f13.net

We've discussed this a little in other related threads (Thor) but with the leak of the imminent trailer, it seems time to give its own thread.

Trailer up on this site with full rundown (as it's very poor quality) (http://furiousfanboys.com/2011/07/the-avengers-trailer-has-leaked/). It's apparently going to be the post credits easteregg on the Captain America movie.

Concept art from San Diego Comic-Con. Spoilered for huge-ness.

So it's a known thing that Loki is the Big Bad along with the Cosmic Cube, which is confirmed by the clip.

But I'm thinking, come on, you can't just have Loki as the bad guy. And yet you don't want to do a lot of introductions of bad guys, either--that'll slow the movie down a lot.

Rumor has it that the other bad guys are the Skrulls, which I find pretty ho-hum, because I can see how the script's going to go--Avengers have to learn enough about each other that they can actually tell the difference between a Skrull version and the real deal, etc.

On the other hand, none of the characters have a Rogues' Gallery from their own films except for Thor due to the propensity of superhero-movies to kill off villains.

Archer Guy is so fucking lame. At least the RedHead is using a gun.

I'm hoping they keep up with the Ultimates interpretation, and have him basically a re skinned version of bullseye.  In the Comic he used the bow for some specialty purposes, but also would just blow people away with a gun.

I would go nuts over a live action version of Ultimates 1 and 2. I think they should have skipped the Thor movie and done the whole is he / isn't he mystery in the Avengers like they did in Ultimates.

I wouldn't be surprised to see the Avengers fighting the Hulk for at least part of the movie.

Yeah, fighting the hulk would be a good starter battle where they could really show off since the hulk is well, pretty BA

Welp it worked pretty well in the original comic.

And again in the Ultimates.

Oh, that would be good.  See Thor stand toe to toe with the Hulk...nerdgasm.  Plus, Banner would fill the role of the team scientist (Stark's an engineer).  Although Hawkeye might be a bit dismayed when the Hulk shoves his bow sideways up his arse.

Well to be fair its already happened...  :why_so_serious:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWmHEF_PT8E

Dammit I know too many cheesy 80s movies...

I remember that. To be fair, it was obviously a made for TV movie, and it was kinda cool that they made one about Hulk and Thor instead of, you know, Cagney & Lacey or whatever.

I guess your going to be sad when it's Hawkeye who wins the fight by shooting the arrow full of serum that turns Banner back to normal, just as he's about to pound one of the avengers into paste.   :awesome_for_real:

I hope they take the part from Ultimates where the Hulk goes apeshit and eats the alien leader because Cap told him he overheard the aliens say the Hulk was gay.

Man, I was just thinking that I hope they ignore most of the bullshit in the first series of Ultimates, like the "You think this 'A' stands for France?" and so on. Course all that looks pretty good compared to the Loeb stuff later on with the Blob cannibalizing the Wasp, etc.  I think they've already taken most of the good stuff from the Ultimates and used it for some fresh angles on the standard Marvel characters.

I would be happier if they adapted Wasp's tactic for stopping Hulk in the first run for Black Widow.

Yeah but flashing the Hulk her tits was only temporary solution anyway...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/21/the-avengers-d23-panel-clips_n_932378.html

Press conference with new scene released. Dont think its online yet.

Oh hai...here's a full 2-min HD trailer   :awesome_for_real:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=SDV-t5sgDgI

I am not liking them recasting The Hulk for a 3rd time...

Meh, just think of it as they changed the artist for this run or whatever.

Given the ego of the actors already in the movie, I think throwing Eddie Norton into it would have created an ego black hole that would have collapsed in on itself and turned them all into really nice, easy going people.

Yeah ed norton would have been too boss.

According to the wiki, Lou Ferrigno is the voice of the Hulk.  Nice homage. 

Graaaah, the edit for the backing music on that video did my head in. It's not a track designed to be cut and pasted like that...

Eh, it still gave me a happy-pants feeling. Excellent choice of music, regardless of editing.

He did the grunts and roars and iconic "Hulk smash!!!" in the Ed Norton movie too.  :grin:

Yeah but Im a big fan of the actor they hired.

Oh yeahhhhhh!  More Iron Man, more Thor!  Still not that crazy to see the Hulk in, but I can certainly stand SJ and Jeremy Renner.

I also think Loki is a good choice of villain (wasn't he the first one in the comics anyway?  Pretty sure), Tom Huddleston(sp?) is really, really good.  I mean, I knew Loki was the big bad in "Thor" but he still generated empathy.

I'm willing to bet loki is not the final bad guy in the movie.

Just not liking the way Ruffalo looks for Banner. Too meaty.

My thoughts exactly.  I thought Banner was supposed to be nerdy/scrawny when he's not Hulk-ed out?

Shia Labeouf?   :why_so_serious:

You shut your mouth!   :ye_gods:

I was going to go with fuck off.

Okay, I loved that trailer.  Well, RDJ makes everything better and the other eye candy certainly doesn't hurt.  Captain America being snarky to Tony Stark was great and Tony's reply was priceless.  I'll definitely have to see this in the theatres.

Bruce Banner not being scrawny doesn't bother me, he just looked like a regular guy which is fine. 

Anyone who suggests Shia Lebarf for anything should be burned at the stake.   :mob:

Maybe I didn't make the ;why_so_serious: big enough...I'll try again:

I'm sure LaDouche has already been cast for Avengers 2. It's required they have a different actor in every movie for Banner.

I'm looking forward to cap and thor fighting for what I assume is leadership of the team.  Expecting a very cool hand luke type win for the cap.

I dunno...I would have liked to have seen another movie for Thor to develop his individual character a bit more.  Seems like they're just rushing to cash in on the fan-boy train by throwing him into a new Iron Man + some other people movie.

They should work that into the cannon like Doctor Who.

The plan for IM2> Thor> Cap> Avengers was announced back in 2008, so no.

Something I forgot to mention yesterday was that Tony Stark is wearing a Black Sabbath t-shirt in one of the scenes. It's the little things that make me smile.

You know what I find most interesting ?

That trailer was the CLOSEST we've come in years to the 'Spandex, colourful Superheroes' that we grew up with.

I find that interesting.

I just wish they had the balls to put Hawkeye in bright purple.

I'm sure they'll hand him his suit and he'll say "At least it's not purple!" Half the audience will then laugh and half will facepalm.

Archer Guy is still incredibly fucking lame.



Question for the comic guys, there's nothing actually preventing Tony Stark from making like, dozens of IronMen is there? I mean from a 'technological' stand point. I know he has his own personal reservations with distributing the suit and stuff, but if he was so inclined, anyone could have one of those suits right? He could make enough suits for an entire team of SHIELD Agents or whatever?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armor_Wars

Also IIRC Stark makes the Guardsman armor that is used by Vault jailers and such.

Yeah, IMO the 2nd Iron Man movie nicely addressed that his technology is going to get out sometimes.

*Edit* Being inspired by Armor Wars, etc.

Anyway vaguely on topic my brother-in-law is in this as an extra.

BW doesn't look so hot in the movie. Hmmm still confused why they don't replace hulk with giant man or something. Would've been easier to swallow. Hulk is just......a brainless mass of muscles.

Hulk is one of the original Avengers.  If anything Black Widow and Hawkeye should have been booted for Ant-Man and Wasp.  I think they are going to show up in Avengers 2 though, if they finally get that Ant-Man movie out before then.

I'm sure that they'll include Ant-Man and Wasp to the delight of geeks and the derision of just about everybody else. I know very little about the comics but they both sound very silly.  Black Widow and Hawkeye are characters I can understand and get behind. Two people who shrink in size? Find the idea hard to take seriously.

Having said that, a while back Production Weekly alluded to the fact that they might appear in one form or another in this film (maybe like the appearance of Hank McCoy in X-Men 2).

Hawkeye is really incredibly lame. He has a bow and arrow...that's his power? Lol? His outfit is ugly and his personality is grating. He was even the worst part of the recent Avengers cartoon.

Well, yeah, that's as maybe - but you say to me "bow and arrow" and I think, yeah, that's cool, kinda like Rambo, Robin Hood or even Legolas. You say to me "Ant-man" and I'm thinking "Boiling water?"

You shut your dirty whore mouth.

Doesn't Ant-Man also grow to like 50 feet tall?


If you take Green Arrow, then remove all the camp and charm and try to make him 'gritty' you get shitty archer guy from the Avengers here.

Huh. It's interesting to note that Henry Pym (a.k.a. Ant-Man) was intended as the "other scientist" noted in the Thor movie, that had previous experience with SHIELD.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antman#Film

Ant-Man is also Giant-Man and can grow, and The Wasp is often written as comic relief or as the reader stand-in.

I agree that "people who can shrink" isn't an exciting super power but at least they have personalities. Hawkeye is just a smarmy douche.

There's a line in the latest trailer: "you were made to be ruled". The voice I think belongs to the actor who played Loki, but the sentiment suggests the Kree.

Werent the Kree the main villian in the "Avengers Assemble" animated movie thing they did a few years ago?  Almost exactly same cast and story setup as the current movie series tie-ins, but they put together the team to stop an alien invasion.  I think the only major difference was that Thor was not trapped in asgard, but instead was actively out and about on earth at the time.

You're thinking of Ultimates, which is where the Marvel movie-verse pretty much comes from. I believe it was the Kree who invaded Earth. Thor was an environmentalist kicking around the world and no one could figure out whether he was crazy for claiming to be the Son of Odin or actually a god on Earth.

They also made antman a giant dickiscle, that was fun.

I look forward to seeing how the interaction of the personalities and the team Forming, Storming, Performing, and Reforming will work out for the Avengers films.

