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Edited by Mrph1 on Jul 29th 2024 at 3:09:00 PM
RDJ's always been signed on for Avengers 2 and 3, even since before we knew 3 was going to be two parts. Iron Man 3 is meant to be a final chapter because there aren't going to be any more Iron Man movies, but his involvement with the Avengers sequels was never in question.
edited 13th May '15 8:42:06 AM by TobiasDrake
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.Tony mentioning the Ultron program is supposed to be an 'oh shit' moment after the Age of Ultron title drop.
There's no reason to mention it before then. We know Tony works on stuff. We know he's done work on AI or VI, I suppose. JARVIS and all.
Its not a detail that needs to be established in an earlier movie. Its an ominous tone that primes us for bad happenings.
Its like the use of Ultron in Earth's Mightiest Heroes. Comic fans know that Ultron is bad news. Once he's introduced, we're just waiting for that shoe to drop. (Which similarly in that show may be because the AI got exposed to alien shenanigans.)
Forever liveblogging the Avengers
Except Earth's Mightiest Heroes actually introduced Ultron several episodes in advance and not two minutes before he turned evil.
Which is the benefit of being a serialized tv format.
They can let the tension build longer.
For a movie, it works perfectly fine to have an ominous title AGE OF ULTRON and then have Tony mention an Ultron program. It lets us know, if somehow we haven't been watching the trailers, that things are going to go poorly.
Forever liveblogging the AvengersEven if Ultron was introduced in the end credits scene for Iron Man 3 it's not like he'd get any more development than he got in this movie. At most they'd establish that it's a program Tony was working on that he had to put on hold because he couldn't make any progress. Then the Scepter would provide him with the means to advance the program.
edited 13th May '15 9:28:56 AM by Kostya
Hmm...what if Ultron had been the one directing the Iron Legion during the opening battle, and the Mind Gem was what gave him true sentience?
Oh God! Natural light!
Actually for a while I had been wondering if Ultron was going to be a failed attempt at upgrading JARVIS, or if one member of the Iron Legion would get some kind of accident.
edited 13th May '15 9:41:06 AM by C105
Whatever your favourite work is, there is a Vocal Minority that considers it the Worst. Whatever. Ever!.Yeah, I really consider Ultron coming out of nowhere to be a major point against the movie. It's a great example of how the pacing is super wonky. Like, what's next, is Avengers 3 just gonna open up with Kang the Conqueror popping out of a time portal with no buildup or foreshadowing whatsoever? "It's a movie, we don't have time for buildup and foreshadowing and proper character development and other important storytelling devices!"
I've got fanfics for Frozen, Spectacular Spider-Man, Crash Bandicoot, and Spyro the Dragon.That does tend to be how Kang operates though.
Might want to pick a better example?
Forever liveblogging the AvengersHe does to an extent, but that's part of the point. The AI in the Scepter abruptly finished Stark and Banner's work well before it was anywhere near completion.
The setup for a rudimentary android AI was there, but not Ultron. That setup was rapidly accelerated by the Scepter, and seemed just as sudden and abrupt to Stark and Banner as it did the audience.
edited 13th May '15 9:45:11 AM by TobiasDrake
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.![]()
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It doesn't matter if that's how Kang operates, it's still bad writing. If the writers were doing a movie with Kang, they would still have to do something like maybe show some scenes in the future from Kang's point of view before having him just jump out and start attacking people. Earth's Mightiest Heroes had a scene of Kang plotting before he just outright attacked the Avengers.
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That's still a pretty friggin' huge logical leap. Hardly what I'd call "clearly set up." I didn't watch Iron Man 3 and then go, "Ohhhh, Tony's obviously going to use the Mind Staff on one of his Iron Legion bots! Of course!"
edited 13th May '15 9:51:42 AM by spashthebandragon
I've got fanfics for Frozen, Spectacular Spider-Man, Crash Bandicoot, and Spyro the Dragon.And nobody watched Captain America: The First Avenger and though "Well, how Hydra's going to infiltrate SHIELD!" Because that came out of nowhere too, according to your logic.
"Set up" does not mean "heavily foreshadowed." Set up just means all the pieces were in place beforehand. The movie puts those pieces together. Ultron wasn't foreshadowed because why the hell would it be? Tony wasn't working on it during IM3 and nobody else really would have known about it. It makes no sense for it to be foreshadowed before AOU.
Instead, they went with taking pieces that were placed beforehand, putting them together, and creating something new.
edited 13th May '15 9:55:25 AM by alliterator
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Um, yes, actually, I thought the "Hydra infiltrates SHIELD plotline" was incredibly stupid and came out of nowhere. So... thanks for giving me another example of bad writing, I guess?
