Thor: Dark World

[Margalis]

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.

[Velorath]

I think there's an understanding in comic book movies that villains are going to come back.

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.

[Margalis]

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.

[jgsugden]

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.

[Lakov_Sanite]

Avengers 5? 

[eldaec]

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'.

[Lakov_Sanite]

Shhh. let him have this moment.

[jgsugden]

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. 

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/ 

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.

[eldaec]

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.

[Ironwood]

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.

[jgsugden]

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.

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.

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.

Different times, different situations.  The matinees didn't span movies, TV, comics and streaming for distribution.

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

I don't recall 2 movies a year plus multiple simultaneous TV series for any of those properties.

This too, will pass.

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...

[Velorath]

And the superhero bubble is running out of steam.

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.

[Ironwood]

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

[Sir T]

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.

[Khaldun]

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.

[Margalis]

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

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.

[MediumHigh]

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 
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...)

[Margalis]

Or some people don't buy the explanation. Simply saying "here is the reason for x" doesn't mean its an explanation.

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.

[Ironwood]

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.

[Evildrider]

Hey ho.

Let's go.

[Ironwood]

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 
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...)

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 :

[Rishathra]

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

[Lakov_Sanite]

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"

[Sir T]

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.

[Lakov_Sanite]

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.

[sickrubik]

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.

[Ironwood]

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'.

[sickrubik]

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, specifically the Space gem.

[Lakov_Sanite]

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

[Ironwood]

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.

[sickrubik]

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.

[Sir T]

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

[MediumHigh]

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

[Der Helm]

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.

[MediumHigh]

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.