Hank's marriage and abusiveness seems to be the main quality that separates him from Tony Stark; they have similar archetypes when you consider the brilliant, arrogant scientist background. Powers are different, sure, but its the personalities and their interaction with each other that people seem to get more of a kick out of seeing. Janet, depending on her implementation, could add a less serious, more love-oriented role to the team that isn't present in the current roster.

The fact Tony / Downey would overshadow Hank / (?) in achievements / acting performance would be good fuel for Hank's anger and feelings of inferiority climaxing with the eventual release of it towards his wife. The reaction of the different characters towards that dysfunctional marriage is the money shot of the subplot.

I noticed none of the initial team members are dealing with any kind of intimate relationships, though Hawkeye and Black Widow haven't been explored too deeply. Any type of character flaw exploration would appear to be through personality and priority clash. The first movie should appeal more to the target demographic as a result.

Spousal abuse is never going to be included in a summer blockbuster unless it's by the villain.  Sorry to rain on all the marvel geeks parades and what-not but take a step back and think about how colossally stupid that would be. 

Maybe if marvel did a "gritty reboot" like batman begins it might work but the current avengers are anything but gritty.

I love Whedon (Angry rant from you know who in 3...2...) but I wasn't really looking forward to this. However, the trailer looks quite cool and I'm actually thinking I'll have to see this now.

One thing that's cool is Mark Ruffalo called Ed Norton and got his sign off to take the Hulk role. I am not sure he is up to this role but he seemed alright in the trailer. I have a sneaky suspicion that Cap, Thor and Iron Man will dominate this movie if only because the three actors involved seemed to be the most talented in the cast IMO.

Let's face it, he can't be as bad as Norton was.

Don't count Renner out, he has acted his ass off in other flicks.

Renner is going to be AWESOME as Hawkeye, provided they write enough for Hawkeye to do.

It'd be pretty cool if he ends up being the central character since he seems to be the most grounded. I haven't read Marvel stuff in years, so I could be way off with that statement.  :awesome_for_real:

Actually I'd like to see the Avengers entirely through Agent Coulson's eyes. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sES8e_du7Zg)

Goodness, I want that.

I like the Roxxon gas pump but I don't understand what's going on.

It's only part of the clip, the whole thing is 4ish minutes long.

Here's the whole thing, if you can get it to run. It hangs on "Processing" for me.

http://www.superherohype.com/news/articles/168652-watch-the-full-new-marvel-one-shot-short-film

Here's another version which does seem to load. (http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xlpvb3_marvel-one-shot-short-film-s-h-i-e-l-d-agent-phil-coulson-a-funny-thing-happened-on-the-way-to-thor_shortfilms#rel-page-1)

Also, another one shot: The Consultant (http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xkt77j_marvel-one-shot-the-consultant_shortfilms). Not quite as good but I'm liking that they're doing these.

Those are great, more of those please.

I really hope they don't run that character into the ground. The charm's still on him, and I think Clark's happy as hell to have a nice steady gig like that, but if it turns into something crazy like his own TV series or something, that might be too much.

You know there is a SHIELD movie coming, it's inevitable.

The 2nd wasn't as good because it was action characters trying to pull off drama.  It was still pretty good, but the first one set the bar much higher.

The Coulson character could work great in an ensemble comedy based on the comic Damage Control. (Old Marvel series about a firm that specializes in cleaning-up after superhero battles, managing insurance policies, etc.)

Sort of on topic, does DC have it's own version of SHIELD?

Damage Control was a brilliant idea, and I've long wished they did a movie series based on it.


Removed by user. >_<

Closest thing it has is The Agency/Checkmate, with Amanda Waller being the Nick Fury character.

Waller is a boss  :heart:

She's been slimmed down and sexed up in the DC reboot.  :?

The Authority? Stormwatch team? It might be a little extreme, but most of those comic books narrations and characters reminds me of Hollywood, most of the time.

Just found out Maria Hill will be appearing, which makes me pretty happy. Now I'm hoping Whedon can wangle a cameo for Special Agent Abigail Brand in there somewhere... after all, she's one of his characters.

I though Felicia Day was playing her.

The extended Super Bowl commercial. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=bGt-saFvkNk)

My brother-in-law is in this. He plays Thor.

Just kidding. He plays some extra. Hopefully his part wasn't cut. Will have to watch the movie carefully to find out.

Fun Trailer.


Archer dude still incredibly fucking lame. I seriously can't get over how lame he is compared to everyone else.

Robot Man, Demi God, Unstoppable Engine of Destruction and ARROW-BRO!

Hawkeye isn't any more lame than Black Widow :why_so_serious:

At least she uses a fucking gun!

Yeah but it's so puny! :grin:

I think if I was dealing with super aliens, I might prefer having an arrow with an explosive tip to having a handgun.

I think the problem is that Black Widow and Hawkeye only make sense as covert ops or dealing with an adversary that has street-level punks as well as super-powered creatures at its command. Doesn't look like that's the deal here.

I suspect they're there as perspective characters who will remind the big guys about what it's all about, etc. And I'd wager that at least one of them is there to get killed at a dramatic moment and provide the group cohesion--that's Whedon's style and it's also fairly consistent with the genre. Hawkeye is the sensible choice there--you aren't going to want to pay Renner for a second film anyway, there's no way he's going to sustain a spin-off franchise, and there's plenty of man-candy elsewhere and no other woman-candy.

Then if you do a 2, you bring in some other franchise character that won't utterly bust your FX budget. Giant-Man and the Wasp are probably out for that reason--not just expensive characters but actually keeping very small and very large characters in the same frame with normal-sized ones is a huge challenge if they're meant to be able to relate to one another. Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver are probably very expensive, have a potentially creepy characterization in several respects, and might even have ownership problems re: the X-franchise. The Black Panther strikes me as pretty viable, though. Maybe the Vision though I think his plot arc is horribly cliched. (Android that wants to be human, etc.)

At least she is Scarlett Johannsen, you mean.

On the other hand, Joss Whedon fucking loves killing off female characters.

To be fair, Whedon likes to create stories that are populated by multiple female characters to start with.

Anyway, if a good guy has to die, the most trope-ful choice would be Agent Fury.

I think he's killed off about as many male characters as female ones.

Sam L. Jackson has something like a 7 movie deal with Marvel Studios. He's almost certainly hanging around.

Yeah, there's apparently a Nick Fury movie in development.

Though! There's always the Life Model Decoy route...

Clearly the movie version is a Skrull.   :why_so_serious:

Oh, sorry. I should have linked this in the previous post. (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BlackDudeDiesFirst)

Don't underestimate the longbow! (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Churchill#Second_World_War)  :why_so_serious:

If anyone deserves to be a comic book character, it's him.

The fuck ...  :ye_gods: :ye_gods: :ye_gods:

Not to derail this into tanks vs. mechs territory, but modern bows are more powerful than any handgun that can be fired by Scarlett Johansson, and just as accurate. Rifles are superior in every way, but bows were abandoned because guns (like crossbows before them) took less strength and less training and could thus be dropped into the hands of any lout... in the hands of a skilled archer a bow remained superior to all available guns until the second half of the 19th century.

They remain better in many ways than the vast majority of available pistols.

"If it wasn't for those damn Yanks, we could have kept the war going another 10 years."

 :drill:

But Scarlett Johansson has boobs, you have to factor that in.

Yeah, to use a bow she might have to cut one off to avoid the string. WE CANNOT LET THAT HAPPEN.

This is all sounding dangerously familiar. I'm sure we've had the guns vs bows argument before, possibly with the firing from horseback debate. I think Nerf was involved.


And WUA.



 :ye_gods:

What about mechs with bows? I bet we haven't talked about that.

Fund it.

Well there's the Archer...

(http://www.exodus-road.com/xcart/files/master/prodpics/1-CBT/classic_battletech_miniatures_IWM_20-211.jpg)

As long as my Mech can have a fuckstupidgiant Bowie knife, it's all good.  :uhrr:

You are just scared you are not the one who will buy it on ebay.

Isn't that what the mythical Amazons did?

How far back you planning on pulling that bowstring? Sheesh...

I laughed.

ANYWAY... people analyzing the trailer have spotted soldiers with funny-looking chins and assumed that they're Skrulls. I just think they're Loki's ZombieSpaceViking army. Do we have solid confirmation on who the bad guys are in this three-hour mess? Things were a little crowded in Iron Man 2, and one hopes we're not looking at another Spiderman 3.

<DERP> Amazons cut off a breast because they didn't have access to compound recurves like we've got today so, yes, had to pull the string back far enough that things like a thumb hook were invented. The pulchritudinous Ms. Johansson lives in happier times.

My favorite melee weapon on a mech was EVA-02's box-cutter lookin' "progressive knife".<DERP>

Since it was filmed in Cleveland, I'd say that is just the way the citizens look - probably local stand ins. DON'T YOU JUDGE!

(http://i44.tinypic.com/2rc9x7k.jpg)

New trailer. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPoHPNeU9fc)  Maybe shows a little too much.  Watch at your own risk.

I watched it.  I'll be back in a minute after a change of trousers.   :awesome_for_real:

 :Love_Letters:

Although, now I'm a bit confused - is the movie title "Avengers" or "Avengers Assemble"?  I know it was a UK trailer, but I don't get the whole changing the movie title based on what country it's released in.

Ahh Cleveland... you never looked so good. Especially "all blowed up an' shit."  :why_so_serious:

It's called Hollywood being ashamed of America and renaming titles that might offend people abroad.  Not the first time in this series that this has happened. (http://articles.latimes.com/2011/jan/22/entertainment/la-et-quick-20110122)  Although I agree with you that this particular name change is odd, unless there was a UK-only movie previously released as "The Avengers" and they don't want to confuse people.

