[quote="Matchstickman"]
So I thought I'd start this thread to discuss the Avengers where we can spoil the plot, read no further unless you have seen the film or haven't seen it and don't care.
[/quote]
I repeat what (I had forgotten) I said last time! Only this time it's about the second film.
Ultron was created by Iron Man instead of Hank Pym in the Avengers 2 movie. I bet no one saw that coming based on the trailers. 
This is odd, I'm uncertain what to say. Aside from the reveal to the characters 'in world' of the Infinity Stones this movie just felt... unexciting? It was missing something that the first one had, I didn't get the feeling of heart I got from the first one... and at it's core it seemed largely a retelling of that story, done worse.
Stark's lines didn't have the same pop they have had in the past, the team tears itself apart structure was unfulfilling because you knew they would be back stronger than ever, and the death was... predictable and a waste at the same time. With so many people saying "We might not make it out" it was almost pedestrian when it finally did happen, and to make it Quicksilver who had so little screen time (insert joke about his super power) rather than a main character was a cop out. I almost wish it had been Banner instead of the fly-off-into-the-sunset ending they had given him. At the same time it is Whedon's "thing" (to kill someone) so giving me the unexpected by not killing someone would have been different, and they could have made a joke about it afterwards.
I didn't see Winter Soldier so I'm only picking things up from the reviews, clips etc that I have seen but doesn't Cap think that Fury is dead? And there was no reaction from anyone on this? If there isn't a deleted scene on this I will be very disappointed.
While I have been negative here I do feel that there were good points, Vision coming to the team (and the reason they were so willing to follow), Hawkeye getting some actual character, the Scarlet Witch's visions (I think they spoke to very real fears/desires in all of us, fear of failure or of wanting to belong), not disgarding the last movie building on the plot of what has gone before and Ultron's ultimate end (a son confronting his father in the forest, both unwilling to forgive the generation before).
I think I give this movie a stamp of go see it if you liked the others but don't go in expecting too much.
And yes, my post in the "nothing" thread was the quote from Thanos.
You should probably go watch Winter Soldier
Because?
Does he tell Cap he's alive? It was a "thing" in the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. that the world thought he was dead apart from a few select agents. Is Cap one of them?
Because it's probably the best of all of the comic book movies thus far. And it does clear up your question
OK then, off I go!
Winter Soldier is phenomenal, I'd rank it second best, losing to the first Captain America.
That's surprising. I have it the other way around and quite a few movies in between them (like Iron Man 1 and Guardians).
I tend to like first movies better, I really like how they establish his character in the first one. Winter Soldier was fantastic, but it was a much bigger scope of story, and those never rank as high for me, and I'm not a fan of bucky, so heading that direction is sad.
I thought it was great. The jokes were fresh, the action was great and I got a sense of suspense despite knowing none of the big characters were going anywhere. You actually see people die in this one, that didn't happen on screen in the last one.
I loved the focus on Hawkeye. In the comics he is an everyman, a character who has seen it all but isn't extraordinary. A couple years ago he was rated the second best avenger by Marvel , and I think this movie showed part of why that is.
The vision was cool. He wasn't my favorite character but he had a really cool set of motifs. My friends and I were talking about how Ultron wants to be Pinocchio, cutting all his ties and becoming a true living being. Vision on the other hand has a really cool Frankenstein's monster persona. He is created and hated by his father, and ends up killing him. He is even brought to life by a bolt of lightning.
I loved all the Easter eggs. Every time I sawone, one of my friends would punch me in the shoulder but it was great to see threads reaching out for other parts of the universe.
I am positively ecstatic for Civil War. The new avengers are going to break in half. It's interesting to think about, on one hand you have cap who probably has more bodies, with falcon, widow, Hawkeye, and scarlet witch, but on iron man's side you have arguably stronger heroes with war machine and the vision. It should be interesting to see how it all works out with the panther and the spider as well.
Overall, it was probably a weaker movie than the first, but I think it will stand up a little better than the first, so that's a plus.
Oh my gosh, you guys, I am standing in line for The Avengers 2: The Age of Omnitron RIGHT NOW!
Edit: So, that was pretty good. Entertaining action scenes. Lots of quips. Some character development moments from surprising directions. Joss Whedon probably needs a new plot device that’s not, “I will split up the Avengers, and I will do it by setting off the Hulk.”
Yeah, the movie is good but it lacked the same 'magic' the first one had. The best part of the movie was one of Vision's first scenes, not even spoiling it in a spoiler thread. The only memorable moment in the movie as it was Hulk and Loki's scene in the first one. As a whole the movie suffers a bit of re-using the first movie's formula.
