacing is nicer in the long run. I would watch the crap out of deleted scenes though. Speaking of DVD stuff, the Cap DVD pisses me off. They put all the features only on the Blu Ray. Because fuck people who haven't traded up, there's no way those people would want to see a short film starring Agent Coulson and Tony Stark.

To be fair, the Nazis in his WW II had lasers, haha.

I don't think he needed more backstory (He had a movie of backstory), but he definitely didn't do much in the action scenes. He could have done at least one really bad ass thing, and it wouldn't have added 30 minutes.

This post has been edited by jw on May 23 2012, 10:19 PM

You should just get a BluRay player, they're dirt cheap nowadays and the picture quality is fantastic. We still buy DVDs if they're super cheap, but specific movies get blRay priority.

I've had one for like a year, but it wasn't in a position to be hooked up. More importantly, blu rays are way more expensive and now that it is hooked up, we only get the video advances, not the sound ones. So I still am not really into the whole thing. The problem with blu ray (for me) is that it's not a paradigm shift like VHS to DVD was. It's just you know... shinier. You can see the moles in people's faces and how shit the SFX are in middle range movies. HD for gaming was a much bigger deal.

@jw, I thought Cap had some cool stuff happen for him. Blocking Thor's shield, being the man on the ground to first deal with Loki, and blocking the grenade were all cool stuff. Also, he's the only hero who had specific testimonials about him in the news at the end (Iron Man was an art focus though). I am slightly worried about his role in a more cosmic movie though...

Cleveland?

That's why I tend to buy BRD's when they're on sale/gone into deep discount mode because you're right, 30 bucks is too much. Though I'm highly tempted by that Fear and Loathing Criterion blu-ray.

It's not necessarily that I think the movie was the most amazing thing ever, but it was damn enjoyable to watch. I am impressed by the implications though, as Marvel just pulled off setting up and executing a shared universe movie franchise pretty well. We've had it in comics, but I've never seen it executed on the big screen before.

It sorta reminds me of the excitement back when The Lord of the Rings trilogy was being filmed.

It's not the best movie of the year (that would be Cabin in the Woods), but it was certainly a fun movie.

You know, the only guy I know here in Oz loudly claiming the movie sucked is an (extremely embarassing) Batman fanboy--yes, he's going around proclaiming how he hates people who watch the Avengers and tht the next Batman movie will rule.

No, I was stopped short of doing the Hulk on him, sadly.

That Batman fanboy must not be a fan of the Justice League cartoon. Justice League America had a lot of the same storytelling styling as the Avengers, actually. Serious moments with fun fights but slapstick thrown in every once in a while.

I enjoy the new Batman movies too (except in regards to Batman's rabid growling), but they're a very different type of superhero movie.

DARK DARK DARK BROOD BROOD BROOD PUNCH PUNCH BROOD DARK DRAMA BROOD RUN CHASE PUNCH BROOD BROOD

lol more like "being a superhero doesn't grant Batman any special privileges in terms of winning." Whereas in the previous 4, the threat level is extremely low from the very start. And it only gets lower as the movie progresses. The Nolan Batman movies treat the story like a normal thriller. Every threat is plausible to the hero, he certainly has skills but those only allow for the possibility of success, not the near certainty.

For comparison, the Avengers had the advantage the moment they got their shit together. The struggling part was just getting over themselves. Ditto Iron Man and Thor. Captain America's movie was a bit different, but still the moment he gains the respect of the army, he wins like 20 battles in a row.

I think you've misread Wink's post just a wee bit.



























MY PARENTS ARE DEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAD

Quick one: Why I like Tony Stark better than Bruce Wayne:

Bruce is a costumed vigilante prtending to be a billionaire playboy.

Tony is a Billionaire playboy pretending to be a costumed...hero. Wait, I don't think "Vigilante" fits Tony Stark. That and he doesn't make a secret of his secret identity. And he has a sense of humor. And most of the hot chicks he picks up don't have major psych issues--well MOST, anyway. And that he has--ACDC MUSIC playing when he curbstomps people. And the witty one-liners.

...face it. Tony's a lot more fun to be around than Bruce.

This post has been edited by Wavehawk on Jun 10 2012, 04:55 AM

Has anyone in the history of comics or comics fandom ever thought Batman was meant to be a fun guy to be around? :/

(quietly looks at the bunch of chubby kids in batman and robin costumes going ZAM! WHAPOW! ZING! in the neighbor's backyard...) Adam West, thank you.

In all honesty, I think it's more of the number of people who equate DarkBroodByronic = Cool Character (Bats is the poster boy for that archetype). Kind of like how media equate Realism = dark and negative. Nothing to do with the character himself, more of the fans taking everything too seriously. I was a huge Batman fan until recently--lightening up helps.

Uh, nevermind. I just found out having a coughcoldbackache combination sort of makes me think like a drunk, so I may not be making any sense at all here...

This post has been edited by Wavehawk on Jun 11 2012, 04:25 AM

Joss is officially signed on to write/direct Avengers 2 as well as a mysterious Avengers (or at least Marvel) TV show. Woop woop

I hope he has a don't let the network fuck with the show clause for this Marvel heroes TV show. I guaruntee he doesn't want a repeat of what Fox did to Firefly.

If you consider the very next show Whedon made was broadcast on his vile betrayer, I don't think Whedon has ever much worried about that.

Either way, nice to see him back in TV in some capacity.

J August Richards is Luke Cage?

Gina Torres as Misty Knight? Pretty please?

I wonder what the take on a tv series would be? In any case, it's always fun to speculate on dream casting choices.

Noooooooooooooooo, Pepper D:

Oh, what is that oh-so-delightful sound of agony I hear?