f13.net

It's been discussed somewhere else but now that it's got a trailer (http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/marvel/thorthedarkworld/), time for its own thread.

I knew a lot of it was shot in the UK but I didn't realise it was set there as well.  :awesome_for_real:


EDIT to add http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7p7rocHEecE (thanks to 01101010 for doing what I cbatd)

In two seconds, Tom Hiddleston owned that trailer.

Yea no - not about to unleash Quicktime on my work computer.

I won't even install that shit on my home PC.

but never the less... here ya go

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7p7rocHEecE

Much obliged. Looked good, for what little there was.

Looks more of the fantasy epic that the first one should have been, approved.

Spoiler: Natalie Portman doesn't die.  Loki betrays Thor but escapes without Thor killing him.

Eh ?

tags man tags!

Spoiler alert: Kat Dennings will don another potato sack for this film, lest she steal scenes from Portman or Alexander.  :awesome_for_real:

Lady Dennings twin moons of Midgard shall summon me to the theater post haste!

If Dennings was naked and Portman wore a space suit, I would rather watch Portman.

Depends what they were doing... :drillf:

I'd watch them both just to be sure.

I  :heart: me some Kat Dennings. 

Portman to me is always going to be Mathilda from the Professional.  So I always get a lil  :pedobear: about her and it's yucky.

Do you know how I know that you're gay?

His good taste in curtains ?

 :oh_i_see:

http://i0.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/000/538/731/0fc.gif

New Thor trailer. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npvJ9FTgZbM) 

Looks pretty good to me.   :awesome_for_real:

Nice.

I don't know why, but the trailer... bugs me. I can't put my finger on it. Maybe I'm just in a bad mood this morning.

Thor too real, nerf.

(http://i40.tinypic.com/2qbg4y9.jpg)

:Love_Letters:

I like that the creature at the end looked like one of the Stone Men from Saturn from Thor's first appearance in Journey into Mystery.

I'm looking forward to this.  Kind of hope Loki reforms a bit.

I don't think you quite get Loki.

I'm disappointed that the Asgardians were keeping Loki in a Star Trek holding cell rather than in a cavern with serpent venom dripping into his eyes.

I liked what they did in the animation :  He was in a shadow world, under a tree, where Sound didn't exist.  I thought that was quite clever.

So, wait. World is threatened, but every other super hero is on vacation but Thor?


In other words, this is a rather huge world story, yet no one else notices cities are being razed?

EVERY.COMIC.EVER

I briefly thought about stalking you in every thread you post something along the lines of, "we've been there before", and posting the same-ish infinite regression... but I lack the will.  Just imagine how funny it would be if I did it.

Not really.

They were taking some "me" time.

All I'm saying is, this is a bit larger than some of the more localized stories. Its the size of the threat, its not like its an arch villain or threatening an area. Its the whole world.... Last time this happened it took a whole team. There was a movie about it.

Seems like the threat to earth is temporary.

Marvel gonna Marvel, be it in comics or on screen.

Yea, but I am as curious about this as BW. I wondered the same in Iron Man 3. I could write off Fury et al as being on some other adventure, and Thor being all off world and stuff. But Hulk went off with RDJ right after NYC and it woulda been nice for at least a cameo of Banner showing up ith his humility but then getting angered at least for a sec to take out Memento guy.

For the few comics I've read it's always felt like Gotham = Batman and Superman stays away while Metropolis = Superman and Batman stays away kinda stuff. But when there are things that exceed the city, they bring in the JLA and whatever other temporary organization was formed for that epoch of comics.

Maybe Marvel doesn't follow that formula? Or maybe I just made all that shit up because all I read is compiled graphic novels and I only have a few dozen of those anyway so wtf do I know? :-)

Marvel doesn't follow that formula because in the comics they're almost all based in New York.

Basically, in DC comics there are several different versions of cities that are a mashup of Chicago and New York, that apparently exist in parallel/orthogonal dimensions so Batman and Superman don't get in each other's way, and every other superhero doesn't get put out of business by one or the other.  Marvel just says "Fuck it, everybody else is busy because we say so except when we say they aren't, and we're not going to bother to explain why."

--Dave

Yeah, what Dave said.  I wouldn't worry too much about it though it'd be nice to have a cameo where an Avenger calls in a fellow Avenger.
 

You know why no one helps Thor?  Cuz the actors are on per picture deals.  With the amount of money that they are asking for it wouldn't be plausible to get them to show up in every film.

Other then that.  If you want a comic book explanation...  Why have single title comic books if every issue there were 3-4 Avengers, X-Men, etc. showing up for every story arc.

I swear you guys nerd rage about every little detail.  I don't think most of you have fun at movies.