And as mentioned in the thread, people who don't remember stuff from previous movies (or haven't seen them) is going to get confused. So a new team might be a good thing, new stories to tell, which is the way to go for Marvel to avoid getting old fast.
Poor Vision he's guaranteed a short life span. And funny at Scarlet Witch movie's version basically being Jean Grey/Phoenix.
Just saw it. Loved it. There were a lot of characters, but the movie didn't feel pointlessly crowded like Days of Future Past did. Every character had an arc of some sort, and every set up has a pay off that feels satisfying. It's not as fun as the first movie, but I would say that from a narrative standpoint, it's a stronger movie.
The movie felt rushed, almost like there was about 30 minutes of film that was cut due to time but should have been in the movie. A lot of charactes and not enough time to develop everything.
It wasn't bad though. I enjoyed it. You can kinda tell why Wheadon isn't doing any more Marvel films though.
Yeah… That's because there was.
Really hoping they do an extended edition…
Ya, I was entertained, but I also got caught up in what I felt were tons of plot holes...for instance, how are the Avengers even together at all? Iron Man destroyed his suits in his movie, Cap lost in shield in his, etc. I thought the silly, unexplained Pool of Asgardian Visions was a nuisance (hopefully it's played out a bit more in the proposed extended cut), and it was annoyingly convenient that the completely disbanded and bankrupt SHIELD was still able to provide a completely operational helicarrier (with staff) at the eleventh hour...
But my biggest qualm with the film was that it simply did not seem that it had a large enough scale. Why does a robotic enemy who can transfer himself through the internet and manipulate everything electronic focus solely on a small, rural city in the middle of nowhere? Why is he not destroying everyones credit and crashing stock markets? Why is he not manipulating literally every robotics manufacturing plant on the globe to accomplish his task? Cap took on an entire global secret agency in his movie...why do we need EVERY Avenger to go punch robots?
Like I said, I was entertained...but I didn't feel like it was very well written.
http://birthmoviesdeath.com/2015/04/21/avengers-age-of-ultron-movie-review/
Here's a pretty decent review of the movie.
I still have no clue what happened in that whole segment. No idea what that pool was or why they were there. It kinda just threw us into it without any explaination. There were a lot of moments in the movie that were like that, but the pool sequence was egregious
I didn't mind it that much, it served a purpose to the story, get Thor back into the action and in a pretty good moment. It just needed some introduction in some previous movie that there were weird places in the world, Thor 1 would have been a good one since it's a bit of science vs magic or Thor 2 with the silly portals. Plus there's a lot of weird places in the real world (like this one, looks like out of an D&D setting).
A quick "I have heard of a place that does X,Y and Z. Lets go there for help" would have been really helpfull. It's ok to have weird places in the world. It's incrediblly jarring however when you are just thrown into one thats so out of place sans any sort of rational or explaination. And why have the professor there in any capacity? It's sloppy and it pulled me out of the movie when those scenes happened.
My other small gripe was that I don't feel Ultron was a really memorable villain, nor did he pose much of a threat himself (yes I get his master plan was a big threat) but I was hoping Stark would build something that could be strong enough to save the world, strong enough to replace the entire Avengers team. That never really happened though as he was easily beat on when the team got their hands on him. Also, I thought it was weird that he managed to obtain his "final form" even before he stole the Vibranium. He went from his "just born" version to the very next scene being in his final state. It would have been nice to see a building or a growth in that character, especially since it's whole central theme was "evolution".
With that being said, I still enjoyed the movie. It was a fun popcorn flick. But it was really sloppy in some respects and that really holds the movie back from being in the same level of film as Winter Soldier, Guardians, or even Avengers 1.
Ant-Man looks solid though. Excited to see that.
I count 5 iterations of Ultron in the movie really:
I didn't count the AI-no body one, though its a fair point. I think the final body introduced with Black Widow and the one that he has when he meets the twins face to face is the same body is it not? I didn't notice any difference in them.
(Lots of folks have commented on this - just grabbing Foote's because it was the most recent.)
I actually thought Thor and Selvig talked about the Well when they arrived. Maybe I imagined it?
Nope - final body was made of vibranium and was larger.
They definitely had this conversation–you're not imagining it. After his Scarlet Witch-induced vision, Thor needed to figure out what was going on. He sought out Selvig and the pair discussed the pool before Thor entered it. I had thought it was pretty straightforward…
Thor caught a very brief glimpse of the infinity stones during the dream Wanda inflicted on him. He went to this pool to get a more detailed vision of that glimpse, to understand what's going on. At the end of the film, he even explained it - four infinity stones (the Tesseract - the space stone, the mind stone in Loki's staff, the reality stone in The Dark World, and the power stone in Guardians of the Galaxy) have appeared recently, and that someone (Thanos) is masterminding things.
