Avengers Film

I'm spending my time in the MCU thread, but just checked on this on a whim. For those of you who didn't listen to the director's commentary on Avengers, by Feige's insistence, and according to Feige, Whedon and Gregg, Coulson is most definitely ~~~~~~~~DEAD~~~~~~~~

So, with how people are talking about an Iron Man trilogy, does that mean they've decided there won't be a fourth film?

I think a real stand alone three movie part would have to be something like Indiana Jones. Any more consistency than that and I'd say it's trilogylike.

It depends on how you look at it. If each film is a different enemy then it could sort of work. As it stands I didn't necessarily view the Thanos reveal as a huge cliffhanger or anything. The principle conflict was the Avengers vs. Loki and his Chitauri hordes and that was settled by the end of the movie, so I can sort of see Whedon's point about not wanting it to be viewed like Star Wars.

On a similar note, Whedon talks a little bit about the sequel here. He reiterates it won't be "bigger", but "deeper". So I'm guessing no epic alien invasions this time. http://www.comicbookmovie.com/fansites/MarvelFreshman/news/?a=72507

I have faith in Whedon's ability to up the stakes.

If he can manage to avoid Aesop Amnesia (i.e., not have the characters clashing over personality differences and varying motivations like they do in The Avengers) it should be good enough. The trick with sequels is not to just remake the original movie.

On that note, if Marvel can get Tony Stark to actually mature over the course of the films, he might eventually become a character I don't constantly want to kick in the nuts.

By my count, Thor still needs to be less prone to anger, and Captain America needs to be less preachy as well.

That said, I don't particularly want a heavy-handed character drama where instead of saving the world we're dealing with internal squabbles or something like that.

I'm curious do you hate film Tony or do you have residual hatred over Das Eisern Fuerher?

edited 11th Jan '13 5:54:16 PM by Canid117

^^^ An interesting way to look at it is that while the learned in The Avengers to work together when the chips are down and the world needs someone to help, they haven't really come to really trust and support one another.

Basically, that the sequel could be about them - now that they are established as working together - really becoming a band of True Companions. A lot of them are still lone-wolf personalities who at least learned that they can't always go it alone during the invasion, but still probably didn't come to see the others as people who can really have their back no matter what the situation - even if it's something personal that they'd rather do themselves - given that kind of team conflict, a team like the Masters Of Evil composed of each of their enemies (each someone that they, individual, would want to go against personally and/or privately) would work pretty well.

But yeah, a lot of direct team conflict would probably not be ideal. It has to be more of a "it's already there, it just needs to be cemented" sort of thing.

But that's what Marvel is all about! Marvel superheroes have strong personality flaws and humanlike motivations, are prone to greeting other superheroes by punching them in the face, and their stories revolve more heavily around characterization, supporting cast, and personal interaction than just straight up world-saving antics.

DC is where superheroes are infallible supermen who spend all their free time punching out meteors and patting each other on the back.

edited 11th Jan '13 6:18:11 PM by TobiasDrake

^ You don't read much DC, do you?

I don't read many comics, and didn't read Civil War (though I've certainly heard plenty about it). I dislike Film Tony because, even if he's stopped being an arms dealer, his personal style and the ideology of his films reeks of a strong neoconservative ideology to me, and the idea of "privatizing world peace" gives me the shivers. In addition to that, I don't have vast sympathy with greatly overprivileged heroes (I have issues with Batman for the same reason, whereas I'm quite fond of Spider-Man); everything in Tony's life basically fell in his lap - money, brains, fame & public adulation, the latter two of which even increased after the start of his "Iron Man" career. A person who recognized that would have a little humility; Tony's in love with his own awesomeness. The ending of Avengers just gave him - in storytelling terms - a way to save the world and become a "true hero" without actually having to lose anything.

On top of all that, I generally dislike playboy characters who, to quote Vesper Lynd, "think of woman as disposable pleasures". I have this thing about preferring to be seen as a person rather than a pair of tits. It's weird to me that Pepper would want to be with him after spending most of her time as his assistant watching him screw anything that's human and female.

edited 11th Jan '13 7:01:56 PM by WarriorEowyn

On that note, that's the reason I've been hoping Pepper dies in Iron Man 3; I really, REALLY want to see Stark break out of this one-note personality, I want to see him break, and it's hard to do that with just "stuff". But if he lost Pepper, THAT would destroy him more than blowing up a million suits of armor.

^^ Interestingly, the next Iron Man movie seems poised to remove a lot of that from Tony - Mandarin seems dedicated not only to tear down Tony's dynasty physically, but also destroy his image of entitlement and larger than life standing.

