Avengers Film

Aliens aren't science fiction? Nobody gave me this memo.

There are different genres within Science Fiction.

Anyway...It's not like the other movies are not going to build up the Alien war.

^^Yeah, and this is the genre with fighting robots fighting each other and Norse gods and super soldiers. Why don't aliens get a pass? I'd say aliens are more realistic than the norse god.

^Let's ignore Thor for a moment, this guy is part of the problem imo.

Now let's go back to Iron Man 1. Let's say that halfway through instead of Iron Monger showing up a fleet of spaceships invade the world. Turns out the Ten Rings were actually trying to get Stark to build the Jericho so they could modify it and send a giant flare into space to get the Skrulls or whatever you call them to invade Earth. Turns out the Ten Rings were actually stranded skrulls in disguise who figured they might as well invade earth while they're at it.

Now tell me, would you honestly say "OH it's about powered armour, aliens is totally plausible as well!" . No you'd think "WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT?! WHAT HAPPENED TO MY ALCOHOLIC IN POWERED ARMOUR CLEANING UP HIS ACT?!"

Remember Hancock? It's like that, I can accept powered armour guys, and Hulk I suppose kinda fits in the medium (still haven't seen incredible hulk yet though) and from what I've heard in the second hulk movie it's kinda briefly mentioned that the super serum for Captain America was the predecessor to Abomination or something so that feels consistent. In other words up till now we have this whole idea of scientists pushing the boundaries and creating super beings.

Dropping Thor into this team is going to be weird, but maybe, just maybe the movie can make me accept that. But suddenly dropping two more alien races into the mix in an alien invasion thing? Suspension of disbelief shattered.

edited 28th Dec '10 6:37:15 PM by ShadowScythe

No, I'd go 'Sweet! Iron Man's going to fight aliens!'

If you want to restrict fun with arbitrary limits on your suspension of disbelief, fine, but aliens are NOT as unrealistic as a guy in a robot suit, a guy who got magic angry powers from radiation, a guy who can make himself shrink, and a norse god who is ALSO ACTUALLY AN ALIEN.

Guess you must've enjoyed hancock's "twist" then.

I did actually think Hancock's twist was fairly clever. Granted, it could have been executed better, but I don't get where all the hate for it comes from.

edited 29th Dec '10 3:17:57 PM by LizardBite

^^^

That's nice, so your Willing Suspension of Disbelief is different from the rest of us. But If Jesus, Then Aliens doesn't apply to everyone. There is a difference between Aliens and a Robot suit and everything with some fictional elements has to turn into a Superhero Kitchen Sink So far, as superpowers go, the marvel movie universe is actually pretty low key. Nothing to flashy and all existing "superbeings" are a) seen as exceptional and b) having some, albeit nonsensical, explanation for why they happened on our world. As SSOT noted earlier, Like Reality, Unless Noted. One supernatural element doesn't mean I have to like any other element introduced.

As for me, I wait till I see the result. If they make it fundamentally epic, showing Earth's involvement into an interstellar war as a world changing phenomenon, this could be pretty cool. Currently, I am more interested how the introduction of Thor into the broader universe will happen. So far, the members of the avengers are all people who got their abilities through SCIENCE! and then suddenly, the freaking God Of Thunder walks among them.

edited 29th Dec '10 11:05:47 AM by eX

First of all, I never watched Hancock. It's your own fault for seeing a Will Smith movie. And even if I -did- enjoy it, that would have no bearing on whether my arguments were valid or not. Stop resorting to Ad Hominem.

Secondly, low-key? THERE IS A MAN WHO TURNS BIG, GREEN, AND SUPERSTRONG FROM GETTING ANGRY AND THEN WRECKS UP NEW YORK! THAT IS NOT LOW KEY! THERE IS A MAN WHO FOUGHT NAZI SUPERSCIENCE WEREWOLVES!

And I'm genuinely baffled by this response. What is unscientific about aliens? There's a definite possibility that they can exist, and it's way more possible than building a super suit in a cave with a box of scraps.

If you don't like the aesthetic of aliens, fine, but it isn't a stretch by any means.

edited 29th Dec '10 11:16:35 AM by Malkavian

They could make them like in the ultimates, it would be way less "wierd" for most people who can't handle awesomeness.

Avengers? Joss Wheden? Oh dear... Well. I suppose I always, somewhere deep down, thought that Marvel comics needed more Wangst...

