Marvel Cinematic Universe

Interestingly, he claims he added Klaw to Age of Ultron because he felt he fit the script, not to benefit the upcoming Black Panther movie as an Early-Bird Cameo, since he had no idea BP was even being made.

Oh, well, that's fair. I get where you're coming from. I don't tend to like gritty stuff much either.

Those billboards....love them. I have the feeling that they get more attention than the usual ones.

I always looked forward to ant-man (because it is supposed to be a heist movie, and I love those), but the advertising makes me even more excited. I went from "I might watch it as soon as I have the opportunity" to "Maybe I should go opening weekend".

The amount of Troubled Production around Ant-Man is the reason I feel I have to see it.

Small thing to note but in the solicitations for Marvel Comics that just got posted online they mention that one story will have the Infinity Stones so add one more mark to the "MCU causing changes in the comics" board.

Joss's quotes are making me worry about the quality of Age of Ultron. Generally the cast and crew promote a move as fantastic whether it is or not. Most of Joss's comments this time around are more along the lines of "I really hope I didn't screw this up".

edited 21st Apr '15 2:02:35 PM by Galadriel

All the more reason to show to never trust their comments. And Joss insists the first Avengers is terrible when most everyone else thinks it's fantastic.

A lot of the reviews are making me wary of this movie. I'm getting the impression the movie is less fun than Avengers 1 and with more stuff going on at once.

I don't get the sense he thinks it's terrible, but he's dissatisfied with some of the compromises he made regarding the plot - for example, the scene where Thor fights Iron Man and Cap is there because Marvel mandated there needed to be a scene where the heroes fight each other, and the Chitauri all die when the mothership is destroyed because that's an easier way to have things end. Joss recognizes the latter as lazy writing and the kind of thing he usually hates, and I agree with him on that point - it is a cop-out.

Avengers is a lot of fun, but it's far from perfect.

Man, I really hate the fact that Marvel movies, ever since the success of The Avengers come out in the UK first. *grumble grumble*

Most of the review seem overall positive but they mention some concerns I've had, namely there's way too much stuff going on and the Buffy Speak gets really irritating, apparently.

Then they praise all the action scenes and go on to say Hawkeye absolutely steals the show this time around.

edited 21st Apr '15 3:23:05 PM by comicwriter

And one other major thing mainstream reviews seem to be annoyed at is just how long the damn Infinity Gem plot across the movies is taking.

More characters=More people to Buffy Speak

The movie started showing half an hour ago(23:59)here in Sweden. Got a text from a friend in the theater saying the tone of the movie is really weird a few minutes ago. I'm seeing it at 14:00. Expect a review like my last few where I among other things scream at things not being like the comics, female characters not getting as good fights as the male ones, my hate for the photography, how I'm really tired of RDJ and SLJ, things I found interesting and more around 17:00~18:00. It will be in all spoiler tags even though we've seen like half the movie in all the trailers and TV spots.

Also that. They really shouldn't have had everything having something to do with the Stones. Why couldn't Ultron just be a evil mad AI?

edited 21st Apr '15 3:32:57 PM by LordofLore

Really? I thought the photography would be better this time around. First film's was pretty lackluster but apparently they got the person from Guardians of the Galaxy which I thought looked pretty nice to address the complaints.

More Buffy Speak? Damn. I thought a lot of the jokes in the Avengers came off as trying too hard to be funny, or everybody sacrificing their personality to become the same stock Whedon snarker, because of it.

edited 21st Apr '15 3:45:26 PM by AlleyOop

I generally don't mind things not being like the comics. The MCU has already changed so much that it's pretty fruitless to hold on to that aspect.

From what I've seen from the trailers and TV spots I can say that I've seen 3 movies this year(one of which is one of my few 5/5 movies because they aced everything) that had way better photography and didn't use filters for most scenes.

I know but I'm still mad when small things like Gamora lacking her iconic yellow circles around the eyes happens. I'm too big of a fan of the comics to not mention stuff like that. Hell, I had a big rant in the Comics thread when 616!Gamora lost her Bendis!outfit and switched to the MCU version because armor made sense for her to wear while leather is pretty poor defense vs the things she usually fights.

edited 21st Apr '15 3:56:49 PM by LordofLore

You know, I noticed that several of the more critical reviews seem to contain a sense of fatigue over all these Marvel films, and that they just feel that they all feel rather assembly line.

Heck, that's one complaint I've heard lobbied at the MCU; it's being done not for the sake of telling a story or the like, but simply to fill a quota and earn money, with the producers getting the final say over the directors, and as a result, they all feel rather samey.

Been there, heard that. Easy target now that Sony's lost its hold as the assembly liner.

That complaint never made sense to me. The core series all have different themes and genres. Some series like Cap even switch genres between movies.

Depends on what you consider the genre to be, and what aspects of a work make it that genre. I'm pretty anyone that's going to criticize the MCU films for being too assembly line is going to just label them all as the "superhero genre" movies instead of WWII movie, political thriller, or space opera.

We're getting Daredevil season 2 in 2016: http://marvel.com/news/tv/24478/netflix_orders_a_second_season_of_marvels_daredevil

Early reviews are coming in; the general consensus seems to be that the movie's fun and action-packed, but rather too full, too beholden to franchise-building, and not quite at the level of the first Avengers.

And it's true that most of Marvel's films have a certain same-ness about them. They are all superhero movies, even if they have the superheroes in different context; Captain America: The First Avenger is not a "war movie" like, say, Saving Private Ryan, or Fury, or Gallipoli; it's a superhero adventure story that happens to take place in the context of a war. Thor 2 and Guardians are basically the same plot: prevent two-dimensional baddie from destroying planet using the MacGuffin (which is an Infinity Stone). All of the Iron Man movies have roughly the same plot: Tony uses suits to fight a technology-based villain who has a personal vendetta against him based on Tony (or Tony's father) being an asshole in the past. Many, though not all, of them have shallow romantic subplots with female characters who need to be rescued at some point. And most-to-all of them have abundant quips and snark, including much lampshading of the fact that they're superhero movies and are playing into superhero tropes.

It's like Bond movies. Sure, the Daniel Craig ones are different in many ways from the Roger Moore ones, but they all retain the same general tropes and sequence of events. So do the Marvel movies: guy learns to become hero (if it's an origin story), uses superpowers to fight bad guys with melodramatic plans, denounces their evil ways, beats them, yay.

Winter Soldier is the only one that stands out as particularly distinct, because it puts a little thought into the idea of looking at whether "your" side might be the real bad guys.

edited 21st Apr '15 5:32:05 PM by Galadriel

There's even more Buffy Speak? Oy... hearing Banner refer to Ultron as a "murderbot" with a straight face in one of the preview clip was painful.

Nice. So that's Luke Cage and Daredevil in 2016. I wonder when Iron Fist will drop?

So basically all my worst fears about Avengers 2 have come true. I'm really shocked. I'd just taken it for granted this movie was gonna be perfect... but then as we learned more about it, I started to notice it had way too many characters in it, but there was still some part of me going, "I'm just being nitpicky. I'm sure the movie's fine."

But it sounds like it really does have way too much going on. Well, even if Avengers 2 is flawed, I hope it's at least enjoyable to watch. I mean, I've been pretty forgiving to the more flawed movies like Thor 2 as long as they're fun.

edited 21st Apr '15 5:33:19 PM by spashthebandragon