The Avengers: Age of Ultron [ SPOILERS FROM POST 599 ONWARD ]

Mickeroo · 18-09-2015 10:59AM

Bacchus wrote: »

Agreed. AoU built on everything that worked in The Avengers but it was missing Loki. Ultron was an interesting baddie, probably the most interesting Marvel have had after Loki, but he was still not at the same level as Loki. The only other criticism I'd have of AoU compared to The Avengers would be that it felt a little bit disjointed in parts, like there was a good bit of material left on the cutting room floor. Pity we'll never see a directors cut.

I enjoyed AoU a fair bit but it was really missing the moments like the first team up had such as Thor whacking Hulk on the carrier or the "I'm always angry" but which is still probably the best single moment in any Marvel film. There also wasn't as much of the humour there like Hulk hitting Thor or "Puny God" that kept things quite fun and fresh the first time around. come to think of it, most of my complaints seem to stem from Hulk not stealing the show.

Penn · 18-09-2015 11:13AM

Mickeroo wrote: »

I enjoyed AoU a fair bit but it was really missing the moments like the first team up had such as Thor whacking Hulk on the carrier or the "I'm always angry" but which is still probably the best single moment in any Marvel film. There also wasn't as much of the humour there like Hulk hitting Thor or "Puny God" that kept things quite fun and fresh the first time around. come to think of it, most of my complaints seem to stem from Hulk not stealing the show.

I dunno. Vision lifting Mjolnir gives me serious chills every time. As does everyone fighting with each other while Thor slides in and lightnings the cradle.

I agree the "I'm always angry" is probably the best Marvel moment to date, but AoU still had a fair few pretty damn good moments itself.

don ramo · 18-09-2015 11:29AM

i think they made the best film they could, while also ramping up expansion of the MCU, get loads of new characters into the fold, i think civil war and infinity wars are gonna where we see the pay off of this,

whedon did complain about having to fight to get scenes into the film and had to compromise by putting other scenes into the film that seemed outta place, like thors secondary story making no sense at all, but its a set-up for Thor Ragnarok,

avengers is supposed to just spectacle, its just eye candy for the other 4 or 5 films that came out over the last year or two, and set-up for the next 2 years of films, its the individual films where the story progresses, bar iron man 3, phase 2 was pretty great, thor 2 was an improvement on 1, winter soldier was a massive improvement on a fine 1st captain america film, and we had gauadians of the galaxy also getting ready to enter the MCU probably in infinity wars,

the franchise i do think has gone past saturation, its just to big, and at a point where expectations are not gonna be met, you had ant man, and you have dr strange and a new spider man film, on top of captain america 3, thor 3 and guardians of the galaxy 2, all due out before infinity wars 1, its just crazy, but bar the avengers 2 and iron man 2 and 3 i think all the other films have gotten better and better, it might be a bit much, but their still making more good films than they are bad,

don ramo · 18-09-2015 11:38AM

Penn wrote: »

I agree the "I'm always angry" is probably the best Marvel moment to date, but AoU still had a fair few pretty damn good moments itself.

Bacchus · 18-09-2015 03:32PM

Penn wrote: »

I dunno. Vision lifting Mjolnir gives me serious chills every time. As does everyone fighting with each other while Thor slides in and lightnings the cradle.

I agree the "I'm always angry" is probably the best Marvel moment to date, but AoU still had a fair few pretty damn good moments itself.

Hulk defo stole the show in The Avengers which is a big plus for that movie.

AoU had a lot of great moments. The fight between Iron Man and Hulk lived up to all expectations. It was thrilling. Vison's birth was another great scene (flying across the room and stopping suddenly so gracefully at the window, lifting Mjolnir, mimicking Thor's cape). I really enjoyed the creepy first encounter with Ultron too. "Jane's better". Hulk in the jet at the end (a rare sad moment in Marvel movies).

A few things, thinking about it now, that detracted from AoU were Thor's side journey (it felt out of place) & Quicksilver (he just wasn't a great character and lost out to the X-Men incarnation).

Chris_Heilong · 18-09-2015 06:14PM

Hulk not having any dialog hurt the film IMO, made him less of a character, there were too many "funny" lines from all the characters which I didnt like the first time I seen it but on repeated viewing its forgivable, Its a really good movie and is almost great.

Nervous Wreck · 18-09-2015 09:14PM

Hulk may not have said any words but his dialogue with Black Widow, though unspoken, was one of the strongest elements. The fact that it was Hulk, not Banner, who made the decision the leave at the end was very poignant.

constitutionus · 18-09-2015 09:30PM

Bacchus wrote: »

Hulk defo stole the show in The Avengers which is a big plus for that movie.