^^^Woah woah, there wasn't any hateful intent in what I was saying, nor was it ad hominem, I'm really sorry if it came off like that. Just saying that Hancock basically went from a kind of tongue-in-cheek look at Superheroes to supernatural and it pulled it off terribly and it ruined the movie. Also while there was some bad foreshadowing to some sort of twist, there wasn't really anything to suggest a supernatural explanation so it came off as a terrible shocking swerve where you could practically hear Will Smith say "what a TWEEEEST!"

So basically, in Iron Man the setting seems to be our world but presumably with America having better military tech thanks to Stark and a possible new energy source that is still in the developmental stages (the arc reactor thing). Captain America could kinda fit in this world because it's the same idea of Scientists creating a super soldier FOR SCIENCE in the same way that after Tony escaped home he started to further hone in on this iron man suit for science and also because he felt it could help people. Hulk...the hell is his origin story in the movies anyway? Nuke going off or some genetic experiment thing? Either way it has some pseudoscience grounding.

And then along comes Thor with his stupid God society and his "Magic and Science are the same in Asgaard" stuff to change things up into a kind of sci-fi/supernatural mix. Up until this point I would argue that Iron Man, hulk and Cap would be in a kind of Post-Cyberpunk Genre. But fine let's toss in the supernatural genre, maybe it could work. Maybe.

But oh no, now let's throw in Aliens to turn this into a Post-Cyberpunk/Supernatural/Space-Opera thing and at which point I would argue that there are far too many genres being mixed in here and there's going to be inconsistencies between them.

And not just one race but TWO races of Aliens. This is the sort of multivillain/multiplot-itis that ruined Spidey 3, Xmen 3, Iron Man 2 and various other superhero sequels. It could be pulled off right, but I doubt it with Marvel kicking off all of the talented people in their crew (Norton, maybe Howards dunno what happened there and ESPECIALLY Jon Favreau).

What next, a cosmic retcon to reboot the series when the movies run their course? Or maybe we can toss in continuity/alternate universes now to do a reboot in a separate universe. Yeah let's turn this into a post-cyberpunk/supernatural/Space-Opera/Time travel/Multiverse/Crisis Crossover...thing. It's all sci-fi right?

And that is why I am not looking forward to these ideas.

EDIT: Oh crap wall of text, sorry guys.

edited 29th Dec '10 6:19:21 PM by ShadowScythe

From everything I've heard about the movie, Hancock's problem had more to do with execution than concept. In any case, your post sounded like you were trying to dismiss what I said by appealing to taste. I assume you can see how I read it to mean "Well, what do you know? You probably liked Hancock." If that's not what you mean, then we're peas and carrots.

See, your premise is flawed from the get-go, because you're forgetting a very important thing. This is incredibly SOFT SOFT sci-fi. This isn't post cyberpunk, this isn't biopunk, it's GEEZ THIS IS FREAKING AWESOME! If you think this is a subgenre other than what's the coolest set-up for action you're only fooling yourself.

There is NO science in these movies. NONE. NADA. There is just crazy cool ideas of the "man, wouldn't it be cool if Iron Man fought zombies?" variety.

Also, superhero movies with multiple villains also include The first two X-men films, Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, Superman 2, Hellboy, and Sherlock Holmes (if you count that) so I think it's safe to say that having multiple villains isn't a

The whole point of Marvel comics is to be a kitchen sink of crazy ideas and going 'RRAAAR DOCTOR STRANGE AND THOR AREN'T ALLOWED IN THE CLUB HOUSE' is missing the entire point.

It's like if you went to Doctor Who and went 'Okay, we can't use fantasy monsters, cyberpunk ideas, ninjas, horror movie tropes, or murder mysteries because that would clash with the space opera bit'. You'd be laughed out of the office because you've just criticized some of the most well-loved episodes.

edited 29th Dec '10 6:58:39 PM by Malkavian

I guess we saw Iron Man differently then. In the first Iron Man I saw a film that didn't sacrific characterisation for the sake of over the top plots. It had really interesting characters with natural dialogue and a plot that was also character driven. It was simple, yet elegant. I didn't see any crazy awesome fighting zombies thing to it. The scifi was pretty hard by superhero movie standards (level 2? the only real leap was the arc reactor from what I saw). Hence I was really upset when Iron Man 2 decided to throw it all away halfway through and go on about the avengers and some other shameless pandering the comic book crowd. I thought the point of comic book adaptations was to strip down the ideas to reach out to a wider audience. Why are we still pandering to the same crowd who can just read this kinda stuff in the freaking comic books?

