Avengers: Age of Ultron Spoiler Talk

As the title says. Have you seen the movie yet? If so, what did you think? Likes, Dislikes- share 'em all here. The word "spoiler" is in the title, so everyone consider themselves warned, and no whining if you haven't seen it yet and read something you didn't want to know.

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So, I just got back from seeing the movie, and I enjoyed it about as much as I thought I would. I wasn't really super-psyched for it (and I don't really know why, I've loved all of the other MCU movies, but I just wasn't), which I guess was good because I wasn't disappointed. I do think the second half was a lot better than the first. Some of the stuff in the beginning I was like "yeah, it's cool, but I've seen it." You know?

Some points:

HAWKEYE! How much did I love Hawkeye in this movie? He was so relevant, and I really liked that they showed him as a person. In the first Avengers movie, he kicked some ass at the end, but I never really got a good feel on his personality with all the brainwashing and stuff. But here? I loved how he was like "aw, hell no" when Wanda was doing her mind thing on all of the others, and I loved the talk he had with Wanda about stepping up and becoming an avenger. I thought for sure he was a goner when he started getting character development, and I was very glad that I was mistaken in that.

ULTRON > LOKI. Ultron was just a great villain. The way he spoke, his sense of humor, his threat level- I've got no complaints here.

Wanda and Pietro- were not as bad as I thought they'd be. Their arc was a little predictable in the not really!bad guys turned good guys way, and I completely disregarded the backstory the movie made up for 'em, but I liked watching them fight (especially Pietro), and they were likable enough. What the hell was up with that ending for Pietro? Marvel goes through the hassle of borrowing the movie-verse characters from Fox (or whatever the deal was), and then just kills him off? It was a heroic death and all, but it seems like wasted potential. If he is in fact dead. It'd be a really cheap move, in my opinion, but I could see him being resurrected. On a related note: What sort of stupid mother saves herself and leaves her kid behind for other people to rescue?

I enjoyed the smaller, character-driven scenes more than the big, action scenes. The scene of everyone trying to pick up Thor's hammer, for one example. The characters had history now; they felt like friends. I liked that.

I'm not sure what else to say right now. I'll add some more thoughts to this later, I'm sure.

 

Magneto is totally hot; I'd hook up with him XD. But the mother I was referring to was the parent of the child Hawkeye put his life in danger for and Quicksilver got killed over. As far as I could tell, she's just sitting there on that damn plane or whatever they were loading people into, and her kid's out playing in the rubble. WTF? Sorry I was unclear. Wanda and Pietro's backstory in this movie was ignored as soon as I heard it, except for the bit that established that they were pissed off at Tony Stark (not that that really went anywhere).

XD. I'm guessing it would not move, because none of SHIELD's equipment was able to budge it in Thor.

I had so much love for this scene. I wish Cap had actually picked it up though; he almost had it.

Clint definitely had some of the best lines. Pretty much everything he did in this movie was gold. I was kind of torn on the death thing. On the one hand, like you said, death flags waving like crazy. But I couldn't quite decide how smart I thought the movie was- were they intentionally giving him attention because they were going to off him, or were they only trying to make it seem like they were to trick us, or were they trying to make us think they were going to kill him off, so we'd assume they really weren't, only to kill him off after all? In the end I decided the movie was either brilliant or stupid, and that he was a goner. Marvel's taken some flack lately for not killing anyone off, so I thought they'd make sure someone died this time.

Jeremy Renner is confirmed to be appearing in Captain America: Civil War, so it's not the end of him just yet.

They seem to have trouble making nice with directors, too. You'd think they would want to avoid turning away actors and crew with actual talent.

Wanda's powers make no damn sense in any medium, but rewriting reality to bring Pietro back to life would be within her powers as I understand them. There's also the stones, as you said, and then I guess that machine they were using to heal people/create the Vision? I don't know what all that thing is capable of. So it would be really easy to retcon, but I'm not sure that they will, because I think fans will complain about yet another character walking off death, plus I heard somewhere that Aaron Taylor-Johnson was reluctant to sign on to the part because he didn't want a multi-film contract, so he may not even really want to come back.

