Avengers: Age of Ultron (Post-release)

^ I actually see Reddit being civil more than not, much of the time. It ain't no 4chan, that's sure. *heh* I love Mark. The man totally is Bruce. Sensitive, thoughtful, well-spoken, intelligent... I love how he's just been gently dismantling all the baseless rage against Whedon for things Whedon didn't even do.

As I've said elsewhere, and among friends after seeing it last weekend, I have only a couple minor quibbles with the film.

• Felt rushed in parts -- as with others, I hope the extended cut resolves this.

I have other thoughts about the future...

• Ultron was nigh-unstoppable in the comics. I have a feeling he'll be back. Jocasta's role in the comics of "bride of Ultron" makes me think the presence of that card was more than just an homage.
• With Vision and Scarlet Witch here, Scott Lang over in Ant-Man, the Kree introduced over in GOTG, and Captain Marvel on the horizon, we're getting a lot of foundation work for the Young Avengers.
• I'm surprised at the haters of the "B-team" assembling at the end of the film. It's not a million miles from the West Coast Avengers, and they were no slouches, in spite of them having to overcome the same condescension in-universe, not having Cap or Hulk or Thor or Hercules or the real Iron Man, and like that. I'm looking forward to the evolution of the team, the probable additions of Carol Danvers' Captain Marvel, Ant-Man, and maybe even Richard Rider's Nova.

Sidebar: @Dessa -- just noticed your sig. Woot ElfQuest.

--Jonah

Didn't anyone else notice how the camera zooms out when the Vision "deals with" the last Ultron bot? That flash of light is pretty ambiguous. Ultron will be back yo.

Why, when Vision, Thor, and Iron Man were zapping Ultron, didn't they just finish him off? Maybe I missed something, but why not completely destroy him?

Paul Andrew said:

Didn't anyone else notice how the camera zooms out when the Vision "deals with" the last Ultron bot? That flash of light is pretty ambiguous. Ultron will be back yo.

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i believe your exactly right

Saw the film. It's was good. Not great, but good.

vaderbreath said:

Why, when Vision, Thor, and Iron Man were zapping Ultron, didn't they just finish him off? Maybe I missed something, but why not completely destroy him?

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Maybe because it wouldn't have mattered if they destroyed that Ultron? I mean, there were a lot of Ultrons they had to deal with on that floating rock, were there not? I mean, does it make sense to waste all of your energy on one copy of Ultron when you're better off saving that energy to use to save civilians and bringing down the floating city in a massive explosion that would have wiped all of them out? I'm not trying to justify their actions in the film, I'm just asking questions because it comes off like that's the case on both those regards.

BTW, does anyone know if the FRIDAY A.I. was in the comics or if it was something made up just for the films (as a play on "Girl Friday", as the A.I. has a female voice)? I mean, I know JARVIS wasn't an A.I. in the original comics (but was in fact a butler for Tony Stark) and became an A.I. in the films as a means of avoiding the comparisons to Alfred from the Batman series, but I was wondering of maybe FRIDAY was from the comics or not.

Hmmm. That makes sense. Plus it later provided the way out for Hulk.

vaderbreath said:

Hmmm. That makes sense. Plus it later provided the way out for Hulk.

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Speakin' of Hulk, am I the only one who found that Natasha/Bruce lovey-dovey relationship in the film out of place in comparison to the previous one? I mean, I've seen the first film dozens of time, and I don't see any kind of attraction between the two in the first film (in fact, it seemed like how it was pretty much talked about in the film, Natasha was used as eye candy to draw Banner to S.H.I.E.L.D. because of her pretty good looks that would make any man say "uh, okay"), yet in the second one, it's like they're ready to jump each other's bones if they could agree to it.

The two have obviously been working very closely as evidenced by the "lullaby", so not out of place at all.

Agreed.
From the opening action sequence it's evident that some time has passed since the first film where they've been busting Hydra facilities around the globe.

Also I've heard one respected online reviewer be perplexed that they'd start off talking about family and long term stuff instead of just dating first. We should keep in mind that these are not folks who just met - they've been working closely as fighting comrades and have faced life and death under fire for a good while.

It's interesting to know that Scarlett and Mark have the same birthday, BTW. I heard a BBC interview with the actors and they also have wonderful chemistry - after the interview the reporter said he felt like he was walking in on someone else's private conversation.

CB2001 said:

BTW, does anyone know if the FRIDAY A.I. was in the comics or if it was something made up just for the films (as a play on "Girl Friday", as the A.I. has a female voice)?

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Both, it's from the comics and was a play on "my girl Friday."