It's just a comic book trope. After they've added Hank Pym/Ant Man, and if they ever add the Fantastic Four, you'll be wondering why in a world with Tony Stark, Reed Richards, Bruce Banner and Hank Pym, the average citizen still just has access to the same level of tech we do in the real world.

Anything else would be socialism.

Well in the DC universe, superheroes rarely have time to themselves. When their not out having a day job, their in costume. Marvel doesn't have that problem. Superheroes spend most of their time dealing with day to day mundane shit and generally spend a lot of time enjoying their non-costume moments. So a lot of the time the lack of crossover tends to be in the vein of "Well Iron man is too busy getting laid, thor is doing thor shit in Asgard, wolverine is in then savage lands being savage and shit, etc etc."

Yeah, pretty much.

tweets: @impending doom

Nick Fury : "Ancient Dark Evil descending on New York.  Avengers ASSEMB--"

Thor : "nope, nope, i got this.  I brought Loki"

Tony Stark: "I'm balls deep in Pepper, YOLO"

My local cinema just held a double bill of Thor and Thor: The Dark World.

I really liked the first Thor; rate it up there with the first Iron Man and Avengers, so I was a little worried that the second Thor outing just wasn't going to compare well, especially back to back. I was wrong.
It somehow tempers the original film's arch silliness and all-out (balls-out) fabulousness with some higher stakes and a slightly more subdued palette that feels just right. Don't get me wrong, Asgard still looks like a scifi desktop hit with the gayest laserbeam, but it looks more lived-in this time around.
Characterisation remains on top form for the most part; all the best parts from the first film remain the best parts in this one but everyone seems to get some nice character moments. Hiddleston's Loki is still where it's at. Everyone on board must know he steals the show every second he's on screen but they let him do his thing and it still feels fresh.
Hemsworth still performs miracles of likeability with Thor and Portman gets more to do this time round (at one point a groan-inducingly obvious trope is set up only to be dealt with reasonably realistically).
The biggest push in Thor's second outing is the humour, though. The laughs were part of what made the first film work, and they're a huge part of the second; there are some truly brilliant beats in Thor: TDW, sometimes multiple jokes cascading off one-another unexpectedly. It also features what is possibly the finest cameo to date in the Marvel Movie Universe.

Damn you you tease!  Seriously though, good to hear.  I was very skeptical they could pull off the first one and was happily wrong.  Thor is Marvel's version of Supes, so I'm always worried he won't measure up.  Glad the humor is intact.  Marvel knows they are making a superhero movie, not a grimdark midnight of the soul movie.

Someone said Thor 2 was a 'war' movie.  Is that accurate?

I'm not entirely sure what the context or criteria was implied to label it a 'war movie', but it strikes a similar chord to both Lord of the Ring's opening battle scene and some very Starwars-y set pieces. Both Asgardians and the Svartalfar have laser guns! In general it's a lot more fighty than the first Thor.

A couple of things to note; firstly, the film is not without its flaws, which I'll go into when more f13ers have seen it (though for what it's worth I don't find them much of a detriment, mostly just a wasted opportunity).
Secondly, there are TWO post-movie teaser sequences; one just before the main credits crawl after some nifty painterly cast portraits, and another at the very end.

The director was Not Happy about the mid credits sequence, apparently.

Only cuz it wasn't him that filmed it.

I can understand why; it's very tonally out of place, but it's Marvel doing their set-up business for what's coming later. The post-credits sequence is much more on point as a bit of final catharsis.

You're both right, from my understanding.

Saw this tonight with my Girlfriend. We both REALLY enjoyed it. I saw a few plot holes but nothing game breaking or that stopped me sitting back and enjoying it. Its funny and there's plenty of great action. I didn't spot that Christopher Eccelson was the main bad guy at all, excellent work by the makeup artists and his acting. I haven't seen the first one or the Avengers, so I came in on it fresh and I was gratified that it didn't rely too heavily on the other movies, other than "Loki's done bad stuff, yo" and I still enjoyed it. I like how they mixed Norse myth and science fiction as well, very well realized.

Highly recommended by the Sir T jury.

*edit* Didn't see the end credit sequence, just saw the middle one.

I saw this, it's daft but fun. Definitely a good popcorn flick.

I think the only thing that irked me (and I'm prepared to be lorelol'd on why this has to be this way)

Yeah.  Way too many Anti-heroes.  Venom was bad enough, but when Sabertooth started that shit, I pretty much checked out.

Not cool.

Recent Marvel books with Loki have been great in this respect--he got turned back into a kid and forgot much of his previous life and the whole question of whether a person is destined by natural proclivities to evil was really thought through very well. He's still a very interesting character in Young Avengers, which I quite like in general.

I actually think totally unredeemably evil Loki of the early Thor books is actually not very interesting, and the Loki who predictably takes over every time Odin's napping also got kind of old. Simonson was the writer who came along and started adding in some slightly more rounded or complex motivations for his still-totally-evil actions. Loki in Norse myth is the classic trickster--there's lot of stuff going on, not all of it evil.