IMDB "The Avengers" a fairly obscure british tv show has the same name.  :oh_i_see:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIx8hOhy6xw

Oh duh!  I completely forgot about The Avengers tv show.  I certainly wouldn't call it obscure though, but I was thinking in terms of movies and not tv shows as well.  Growing up, I used to watch all sorts of old British shows with my dad (Dr. Who, Blake's 7, Red Dwarf, Fawlty Towers, Benny Hill, etc.).

There was an Avengers (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118661/) movie based on the TV series, but I think it was an American movie.

There was. Raph Finnes and Uma Thurman.

It sucked.

I've probably watched that new trailer like 10 times already.  I'm more psyched for Avengers then the new Batman movie.   :awesome_for_real:

Well the Avengers movie actually looks good.  :why_so_serious:

Apparently, the UK distribution bods were told they could have it early but only if they agreed to a ridiculous name change. So the trade off for getting the film in the UK on the 26th of April is having it being called Marvel Avengers Assemble.

 :grin:

I am pretty sure I have never, ever been more disappointed by a movie I saw in the theater.

I kinda liked it. But I paid nothing to see it and I am a sucker for Uma in a form-fitting patent-leather jumpsuit.

Protip hint: you can see Uma in a leather jumpsuit in still pictures without enduring the film.

The sad thing is, casting-wise, it should have been good. Script + direction fucked something potentially lovely into oblivion. This is a hate crime and in a just world would be punished.

Wasn't that the one with Sean Connery and the HUUUUUUUUUUUUUGE Sporran ?

Yep. Sean Connery playing Weather Wizard. The script was just so terribad, it didn't even come close to approaching the weird fun that the series had.

I'm pretty sure the editing also made it even worse.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKNmPh_MGOA  

 :why_so_serious: :why_so_serious: :why_so_serious:

The trailer is slightly more awesome because it's one of Don LaFontaine's   :drill:

:cry:

Avengers clip shows Scarlett Johansson tied up (http://movies.yahoo.com/blogs/movie-talk/first-avengers-clip-shows-scarlett-johansson-tied-194134024.html)

"They're bouncing"
"What are you looking at?"
"I wish I could bounce"

I felt a great disturbance in the Force...as if a million fetishes cried out in fulfillment and were suddenly posting on Tumblr.

Just came from seeing this with my son, movie is awesome. 

Skip the 3d though I think, it was a bit blurry sometimes in some fights and didn't really add much to the movie.

Sage advice for any movie these days  :why_so_serious:

For the most part, yeah.   Still, there some movies that were better with 3d than without.  Alice and Avatar being the two I can think of straight away.  It worked OK in Tron: Legacy as well but it doesn't help the movie beyond "oooh, cool."

 Thanks for the info, Wasted. I'd been wondering if the 3d would be worth the extra $20 and now I know.

Alice was fucking TERRIBLE for 3D. I don't know how you could rank it up there with Avatar. Alice was all post process and had the damn terrible cardboard cutout effect that comes with that.

The only 3D that I've thought was good outside of an animated film was Transformers 3. The colours were still pretty bright and it didn't seem to suffer from the dimness usually found.

That depends on the theater. Most of those movies are made knowing that the glasses make it dimmer, but then the theater goes "fuck, this is bright, time to turn it down".

My favorite two are still Avatar and Up. Well, and Hugo. Hugo must have worked well because I don't remember seeing it in 3D, but my fiancee insists we did.

Fun movie, but the 3D was a real nuisance, it added nothing and was frequently distracting. Go see this in 2D if you can.

haha you saw it in 3d.

The movie is great, definitely something to watch on the big screen. Quite to my surprise, they managed to fit a decent amount of character development into the alotted time, though at the expense of plot. It is still there, and it is passable (usual McGuffin hijinx, etc...) but it felt a bit thin compared to the interaction between the Avengers themselves.

Also, as unusual as it was, it was nice to see RDJ actually upstaged by another actor.

Midnight showing starting at 12:30 am - left the cinema at 3:00 am.

Not giving away much but just in case. :why_so_serious:


Apart from a crowded plot that felt too compressed (even for 2.5 hours) and I couldn't understand what the heck was Loki trying to do; I still give this movie a 9/10. The happy 10 year old fan-boi in me went into crazy fan bliss at the sight of the Hulk fighting alongside Thor.

Damn all you people who get to watch it early.   I still have to wait for another 4 days or so untill the harddrives come in for our Marvel Madness Marathon before I get a chance to check it out.

How could you guys like this? It does not redefine drama, cinematography or writing.

And it's Joss Whedon!

Never cared for Buffy.  Loved Firefly.  Hated Dollhouse.  ? Avengers.  Quick, someone tell me if I'm a Whedon fanboy or not.

Going to see Avengers this weekend.  Looking far more forward to this than Batman vs. Mumbles.

Summer tentpole movies are an odd place to look for those things.  :why_so_serious:  :why_so_serious:

I enjoyed it a lot and I'm a comicbook fan. My non-comicbook reading layman type friends were blown away. We, the sheeple are easily amused I guess.

PS:
Yes, I know what you're driving at:
6 Common Movie Arguments That Are Always Wrong (http://www.cracked.com/blog/6-common-movie-arguments-that-are-always-wrong/)

Joss Whedon does suck, but I hear the movie is good. I'm torn! He's working in a pretty small box with well established chars, so maybe that reduces the Whedon-factor and prevents him from producing some Connor-from-Angel dreck.

At least the pre-release Legos are awesome. I now have a Deadpool minifig. Deadpool, FUCK YEAH!

I can see what it was trying to do but the first two thirds of the film just didn't hold together, way too dense.  The opening scene blew any chance of sucking the Mrs in gradually and some kid sat right next to me just as the trailers started that I suspect had at least mild tourettes, I'll maybe like it more after watching it a few times when it comes out on Bluray.

Avengers Assemble is what happens when you send a comic book writer to direct a comic book movie.

My only complaint was that it simply wasn't long enough.

On a more serious thought: it hasn't changed the perception of what a comic book movie could be, like The Dark Knight; but it more thoroughly distills what a comic book movie should feel and look like.
It's expertly composed, the raw spectacle doesn't feel like soulless flash, the human element is played upon, the element of genuine threat is maintained and when the majors of the Marvel Universe truly open up, you soar with them.

I saw it in 3D, by the way. I won't say it's the zenith of the art but it was passable bar a couple of flight sequences where the cuts were too fast for post-production 3D to actually work properly. Otherwise, it added some nice depth which is basically all I ever want from 3D, and the gimmicks were left out.

Best implementation of the Hulk ever.

Anyone know what they are doing in the Avengers comic currently?  Worth checking out?

If the Avengers Were 10 Times Manlier (http://www.cracked.com/blog/if-avengers-were-10-times-manlier/)

Edit:

"Hulk not fuck around"

When Seanbaby nails it, he really nails it.

Hulk Punch Dick indeed.

VERILY!

No, probably not. There's three teams of Avengers ("Mighty Avengers", "New Avengers" and "Secret Avengers") plus a team of villains who were pretending for a while to be Avengers ("Dark Avengers") plus a new Avengers book that might as well be called "Movie Avengers" (it has the exact line-up of the film, but it's also in continuity with the rest of the Avengers' books).

The big event comic for the spring/summer is AvX (Avengers v. X-Men) which is primarily about the X-Men getting all pissy and attacking the Avengers to get back at the Avengers for becoming cooler than the X-Men and selling way more books and films. Well, really, it's about Phoenix coming back again and the X-Men wanting to protect the alternate-future daughter of alternate Cyclops and Jean Grey who is going to be possessed by the Phoenix and the Avengers wanting to take the girl off-planet and playing keep-away with the Phoenix.

Hence, a massive punch-up with almost zero plot. Because: comic books!

Yep, AvX even has a set of books that is nothing but fights -- no plot. Granted, the book tells you on the first page, "Hey, if you want plot, go get one of the other books!"

And don't forget Avenging Spiderman, which is Spidey doing Avengers stuff in addition to his appearances in pretty much every other book these days.

Spider-Man and Wolverine are hilarious these days in that sense: they're on every team, in every event, doing everything. Spider-Man somehow has time to hang with the FF, the Avengers, live his own multiple adventures, and do some other team-ups on the side.

Though I did love the most recent Future Foundation issue w/Spider-Man and the Human Torch.

If you want to read a good Avengers book, weirdly enough, I'd suggest Avengers Academy, which is entertaining old-school comic-book storytelling.

It's all heading to an infinite loop of "Spider Man - Featuring Wolverine - Featuring The Amazing Spider Man - Featuring The Wolverine - Featuring..............."

Where they make up every character in the book.

I would actually buy that...

Step one:

Spider-man/ Spider-man crossover.  (http://marvel.com/news/story/18504/spider-man_meets_spider-man)

Pretty much "Flash of Two Worlds" for Marvel. With all the confusion--or cool story-telling possibilities--thereof.

Not that I put much credence to the word of the fellow that said, "Dead is dead!" and proceeded to resurrect just about every other dead superhero under his watch (how many times has it been for Alpha Flight?.) Didn't Quesada state explicitly that the Ultimates universe and regular continuity Marvel universe (earth-616) shall never ever crossover? And, if they ever did - put a fork in it - they're done (run out of ideas.)

I thought the Ultimates universe was done anyway.

They restarted back at issue 1 about 10-11 months ago with Ultimates, Xmen, Spiderman, and a few other titles. Some of it's a mess (Xmen), some of it seems like it will be a short run to the destruction of the universe (Ultimates), and some of it's just getting good (Spiderman).

Just got back from our midnight madness showing at my theatre (7 screens, all sold out), and I guess they added something to the North American release, because there is now a short scene at the very end of the credits (someone earlier mentioned there was nothing at the end creds when they watched it).  It's nothing special, or next-film teaserish, but kind of cute nonetheless.