AoU had a lot of great moments. The fight between Iron Man and Hulk lived up to all expectations. It was thrilling. Vison's birth was another great scene (flying across the room and stopping suddenly so gracefully at the window, lifting Mjolnir, mimicking Thor's cape). I really enjoyed the creepy first encounter with Ultron too. "Jane's better". Hulk in the jet at the end (a rare sad moment in Marvel movies).

A few things, thinking about it now, that detracted from AoU were Thor's side journey (it felt out of place) & Quicksilver (he just wasn't a great character and lost out to the X-Men incarnation).

"well, i was born yesterday".

great line.

allibastor · 22-09-2015 11:07AM

Penn wrote: »

I dunno. Vision lifting Mjolnir gives me serious chills every time. As does everyone fighting with each other while Thor slides in and lightnings the cradle.

I agree the "I'm always angry" is probably the best Marvel moment to date, but AoU still had a fair few pretty damn good moments itself.

A thing I found very disappointing with that line, not so much the actual line, but that it did set up for a very much Banner controlled Hulk.
If he was able to master the transformation, it should have followed on to some extent that he was able to have more control over the Hulk.
It was even hinted in Avengers that Hulk got humor and so on, but in AoU he seemed to be back to the basic form of Hulk smash and not much else.

Also, his strength seems to change an awful lot. From one shoting the space dragon thing, to being knocked about by iron man, Hulk is meant to get stonger as he is mad, yet when he was Mind played he should have been all out rage, yet has trouble with smashing very much- When he hit the car with the lady in it he only dented the roof!

eviltimeban · 22-09-2015 11:16AM

I was a bit disappointed with the Vision. I loved the character, and Paul Bettany's reading of it, but he sort of... didn't do much. He was supposed to be the most powerful being in the universe or whatever, with a bloody great bit infinity stone shoved in his head, but after his initial impact he sort of went off screen, and then was just flying around shooting laser beams from his head.

Surely a being with this power could just snap his fingers and all the bad guys would fall down dead? Like, it took them as long to clear up all the flying robots in AoU as it did all the aliens in AA. The Vision should've made that child's play.

A friend of mine said AoU was just another city-destroying action set piece and he wasn't far off.

And yeah, the Thor bit in the water was like "eh...?"

Chip Whitley · 22-09-2015 11:43AM

During the Hulk v Hulkbuster fight I loved Robert Downey Jr's delivery of "I'm Sorry" and "GoToSleep, GoToSleep, GoToSleep, GoToSleep..."

They were up there with Avengers Assembles Hulk smacking Thor and "Puny God' for me.

allibastor · 22-09-2015 11:48AM

Chip Whitley wrote: »

During the Hulk v Hulkbuster fight I loved Robert Downey Jr's delivery of "I'm Sorry" and "GoToSleep, GoToSleep, GoToSleep, GoToSleep..."

They were up there with Avengers Assembles Hulk smacking Thor and "Puny God' for me.

Its why he gets paid the big bucks!!!

I would imagine they would have made so much more in a film he if wasnt paid 50 Million.

Penn · 22-09-2015 04:44PM

eviltimeban wrote: »

I was a bit disappointed with the Vision. I loved the character, and Paul Bettany's reading of it, but he sort of... didn't do much. He was supposed to be the most powerful being in the universe or whatever, with a bloody great bit infinity stone shoved in his head, but after his initial impact he sort of went off screen, and then was just flying around shooting laser beams from his head.

Surely a being with this power could just snap his fingers and all the bad guys would fall down dead? Like, it took them as long to clear up all the flying robots in AoU as it did all the aliens in AA. The Vision should've made that child's play.

The Vision isn't *that* powerful. The Mind Stone definitely grants him a lot of power, but he's not powerful enough to just snap his fingers and destroy all the robots. The powers of the Mind stone are more so to do with mind control, while also being able to shoot energy. You also have to take into consideration that The Vision is new. He might not even know how much power he has or how to use it fully.

I think you're expecting a bit much from him, let alone that if he did have that much power it'd be a boring-ass final fight in the film.

dr.fuzzenstein · 22-09-2015 10:00PM

Penn wrote: »

The Vision isn't *that* powerful. The Mind Stone definitely grants him a lot of power, but he's not powerful enough to just snap his fingers and destroy all the robots. The powers of the Mind stone are more so to do with mind control, while also being able to shoot energy. You also have to take into consideration that The Vision is new. He might not even know how much power he has or how to use it fully.

I think you're expecting a bit much from him, let alone that if he did have that much power it'd be a boring-ass final fight in the film.

Vision walks on, snaps fingers, all baddies drop dead. The End, cut to kebab shop. :pac:

Nervous Wreck · 22-09-2015 10:11PM

allibastor wrote: »

A thing I found very disappointing with that line, not so much the actual line, but that it did set up for a very much Banner controlled Hulk.
If he was able to master the transformation, it should have followed on to some extent that he was able to have more control over the Hulk.
It was even hinted in Avengers that Hulk got humor and so on, but in AoU he seemed to be back to the basic form of Hulk smash and not much else.