What was the after credits spoiler? I saw one withbut there was one afterward? I was like oh they've been nice and just showed it earlier, unless that was the end credit scene and I'm just crazy.

Not having seen the movie yet I will say that the Loki portrayed in the first Thor movie was not wholly evil in the comic book sense.  He was petty and scheming but he never seemed to really want to hurt any of his family, just rule over them.  Inferiority complex in the extreme but not even close to an irredeemable scourge.

This was my impression too.

COMEDY BREAK.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/06/thor-loki-poster-china_n_4228126.html

So I find myself at a crossroads. On one hand is indifference, on the other hand its a low level of loathing reserved for things not terribly bad but not even trying, and on the other hand... mew mew?? I can't say I liked this movie but on the other hand there isn't enough hate to call it a bad movie... This is the 80s action movie equivalent of superhero films. Here we have a non-threatening foppish villain, and his non threatening mooks, be the dark and serious to the utter level of not intentional/intentional comedy of this movies 2 hours. We have the most gimped marvel adaption of all time play up being all somber and reflective.... and mostly dull. They made a point of sucking out the blond walking metal band from the character and left us with someone who grapples with complex issues like why can't he bone jane foster. I mean damn. Then you have Loki who mirrors our villain in his inability to see his life and his many failings being entirely his fault.


And the villain? Boy... "I'll GET REVENGE ON THE ASGARDIANS FOR DESTROYING MY WORLD AND PEOPLE"...hmmm dude you kinda did that in the first 5 minutes of the film. I mean hmm... yeah??  

So... lets get a rundown, a Thor movie, barely about Thor, set in a planet, we still know nothing about, whose villain grand plan is to plunge the worlds into darkness....a plan only the asgardians give a shit about I guess... meanwhile Jane foster has space herpes. Overall a passable, if not numbing experience. In much the way Iron Man 2 deflated interest in the Avengers (which was ironically restored with Captain America and Thor last time around), the Dark World shows the cracks in the Marvel Movie Universe.

Eh. I though it was good. Some nice humor bits. I thought Alan Taylor did a good job transitioning from TV to the big screen. Someone needs to give Michelle MacLaren the same chance.

Saw it, quite good. Impressed with the 'dark elf' design, exceptionally well done. Needed more science/magic stuff though.

The bad guy's plan was never to get revenge. It was the same plan that they tried a few thousand years ago "destroy all suns"

Also.....foppish?

Good fun film. Nice touches, good humor. Not afraid to be a comic-book, thank god, nor does it feel the need to be all grimdark.

I'm not sure why people are expecting profound commentary or something: there is a limit to what you can do with a film where the fundamental premise is "space aliens who dress up like mythological warriors; one of them likes to come to Earth to play with other superheroes and get a little ass on the side".

This sounds like it'd be a kickass movie.  Too bad this one was not it.   :oh_i_see:
I will say it was a nice breath of fresh air to see some good ol' science-fantasy in the theatre.  The last real helping we had of that was Chronicles of Riddick.  To be clear though, Riddick was a better film.

I dont know what it is but Portman really just seems WAY out of place and a huge distraction in the movie; to the detriment of it.  And the interactions between her and Thor are ponderous at best; not well written at all.  Maybe it's the disneyfication of the franchise, I dunno.  Dennings again outdoes her with her small bit.

The best femme acting roles?  Obviously Rene Russo and Jaimie Alexander.

I'd disagree that it doesn't need to be all grimdark.  Honestly, that's exactly where a lot of Marvel needs to try and go at this point.

Couldn't disagree more.  It was a fun film with some nice twists and surprises.  It was good to revisit Asgard and see lots more of it.  Grimdark has its place, I'm enjoying 'Arrow' for instance, but not here.  Thor is one of the few uber heroes the MCU has and I enjoy watching him punch bad guys through buildings. 

Obviously I'm not complaining about Asgaard, nor am I saying the movie wasn't 'good.'  I could just do w/o the Disney camp vibe and Portman.  The more Asgard, the more Heimdahl, the more "Thor and Loki-ness," the better.

Matter of fact, had this been simply "The Continuing Adventures of Thor and Loki" or "Thor's campaign of the nine realms" I think it would've been better.

While I do love to see Natalie Portman on the screen, I do have to agree with this; her character is a lot less interesting in this film compared to the first, she lacks a lot of depth.


This I disagree with. While Renee Russo was good, and fit her part perfectly, Sif was one of the most dispensable, one-dimensional characters I have seen in any film in a long time. Take her out of the film and you would notice no difference. There was never any tension between her and Thor, there was never any suggestion that he had any interest in her. So she's reduced to this dubious amazon type who pouts a lot.