And yeah, once the final battle amps up, Hulk pretty much bends the movie over and makes it his bitch.  So much awesome.

At the very end of the credits or about a minute into the credits? I know there was a stinger setting up Avengers 2 but didn't stay to the bitter end.

Very end of the credits.

Best movie of the year so far (and maybe since quite a while) and close to the best supers movie ever (or up there in the top 3).  I rarely gush, but this is gushworthy shit.  Not sure how much of this feeling is geekery though, but my gf agreed with me and she's as non-geek as they get.

Hulk... Smash.

What's your top3 super movies? I'd say iron man, batman(bayle) and I dunno....spiderman was up there but on repeated viewings it doesnt seem to age well.

It's probably Avengers, Iron Man, and Captain America for me.  I do like the Batman movies, but I just think the Marvel films have captured the superhero feel that I remember when I read comics.

There's really two modes :

The Bale movies show you how to do a Superhero movie while 'keeping it real', while the Marvel stuff has finally, FINALLY, managed to nail that unrealistic but willing suspension thing they do well.

I can't really think of a Marvel film that managed it until Iron Man came out and everything after just stuck to that formula and worked.  Thor worked, for fucks sake.  I was flabberghasted.  And then Captain America also worked, which was slightly more insane since Elrond had a melted face and I still didn't care.

I would still rate The Dark Knight as my favourite superhero flick ever, if only for Heath.

For me, the first Spiderman was the real break out of doing a superhero movie correctly.  It was hit or miss for awhile after that, but things stabilized once Marvel got its own studio and did Iron Man.

Just saw this as a department afternoon outing. Abso-fucking-lutely fan-fucking-tastic. Ironwood is right - of the two camps (realistic Dark Knight and superhero suspension of disbelief Iron Man), this one is the epitome of the Iron Man formula. Do a comic book as a movie and do it fucking well with great direction, great effects and great actors. Ruffalo NAILS Hulk and Banner perfectly. RDJ is his usual great Iron Man, Hemsworth's Thor is pitch perfect and Evans' Captain America only suffers for being a normal guy amongst these giant behemoths. I would absolutely watch a solo Hawkeye movie with Jeremy Renner - I've always loved the character and their take on him works, especially in conjunction with Johannssen's Black Widow. The only downside:


Other than that, perfect.

Going to see this tonight (in 3D).  The husband certainly knows how to pick an anniversary gift for me*.  :drillf: :inluv:





*Note - this is also the man who bought midnight showing tickets for all the LotR movies, despite the fact that he knew nothing about them and just knew I wanted to see them.  Same with The Avengers.  That's easily got to offset his going to see Titanic 3D.   :raspberry:

For me, not so much.  I really, really did like Spiderman, but it was just all very over the top in most regards (particularly Goblin) so I was always sitting there saying 'it's a movie'.  Daredevil too ruined it with the Kingpin, which didn't work at all.  It was only when RDJ came in with Tony that I could actually sit back and just enjoy the ride without that wee voice in my head saying 'it's a movie mate, it's a movie'.

Whereas with Batman, it took half the film to even bring in a costume and by that point Bale had dragged you kicking and screaming into Waynes World.  Fuck me, they managed to make you afraid of Joker all over again because he just wasn't that far from plausible.


Also, why the fuck did I click that spoiler.  What a retard.

Seeing this in about 3 hours...woohoo!

I am apparently the only person who hated Spiderman...enough so that I never saw 2 or 3. I think the 2 Bale/Nolan Batman movies, IronMan (2 was decent, but 1 was awesome), and the first X-Men are my tops. X-Men had its warts, but there was enough superhero fun to it that I managed to overlook them.

Spider-man 2 was much better than the first but there's no such thing as Spider-man 3, that was fanfiction with look-alikes.

I'd say the 1st Superman, the Avengers, then the Dark Knight are the top 3 best supers flicks.  Spiderman 1/2 were great but they felt experimental in nature.  "4-colorwise" the Avengers wins easy.  Gritty-wise it's Dark Knight then Spiderman 1 or 2.

Really though, Avengers is the best overall supers film ever made hands down.  I have no fear saying this barring nostalgia from older films like the Chris Reeves Superman. (which for many was a flop, but I loved it /shrug)

Whedon?  Did an oscarworthy job imo, love him or hate him.  His ability to avoid cliche with perfectly timed wit and humour really made the movie a pleasant ride.

Saw this today.  Loved it.  It combined all the best stuff from the Avenger "prequel" movies into 2 1/2 hours of awesome. :heart:

Question...

Yeah, both of those moments got huge roars in the theater for me as well. The writing was just spot on all the way through, especially the dialogue.

  3D was great, packed theater and it was freaking awesome! 

Whedon's good at making bad characters shine.  He actually made Cyclops interesting in the X-Men comic during his writing run, and he made a movie Hulk not suck despite fairly limited screentime.

Jeez. Someone say it sucks or my expectations are going to be too high going in.

Just saw it. Fucking terrible film. (Did that help Ab?)




Seriously, great fucking flick. They did a great job giving all of the major characters some good moments, although RDJ stole the show as usual. As a non-comic fan, could someone give me a spoiler of wtf happened in the credits scene?

And if you stayed all the way to the end of the credits  but ya i wonder if it will be a tie in to fantastic 4?  Since silver surfer was introduced by them?

Great, great movie. Great narrative flow, made every single cliche of superhero comics seem fresh, memorable lines and set-ups, really well-done throughout. Ruffalo surprised me at how great he was.

Oh man.  This was the perfect movie for my first one seen in 3D.  Freaking fantastic and just perfect with the characters.  Some of the motion got a bit raggedy for me with the 3D and a few times I even jerked my head at something moving on the screen.  So worth it.  And our theatre was laughing like mad at those two scenes as well.

Plus, archery has never looked sexier.   :drillf:

A few individual thoughts:
 
Overall, really fabulous movie and I'm debating going to see it again alone while the husband is out today.

You really need to see Thor.

Stop clicking all the spoilers!

Ach, leave me to my addiction.   :grin:

In honesty, I think I'd enjoy this even if I'd written it.  Tomorrow I think.

Other than that one thing, I don't think there's really much to spoil about the movie that would ruin the enjoyment. It was just that well done. I mean, super-hero team fights alien invaders? Not a lot of places that's likely to go that are unpredictable, it's how they get you to the predictable ending that makes it a whole shedload of fun.

What I liked is that all the characters were spot-on, even Loki was an excellent performance.

I just saw it. The dinky little theater down the street had it at 10am and I couldn't resist.

Great movie.


I second the motion. If you liked Hiddleston and/or Hemsworth, there's a lot more in the Thor movie.

My expectations were high. It did not disappoint.



So much win.  The audience cracked up at the right spots and actually cheered outright in others.  This movie & his own actually made me like Thor.  A guy I'd always taken to be a bit over the top and lame. Fantastic.   I hope it ages well.

Oh, I plan to see it.  Wanted to see it in the theatres when it came out but just never got there.  I'll buy it instead because the idea of a movie basically around Hiddleston and Hemsworth is fine with me.   :awesome_for_real:  Sadly it's not available on DirecTV in any way, shapre, or form, which is a huge miss on their part.  I was more than ready to buy it PPV if I had to, but alas, no such luck.

My husband said the same thing when we watched that.  He even noticed it before I did.  Of course, he also noted that the only car brand you see getting blown up was Acura, which I missed.  Odd product placement.

You guys have heard me complain about this in the past, but another thing most modern action movies do these days is film/render it too 'clean' and too 'high-def.'  Avengers got around this most times; seemed to add some grit and dirt to certain scenes that made them more believable.  For instance during the Alien Invasion, a normal Bay-esque flick would make that whole battle fairly antiseptic in film quality whereas in this film at times it seemed like a better version of a good 80's adventure film (more Favreau's style).  The  all were textured rather lo-fi along with a lot of smoke and dirt, making them really believable to stare at.  Yet what an awesome job they did on them regardless.

There may be a difference in IMAX though, so when I see it again... and yes, I'm seeing this again, we'll see if there's a difference.

Also, aside from Avatar, has their been a movie in f13 where it became evident it's worth seeing (again) in 3D?

Oh, and this movie is going to destroy the box offices for the next month.  I have this yearning to buy my 4-yr old nephew a Captain America doll and take him to see it.  Haven't felt like that in a long time and it's definitely a movie he'll remember for life I think.

If you are going to see it again, and want to see it in IMAX, I reccomend going soon.  If your theatres are anything like mine, it is only getting a 1 week run in IMAX, and then Dark Shadows will be takeing it's place.

Wow.  Great movie!  Now THAT'S how you do a superhero movie. 

on the final battle.

Nailed it.

No spoilers from me, just drop everything and go see this movie if you haven't already.

Edit: Ok, one spoiler/question

My absolute favorite quote, because I had no idea how they were going to do that particular moment:


Fucking perfect.

GAH.

hulk.

On the aliens:

On Hulk, I think if you watched the Norton Hulk film, they established that he's getting more control over Hulk, within limits. E.g., sending him in to fight the Abomination works because he's a *bit* more in control than Abomination is.

Hulk's a tricky beast.  There was an excellent run in the Hulk comic that Ed Norton was trying to play in the second Hulk movie, a Banner who was utterly devoted to an iron-clad regime of meditation and self-control and as a result had a great deal of leeway with his powers.  Which, if you're saddled with the Hulk's curse, is pretty much the only sensible thing for a person to decide to do if they don't want to be a walking natural disaster forever.