I've gotten more than a little sick of the tendency to kill off female characters to give the male protagonist either motivation or emotional development (X Men 2, Star Trek, X Men First Class, reportedly Thor: The Dark World), so I'm not sure that would be ideal, but he definitely needs something to get him to grow up.

Maybe; but it doesn't fundamentally change his character. The fact that he grew up with wealth and technological genius and has had them all his life isn't something that disappears if he loses wealth and fame in the present. His life experiences have still put him way ahead of most other people - but if he succeeds despite the Mandarin destroying all his stuff, it will just give him more reason to believe his success is just due to him and not his advantages.

edited 11th Jan '13 7:14:01 PM by WarriorEowyn

Honestly, your problem is with the core of the character. If you don't like Tony Stark, you should just leave him be and go watch something else, rather than actively hope for him to me remade into. . . something not Tony Stark.

That's disgusting. Comic books kill or punish female characters to make male ones "more interesting" all the damn time and I'd really like to see it not come up in the films.

edited 11th Jan '13 7:25:12 PM by Wackd

Yes, it is. I generally like the MCU, and like action movies, and might see IM 3 for those reasons if the reviews are good, but if Tony Stark is, at the core of his character, fundamentally a dick then I'm not going to start liking him any time soon.

edited 11th Jan '13 7:15:57 PM by WarriorEowyn

I wouldn't be saying this if the trailers hadn't suggested the possibility. Is it more wrong for me to hold an extremely unpopular stance regarding female characters, or the studios for exploiting that in a trailer?

The studios, naturally, but I feel you're wrong for wanting it to happen.

Less so, but still.

Pepper's been kinda one note. I'd rather see her develop than die just so Tony can feel sad and then get more character development, especially when they've more or less pushed him as far as they can without destroying the core of his character.

edited 11th Jan '13 7:27:14 PM by Wackd

The trailer seems to suggest that Tony's going to be undergoing a lot of emotional trauma following the events of The Avengers; his narrative during the trailer sounds a lot like PTSD. Tony's already had his life dramatically changed by death; killing off Pepper would just be a rehash of Coulson's death. The battle in New York, if played well, could do a lot more for his character.

Tony believes he's indestructible. He's swept up in his own hype, caught up in the idea that he can do everything, that he can beat any enemy, save ALL the lives, rescue all the damsels...as he said, he's privatized world peace. He truly believes that's an achievable notion. Coulson's death shook him so badly because it shouldn't have happened, in Tony's worldview. From Tony's perspective, nobody should have died; Iron Man should have beaten all the bad guys, and the only reason Coulson died is because he jumped the gun instead of waiting for Iron Man to fly in and defeat Loki for him.

New York showed Tony a scale of threat that Iron Man can't defeat alone, and on top of that, his kamikaze attack on the mothership taught him that he's not invincible; he can break, he can die, and sometimes there isn't a Golden Ending solution.

If Iron Man 3 follows up on this well, it will do wonders for Tony's character development.

Ick please no fridging of Pepper. The Marvel movieverse is already light enough on female characters as it is. As for the potential character drama in a sequel, there's plenty of areas they could go. For one, any new character might have the obligatory rookie stigma and that could be played up as well.

And if Whedon's talking about it being "personal" and there being a lot of character drama, it's possible they could adapt parts from Avengers Under Siege. Especially since there are those rumors about the Masters of Evil.

I'm looking forward to see how they avoid Reed Richards Is Useless. If they claim that Shield managed to delete all internet and mobile phone footage, I will throw both shoes at the movie screen.

Seriously guys, meeting aliens changes humanity. Forever. Don't just sweep it under the rug.

edited 12th Jan '13 3:01:27 PM by korpse_man

Well, we know SHIELD is reverse engineering their weapons. Plus, I'd bet incorporating the alien military technology into their own pursuits is going to be one of AIM's goals.

edited 12th Jan '13 3:02:37 PM by KnownUnknown

But what bits would they take? The Mansion was home to a lot of the Avengers, there isn't anywhere like that in the films. The closest thing to Jarvis is Coulson, if he is still alive then putting him in danger will have absolutely no meaning. They've already done stuff with the Avengers being in conflict, the specifics of it depend on the characters used. The scene with Cap and the photograph is brilliant but how could they slot that in? That scene would work a lot better of they'd done a different Captain America film than Winter Soldier.

edited 12th Jan '13 3:09:44 PM by C0mraid