I think Kat Dennings did the most with her role in this film; which wasn't a whole lot anyway (none of the female roles were much really), but she did it well.

If you think about it, the cast was so big no single actor really got much time to give a full performance.  Not to say I didn't like it but it was much more of a fast paced thrill ride type movie than anything.  With how quickly the movie went and how many actors were splitting the pot, no one got time to shine.  It worked on an action movie level I think but they could have padded things a bit more.

A few things that bother me I'll wrap in spoilers

Man, not even sure I want to go there on some of that. But ok.

You realize medium trolls for fun on a near constant basis right? I keep forgetting that myself, just ignore him.

A troll in f13 is someone who points out the reason they don't like something as much as they would like to in a movie thread. Gotcha.

Enjoyed the movie. Mid credits scene gets a thumb up from my nerd side, after credits scene was just dumb.

No.  It would benefit you to be able to identify the difference between what you're doing, and what you describe.

I enjoyed the film.  It had some flaws, but I think it was a good addition to the growing Marvel world.  And although the very last image may have fallen flat with some people, my wife absolutely adored it. 

I have to say


Yeah, the Dark Elf attack on Asgard was one gigantic plot hole filled with plot holes, but it was fun to watch so I didn't mind it so much. Those Dark elf ships were way cool. But yeah. Sif was totally non existent as a character. Portman seems to be suffering from anorexia.

Interesting discussion on Loki. In many ways, in Norse myth, Loki was the problem solver of the Gods. Whenever there was some really vexing problem to be solved they always turned to the Lie-smith. So he had a very ambiguous position in the Norse pantheon as this guy who solved their problems was also going to be their enemy at Ragnerok, and he also spawned their greatest enemies.

You give this movie too much credit.

This movie is kinda like Iron Man 2 for me. Seriously punched a hole in my faith in Avengers 2 following up the first Avengers, much the same way Iron Man 2 deflated much of the excitement for more Marvel films. A lot of the things they expanded on fell flat. A lot of the action also fell flat and I was honestly hoping they expand Thor's abilities as oppose to cementing how utterly gimped he is. They got the comedy and the characterizations right, even brought the character to the somber reflective Thor of "God of Thunder". But I didn't walk out excited. Made me want to re-watch Spiderman 2  :awesome_for_real:

Well, he does have a point about the last battle sequence. I felt it was a bit average when compared to the rest of the movie. Needed the warriors three + Sif fighting the mooks to go along with Thor fighting the main guy.

NO :mob:

Problem with the Warriors Three and Sif on Earth is always, "So what makes Thor special?" if they're overused or obligatory. If you look at the comics they're used pretty sparingly in a lot of Thor's adventures, especially on Earth, for precisely that reason.

Not to mention that Fandral is just Errol Flynn, Volstagg was a fat joke until Simonson saw something more interesting in the character, Hogun has always been a one-note Asian stoic, and Sif wasn't interesting at all until...Simonson again.

I am tired of the bad guys wanting to throw the world(s) into darkness and decay and all that bullshit. Why would anyone want that? Let's destroy everything and then rule... no one? Baddies wanting to bring eternal darkness and shit is the worst motivation ever and really makes no sense.

This movie was funnier than I expected and that's about as much praise as I can give it. I am pretty Marveled out by this point though.

In movie lore the dark elves lived in the galaxy before light existed so supposedly they would continue to thrive without any stars.  Do not even get me started how on how dumb that sounds, I know.  Their plan was however internally consistent in the movie universe, as  :uhrr: as it may be scientifically.

Let's just say that somehow you were alive before the universe began (which, ok, you would not be a basically humanoid dude who hangs out with folks on a planet of humanoid dudes), I can see that you'd just as soon all those fuckers with the lights would go away. Of course, if you were used to time scales like "ten thousand years is just what happens when I take a crap" then just wait it out because it'll all be dark again eventually.

So yeah. As villains go, Malekith isn't much more than a screen saver. The real emotional action is between Thor and Loki.

I saw this a second time (not my first choice of how to spend the evening, but I was overruled). 

Things I noticed:

Vaguely related piece I found interesting and agree with:

"Loki Is The Only Good Villain In Marvel Movies-- And That's A Big Problem"

http://www.cinemablend.com/new/Loki-Good-Villain-Marvel-Movies-Big-Problem-40217.html

Loki is a part of the Thor mythos like Lex Luthor is a part of Superman and Joker is a part of Batman.  They're supporting characters as much as they are villians.  Few Marvel characters have a signature villian that is so tied to the hero.  Spiderman has dozens of signature foes (Doc Ock, Eletro, Rhino, Beetle, Blaster, Venom, Carnage, Green Goblin, Green Goblin II, Hobgoblin, Sandman, Hydroman, Kraven, Lizard, Kingpin, etc...) for example.  They each have villians they face more often (Iron Man has Mandarin, Cap has Skull/Zemo/other old world dominator, Hulk has Leader), but they spend less time with those villians and those villians do not define the hero in the same way.