Then Marvel fired Ed Norton, booted the comic's author, and did a 180 with Planet Hulk, where Banner had zero control and the permanently-amok Hulk grew into a more thinking individual over time.  This was also an awesome comic run for different reasons; while I was sad to see Banner go totally sidelined, Hulk running around with a Conan-ish personality and speaking lines while kicking ass was really impressive.

Then Marvel got stupid and split Hulk into like three different Hulks and I don't know anyone who kept reading at that point.

Well, they sort of wrote themselves into a corner when Conan Hulk came back to Earth and tried to kill most of the other superheroes for sending him away into space in the first place. But yeah, the character is a mess right now in the comics: the "Red Hulk" is presently a member of the Avengers, but he's not even Bruce Banner, he's General Thunderbolt Ross (the guy who used to hunt the Hulk, and the father of Bruce Banner's long-time love interest).

Form of a nerd!

The shield's made of vibranium; I always assumed that the metal's deflection of kinetic energy is what made it 'bouncy' when thrown.

Tony Stark did have some awesome lines  ;D
 

Awesome movie.

Avengers broke 200 million domestic for the weekend.  Biggest.  Opening.  Ever.

Smoked that little kid that likes to play with his wand who opened at 170 million.

I saw it with the wife this afternoon. I spent the big bucks for IMAX. It was totally worth it. What a fun film.

Re: Stark's lines.


Really great movie.

I enjoyed Thor and Captain America, I'd recommend both of them for viewing if you haven't seen them.  You can even catch a glimpse of Hawkeye in Thor!

Stark's lines:

Made over $400m overseas already.  This being a movie that wasn't marketed all that forcefully, and will likely have a helluva lot more word-of-mouth attendance. 1bn is a given.

One of my fav. moments:

I want more.  Hurry up.

Just saw this on good 'ol fashioned (well, digital) 2D and it was a blast.  Just totally fun start to finish.

Love the interplay between Banner and Stark, and lots of fun character interaction all throughout.  

They really nailed the laugh moments (got somewhere between 5 and 10 the whole theatre laughs at the gag bits) which were nice for breaking up the action from time to time.

Possibly my favorite being
Somehow I missed the second Iron Man movie -- was it as much fun as the first?  RDJ as Tony Stark is immensely entertaining...

No, it wasn't.  It wasn't even remotely as good.

It's still something that should be watched though, if only for the continuity and the Silver Centurion Suit.

Second one had more of Iron Man being Iron Man. The first had a distinct lack of Iron Maniess. The story in the second one wasn't very good, however.

That got the biggest laugh in the showing I saw.

Iron Man 2 featured Mickey Rourke's performance as Ivan Vanko. One might also get a kick out of Sam Rockwell as the douchey, inept Justin Hammer. I have my own complaints about the movie (Drunken Iron Man vs War Machine fight being foremost), but it's well worth watching to catch the performances of the villains. I kinda wanna see it again now :-)

Edited to add: I forgot, IM2 is also where Scarlett Johannson shows up as the Black Widow character. So there's some more Avengers continuity for you.

I don't know how it's being marketed over there but nearly every-other commercial here is a product tie-in.   Not what I'd call "low key" marketing even if there are very few actual commercials for the movie.

Yeah, I'd take issue with Low Key too.  (And Loki)

It's been assaulting your every sense in the UK, especially the kid channels.

I'm comparing it to campaigns like Wrath of the Titans, or <insert tweenpop flick here>.  Of course, the fact I have a few DVRs might be the cause of it.  I dont watch TV if it includes commercials, unless it's an important Live sports event.

Well, that was certainly the best movie I've seen in quite a while. Really wondered whether or not they would be able to put in Black Widow and Hawkeye without them just being cameos, and damn did they pull it off. I think it helped that the previous run of movies gave the other characters enough backstory that they were able to devote time to Widow and Barton, and actually round them out.

Favorite scene by far, was something I've been waiting to see since I first started reading comics:

Just back.  It was great, of course, but a few things just didn't work for me and kinda spoiled it a little.


Anyways.  Go See It if you haven't.

Loved it. Didn't think the 3D added much at all, however. Think I am done with that fad until they can do it without glasses. Also, I am again in the minority in that I HATED Thor (the movie). I was bored to death. Went with a buddy of mine, but might just drag my wife to see it too...I am sure there are things I missed (Like the ). Wish my son was old enough to properly enjoy it.

No.

That's a shite answer.  Both of them.

Loki wanted to get caught(it's not a spoiler) he's played as a lot more complex villain then you'd first notice.

I mean caught as in defeated

I'll ask again;  What was his motivation in doing so ?


Edited because you edited;  I don't buy that either.

He's Loki. He fucks with people purely for the fun of fucking with people.  The answer as to why he did it there is probably "because he could".

I'm not gonna go further on this one because the wife has banned me from my 'incessant bloody moaning'.  The plot just didn't sit well with me, but I shall desist.

Of course, I'm not allowed to take the piss out of her for now wanting to see Twilight Girl And The Huntsman simply because hunky Thor is in it.

 :grin:

Also, every time I think of the 'He was adopted' line, I giggle.  It was a perfect delivery.

Um...


But yeah, it was the weakest part of the script.

Not a big deal tho

Still, I love Loki.  He is the most well-rounded villain I have ever seen.

I will point out that the SHIELD helicarrier has a tradition of being useless in the comics as well. About half the time it appears in a story, it appears for the sake of being blown up (in whole or in part), almost crashing, being unable to accomplish anything useful, etc. Or it appears so that it can be stormed, attacked, almost taken over, etc. Actually, that's SHIELD as a whole also: about half the major arcs of SHIELD appearances in various Marvel comics involve SHIELD being infiltrated or taken over by shapechangers, enemy agents, mind-control bad guys, supervillainous conspiracies, etc.

I'm glad that stupid air-aircraft carrier is in the comics, I wasn't aware of that and it annoyed me more than anything else in the movie.

In the animated run the Helicarrier has The Big House unshrunk and it literally rams wings of a mansion out the sides.

It's quite funny, actually.

The Helicarrier is just a one big fuckall nothing in the comics. I think I've seen it fire weapons at something maybe once or twice (Godzilla actually). But most of the time it really is one giant flying fucking target. Considering it was created in the 60's by the same guy who created Doctor Strange and such luminary villains as STILT-MAN, I'm willing to give it a pass.

Back of popcorn tub calculations told me it would never fly. Or get FAA approval for lacking redundant systems. I would go so far as to say it was the least believable part of the movie...

I still don't understand why Stark wouldn't just fly UP or DOWN when the thing went fast enough.

 :why_so_serious:

The Hellcarrier is and always has been immensely stupid. Can be shot down by a fucking bow and arrow? Really? Also when it first takes off with Banner, Cap and a couple of others on the deck, they look over the edge of the deck into the fan blades that are providing enough lift to carry a goddamn aircraft carrier into the sky but don't get sucked in and turned into paste (guacamole in Banner's case).

Fury's plot was also stupid. The whole pretending to give up so that the heroes would somehow sort their shit out on their own was just weaksauce and a lazy plot coupon. That whole scene reminded me just how terrible most of Whedon's output is.

It was an explosive arrow.   :oh_i_see:

lol

Aslo mechs are stupid, a flying tank could easily beat any mech......

That girl's knees are way too sharp.

Oops, sorry, wrong thread full of nerds  :grin:

The Helicarrier has been a thing in the Marvel Universe for as long as I can remember. It's definitely more of a hovering convention center than an effective warship. Particularly when super-types are involved.


Blech. It's been five days here in the US. Has everyone seen this movie yet? Can we stop using spoiler tags?

Are we still doing spoilers?


Overall, a great movie.  Easily the best team superhero movie made, and from me that's saying a lot since I generally can't stand the Hulk, Thor or Cap.  In this movie they really worked, especially Banner.  Iron Man, Hawkeye and Widow were still my favorites, though.  I'd pay $$ to see a Hawkeye/Widow movie.

Asgardian Gods with sci-tech magic hammers, unstoppable giant green scientests, a guy with a super-tech metal suit and a freaking nuclear reactor embedded in his chest, GIANT ALIEN FISH-SHIPS WITH NO VISIBLE MEANS OF LIFT OR PROPULTION, and you people manage to latch on to a flying aircraft carrier to bitch about?

I mean, seriously, its a bloody comic book movie.  A bloody good one a that.  Stop nitpicking.

Yeah I do and fuck you for trying to invoke a false equivalence in there. There are things you buy into as part of the movie - Thor being a god/alien/god, Stark's suit, Banner/Hulk etc. That's basically the price of admission. Just because we accept those things though it doesn't mean that everything can be fantastical. The stuff that we can relate to real world stuff still has to make sense because otherwise the whole thing devolves into surrealism and the audience can't make any assumptions about what is happening. The alien fish-ships can fly. Why? Dunno, some magic/alien tech I guess. That's fine. Making an aircraft carrier fly is actually feasible (if supremely pointless) with current earth tech - basically if you can build an aircraft carrier that won't tear itself in half when its weight isn't being supported by water and strap powerful enough engines to it then yes, you can make a flying Nimitz class carrier. Power to weight ratio >>> all.

Making such a thing that can be shot down by an arrow is in fact stupid and is not even remotely like the suspension of disbelief required for the rest of the film.

Wow. You take your comic book movies very seriously don't you?

Appearently super tech metal suits, giant green rage powered irradiated scientests, Alien gods, and flying Aircraft carriers are not beyond suspention of disbelief, but incredibly high yield Explosive Super Tech arrows in the hands of the "greatest archer on the planet with an intimate knowledge of said Flying Aricraft Carrier" are.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Macon_(ZRS-5)

Interesting, there was one, it has it's own wiki disaster entry and everything  :why_so_serious:

Except it wasn't shot down by an arrow. The arrow hit near the propeller, exploded and basically dropped debris into the giant propeller which jammed it. It's not like he one-shotted the carrier. And frankly, in the context of the movie and of the character in question it made perfect sense so I don't understand why you're bothered by it.