The only part of the movie where he was out of control was when Scarlet Witch had gotten inside his head. For the rest of the movie, he was very much able to, to quote from The Incredible Hulk, "not control it, but maybe direct it." In the opening and closing battles, Hulk was aware of who he, his teammates and the civilians were and who he needed to smash. They were very distinct to him. After he was finished smashing and had nowhere to direct his rage, he paced back and forth kicking things until his lullaby. I thought it was all really well done.

eviltimeban · 23-09-2015 09:15AM

dr.fuzzenstein wrote: »

Vision walks on, snaps fingers, all baddies drop dead. The End, cut to kebab shop. :pac:

I'd have preferred that to "let's destroy another city".

Foxtrol · 23-09-2015 01:34PM

eviltimeban wrote: »

I'd have preferred that to "let's destroy another city".

This keeps coming up and I don’t really get it. What do you really expect/want to see from the end of an Avengers movie?

dr.fuzzenstein · 23-09-2015 02:03PM

eviltimeban wrote: »

I'd have preferred that to "let's destroy another city".

They can't really say to the baddie "Actually, would you mind awfully if we move this battle to a less densely populated area, there's a good chap?"

Penn · 23-09-2015 02:26PM

Foxtrol wrote: »

This keeps coming up and I don’t really get it. What do you really expect/want to see from the end of an Avengers movie?

Agreed. Hell at least this time they spent a huge amount of focus in getting people to safety both before and during the fight.

dr.fuzzenstein · 23-09-2015 02:43PM

This (left) was one of the best version of the Avengers though:

Thargor · 23-09-2015 02:43PM

Because its boring, there's no danger to any of the characters and we've seen it all before, you know the city isn't going to be destroyed so its just mush. at least with DC there's a chance of something interesting happening.

PirateShampoo · 23-09-2015 02:48PM

Penn wrote: »

Agreed. Hell at least this time they spent a huge amount of focus in getting people to safety both before and during the fight.

Think that was mostly to do with the amount of BS Man of Steel got over destroying a city.

dr.fuzzenstein · 23-09-2015 02:57PM

PirateShampoo wrote: »

Think that was mostly to do with the amount of BS Man of Steel got over destroying a city.

That was hardly the controversial sticking point of MOS. I remember everyone screaming about Zod.

pixelburp · 23-09-2015 03:38PM

Foxtrol wrote: »

This keeps coming up and I don’t really get it. What do you really expect/want to see from the end of an Avengers movie?

It's deadening, and only serves to emphasise how little is at stake for the characters. And yes, no matter how super the heroes are, they're still meant to be characters. That it's the Avengers doesn't mean the finale has to be reduced to only spectacle. At least the original film, while being itself an orgy of urban destruction, made narrative sense because it was a demonstration of the Avengers overcoming their differences and personality clashes to work together. Clichéd as hell but it gelled together.

Avengers 2 did the classic thing that sequels often do by assuming the next film has to out-do the previous in terms of scale or showiness. What was at stake? Ok yes a city, lots of civilians but they were just background details. It was a nice touch to show heroes being actually heroic, but ultimately was hard to be in any way invested in something when the scale and spectacle was so vast, with resonance with the characters' journeys. The first half of the film openly played with the notion of Tony Stark / Banner going too far and splitting the team, but it came to nothing by the films end - nope, we gotta have thousands of CGI extras exploding again.

Oddly, Civil War looks like the third act Avengers 2 could have been, which just made Avengers 2 feel even more hollow.

Kev W · 23-09-2015 03:40PM

Thargor wrote: »

Because its boring, there's no danger to any of the characters and we've seen it all before, you know the city isn't going to be destroyed so its just mush. at least with DC there's a chance of something interesting happening.

Except in AOU the city did get destroyed. Also one of the characters died.

Foxtrol · 23-09-2015 03:46PM

Thargor wrote: »

Because its boring, there's no danger to any of the characters and we've seen it all before, you know the city isn't going to be destroyed so its just mush. at least with DC there's a chance of something interesting happening.

One of the characters died (be it a new one) which I think counts for enough danger. No matter where they had a battle we knew most of the characters were returning due to Marvel’s announcements of future movies so there was no danger to them.

All signs are pointing to the cumulative destruction by the Avengers being a key driver for the Civil War storyline so having a battle in the middle of nowhere doesn’t move the narrative at all.

You simply cant reasonably compare anything DC have produced to the Avengers. All the recent DC movies are focused on a single hero while the Avengers is an ensemble cast. People want to see each character in action so there pretty much has to be a big battle scene with numerous enemies fight and/or civilians that need to be saved in order to give characters something to do. I can guarantee the Justice League movie will have one or the other of these.