I did think they wasted Stane, both in the comics and the movies.  Stark needs an indirect villian.  He needs a competitor that steals his tech, arms bad guys, and provides him with a rival he can't beat with weapons.  I loved Iron Man as a stand alone film, but it cut the cord on a number of really good long term possibilities.

I did like the twist on the mandarin originally in iron man three but the more I think about it they realllllly dropped the ball on having a stand out villain.  Most likely the iron man team knew they were done so didn't give a fuck about long lasting ramifications like "what about having the mandarin in avengers 2-3?"

Maybe this will get them to stop fucking killing off all the other villains in Marvel movies.

That was not ruined.  They specifically said that the Mandarin was a construct they built - which doesn't mean they didn't look to a showy figure that actually exists.  Given the reports of Kingsly filiming a short (likely to be packaged with Thor or to be shown before Cap II), I consider a 'real Mandarin' to be likely sometime in the next 18 months.  After all, they still need to reconcile the 10 Rings organization, the ring on the baddie in IM I, and the Mandarin.

Even though they played him as a buffoon in IM2, Justin Hammer could fill that role without too much difficulty.  Especially if there was some sort of post-failure epiphany.  Or the ingestion of dangerous serums (since it's a comic book movie).

Maybe, but I have a soft spot for Stane.  In retrosepct, I think they'd have been better served with:

IM I - Instead of fighting Stane at the end of the movie, have IM face off against the terrorists and the Mandarin (who we discover is a minion of Stane - although we get hints that there is a real bad-ass Mandarin out there).  Stane stealing Stark Enterprises from Tony.  Tony keeps the tech from Stane, but ends up pennyless and blamed for the destruction caused by the fights.

IM II - Demon in a Bottle, Stark International, and Rhodey taking up the suit to stop Stane's (Extremis?) soldiers from stealing Stark Tech while Tony is passed out- but failing.  The climax would be Stark versus Stane with the IM 200 ending (vastle superior ending to that battle).

Avengers - Same.

IM III - Armor Wars.  (Imagine if the ending battle was not 30+ suits of IM armor versus Extremis, but was IM versus 30+ armored villians).

I do agree that some Marvel characters have a pretty weak assortment of villains, and I think that can work if the emphasis is more on situations and characters, but for the Marvel movies to be big action adventure faire better villains would be nice. Even if the character in the comics doesn't have a singular great villain there's no reason why the movies can't elevate one a little. Iron Man 2 didn't even really have a relevant villain at all - one of the problems with that movie is that the villain has no bearing on the protagonist for most of the movie.

I also think that an origin story or first movie can maybe skimp on the villain a little - the villain in IM1 is pretty lame but the movie has a lot of other stuff going on. However once the character is clearly established you lose a lot by not having a decent antagonist.

The key thing I agree with in that piece is that they are getting good actors to play the villains then not doing much with them. In a lot of the movies they feel completely disposable.

Armor vs armor leads you to the transformers problem. You stop caring who is on which side unless the film has decent characterisation and scripting. Since it apparently makes you a hipster around here if you expect those things from a marvel film, designing the premise to depend on them would be unwise.

IronMan works because he plays up to Hollywood writes anyway. Smartest guy in the room assholes whose primary enemies are either dumb greedy assholes or smart greedy assholes. The last three IronMan movies is about a guy fighting an unethical evil corporation/ceo. Yeah the last 10 years of film and social commentary passing as science fiction wants its postcard.

They don't know what to do with Thor or the Hulk or in someways the Avengers. Yes the movie (the avengers) was awesome but if I didn't have a nerd boner for seeing shit like thor fighting iron, the hulk smash around loki, scarlet joe in anything, than the movie would have crumbled if it had to rely solely on the strength of its plot and consistency. And maybe I thought that that was a simple nitpick with the avenger and it didn't need to be "that" solid...but than Thor 2 came out and now I'm officially worried.

You're assuming that you can't develop a story and designs that are evocative and distinct.  Transformers fails because all of the robots are essentially the same.  That does not need to be the case for a comic adaption as you can have 20 different beings in 20 different armors that are far more differentiated than what we saw at the end of IM III - all of those armors were intended to be versions of Iron Man.  You don't need that limiting factor when introducting Guardsmen Armors / Mandroids for SHIELD, Titanium Man, Crimson Dynamo, Beetle, Stingray, etc...  They can be more distinct and focus on their iconic natures. 

Quite.  Bear in mind that the new Transformers fails in that regard mostly because it ignores what came before.  Transformers was doing just fine in terms of characterisation and recognisablity until the enormous walking penis that is Bay got hold of them.

