The Avengers

[IainC]

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.

[Reg]

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

[SurfD]

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.

[Arthur_Parker]

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

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

[Riggswolfe]

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.

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.

[Quinton]

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...

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.

[taolurker]

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.

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.

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

[eldaec]

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.

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...

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.

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

[Lakov_Sanite]

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.

[Khaldun]

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.

[IainC]

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.

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.

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.

[Evildrider]

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

[SurfD]

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.

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.

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.

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.

[Arthur_Parker]

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.

[Ironwood]

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.

[murdoc]

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.

[sickrubik]

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.

[Malakili]

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

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

[Ironwood]

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

[Samwise]

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.   

[Jeff Kelly]

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.

[sickrubik]

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

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

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

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.   

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.

[Ironwood]

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

 

[sickrubik]

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.

[Samwise]

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.

[sickrubik]

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.

[Hutch]

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.

[Lakov_Sanite]

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

[Samwise]

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).

[sickrubik]

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

[Samwise]

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.    

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!).

[sickrubik]

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.

[Samwise]

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.  They're better than the actual movies.   

[Nevermore]

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.    

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 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. 

[Lakov_Sanite]

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