As for the multivillainitis thing, yeah Batman Begins/TDK did it and the first two Xmen movies (haven't seen Hellboy or Supes 2 yet) but there was an overarching villain and plot to it. Batman Begins had Ra's Al Ghul with Scarecrow just being a minion and TDK had mainly Joker playing everyone else under his own command, X-men had Magneto and minions in the first movie and Stryker and minions in the second movie (IIRC). Sherlock Holmes just had Mark Strong's character with Moriarity only being introduced to set up the sequel. They didn't put too many villains with their own agendas into one movie. That's where X-3, Spidey 3 and Iron Man 2 (not so much multivillains here but too many plots with barely any exposure)

If Avengers is really going to pull off Skrulls and Kree I'd have to wonder how they can stick two separate villain races with their own agendas AS WELL AS the whole Avengers team and their own plots without it being overly convoluted. And if the Skrulls and Kree are on the same team then why even bother putting both of them in the movie? More shameless geek pandering?

I'm afraid to discuss your Doctor Who statement because Whovians are scary and I'm afraid I'll offend someone (hell I've probably mispelt or misused the word Whovians and now someone will flame me). I only saw one season (the one with Christopher Eccleston) and although there were some eps with horror tropes and stuff it just generally seemed to have this Time Travel/Space Opera vibe to the whole thing, I mean didn't the werewolf ep ultimately have a scifi explanation in the end? While they sometimes switched Genres, they didn't go overboard and there was still a level of consistency.

Aaaand more wall of text...fuck I think I should stop before this escalates further.

edited 29th Dec '10 7:34:30 PM by ShadowScythe

And all this discussion may be irrelevant anyway

Bah, serves me right for more or less screaming ruined forever when I heard the news. I think I should just stop now.

I agree that aliens showing up in the Iron Man movies wouldn't really have fit the world they set up. But The Avengers isn't an Iron Man movie, even if Iron Man is in it, so it should be able to establish its own flavor and Worldbuilding.

If Avengers is really going to pull off Skrulls and Kree I'd have to wonder how they can stick two separate villain races with their own agendas AS WELL AS the whole Avengers team and their own plots without it being overly convoluted. And if the Skrulls and Kree are on the same team then why even bother putting both of them in the movie? More shameless geek pandering?

That is true, as much as I like the idea of the Kree-Skrull war being used in the films, especially if it's more like in Ultimate Marvel, they just wouldn't be able to introduce all the characters, found the avengers, and THEN introduce two alien races fighting. It would probably be great for a sequel tough, the old idea of a mind controlled hulk is probably what's going to happen.

I'm reviving this thread since we've gotten more news about it now and there's no other Avengers thread.

Okay, so apparently Loki is going to be getting his hands on the Cosmic Cube to summon some Skrulls to Earth. That's the speculation that's going around at the moment.

And Cobie Smulders from How I Met Your Mother has been cast as Maria Hill. Honestly I just don't know what to make of the characters they have in the film. On the one hand, yes, we're going to have the big Four plus Black Widow and Nick Fury and Loki as the main villain like he was in Avengers #1 since that's a given. Rumors have been going back and forth on whether Ant-Man and Wasp are going to show up.

Here I was thinking the Infinity Gauntlet was going to be a factor...

Yay! Now we'll finally know how the Marvel superheroes would talk and act if they were "rebellious" teenagers!

Joss Whedon has written things besides Buffy The Vampire Slayer, you know.

Actually I was getting him confused with the dude who wrote Cloverfield. Never mind...

You know, I really fail to see the theoretically level issue here. Yes, the magic vs science issue. . . but that is present in the source material. Marvel comics have science-based characters fighting alongside magic-based characters all the time. If this is a theoretical problem for you, its a problem with Marvel comics, period.

Now, does this mean its tougher to execute a good movie? Sure. Which is probably why Marvel included the "alien gods" and "magic is super science" angles. Everything beyond that is a matter of execution.

Now, the real worry at all points is simpler: too much stuff put together in a single movie. I would be kind of worried about the "Loki summons a Skrull invasion" plot, not because I think viewers would have a hard time accepting aliens, but because it crams the Skrulls into a movie without any real preparation. Note that SHIELD is already introduced in Iron Man. The concept of super soldier projects, introduced in Incredible Hulk. Asgardians and "magic" in Thor. Weird cosmic macguffins in Captain America.

Which doesn't mean they couldn't make the Skrulls work in Avengers 1, but it'd require they be very very careful in how much other new stuff they introduce.