And that was Impressive for sooooo many transformers being in the mix.  Bay only had to get 8 or so to do it and failed fucking miserably.


Like the previous poster, I think making the 'suits' distinctive and have 'hooks' would make it perfectly acceptable.  After all, most of the Iron Man 3 armors were recognisable and 'different';  the only problem being they were in about five minutes and had no exposition.  The list in the previous post would make fine foes if handled correctly, which technically Crimson Dynamo wasn't really....

I think it's partly a matter of how much can you bring a villain back without it feeling like a retread. There have been eight movies so far, and Loki has been in three of them. You start bringing back villains from all the other series and things start to feel a little stagnant. I do agree that it would be nice if at least one of Iron Man's villains had lived. As things stand right now, Hulk still has the Abomination (and the Leader), Thor has Loki, and Cap has the Red Skull (and Zola potentially). I guess depending on how they rework Ultron's origin, maybe could be Stark's ongoing villain. They could put together a decent Master's of Evil out of that roster if they wanted to do so for Avengers 4.

I think there's an understanding in comic book movies that villains are going to come back. Though I think here the problem is less that villains don't recur and more that they are lame and you don't care if they might recur or not since they are non-entities.

I don't know if I agree. Going back to the Michael Keaton Batman, they killed off the Joker in the first movie and the Penguin in the second. The Tobey Maguire Spider-man movies killed off all the villains except Sandman. The Iron Man movies as mentioned here have killed off pretty much all the main villains. The Bale Batman movies killed of Ra's al Ghul, Two-Face, Bane, and Talia. Man of Steel killed off Zod. With comic books you have to tell thousands of stories with these characters. With the movies, even if Iron Man goes on to be a Bond like franchise stretching out over 20+ movies, you still don't have the same kind of pressure to repeat villains that the comics do. The only reason to do it is if you have a long term arc in mind for the character like Loki, Thanos, or Magneto or if you think the character has the potential to become insanely popular with the audience.

Well, another way of looking at it is that the Joker has been in about one in three Batman movies. Sure, some of those were reboots, but I find it hard to believe that he wouldn't have come back had the movies been one continuous series. We don't really know what happens when comic book movies go past 3 or 4 entries without a reboot, but I can't see them just using more and more obscure characters.

But again, I think villains recurring is less important than that few of them would be worth bringing back. Especially as the movies move away from origin stories I think you need compelling villains.

In terms of returning villians - you have to factor in the actor.  Huge Weaving stated he has no interest in returning to the role of Red Skull.  Other actors may not like the idea of being a villian repeatedly because it could result in type casting - and villians do not get the money that heroes do.  Also, you run a risk with recurring villian that they may upstage the hero, and that could cost you your franchise star hero. 

Regardless, I don't expect that this Marvel Cinematic Universe will live forever.  I think we'll get about 5 or 6 cycles (through Avengers V or VI), over which time they'll try to reacquire rights to X-men, Spider-man, Rom, etc...  Then, we'll get a break and they'll reboot the entire thing.

Avengers 5?  :awesome_for_real:

If they make it past avengers III without a decent break or reboot I'd be very surprised.

Avengers 6 with a recognizably consistent group of characters means 18 straight years of successful movies without the audience getting bored, and keeping your star names happy for the duration.

Even Batman, which probably the best possible superhero franchise for movies, has been stretched to put out 7 films in 25 years.

It's far from certain that Avengers would even work without RDJ front and centre. And the superhero bubble is running out of steam. I'm not expecting Marvel to completely disappear or anything, but it only takes a couple of dodgy movies for them to have to 'start out in a new direction after many years of success'.

Shhh. let him have this moment.

For the record - Feige has stated that they have plans in place through 2021, and the films going in production in 2015 are the ones they planned in 2006.

http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/08/07/marvel-studios-has-movies-planned-up-to-2021 (http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/08/07/marvel-studios-has-movies-planned-up-to-2021). 

2021 would be Avengers 4.  They continue to plan. 

I would not be surprised to see them not have an Avengers 4, 5 or 6.  However, they'll have something major to replace it if they don't.  2018 could be an event like 'Secret Wars', or 'Invasion' - something that pulls a bunch of their properties together. 

Marvel is planning to do unprecedented things.  After the announcement that Downey's next two IM films will be Avengers II and III, Feige said: “I believe there will be a fourth Iron Man film and a fifth and a sixth and a 10th and a 20th,” the producer says. “I see no reason why Tony Stark can’t be as evergreen as James Bond. Or Batman for that matter. Or Spider-Man. I think Iron Man is a character just like that.”

http://insidemovies.ew.com/2013/05/17/marvel-phase-3/4/ (http://insidemovies.ew.com/2013/05/17/marvel-phase-3/4/) 

They're aiming to be more ambitious than Staw Wars has been - and is about to be with 1 film per year minimum coming in that universe, too.