Total agreement.  It definitely pushed the boundaries of my suspension of disbelief in ways most other over the top things in the movie didn't.

Still, enjoyed the movie a bunch -- a few silly things around plot and the helicarrier didn't ruin the overall experience for me.

Getting really spoilery here already but yeah it wasn't just the one engine either

I rather assumed Loki just thought he was so fucking awesome that he could talk everyone into doing dumb shit and then get hulk to break all the things. But yeah, I was hoping for something grander.

I also choose to believe that he needed to be taken to the carrier so he could signal to his guys where to attack.


By the maths almost no aircraft can fly. The only problem I had with it was the invisibility button.

That part was easy, it wasn't invisibility, only the bottom panels where screens that displayed the clouds above.  In theory, that tech exists now.

The nerd is super strong in this thread. It's like a million bits of joy and fun were suddenly silenced. Look, the Helicarrier's function is to be a: fucking ridiculous +10 superhero-spy thing, like Nick Fury's flying cars and b: to get characters together before they go fight. It's like a inn in a capital city in World of Warcraft. Every once in a while there's World PvP and the NPCs get killed for a few minutes.

Seriously, the Helicarrier getting hit by the "weakest hero" is JUST AS MUCH AS A CLASSIC TROPE as anything else in this movie. Either it works for you or it doesn't, but don't blame Whedon for it, it's COMIC BOOKS, EVERYBODY. As much as laser guns are sci-fi even if they're fucking stupid in the actual physical universe we live in. As is, for that matter, Loki having a kind of stupid plan. That actually is genuinely addressed in the film--Loki knows he's fucked, he's either the Chitauri/the Big Bad's bitch, a paper king, or he's going home to Asgard as a despised prisoner. He doesn't even have a plan for coming out on top, just for hurting people as much as he can in the process. Especially his brother--he knows the Hulk can hurt Thor when plausibly nothing else on Earth might.

Because it's still dumb and makes the Hellcarrier supremely pointless*. It wasn't even the main point I was making earlier anyway, there were worse bits in the film like Fury suddenly forgetting where his balls were. SurfD just decided to home in on that and ignore everything else I'd written including my reply to him.

*Even more pointless than a flying aircraft carrier already is I mean.

Having SHIELD and no Hellicarrier would have caused more bitching I bet.  It's an iconic part of the organization. 

I didnt really ignore everything you said in your reply to my original comment, I just tried to point out that it is pretty silly to start drawing lines in the suspention of disbelief dirt over things like Hawkeye disabling an engine on the Helicarier with an arrow, when there are so many more things takeing place in the movie that would require a lot more suspention of disbelief if you simply stopped to think about them for even half a second.  And no, you don't really get to handwave them away by going "but that was covered in the leadup movies / is part of the package".   The whole point is it is a Comic Book Movie.  Where things larger then life and comically (in the super hero comic sense) crazy are supposed to happen on a regular basis.  You are not really supposed to stop to think about most of the shit that happens in the movie for that half a second, because if you did, prety much everything falls apart since you can start pokeing giant holes in it everywhere.

Yeah like how the flying aircraft carrier is incredibly vulnerable to enemy flying submarines.

The defence that it's in the comics is good enough imho, it's pretty pointless to tell someone not to nitpick something that breaks immersion just because it didn't break it for you.

It wasn't the Helicarrier I had a problem with anyway.  It was Loki being utterly retarded.  Also, the thermal exhaust port in the MacGuffin.

I was confused with the Ironman vs. Thor fight while Loki, the real bad guy, just stands there watching. That one, while a pretty sweet tilt, made no sense to me. It's like Stark was trying to rescue Loki.

Overall loved the movie - pretty much a perfect "comic book" movie. It was nice to have a little more humour mixed in.

Loki was Stark's prisoner and had him taken from him. At that point Stark had zero relationship with Thor. Not sure what would be confusing about that.

Also, as dumb as Loki is (I would argue that he was probably the smartest person in the film), he knows when he's outgunned (sometimes), plus was just enjoying watching two of his enemies duke it out.

He didn't want to escape, his plan was to get captured.

WHY ?  WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY ????!?!!!

Yeah, I too am confused over what exactly Loki's master plan with getting captured was.  It's kind of like the Emperor's master plan in the SW prequels.   :why_so_serious:

I was simply amazed by Downey Jr.'s performance. He doesn't play Tony Stark/Iron Man he IS Tony Stark. He also easily has the best lines in the movie.

Seriously they should just rename Tony Stark to Robert Downey Jr. and just use his face from now on.

Both Iron Man and The Hulk have been the best of the bunch (Hulk didn't have that many lines but everything that could have been smashed by Hulk got smashed by Hulk)

Mark Ruffalo sold the Bruce Banner/Hulk thing, the only time I actually thought the Hulk as a character worked.

The Stuttgart scene was pitch perfect production design wise BTW. All of the signs and texts were right and grammatically correct German, they used the real location and even the police car they blew up looked like a real German police car (down to the correct license plate and model/make - Vauxhall Astra), that's attention to detail.

3D continues to be a pointless and expensive gimmick, though. Didn't notice it at all except for maybe one or two scenes.

Indeed. That doesn't really change the point I was talking about. I never said he was trying to escape.


To fuck with their heads. It's Loki. He's a trickster. He fucks with people. He wanted to drive the spike through the team and did.

Since everyone is scraping the barrel to come to that conclusion, all I'll say is The Joker did it better.

 :oh_i_see:

That's not scrapping the barrel. It's Loki. He does that sort of shit in the comics, and is seen as a trickster god in norse mythology. It's really not a leap of logic to come to that conclusion.

And yes, Joker did it a lot better.

The big thing that drove a wedge through the team was learning that SHIELD was trying to weaponize the Tesseract.  Stark figured that out all on his own, nothing to do with Loki being there.

Allegedly Loki's big plan was to get Banner to Hulk out, but as far as I could tell that happened because of the damage to the ship and resulting injuries... which again, didn't require Loki to be there.  That was all Hawkeye.

Great movie, mind you, but Loki's master plan makes no fucking sense.  Not even if the big goal was to fuck with people's heads and cause a diversion.  He could have done that much better by causing mayhem all over the world and making them chase him.

In the big confrontation with everyone yelling at each other, the camera cuts to Loki's staff several times. There are plenty of shots of the characters looking a bit confused or out of it.

Why?

 

It wasn't to cause a diversion. It was a big middle finger to the Avengers. Strike them right in their supposed "safe place" and cause a big spike, fueled by underlying friction, right through them. And hopefully kill them of course.

I'm not trying to portray it as a great scheme. I mean, it's Loki. He is arrogant and that makes a lot of his plans fail. Divorce the actual plot points from whether or not it was a GOOD plan ultimately. All the information was there.

Hmm. I wonder if the real reason that Loki is aboard the helicarrier is so that Tom Hiddleston and the actors portraying the Shield and Avengers get to have some face-to-face acting time. Same thing with Loki and Stark's little chit-chat in the Stark tower.

 :ye_gods: at that spoiler, I didn't even think of the gem...

I saw that the camera was hinting strongly that something was happening with the staff (why the fuck was the potentially dangerous artifact just lying around in the lab anyway?), but it was never made clear that the staff was actually DOING anything, even after Banner picked it up.  I figured it was a misdirect and/or shoddy filmmaking (like there was originally a shot where the staff DID do something but they cut it and didn't reshoot the scenes that foreshadowed the thing that never ended up happening).

Yeah, the staff never did anything like alter someone's mind.  :oh_i_see:

In previous instances, that happened by Loki poking someone in the chest with it.  And then there was a glowy effect and the person's eyes changed color.  That's an example of how a film communicates that something important is happening.    :oh_i_see:

If the idea is that Loki was controlling everyone's minds from behind the scenes so subtly that it wasn't even obvious to the audience, it truly is up there with the SW prequels (everyone made dumb decisions because the Emperor was using the Dark Side!  Yeah, that's it!).

I'm not going to argue that they could have done a better method of conveying it. I have been surprised to see the reactions when I thought clues to his powers/abilities were delivered with clues all along. Including the end of Thor.

I'm more of a fan of subtlety, and I at least, thought it worked well in the film.

I can't really compare it to the SW Prequels... I haven't seen any of them in a long time now.

Watch the Plinkett reviews (http://redlettermedia.com/plinkett/star-wars/).  They're better than the actual movies.   :grin:

I assumed when watching that scene that it was just ramping up their aggression, not actively mind-controlling (which as you say would have needed the chest poke).  It was like an old Star Trek episode.  :awesome_for_real:

Yeah, the fact that the staff was messing with them was "kind of fucking obvious"

Thinking about it, that's probably how Loki intended to get Banner to hulk out.

That's what I assumed as well.

Plus, isn't there a point where an image of the staff is shown on some screen in the plane/carrier that was bringing Hawkeye & crew to invade the helicarrier?  I kind of assumed Loki go captured as a decoy and so that the bad guys could find the helicarrier by tracking the staff somehow.  Fucking up the team and messing with their minds was just dessert for Loki, not to mention getting to trap his brother Thor, lock him up in a cage meant to hold the Hulk and then drop him out into open air 30,000 feet up. 

 :facepalm:

Not just the staff, but Loki in general. His plan was to prevent this super-hero team up from happening, and to get Banner to Hulk out and pound Loki's brother Thor into paste. He had come to the conclusion that that was his best way to get these powerful beings the fuck out of the way, including SHIELD. He might have needed to be captured so that Hawkeye could locate the Helicarrier with all the heroes on it, since the thing is pretty much invisible otherwise. And he probably did it because he wanted to watch the heroes tear each other apart from close up.