I enjoyed his sense of humor (which I suppose is Tony's sense of humor, but meh). I enjoy villains who think they're the good guys, and I liked the parallel between him and Tony, who was seriously off his rocker and dangerously genre unsavvy in this movie.


So what did everyone think of the Vision? I gotta say, I thought the makeup or CG or whatever looked really stupid, and almost uncanny valley to me, but the character was pretty cool. Though I'm guessing he's destined to die here at some point, if he has one of the stones powering him.

Black Widow kind of sucked in this movie, which is a step backward from Cap 2. v_v The Bruce/Natasha shipping thing was really awkwardly handled. I haven't seen the first Avengers in a while, but I seem to remember the two of them having some chemistry. In this one, though, Mark Ruffalo just looked sort of tired, and Scarlett was not all that convincing. Actually, everything about Natasha in this movie was awkward.

I think probably my biggest problem with the movie was that I felt like it was too busy setting up other movies. The first Avengers was a culmination of all of the previous single character movies, but this one, with the shoehorned road trip to Wakanda, and the weird Thor lakeside visions, just felt like Marvel was shouting, "HEY, BLACK PANTHER- COMING SOON" and "CHECK OUT THOR: RAGNAROK." It felt like it did the exact opposite of the first Avengers: it ignored previous movies to promote future ones.

 

I think they were mistaken. Besides, the whole point of the Vision picking it up was to prove to the audience and characters that he was worthy, and not another Tony screw-up abomination. Or so I interpreted it. (There totally should have been an after-credits scene of them testing it out in some elevator somewhere). If the Vision was only able to lift the hammer because he was a robot, then any sort of crane or some such device should be able to hoist it as well. And that does not seem to be the case.

XD. The way it happened in the movie was good, too, but Cap picking it up and whaling on Ultron would have been so cool. *sigh*

I'm unfamiliar with the Hulk films, so this aspect of the shipping didn't bother me, although personally I don't feel like he's the type who would just forget about someone he loved, even if he was self-sacrificing and trying to keep away to keep her safe, so I suppose it is out of character. I just felt that the characters didn't really feel into it. That scene at the beginning of the film between the two of them at the bar was embarrassing for my little shipper's heart. And I guess it was jarring because while I didn't think they were trying to set up a ship in The Winter Soldier, I felt like Scarlett/Natasha had more chemistry with Chris/Cap than she did in Age of Ultron with Mark/Bruce.

According to this article, in an interview Joss Whedon said he had to fight to keep in the awesomeness of Hawkeye, and in exchange Marvel forced him to include this stupid Thor crap. You suck, Marvel. Let your folks make their damn movie and stop being a pain in the ass.

I think the Thor movies were always among the weakest, and this is part of the reason why. I suppose in theory it's nice to have a character who can jump between worlds, but it doesn't really work so well in practice. I'd prefer him to stay on Asgard as much as possible. I know he can't exactly be one of Earth's mightiest heroes if he isn't actually on Earth, but we have lots of characters who are stuck there, and he's the only one who we get to see this other world through. Not to mention that I feel like the cast of Asgardians is more interesting than the people he pals around with on Earth in his solo movies.

I think Scarlet Witch and Black Widow are confirmed as well. It's basically another Avenger's movie, just without Thor and Hulk. I'm not really sure why it's considered a Cap movie.

 

I need to see this movie again. I'm forgetting already.

Ha, I just rewatched the trying to lift the hammer scene on Youtube and I love Thor's face when Cap almost picks the hammer up. He's like, "Oh shit!" and then he looks so relieved when Cap gives up.

I guess this is the exact quote about the elevator, at least according to imdb, and that sort of implies that Tony is stating a fact, unlike in my memory-addled interpretation. So I guess my conclusion is: the hammer is magic. Maybe if it senses that someone unworthy is trying to pick it up, even if they are using a machine instead of their body, it won't let them budge it, but elevators and tables, and the earth itself are able to support it? In any case, I still think I'm right about the Vision- I do think he picked it up because he was worthy, not just because he's not human.