James Bond isn't evergreen, he disappears for huge chunks of time and only puts out one entirely standalone film every 3 years when in fashion.

And what they are doing isn't without precedent. The comic book serial matinees worked on the same basis till people got interested in other shit.

For that matter so did Star Trek, Police Academy, and the Carry On films.

This too, will pass.

I saw this tonight.

It was great.

Also, some of you need to pay more attention when watching.  You come here with questions that are explicitly dealt with in the film.

Which is good because I read the questions and then get surprised when the characters answer your questions for you.  Directly.

23 films, 51 years.  You do the math.  ALthough there were gaps of 3 years, there were also times when movies came out once a year.
Different times, different situations.  The matinees didn't span movies, TV, comics and streaming for distribution.I don't recall 2 movies a year plus multiple simultaneous TV series for any of those properties.Sure.  However, will it pass before 10 years pass?  Marvel does not think it will.  There were adventure comics that came out for decades before Superman made his first appearance.  A lot of people probably thought Superheroes in comics were also a flash in the pan...

Avengers was one of the top grossing movies of all time, Iron Man 3 made more money than the previous movies (a shit ton more if you look at worldwide numbers), and Thor 2 is opening stronger than Thor 1 did. I'm not sure what you think running out of steam looks like, but $2.7 billion dollars worldwide between Avengers and Iron Man 3 isn't it.

Yeah, I'm with Velorath :  You're on drugs.  As long as they keep giving the audience entertaining movies, it's a gravy train.

On Villians I think Doc Octopus in the Second Spiderman movie was amazingly well done. Fantastic actor with great screen presence. The only problem was he was only in it for half an hour, was not given much to do, and most of the movie was Spidey moping around redoing his origin story because that's what people pay their money to see you know.

I mean I loved the movie when Doc Oc was on the screen but the rest of it was boring.

Also agree that in this case most of the questions are answered well enough. It's fine to say that poor old Eccleston gets stuck doing not much of anything but that really doesn't materially affect the movie or its capacity to entertain.

I have a lot of trouble listening to movie podcasts for this reason. (For example I was listening to an episode of Operation Kino about Ender's Game and the guest didn't understand why kids were used instead of adults...) I don't know if people are texting during movies or have ADD or what, but I find that the vast majority of "plot hole" discussions are rooted in the viewer not paying attention. And it's not like these movies are extremely subtle or complex. It makes me weep for the future of film.

On the other hand maybe it's like the way people will not pay attention to video game tutorials then complain when they get stuck 10 minutes into the game because they don't realize the A button does something. A lot of movies rely on dumps of exposition and I can see people not paying attention during them.

Or some people don't buy the explanation. Simply saying "here is the reason for x" doesn't mean its an explanation. For example. Giant monsters attack city, we send expensive giant robots to punch them in the face. Explanation? "Cause to defeat monsters we need monsters of our own." Yeah.... no. The only reason to buy that explanation is

1. You don't give a fuck giant robots punching monsters fuck yeah  :drill:
2. The giant robots were kinda good at killing giant monsters, some were even ridiculous good. So for all intent and purposes, at face value the giant robots weren't inherently bad ideas if their good at their job (or at the very least worked better than their second best idea...)

Sure, but in the past few years I've noticed a definite trend of people flat out missing things in movies that were fairly explicit then holding that against the movie. There seems to be a culture now where people confuse pointing out "plot holes" (that often times don't exist) with performing movie criticism.

While most of the questions were from Medium (Professional Troll) and can therefore be ignored, there was another board where someone was asking if the Aether was an Infinity Gem.

Despite the film explicitly saying 'it's a fucking infinity gem' TWICE.

It's that kind of thing that bothers me.  Let's be honest here ;  the film was THOR.  Fucking THOR.  It's not got much subtlety to it.  Nor much depth.  If we want to talk plot holes, fine, let's do that, but I hate STUPID people trying to make it complex.

Another thing was 'How come the They didn't see the dark elves, that's bullshit'.  In the movie, fucking Chuck says 'We haven't seen Dark elves in EVER and we cannot scan for them'.

I mean, this shit's not complicated.  If you want to ask the follow up question of 'hmmm, that's a little odd, why not ?' then you're just into being an arsehole for the sake of it.

Hey ho.

Let's go.

Um, I don't think you're right.  If the 'explanation' isn't good, it just becomes a plot hole.  It doesn't mean that an explanation wasn't given, it just means it didn't make sense.

Here's an example from Thor :

I remember the Aether described as an Infinity Gem during the bit with the collector, when was the other time?