It's not a great plan, but most of Loki's plans in the comics are never that good either.

Did the Joker do it better? Well, of course, but that was a movie of a different type. That was a crime movie that happened to have caped heroes in it. This was 4-color sheer comic book style stuff.

OK, I'm with that plans so far, but it seems to ignore the revelation made after the incident: to make the team-up happen so that he could defeat them at their prime in front of everyone. I thought that was his original motivation ... to prove himself and demoralize Earth into submission by defeating Earth's greatest heroes in direct combat.

Edit: On second thought -- the "diva" part was to launch the invasion on Stark Tower so everyone could see it coming in a way that was unmistakable and the most demoralizing. Facing the Avengers directly wasn't a part of proving himself.

Which still begs the question of why it was just lying around there.  I mean, Loki's retarded for not having any kind of plan and/or the plan is "I'll get them to play with my magic stick that automatically scrambles the brains of everyone in proximity" and every single one of the Avengers are retarded for falling for it.  Either way it's not really fantastic writing when you stop to think about it.

Less thinking, more Hulk Smash.

The staff wasn't just laying around, they were running tests on it.  They were all in Banner's lab.

Yeah, i'm not sure where else it WOULD be. "Hey, this thing turns people, including some of ours, into zombies... maybe we should try to figure out how it works. Best put it in a closet."

This entire thread is starting to make me think of the 2/10 meme now for some reason.

http://knowyourmeme.com/photos/238423-210-would-not-bang (http://knowyourmeme.com/photos/238423-210-would-not-bang)

Loki gets captured.  That gets his staff on the helicarrier where it can be tracked by Hawkeye.  The staff arguably also allows him to increase the tension between the team from a distance (as opposed to directly controlling someone through touch).  Just prior to the attack on the Helicarrier, when Fury confronts Stark and tells him that they're supposed to be working on tracking the Tesseract, Banner mentions that the program is running and should have a location pinpointed soon (I believe he said within a half an hour but I'd have rewatch it to be sure).  During the attack, when Hawkeye fires his arrow on the bridge that disables the second engine, it also disables all the computers on board including the one Banner was using to track the Tesseract.  Ultimately, the attack on the Helicarrier prevented the Tessereact from being located until after Selvig was able to get it set up at Stark Tower.

Yes, with all the whizbang technology and high-tech labs on board that carrier, the only two options for dealing with potentially hazardous substances are "put it in a closet and ignore it while we argue" and "put it on that table over there and ignore it while we argue".   :awesome_for_real:  Good thing that table was there or they'd have had to put it on the floor.  Somebody could have tripped.

They were only arguing because of the staff.....

also yes, the lab with "the smartest man in the world" is a bad place to put tech you are trying to understand...really?!

This isn't a "plot" movie. It's a "characters bounce off each other movie" so none of this bothered me in the slightest.

I'm thinking maybe if you thought it was dangerous and/or important, you'd have it behind a radiation-proof shield and/or have a lot of impressive-looking scientific instruments pointed at it to figure out if it was emitting any kind of mind-altering radiation or mystic vibrations or some other comic book pseudotechnobabble.  I dunno.  What was he doing with it on the table in that little stand before they started arguing about Nick Fury?  Hefting it to try to figure out how much it weighed?  Is that the extent of what he was able to do with all the resources of SHIELD at his disposal?

The more I think about it, the more I think the writer felt like he wanted to do SOMETHING with the staff there but he couldn't actually figure out how to write that scene in the time/budget allotted, so he just sort of left it lying around in the background and let the comic nerds could fill in their own blanks. 

But as Ab said, the point of the movie was to have things fighting things, and it succeeded at that admirably.  They could have just cut most of what happened on the helicarrier to leave more time for Hulk smash and I'd be happy.

*cough* it was there to help triangulate the location of the Tesseract; they were taking gamma readings from it and relaying it into the information they were getting from the readouts nationwide.

This shit isn't hard people. But my god, you all try to make it so.


Rewatched it today. Almost every. Single. Complaint. uttered in this thread is dealt with wholesale in the running. The only thing, the ONLY thing that comes across as a misstep, and that no one seems to care about so far, is that Thor just 'appears' and Loki explains it away by saying "oh dad probably did that". It's not a massive difference to Loki's own magic trick in the crater-ized SHIELD facility, it's just much cheaper.

I still think (and I actually had this thought during the movie while the staff was just sitting on the table with nobody paying attention to whatever it was or wasn't doing) that potentially dangerous radioactive alien mind-control whatsits should at the very least be on the other side of a set of robotic arms, like real-life scientists use when they're playing with dangerous radioactive whatsits:

(http://www.sciencephoto.com/image/342525/350wm/T1750104-Handling_radioactive_materials_with_a_robot_arm-SPL.jpg)

So I guess the problem that I have with the "the staff was secretly controlling everyone's minds with gamma radiation" Loki plan is that it means I'm smarter than all of the geniuses in the movie.   And if that doesn't strain your suspension of disbelief I don't know what.  :grin:

It wasn't the gamma radiation, which was negligible, as it was the reason they needed Banner's help to find the thing,

Yeah, but you're thinking waaaaay too rationally. Which is what geniuses aren't known for.

Tony Stark is a hands on kind of cool guy, doesn't afraid of anything etc. "Gamma radiation? COOL! Maybe it'll spark ol' Banner up and I can look into setting up the Hulk Buster"
Bruce Banner is GAMMA RADIATION MAN. He's not bothered by shit emitting gamma radiation because what harm could it possibly do him now? I mean, it might hurt Stark but he's a bit of a dick.
That no one else that comes in the room cottons on and says "hmm, maybe you boffin types might like to put that behind some FUCKING SHIELDING" is because BINGO, it's already affecting them.

I am smert. I hav movie comprehenshun.

It's always a good idea to try to inject real world science into a comic book world.  You know, the same world where someone thought it was a good idea to build a flying aircraft carrier.  (insert the obligatory 'yo dog, I heard you liked flying...' joke).  :awesome_for_real:

"Loki was carrying it around, why the fuck would we worry."

ta-dum.   Yes, it's a bloody stupid argument because Loki is some extra-dimensional being.   And? People don't do dumb shit with things they don't understand like ALL THE TIME?!  Even educated professionals who should know better?  Riiiiiight.

This thread needs more "Hulk . . . smash."

In defence of Sams point, even Starks fucking DAD used robotic arms when he was playing with the tesseract.

See;  Captain America:  The First Avenger.

Actually, that bit was mega clear to me.  Loki said 'I wonder how much Dark Energon father had to use to send you here'  (Yes, I'm paraphrasing a little). 

Job done.

We're talking about Tony Stark and Bruce Banner - both shown in previous movies to have a general "fuck it, I'll just test this on myself" attitude.

Only if it's this thread being smashed out of existence, I think it's beyond saving.

Oh, I know.

Though to be fair to Stark he was, you know, dying and whatnot.

This is the best movie thread since the beret-wearing hordes descended on Avatar to declare it "unoriginal."

That's some mullet.

Thor looks like he didn't go through an awkward stage.  Bastard.

Australian tho.  They tend not to have 'em.

I actually like they gave the hulk body hair.

It's a great touch that gives him a deal more texture, character and presence. He feels so much more real than the previous 2 attempts, because he's not just green and strangely shiny. Or being drenched in babyoil (that bizarre rain scene in LeTerrier's Incredible Hulk). That he recognizably looks like Rufalo is massively important in getting us on his side, too. Neither Norton nor Bana's Hulks looked remotely like their human counterparts, they were just big green CG monsters. Rufalo's Hulk is still Rufalo.

Well played, sir. Repost your avatar as my gif response.

Just caught the leadup scene to that, and it pretty much answers itself:

CAP: We could start by checking out Loki's staff, it seems to be powered by the cube.
FURY: Blah blah, good idea, see if you can find out how Loki used it to turn some of my peeps into his personal flying monkeys.
THOR: Monkies?
CAP: Hey, a pop culture reference I get!
STARK to BANNER: Sounds like fun.  Shall we play, doc? [Stark and Banner exit stage left]

That was pretty much Stark's line verbatim.

Did we see them doing anything with the staff toward that end after that?  I'm remembering that scene now but the dots aren't connecting with anything that happened later.  I'll probably see it again myself at some point...

So Loki's plan wasn't so much to get captured HIMSELF as to get them to study the staff because he knew they'd fuck it up and fall under its spell and also let it send out a homing signal for Hawkeye to trace... and he knew that would work because he was using the Dark Side to cloud everyone's minds.

There is no "dark side" stuff other than some of his basic powers stuff and the staff being the problem for them (and specifically the gem).

I can fish you out...

Yes. Yes. Okay, I'm stopping.

Became my movie of the year when Loki called Black Widow a "Mewling quim".

I was the only one that cheered.

 :awesome_for_real:

(http://i.imgur.com/v9OXH.jpg)

(Nextwave is still the best comic Marvel have done in a decade or more).

The movie was ok, but not great.  I agree with others that the Helicarrier stuff was dumb.  There is something that bothers me more than that.  Starkman.  Starkman is powerful enough to stand against Thor, super smart about everything, hacks SHIELD, stops the missle, gets the self sacrifice shot, saves the helicarrier, gets the bore through enemy shot AND delivers the speech to Loki.  That last one was simply terrible.  ANY OTHER CHARACTER would have been a better choice.  Cap/Hawkeye/Widow could have talked about the human spirit.  Thor could have said there was more to humans than Loki was willing to admit.  Samuel L Jackson could have yelled get the fuck off my planet.  Hell, even the HULK could have said you should not make us angry! (and then punched him).  Instead, we got Starkman delivering 'clever' dialogue in a method that is so idiotic it is normally reserved for super villain gloat speeches.  