Still love the Archie Comics reference with Veronica.

Dessa said:

For b) if it was the "last" base, what's the point of the season finale?

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I'm pretty sure the season finale of Agents is going to be a big fight between SHIELD and the inhumans, not Hydra.

I enjoyed it, but it was definitely more of the same. I can see myself getting tired of the formula in the very near future. The kids and I had a fun afternoon out *shrug.*

For the people saying that the AI Jarvis was created for the movies, Jarvis was an AI in the old 90s cartoon first.

Oh, man... Oh, god. Oh man. Oh god oh man. Oh god oh man oh god OH MAN OH GOD!

*inhales slowly*
*exhales slowly*

My parents and I love to watch movies and TV shows. They watch something almost every day while I get together with them to see a movie almost every weekend. We've seen every Marvel movie up to this point and while they certainly had varying opinions about them it was an all around fun and exciting thing to be a part of. My Dad still cites Avengers as one of his favorite summer movies and my Mom just likes watching all the variety of character moments done by actors she likes.

So, when they chose to see Ultron without me, I was sort of bummed out. Not so much that they saw it without me (I saw it without them first), but that they waited till I asked them if they wanted to go see it that they told me with a downer face "we saw it". I asked them what they thought of it and what came next was just heart breaking.

"Oh, it was terrible! One of the worst movies I've seen all year!"
"There was no story at all. Absolutely no story."
"I physically could not take this movie."
"Nothing about it made any sense at all. Not even in context of it's own universe."
"I wanted to leave half way." "I would have followed her in a heartbeat."

...Did you at least like seeing Don Cheadle (An actor we're real big fans of)?

"There was no point to him! Why was he there?"
"And who was the other black guy with Captain America? He had no role at all."
"Why did they introduce those mutants just to get rid of them?"

Wow. I was just aghast. My folks were by no means two people who are only now being introduced to the Marvel cinematic universe. Again, we've seen all the movies, re-watched them plenty of times at home, always had fun speculating on what would come next and even watched a season and a half of AGENTS OF SHIELD! They could stomach a season and a half of that show but they called Age of Ultron the worst thing that's ever come out of it! What was it about this film that they hated so much? Did I miss something when I saw the film? To them it was simply a very bad movie. Every time I tried to explain to padre who or what these characters are, I always got the same response.

"So what?"

Ouch. My mood for the weekend just went down the drain.

Getting opinions beforehand is as damaging as reading spoilers. Shouldn't have asked!

Treadwell said:

Getting opinions beforehand is as damaging as reading spoilers. Shouldn't have asked!

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But it wasn't beforehand. I saw it before they did and already had a positive opinion on the movie.

Well if you take a step back, and try to look at the movie without the context, like it's a stand alone movie, it doesn't work that well. Even worse if you don't know the characters yet, but going to see Avengers 2 without prior knowledge of the MCU isn't the brightest idea.
There is a reason it's not performing as well as expected, it's still a huge financial success, but I'm not sure it's going to do as much as the box office as the first one, and much less hit the 2B mark. All the reviews are also slightly under the first one. Again, good movie, but the editing can make it confusing some times, and some choices Whedon made are a bit questionnable. Of all my friends who saw the movie, they all came out disappointed, and they're all huge Marvel and comic book films fan. Winter Soldier and Guardians were both tough acts to follow, and to me it seemed Whedon was a bit out of touch with the direction Marvel is heading at the moment. Plus, it might be me only, but I felt I didn't get what the trailers sold me, mainly on Ultron.

teragon said:

Well if you take a step back, and try to look at the movie without the context, like it's a stand alone movie, it doesn't work that well. Even worse if you don't know the characters yet, but going to see Avengers 2 without prior knowledge of the MCU isn't the brightest idea.

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That's why this whole encounter was so demoralizing. We've seen these movies before many times, we knew that they were all connected and if they forgot anything important they would likely have gotten lost in the set ups for future movies and pay offs from previous movies.

teragon said:

There is a reason it's not performing as well as expected, it's still a huge financial success

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I think the bigger obstacle was that the film just didn't have the material it needed to really broaden the scope of the film. Joss Whedon said that his original cut for the film was 3 hours and 15 minutes. That's like 45 minutes of stuff that could have fleshed out a lot of issues people were having. Even I was thrown a curve ball during the opening sequence when I was asking myself why these Hydra soldiers were wearing super light up armor. It wasn't until I saw a video that said they these soldiers were equipped with Chitauri armor and weaponry salvaged from the first Avengers film that was converted for human use. I had no idea that was the case, even after seeing all the Chitauri stuff below the base.