There may be another but when Thor smashed that aether and it turned into red shards I immediately "ohhhhhhh, shit"

Yeah that Red Shards all over the ground was pretty blatant, and made me think "hey its made of glass or something" as one not totally versed in comics lore. But like you I'm struggling to remember when it was said. Odin's Dad just said that it could not be destroyed as "it was too powerful." Odin didn't say it as far as I can remember when he was looking at his book.

I want to say it may have been shown as a gem in the little animated book Odin was reading but I didn't notice at the time.

They mention when telling the story in the book that there are certain known artifacts, the rest (or at least "usually") taking the form of gems.

Yes, Rubik is right ;  They make reference to the others taking the forms of gems but this one was different.

Also, you've given me another one.  When it shatters into gems, that's a pretty fucking blatant hint too.

But the real giveaway was The Collector turning to the camera, holding it up and screaming 'IT'S A FUCKING INFINITY GEM, RIGHT, IT GOES INTO THE GAUNTLET.  WE'RE WORKING ON IT.'

It was subtle.


(also, surely the staff gem was Mind ? Haven't we done 3 ?)


EDIT - Also, when big fatty says 'we have one in our basement, two would be bad'.

We've done two. The mind gem in Avengers and the power gem now in Thor 2.

Edit: Yes, three. I missed Fighe saying the tesseract/cosmic cube is a gem (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinity_Gems#Film), specifically the Space gem.

I am assuming they are saying the cosmic cube is space somehow.

Yeah, that's what I thought too. 

But the Mind Gem appears to have vanished.  Last seen in the hands of Black Widow.  I guess it's in a SHIELD bunker.

It makes me wonder what we'll see in the upcoming films. Scarlet Witch appearing in Avengers 2 makes me wonder if that'll have the yellow gem. Cap could have Time or Soul.

Ah. That "artifacts" line was a bit too subtle for me.

Anyway, ran across this animation of the Avengers fighting a berzerk Hulk on youtube. Its pretty good.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O617ZHcazwA

I turned it off when hulk lifted thor's hammer.

You should have read the info below the video then. Even I recognized that that thing looked a bit off.

Its an adaptation of ultimate avengers. Marvel made 2 crappy animated avengers movies and 1 crappy young avengers movie. Their not eyebleed worthy but they already have the strike of being based on the ultimate universe.

In that universe, they couldn't decide if Thor was a god or not for a while, so his Mjolnir was a wee tad less special.

I saw this today. Overall I liked it, even though I felt that the last 3rd or so wasn't as good as the rest. I have to agree with teh trollz and say the keystone elves at the end kind of sank the end for me.

No matter which universe she's in, Wasp is useless  :why_so_serious:

I always liked Wasp. I hope they treat her like Elizabeth Hurley's Satan and make her change outfits every scene.  :why_so_serious:

You have no imagination if you think a woman that can control the size of her body has no uses. 

Hm...

.
.
.
 :ye_gods:

Perfect for cleaning those really hard to reach tight spaces?

I'm sorry... it was noisy over here... did you say something about tight spaces and hard?

"Thor: The Dark World" was a better film than I had been led to believe. But mainly because of Loki. And Dark Elf space ships.

Finally saw this.

It's ok, didn't hate it.

The problem is Loki is the only character who is still interesting. So in practice, any scene without him felt like filler. This really demonstrates the challenge marvel has keeping the boat afloat once their core heroes have addressed their central flaw.

In particular the attack on asgard and the one on earth were FAR TOO LONG. And the film felt like it had been going about 12 hours before Raymond Calitri even got to Asgard.

Other thoughts:

If your film has elves, you really need to make more effort to avoid stealing other shit from LotR.

I honestly don't know how the fuck anyone was confused by the infinity gem point. I quote: " This is an infinity gem, it is unwise to keep it with our other infinity gem so we are giving this infinity gem to you for safekeeping. We look forward to cursing your sudden but inevitable betrayal regarding infinity gems."

I really liked the dark elves, they had a great Doctor Who vibe about them.

Why do people give this turd a pass is beyond me.

Because Iron Man 3 taught us to put up with anything, no matter how unbelievably bullshit Pepper Potts is ?

You have no idea how many of your posts have made me think the same thing.

What, wondering about all the things that are beyond him? It seems like it's a long list.

That's because their leader was a Doctor.

Just picked this up on DVD.  The One-shot was worth the purchase price by itself.

Finally watched this in the local dollar theater.  Worth $2, but I'm glad I didn't see it on the first run.  Some good scenes, Portman should not get any more roles, ever, and Eccleston kind of phoned it in as Malekith.

--Dave

Not sure he was given anything to do as Malekith anyway. Was a one-note role.

I think that was my biggest problem with Dark World. The villains weren't given enough screen time to be a real menace what with the flitting back and forth between Midgard and Asgard. It tried to cover too many characters while not giving any of them enough emphasis.