I am not a huge fan of the direction the Iron Man movies took the character but they were ok themselves.  In Avengers you have Starkman outdoing and overshadowing other characters, crowding out their reason for existing.  We need about 50-60% less Starkman and maybe we can get to know other characters better (like widow, hawkeye or the new hulk).  With the direction this movie was heading Starkman did not need any of the others at all, just have a bunch of armor suits run around and do the rest of the work.  

Agent Coulson gave Loki the good guy speech(brief though it was), not Stark.

From what I recall of my last foray into marvel comics (Back during the Civil War arcs), this was pretty much the way the comics had been taking Stark for quite a while.  The guy was becoming a rediculously OP Techno-sue, who's technology allowed him to come up with an answer to damn near every single problem the marvel universe could throw at him with only a little bit of thinly veiled plot handwaving.  I mean, at one point they had contrived to have him neutralize Spiderman by getting Parker on his side, having parker wear a Stark Brand spidy suit, and then later revealing that the suit had been analyzing Parker and now Stark knew everything about his capabilities, right down to how his Spidy Sense worked and how to neutralize it....

Stark is sort of like a hybrid of Batman / Superman for the marvel universe.  If he ever goes off the deep end, pretty much nothing short of every hero on the planet ganging up on him is going to stop him.

I am referring to the speech just before invasion where Stark takes off his armor to 'threaten' Loki.

Which is pretty much a textbook example of how Stark would usually act in the comics, so I don't really think most people were overly concerned.  I mean, Stark doing the whole "spirit of humanity" speach or whatnot at that time would pretty much have ended with Loki laughing in his face anyway, as per his comment "are you going to appeal to my humanity" at the beginning of that scene, since it would have been tantamount to the same thing in Loki's eyes. 

He was stalling so the mark vii would be completed.

Yeah, it was sure handy he designed a suit of armor that saved him specifically from being thrown through windows just as Loki decided to throw him through a window !

I was worried on that one !!

 :oh_i_see:

I did a bit of an eyeroll at that myself but hey.  As for IM taking over the movie, just imagine Batman's role in a JLA movie.  Even Superman would be fetching the bat-slippers.

That's what the bracelets were for.

Er, yeah.  I know.  'Cause it was obvious the way the lasers locked onto them and then swaddled him in the suit.

But it was just yet another 'How can we make a cool way to get Iron Man into the suit' after all the other ones we've had.  Hell, you just know they're creaming their jeans at putting him in the armor that pops out of his bones.  That'll get the punters hard.

It was a lame way to introduce the suit, that's all.  'This is the Mark 8.  It saves me from falling death.  OOoops, I tripped.'

Much lamer would be if he just had nanomachines in his bones that came out of him to make the suit...... :oh_i_see:

(http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m3ywmxnfUv1qmt05uo1_500.jpg)

 :awesome_for_real:

It's thor's version of teabagging.

That's ingenious and truly hilarious at the same time.

(http://i.imgur.com/QpToi.jpg)

Oh my!  :grin:

 :heart:

Rumor: Avengers directors cut had another 35 min of footage. (http://www.superheroauthority.com/2012/06/marvel-and-disney-rumored-to-be.html)

Just a rumor, but damn. The theatrical release is already 2 1/2 hours. Was there another Avenger, or something?

Eddie.  He lived under the sink.

Joss Whedon to Direct Avengers sequel and develop TV show for ABC (http://io9.com/5932683/joss-whedon-directing-avengers-2-and-developing-a-marvel-tv-show-for-abc?utm_campaign=socialflow_io9_twitter&utm_source=io9_twitter&utm_medium=socialflow)

Welp, there you go. Of course we get a sequel and Whedon is directing it (because after over $1 billion are you really going to NOT hand him a blank check?). He's also doing an Avengers related TV show that won't be the same characters, but may be a SHIELD show concerned with supers in some way.

I'm down.

I would kill for a Whedon helmed "Runaways" show.

So I wonder how many of the Whedonverse actors will get put on that Avengers show.  I'd like to see Adam Baldwin at least get a role. 

Morena Baccarin=Scarlet Witch
Sarah Michelle Gellar-Ms. Marvel
James Caviezel=Vision
Summer "Showkiller" Glau=Moondragon
Adam Baldwin=Dum Dum Dugan?

Book it. Done.

Pretty sure Caviezel's quite happy being on his #1 timeslot drama right now.

SMG doesn't have the.. assets to be Ms Marvel. ;)  (And at 34 is "too old" in today's Hollowood.)

This. Brian K. Vaughn and ABC are pretty tight; it'd be a fantastic combination - both Runaways writers (Vaughn himself said that Whedon's short stint on Runaways contained stuff he'd never even dreamed of) and a channel that probably won't fuck Whedon around. Plus the best place to start serialising Marvel's wider universe and the opportunity to find some next generation acting talent.

An Avengers TV show is pretty great actually.  I know they will have a TV budget, but you can still do a lot with some Not Ready For Prime Time Avengers.  Like Matt said, would be a great way to expand the Marvel Movieverse and you might even be able to get a movie Avenger to guest star. 

Or the Shield idea would be pretty good, you'd follow the agents and the Avengers show up as backup.  I'm thinking of Kurt Busiek with Astro City style. 

I've dug out my old Avengers comics, time to do some reading! 

I don't know if he can pull it off, since it's not his usual style, but in my opinion the Avengers show really needs to be all about Shield. Heck, have it be "Monster of the week" where they go to a) recruit new Avengers or b) stop some threat that isn't a big enough deal for the Avengers but is still a danger.

The good thing about Whedon doing a show for "Not-Fox" is that after the ginormous success of Avengers, the network WILL NOT FUCK WITH HIM. He can probably do just about anything he wants to do since Disney owns ABC and does not want to lose their golden boy from the movie studio side.

Adam Baldwin would have made a great Nick Fury, IMO, but that ship has sailed. He'd be a good Hercules or Wonder Man, a good War Machine or US Agent, or even Ares if they go with the later Avengers lineups.

I think he can.  His super hero stuff is great.  Loved his run on X-Men.

I agree. But to my mind a Shield series would be closer to something like Alias than his normal stuff.

I worry about a Whedon "Shield" series. The last time he involved a "secret government agency" that is involved with weird stuff... it was one of the weakest seasons of Buffy.

I think that had more to do with trying to transition from "Dawson's Creek with Vampires" to the "X-Files as Supernatural Soap Opera" of seasons 5-7.  And I'm not sure how much control he had of the writing staff at that point (I seem to recall scuttlebutt to the effect that the poor showing in Season 4 was why he got more control later).

--Dave

I really hope they go with Damage Control instead. It could work beautifully.

And here I was thinking sickrubik was making a joke about Dollhouse.  (No, I don't like Buffy)

No, just about this fucking guy.

(http://newslang89.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/buffy17.jpg)

Bought this and watched it on Saturday night.  I was bored.  I collected early Avengers comics in the silver age and this movie didn't live up to any of it.   I think the individual movies (Thor, Iron Man I & II, Captain America) were all better. 

This sounds like it's for you then:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDajL441mZc

 :grin:

I hated Thor. Captain America was ok, the 2 Hulks were ok, and I loved both IMs. I loved the Avengers. I did miss the origin story stuff, but the interactions with all the different heroes made up for it. It had several funny moments that really made it shine too, at least for me. I liked Ruffalo as BB too. Strange, since I vastly prefer Ed Norton in pretty much anything else.

Yep.  I could have written that.

I need to check their other trailers!

Yes agreed on Shield focus. I actually like the part when the Avengers start doubting Shield motives. Otherwise the rest of the movie is meh. It was 'AWESOME' after 'AWESOME' moments for each character - like a montage of sorts.

They could just play AMERICA FUCK YEAH to replace the epic scores and it wouldn't be out of place.

Also, Russian and Alien.

Now that I've had a chance to watch and think about this some more, that scene (Banner, Stark, and Cap in the lab) is one of my favorite scenes in the movie. Stark and Banner both have their suspicions, and while Steve Rogers isn't in their league, he's also no dummy. Once the seed is planted, he goes off and does his own investigation of "Phase 2". That scene (prior to Rogers' exit) also had a minimum of Whedon-dreck in the dialogue. It's an important scene, since it sets things up for later, and you can tell that they worked till they got it right.

If you don't like Captain America, you're a bad person and you should feel bad.


I know this movie has been discussed to death, but after re-watching it I think people are looking at the Hulk wrong. It's not that his control at the end needed to be explained, but his loss of control on the carrier that does (and I think was, but whatevs). For most of the movie he's Banner and he has Hulk on lockdown, even though IMO there's a lot of edge to him (most notably with Natasha in India, and again on the carrier). The aberration is this version of Banner losing control like that (due to injury or Loki's staff; my money is the staff since he grabbed it unconsciously)

I'm pretty sure the staff was influencing all of them.  That was part of Loki's plan.

The staff had the mind gem. 

And also covered earlier in the discussion too.

It was still a really bad plan.

The narrative of "The Avengers" was pretty bad. It was a film that prospered by ignoring making sense and focusing on the Rule of Cool.

It's hard to give a shit when Hulk punches out a giant space whale.  :grin:

So yeah, the Avengers Show is going to be about SHIELD, starring Agent Coulson.

http://marvel.com/news/story/19553/nycc_2012_coulson_lives_in_marvels_shield.

And also yeah, the whole Avengers movie was about Loki winning for two and a half hours.

http://maskofreason.wordpress.com/2012/05/23/very-good-writing-why-loki-won-in-the-avengers/