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Edited by Mrph1 on Jul 29th 2024 at 3:09:00 PM
@ Whowho,
Uh, I honestly don't think the infertility was supposed to be a big deal. I mean, it is a deal, but not a big one. Natasha didn't even bring it up own her own, but as a response to something Bruce said. I think he main issue was the whole raised as an assassin thing. The infertility was just a part of the "they dehumanized me as much as possible".
@Mukora,
She was also the direct responsible for her saving. She sent the signal for the other Aventgers to find, after all. And she was only captured because she was doing important shit in field. The most important aspect of a Damsel in Distress is that they are robbed of agency. But Natasha never lost hers. She was doing stuff before being captured, during the capture and immediately after the release. I think to reduce the whole plot as "she was damnseled does a disservice to her. Basically, what Ninety said.
I agree her character arc wasn't stellar and there is plenty to criticize, but I think people are blowing it out of proportion. She was very active during the whole movie and wasn't there just as a cute candy love interest.
I will say that she at last got it better than Quicksilver.
edited 1st May '15 2:54:21 PM by Heatth
so i just watched the winter soldier. i swore off any marvel movie after iron man 3 was incredibly underwhelming, but i'm glad i broke my rule for this movie.
- solid tension, movie makes you legitimately paranoid about who you can trust after the initial conspiracy is unveiled (well, for a while anyway)
- chris evans actually feels more like the comic captain america. he's much more confident, and feels like the super badass comics cap is supposed to be
- it has the inverse of iron man 3 where the "villain twist" is already known from the get-go, but it doesn't matter because the history and touching friendship between steve and bucky means the plot element has actual weight. that flashback after steve's mother's funeral is one of the best scenes in the entire mcu. THAT's how you get someone emotionally invested in what's going on.
- sam is an actual decent side character
overall it feels like a political action-thriller that just happens to also be a superhero movie (and tbh it barely even feels like that). i actually liked it more than i expected, maybe even more than iron man 1 which is the only other mcu movie i truly liked.
I MIGHT give guardians of the galaxy or age of ultron a shot, eventually.
i just hope civil war doesn't end up being awful unlike the comics storyline.
edited 1st May '15 3:01:51 PM by wehrmacht
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I always say that The Winter Soldier is objectively the best movie of the MCU, but Got G is the one I would watch again and again and again. I unashamedly adore this movie and hope that this franchise will keep up the high quality in it's sequel. If it does, it might become the strongest franchise within the MCU (currently I think the Cap-Franchise deserves the title).
Nothing is "objectively" the best anything. I can say Iron Man 3 is the best, to me, and the fact that I can't be wrong about that instantly disproves it.
But yeah, Winter Soldier is pretty great.
Back to AOU: What I like most about it is that it's the first superhero movie I've seen that actually felt like a superhero movie. Or, rather, it felt the most like a superhero cartoon. It actually felt like I was watching an episode of Justice League, or Earth's Mightiest Heroes.
"It's so hard to be humble, knowing how great I am."The Avengers 2 poster...in 70s Asian style.
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I definitely appreciated the way that The Winter Soldier was able to juggle so many characters while making them all feel important and useful regardless of how much or little screentime they had. No "Hawkeye is useless" moments like in Avengers (not my personal opinion, but a lot of people like to make this joke), or "the Howling Commandos are underused" like the first Cap film. This will be a good skill to have going into Civil War. Also, the emotional beats just hit me a lot harder than any other film's including even Fox's X-Men movies.
edited 1st May '15 5:37:21 PM by AlleyOop
Watched Age of Ultron earlier today, I enjoyed it immensely (and then the internet promptly went out immediately after I got home, hence why I didn't post this hours ago).
I really liked how getting the civilians out of harms way was actually a huge plotpoint in the climatic battle. A lot of times action movies will at best treat it as an afterthought. I kind of wish they didn't show the helicarrier in any of the promos just to make it's appearance at the end all the sweeter
I also kind of like the idea of Hawkeye just having a regular family that he goes home to on his off hours. Not every action hero (super or otherwise) needs to be single at the start of their career.
Regarding the movie's final pre-credit scene, we are going to need to see that particular crew operate as a unit for at least one movie, and that movie is probably going to be Civil War. That would imply that War Machine will be on Captain America's side during Civil War rather then Tony Stark's side. Which isn't what I was expecting, and will only make the movie more interesting.
Winter Soldier is definitely my fave of Phase 2.
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I think AOU was much better at making Hawkeye not seem completely useless to the team.
Because they aggressively market these characters to and for children?
edited 1st May '15 5:23:41 PM by comicwriter
Even in the first movie, I never thought Hawkeye was useless.
I mean, it was him on the roof giving directions and telling everybody what was going on in spots where they can't see.
He told Stark about the inability of the Chitauri to handle tight corners, took out a enemy without looking, and he set up Loki's rather hilariously disastrous meeting with the Hulk.
He may have been quite literally out of it for most of the film, but when the time came, he was doing his part.
edited 1st May '15 5:34:50 PM by HandsomeRob
One Strip! One Strip!I found AOU to be a very enjoyable movie. Yet, I feel The Avengers was better. I was a little disappointed with Ultron's personality (too much snarky for my taste). Still, AOU is definitely in my top 5 MCU Movies which as of today is:
1) Winter Soldier
2) Guardians
3) The Avengers
4) Age of Ultron
5) Iron Man
edited 1st May '15 5:37:58 PM by zsax
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I think he was certainly useful but like Black Widow, he was kind of Overshadowed by Awesome. He certainly had a necessary function, but visually it was much less cool than the stuff Iron Man and the others got up to. This time they made sure to have him look badass as hell during the final battle.
And the scene where he contemplates murdering Pietro and blaming it on Ultron had the entire theater fucking dying.
edited 1st May '15 5:42:53 PM by comicwriter
I honestly don't care about any of that. I just felt that Black Widow's arc in Ao U was based on "we need a female for this and she is the only one available" and not on "This makes sense for the character". Because if you forget the gender and just look at the characters, does any of the interaction she has with Bruce truly make sense? And I am not even talking about the layered personality she was in Winter soldier, I talk about what Joss Whedon himself established beforehand about her.
I also don't get the obsessive need of Whedon to give every character an own arc. I think what the movie really needed was more interaction between the Avengers, Ultron and the Twins, not necessarily character development for each character. We are now at a stage as which this should be left for the stand-alone movies, while the team up movies should be about the team playing off each other and the villain in question. If someone had asked me what in Age of Ultron could go, the romance is the first thing which comes in my mind. It didn't really add anything to either the overall plot nor to the characters in question. To specify, Black Widows backstory did, because it fit into the overall themes of choices and freedom. The romance didn't. I honestly would have preferred if She had her talk about what the red room did to her with Hawkeyes's wife instead of making it part of a romance, because that's what actually created the unfortunate implication that she is somehow damaged goods. And I would have preferred if Bruce's arc had been more about his involvement in creating Ultron. There was a lot of talk about Tony's role, but what about him? He should really know better after what he did to himself. It also makes zero sense that Natasha is send to calm the Hulk down. Wouldn't that be a better job for either Thor (because he would actually survive a hit from the Hulk) or Tony (because Hulk rescued his life beforehand)?

I just feel an assassin is out-classed. I like her, just saying the Class isn't right.