Agreed. I could have done without all of the mind trickery stuff, despite Hawkeye's awesomeness about it, but the Thor stuff in particular just seemed really jarring. I didn't see any purpose for the Erik Selvig cameo, I honestly can't remember very much of what happened in the vision or how seeing it gave Thor any insight into the current situation. Part of the problem is probably my memory/I missed something/I tuned out, but I think part of it was just bad writing.

Maybe bits and pieces of it? Certainly not enough to leave an impression, though Hulk's the kind of character who's just familiar. I dunno, I think I learned about him through osmosis or something. ^_^

I suppose "oddest" is a clearer way of describing them, because I did enjoy both of them.

I suppose if it's a Cap movie, it'll be presented in such a way that we're meant to take his side in the debate. Maybe that's why they have him headlining it, rather than having it be Iron Man 4 or Avengers 3. I haven't read Civil War, but the story in theory sounds interesting and a valid issue for the movie universe as it is right now. It all depends on how the movie executes it.

 

This Mjolnir page has a list of people deemed worthy to lift the hammer in comics canon. Captain America is the only one of the movie Avengers able to do so in the 616 universe. In alternate universes, Hulk and Black Widow have picked it up as well. And a lot of other people I don't care about; apparently more people are worthy than I would have thought, or people are smart enough to get around the enchantment. There was even an android who was able to lift it because he was able to gain the personality traits of others and he took on Thor's nobility. So maybe something similar happened with the Vision, and the way Thor used his power to awaken him caused some sort of sharing in power that allowed the Vision to pick up Mjolnir.

I have no idea why I am so interested in this, lol.

That was all I could remember, so it's good to know that I can be observant. XD I know the scene was cut down, but if you're going to remove the parts that are relevant to the movie actually playing, why bother leaving any of it in?

It's pretty much like the opening of The Incredibles, right? ^_^ I don't know what the intentions of the comic were, but I'm sure you're right. It just seems to me that the pro side is not without merit, given the destruction the Avengers seem to cause on a regular basis. I think it could be an interesting debate if handled properly.

 

Unfortunately, that kind of sounds realistic to me- people just like fighting with each other sometimes. And I could see how tempers could get hot with a situation like this one.

Your description of Tony being a jerkface brings up a point, though. They seemed to be setting up the conflict between Cap and Tony in AOU, particularly with the whole creation of the Vision thing, and how everything bad in the movie was totally Tony's fault even though he never really got called out on it, but then at the end they kind of patched things back up again and parted amicably. It seems like it would have made more sense for them to part on less easy terms. But I suppose there will probably be some major event happening in the first part of Civil War that will really create a rift between them.


I feel like I'm kind of running out of things to say about this movie. I really should try and see it again.

 

^ That would be great! Some of those are truly hilarious.

I suspect the actual cause for the break will be a bit more serious, though.

 

I ran out of steam in this thread a little bit. >_< But anyway...

This is what I'm guessing. Not that the destruction at the end of AOU wasn't enough to piss off a lot of people, but I suspect there will be one more big event that just really pushes the issue into the open. It would be in character for Wanda to wig out and hurt a bunch of people- maybe she'll have something to do with it all. I could see Spiderman and Black Panther in the middle, for sure, since as newcomers to the MCU they'd be the most likely to start out neutral.

 

That seemed true, and I don't know how powerful the movie is planning on making her, anyhow. There's precedent for it in the comics, though, with her going crazy, causing the deaths of some of the Avengers, and following that up with the House of M storyline and depowering most of the world's mutants. Although all of that's probably been retconned by now, for all I know. I've only read bits and pieces of the comics.

I agree, though, something would need to set her off. Pietro's death would have been a good opportunity if they hadn't already done that. v_v

Or who knows? I don't know that any other of the new Avengers (given the lineup we got at the end of the movie) has the power for causing mayhem a la Hulk besides Wanda. But there could be other reasons that the public turns against them.

Mhm. You'd think there'd be at least a few other people on this site who'd seen the movie and wanted to talk about it, which would help liven the thread up a bit. But apparently not.