The professor is well-read when it comes to Norse mythology and folklore - this was established in the first Thor film - which may be why Thor went to him. He explained what the pool was when he took Thor to see it.
idk if its been said yet but the report is they were forced to cut an hour out of the movie due to requests by the theaters. Therefore some of the stuff that didnt make a lot of sense should be explained better when it comes out on blu ray, especially the thor parts. I have heard different things that it will either be released with an uncut version or released with deleted scenes. If this is true then if there is that much that was left out, I want an uncut version to watch it how it was suppose to be. Not an hour worth of deleted scenes that I have to figure out where it goes into the movie. Absolutely no reason they cant do this since it is now done all the time in movies, especially those rated R.
I'm certainly not trying to dampen anyone's high spirits about the film. It was good and entertaining…but the discussion you're talking about basically was, "oh, by the way, there's this pool that has never been mentioned before, but it is super convenient to mention it now because the vision that I, Thor, somehow got from Scarlet Witch (despite the fact that really she just manipulates our own faults and fears and doesn't in any way show futures) was a little hazy and this mystic pool actually has this neat power to let me quite literally dive back into that vision." And Selvig basically just goes, "uh huh, I'll stand guard." Of course…I may have paraphrased a bit.
It's not that I didn't understand what it was supposed to do, it was just sloppy storytelling to have such a random convenient thing appear out of nowhere that does precisely the thing we need it do to advance the story (same with the last minute save from the helicarrier, actually).
I didn't mind the pool. While it wasn't sophisticated story telling, I wouldn't call it sloppy either. If it was any other character, I'd agree, but Thor would have knowledge of these things. Also, it looks like using the pool is painful, so I imagine he wouldn't use it unless he needed to. Why wasn't it ever brought up before? Because it wasn't useful or needed. The pool sequence was supposed to be a bit more detailed and explained, but they had to cut and edit it for time.
I think the pool scene and Thor was the largest victim of them cutting over an hour from the film. Don't forget Loki was also suppose to be in this film and he got cut
I have only JUST finally gotten to see this for the first time. It opened the day after my birthday, too - stupid being a responsible adult & not going to a midnight showing.
there is one principal way in which I think this film topped Winter Soldier - on both of my viewings of Winter Soldier, I have felt like some of the fight sequences were just a beat or two too long. I did not have that feeling here.
I loved seeing what Hawkeye does when he's not "Avenging," even if it takes away from Romanoff's arrow necklace during Winter Soldier. His daughter being so excited about "Auntie Nat" was incredibly cute.
I would have liked to see Falcon helping with the civilian evacuation from Sokovia, since that's pretty much what he was doing when he got the wings. Would have set up his appearance at the very end, too.
Lastly, I was disappointed at what happened to Quicksilver, but understand that it was probably necessary to give the Scarlet Witch the determination to do what needed to be done.
On the falcon, he might have been there, and it just got cut
I didn't really see it taking away from it, so much as changing it. I think they have a very close relationship, it's just not sexual/romantic. They might have had a romantic relationship - we don't know - but in any case I think the arrow is still a symbol of how close the two of them are.
[quote="jffdougan"]Lastly, I was disappointed at what happened to Quicksilver, but understand that it was probably necessary to give the Scarlet Witch the determination to do what needed to be done.
[/quote]
When it happened, I really wasn't exceptionally surprised. (I mean, I was surprised, but it made sense to me. 
) Speedster characters in a universe like this are just too powerful (and hard!) to accurately portray. The ability to move faster than other people can even think and resolve situations (as Piotr does in Tony's lab) is hard to deal with, and writing them accurately is even harder. There are so many situations in which a speedster should see what's happening and respond long before anyone else even realizes what's happening.
Anyway, yeah, actually writing speedsters in a realistic way is hard, so keeping him around in the MCU is probably not a good idea.
Speedster characters in a universe like this are just too powerful (and hard!) to accurately portray. The ability to move faster than other people can even think and resolve situations (as Piotr does in Tony's lab) is hard to deal with, and writing them accurately is even harder. There are so many situations in which a speedster should see what's happening and respond long before anyone else even realizes what's happening.
Anyway, yeah, actually writing speedsters in a realistic way is hard, so keeping him around in the MCU is probably not a good idea.
My thoughts exactly, Russ. Nailed it.
I thought AOU handled Quicksilver better than Days of Future Past. In DOFP, they resolved the too powerful issue by just not bringing him which made no sense. Leaving him behind just felt contrived. They did a good job with building up to his death with the earlier scene in which he got shot, and so being shot to death didn't feel out of place.