The difference between Kang and Ultron is that Ultron was created during the events of the movie, whereas Kang will presumably already be an adult by the time he makes a move on the Avengers. Fleshing Ultron out retroactively like that would just be confusing.
edited 13th May '15 9:59:58 AM by spashthebandragon
I've got fanfics for Frozen, Spectacular Spider-Man, Crash Bandicoot, and Spyro the Dragon.I thought it was kind of weird that Tony refers to his plan as the Ultron program, with no real explanation of the background of the name.
However, it isn't a new thing that Tony has wanted to use his suits to do the crimefighting for him, and once we knew he created Ultron, I was pretty sure that somehow his attempts to make a super-AI to control the suits would go horribly wrong.
What is a bit out-there is having the scepter/Mind Stone play a role in it, which I think is clever Canon Wielding as far as the plot is concerned, but works awkwardly in practice.
FWIW, the "HYDRA infiltrates SHIELD" twist worked perfectly for him. And it's not so much "HYDRA infiltrates SHIELD" as "HYDRA IS SHIELD". What better way to explain the existence of a powerful evil N.G.O. Superpower than to have it so that they built themselves into the supposedly good N.G.O. Superpower that we knew about?
edited 13th May '15 10:03:53 AM by Hodor2
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No it wouldn't. You can delve much more into what Ultron was supposed to be. All we got is "a suit of armor around the world", but that's very vague.
When did Tony start work on this project, before or after the anxiety from Avengers set in? Was that character bio saying he's a program that Tony found correct? If so, who was working on him before, and for what purpose? What was preventing Ultron from working, considering Tony was able to create JARVIS, a program who did a pretty good (if flawed) job running the Iron Legion himself? Even a little more insight into Ultron's early thought processes about the Avengers being the biggest problem would have been nice.
edited 13th May '15 10:04:23 AM by Khfan429
x5 Not every concept under the sun is allowed to be considered "good writing." I think having an important plot element come out of nowhere with no buildup whatsoever is always bad writing. So if thinking that good writing has to adhere to certain standards is a "narrow view," then yes, I have a narrow view. Big deal.
x3 Audience speculation and author foreshadowing are two totally different things, especially seeing as the audience has the hindsight of knowing what happens in the comics, and, y'know, we knew Avengers 2 would be titled "Age of Ultron" for a while.
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I mean fleshing out Ultron retroactively instead of showing his creation in chronological order would be confusing. Like, yes, you could have the story open with Ultron attacking and then show his backstory through flashbacks, but that would be needlessly confusing when you could just let the audience see the story unfold naturally.
edited 13th May '15 10:13:03 AM by spashthebandragon
I've got fanfics for Frozen, Spectacular Spider-Man, Crash Bandicoot, and Spyro the Dragon.An easy way for them to have Ultron not be a project Tony was just all of a sudden working on for ages five minutes before he became an actual issue would've been to have the after credits scene of IM 3 be something like: "I may be 'retiring,' but the world still needs protecting. And even if I can't be there personally, I can still ensure the world is Avenged" -> pan to him working on a project labelled Ultron.
But that would've required them to introduce something that impacted or led into the greater Marvel Cinematic Universe in the movie, and since everybody hated that in Iron Man 2 they probably wouldn't've done that.
edited 13th May '15 10:12:15 AM by KnownUnknown
Ultron is just a cool comic book name.
Perhaps an acronym for something. Perhaps Tony just mashed up 'Ultimate' and 'Tron'
Forever liveblogging the AvengersIt would also be harder to excuse Tony's involvement without the Mind Gem.
Like, it works for Hank Pym because Pym is a career f*ck-up. Nobody's that surprised when he screws up and dooms the world. Stark's supposed to be a respectable genius. An asshole, but a respectable asshole genius.
The Scepter AI's involvement creates some leeway as to how much of this is actually Stark's fault, and that leeway is important to the character's role both in the story up to now and going forward. It's the only reason the outcome wasn't Stark right back on trial in DC going, "I built the android to protect people, and it opted for genocide because, I don't know, I guess I'm just a really shitty engineer and you were right to try and take my suits away from me all along."
Stark is supposed to be returning for at least two more film appearances. Making him wholly and entirely responsible for the Ultron fiasco would assassinate his character to the point of becoming unusable, because then it would become an obligation for Fury and Cap to take his toys away for the sake of world security. He would never be believable as a protagonist again.
edited 13th May '15 10:17:25 AM by TobiasDrake
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.

Personally I think they should do the same with Infinity War. Make it so those who want to can leave the MCU at that or if they want to, come back and watch more.
edited 13th May '15 8:40:56 AM by Archivist10