Foxtrol · 23-09-2015 03:55PM

pixelburp wrote: »

It's deadening, and only serves to emphasise how little is at stake for the characters. And yes, no matter how super the heroes are, they're still meant to be characters. That it's the Avengers doesn't mean the finale has to be reduced to only spectacle. At least the original film, while being itself an orgy of urban destruction, made narrative sense because it was a demonstration of the Avengers overcoming their differences and personality clashes to work together. Clichéd as hell but it gelled together.

Avengers 2 did the classic thing that sequels often do by assuming the next film has to out-do the previous in terms of scale or showiness. What was at stake? Ok yes a city, lots of civilians but they were just background details. It was a nice touch to show heroes being actually heroic, but ultimately was hard to be in any way invested in something when the scale and spectacle was so vast, with resonance with the characters' journeys. The first half of the film openly played with the notion of Tony Stark / Banner going too far and splitting the team, but it came to nothing by the films end - nope, we gotta have thousands of CGI extras exploding again.

Oddly, Civil War looks like the third act Avengers 2 could have been, which just made Avengers 2 feel even more hollow.

You could say that about most of the Marvel movies, nearly all setup/lead into the next. AOU clearly had a third act which closed off the Ultron storyline. The obvious flow from one movie to the next is just becoming more apparent now for the characters that have been around since phase 1 and I can only see it ramping up further in the lead up to Infinity Wars. I can say you’ll likely feel the exact same about the end of Civil War too so get yourself prepared.

johnny_ultimate · 23-09-2015 03:57PM

pixelburp wrote: »

Oddly, Civil War looks like the third act Avengers 2 could have been, which just made Avengers 2 feel even more hollow.

Why provide emotional, thematic or dramatic resolution when there's another half dozen tickets (at least) you want your audience to buy?

That's IMO the fundamental flaw that makes so many of these films come across as cynical, unresolved and shallow. Ironically, it's the Avengers films that suffer worst from that particular affliction - while they should IMO feel like a culmination of the half dozen standalone films that preceded them, they instead feel like a glorified commercial break and a cheap tease for the next phase. To use TV as a comparison (given there's not really any cinematic equivalent to a serialised mega-franchise such as the Marvel films), a good season finale will provide a satisfying conclusion to an arc while setting the scene for what comes next. The Avengers IMO have failed to achieve that, always pointing towards some future development in the Marvel universe rather than taking the time to truly do its own thing.

Mickeroo · 23-09-2015 04:03PM

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

Why provide emotional, thematic or dramatic resolution when there's another half dozen tickets (at least) you want your audience to buy?

That's IMO the fundamental flaw that makes so many of these films come across as cynical, unresolved and shallow. Ironically, it's the Avengers films that suffer worst from that particular affliction - while they should IMO feel like a culmination of the half dozen standalone films that preceded them, they instead feel like a glorified commercial break and a cheap tease for the next phase. To use TV as a comparison (given there's not really any cinematic equivalent to a serialised mega-franchise such as the Marvel films), a good season finale will provide a satisfying conclusion to an arc while setting the scene for what comes next. The Avengers IMO have failed to achieve that, always pointing towards some future development in the Marvel universe rather than taking the time to truly do its own thing.

Don't agree with that at all, there's not a single marvel film regardless of quality that doesn't have a complete story arch. They set stuff up for future films like a series has to but that stuff is never the main focus of the story of each individual film.

Foxtrol · 23-09-2015 04:05PM

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

Why provide emotional, thematic or dramatic resolution when there's another half dozen tickets (at least) you want your audience to buy?

That's IMO the fundamental flaw that makes so many of these films come across as cynical, unresolved and shallow. Ironically, it's the Avengers films that suffer worst from that particular affliction - while they should IMO feel like a culmination of the half dozen standalone films that preceded them, they instead feel like a glorified commercial break and a cheap tease for the next phase. To use TV as a comparison (given there's not really any cinematic equivalent to a serialised mega-franchise such as the Marvel films), a good season finale will provide a satisfying conclusion to an arc while setting the scene for what comes next. The Avengers IMO have failed to achieve that, always pointing towards some future development in the Marvel universe rather than taking the time to truly do its own thing.

I agree with a lot of this but I think your viewing of it is somewhat flawed. You’re looking at each phase being a season when it’s clear that using your comparison the Infinity War movies will be the end of the first season. Everything has slowly built towards them not AA or AOU, so you're not going to get a big payoff/closure after either movie.

The Avengers: Age of Ultron [** SPOILERS FROM POST 599 ONWARD **]

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The Avengers: Age of Ultron [ SPOILERS FROM POST 599 ONWARD ]