Avengers: Age of Ultron

Kreugen_sl said:

I loved the shortcut they used to establish Vision as a good guy. Totally unexpected and perfect. (we all thought it'd be Cap) "So here we have a big origin story speech where this newly created life form explains his motivations and feelings and... fuck it, just have him casually hand Thor the hammer and move on to the explosions"

It was an Indy-shoots-the-swordsman moment.

"The elevator is not worthy!"

Sure, Vision was under-utilized really but ffs, he's part of a huge ensemble here - there's a million other movies where they can establish his powers and personality before Thanos rips that gem out of his head.

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That moment really was perfect, and referencing the hammer stuff a few times throughout the film was a solid build-up to that moment.

Saw it last night and thought it was great aside from the bad banner/widow romance. The one liners were spot on and the action scenes were really well done.

I do have a question though. Was the thing that stark found in the mindstone already ultron which banner and he just allowed to wake up or was it just a template that they used to create the ultron ai?

The way I interpreted it was the JARVIS program couldn't be used to make Ultron because it wasn't a true AI. When Tony scanned the Mind Stone he discovered an AI so advanced it mimicked a brain. Stark and Banner ran simulation to merge the Ultron 'program' with the Alien AI and each attempt failed. Finally it succeeded and Ultron mk1 was made.

They did the same thing with Vision but used the JARVIS program instead of Ultron. That and Thor's hammer to provided the jump start/power.

Saw it. Liked it, didn't love it - kind of dragged a bit at points, almost like they kept the segues and removed a bunch of the bits like the Loki parts they said they cut. The whole 'outlaw' avengers feel kind of hits home, obvious setup to civil war.

Anyway, the only part that felt hokey to me was the apparent 2-hour rebuild of Shield deus-ex-machina... maybe the TV show explains more of that? I dunno. Fury could have just said "I've been secretly rebuilding the good parts of SHIELD" instead of "I got a helicarrier out of mothballs, found 2,000 people, flew halfway across the globe, designed and built 12 new evacuation thruster ships in 3 hours NBD guys!".

Palum_sl said:

maybe the TV show explains more of that?

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Basically, although they sort of explain it in retrospect. Basically Coulson spent almost the entire season, or at least the entire back half of the season, secretly working on Theta Protocol, which was the Helicarrier project.

i thought the hawkeye family scene was very fitting. Even his team didn't know that Hawkeye had a family. Great WTF moment. Showing him as a family man made the scene where he talks to Scarlet Witch work. So i think it even might have been necessary. What do the other avengers know about family? As far as it's been shown, only Thor has a family and his is highly dysfunctional.

At least, with the destruction in the hulkbuster scene you see wounded people and people panicking. You also see the end result in the Avengers becoming fugitives. You hear about the casualties. You don't have to show blood spatter on the camera to know shit went bad. But like in man of steel, where you don't see a thing or hear nothing the hulkbuster scene was done MILES better. In man of steel you see a handful of people from the daily planet trying to run away, that's it. A city of millions and only a few people trying to survive.

When the final fight goes down, half of the avengers try desperately to save people. You see wounded people on the carriers, i think you even see some dead bodies amidts the rubble. But more off in the background, it's not like they did a wide shot of all the bodies piled up or anything, but that isn't necessary.

Exactly. Man of steel would have been 100x better if they demonstrated that he was always actively trying to save people. You get that feeling from avengers in the first 20 minutes when the iron legion comes out and it never goes away. Even stark SAYS he's looking for an empty building during the hulk fight. Sure, his understanding of physics is clearly flawed if he thinks that the building being empty means no one on the ground won't be affected by it, but he's clearly making an attempt to avoid people. He even makes a quip about buying it before destroying it. He is CLEARLY in damage control mode. You never get that sense from man of steel. And fricking quicksilver died, so don't give me that crap about there being no death.

Big Phoenix_sl said:

Just saw it. Is there an equal amount of nerd rage and tears over the amount of destruction like there was in Man of Steel?

Seriously though, one thing that is really starting to piss me off about modern movies(really stands out in comic book movies though) is just how clean they are. Take for example the entire Hulk buster scene, no one dies from that fight. They even go out of their way to show people missing the rampage and dodging the hulk by a cunt hair. Hulk/Hulk buster thrown into buildings and nothing. Then theres the city being levitated and then literally exploding before reaching the ground. End result? Nothing. Again like the Waka scene they go out of their way to show people being saved in random ass building_01. No tsunami when the billions of tons of rock impact the lake. Insane levels of destruction that is completely inconsequential. Im all for destruction but jesus christ is it annoying to see buildings collapse, entire cities explode and everything is a okay.

Also the love story bullshit was god awful. No one fucking cares about hawkeye or his family.

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I also don't like the 'destroy a city, no consequences' thing or the '100% of the time no civilians are around!' trope. I think Marvel handles it the best right now, without trying to make it all grimdark, but at the same time it's starting to break down the fourth wall a little bit like they live in a sterile reality. Then again, fuck there's so much empty commercial real estate in Phoenix they could fight here without much loss of life lol.

I thought the whole thing was Feige/Whedon (probably Feige) thumbing their noses at Man of Steel, actually.

While I always thought it was Superman didn't really have much of a choice about where the fight took place, he should have been spending more time trying to save people instead of punching Zod in the face, just like the Avengers had to do here.

I thought he pushed them behind the car and ended up getting hit. They couldn't have him shoot away like a skipping stone though otherwise he doesn't get his last lines. So he gets comic book dying powers and is standing next to them at the end. I could be wrong though.

that was how i understood it as well. the look on hawkeye's face is pretty telling. "oh... i'm... not dead? where am i?" either QS moved THEM or he moved a car in front of them because they were behind something. I'm more inclined to think he just moved them.

I thought he pushed the car over in front of them.

Could be, either way he wasn't trying to shield them with his body. He just got there and moved them or the car just as the strafing happened so Buh bye tracksuit.

It showed that he wasn't exactly faster than a bullet earlier in the movie. Hawkeye shot up through the glass floor and the bullet was at eye level before he realized what was going in. Getting shot by Ultron was probably him not being able to move quick enough to save Hawkeye and the kid without getting shot.

too bad these movies arent rated R, I would have liked to see what that man .50 cal shells would do to QS body actually.

Eh, miniguns are typically 7.62mm.