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Edited by Mrph1 on Jul 29th 2024 at 3:09:00 PM
Yeah you know what, The biggest weakness I think Age is Ultron has is the cluttered character arcs.
The first film gave every hero that wasn't Hawkeye the same arc, get over your egos and issues with the rest of the team and fight as one. This allowed the first Avengers film to make a more cohesive narrative involving not just the heroes, but Loki's part in playing the heroes against each other.
But Age of Ultron made the mistake of giving every hero their own arc. Iron Man's arc takes center stage because it's directly the reason there is a film, Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver's arc is poorly explained and vanishes, Thor's arc is a Big-Lipped Alligator Moment Sequel Hook, Black Widow's arc is entirely about her romance, The Hulk is a Satellite Character to Iron Man and Black Widow's arcs, Hawkeye gets a storm of Red Herring death flags, Captain America gets a Sequel Hook instead of an arc, and The Vision is an 11th-Hour Ranger.
The results of this are pretty clear, not every character is treated as well by the plot at they should have been.
edited 23rd Jan '16 10:26:16 AM by VeryMelon
I can agree with that. A longer run time would probably help. I think the hope was that thematically the film would be very cohesive.
Like, all of the characters are struggling with the hetero-normative ideal. The Maximoffs have been robbed of their nuclear family, so they initially side with Ultron who's existence robbed him of any opportunity to have a nuclear family. Bruce and Natasha struggle with their infertility and unsuitability to the nuclear family. Clint HAS the nuclear family and everyone is jealous of him. Thor rejects the nuclear family, saying that it will give him no answers, and Steve overcomes the pressure for a nuclear family, moving on from Peggy, rejecting Wanda's vision, and instead finding his family in the Avengers.
Ultron explicitly contemplates the nature of human reproduction, his plot is out right designed to destroy reproductive life, Vision is the rebuttal to this; that you do not require blood relatives to have family.
I don't think this came across though, I probably wouldn't have even picked up on it if not for Joss' interviews regarding the topic.
edited 23rd Jan '16 10:23:31 AM by Whowho
Something I would like to see in phase 3, is the fact that the series and the movies are in the same universe, no longer be an informed attribute.
Examples
- One of the protagonists is in trouble with the law, and his/her two lawyer are Matt and Foggy.
- Kingpin as villain of Spider-Man (Preferably as Big Bad)
- Daredevil and/or Iron Fist as friend/s of Spider-Man.
- Lorelei as The Dragon of Loki (or Co-dragons with her sister)
- If The Enchantress appears in Thor Ragnarok, show her relationship with her sister.
- Coulson still alive.
- And most importantly, they must be played by the same actor / actress.
- The funny thing is that unlike others, I wouldn't mind if the defenders don't appear in the Infinity War.
- Basically because Thanos is a villain that is far more powerful than Loki and Ronan.
- While that The Defenders are weaker than Captain America.
More show/film cross would be nice, yeah. Agents of SHIELD has a reasonable amount of film reference and occasionally film characters (the other shows do reference the films, especially the battle of New York but to a lesser extent) but I don't know if there's anything that goes the other way.
The key is things that a non-show-viewer would still understand though. That seems to be their reasoning whenever they're questioned on that.
edited 23rd Jan '16 10:37:54 AM by TenebrousGaze
I think people are gonna need to let the dream of the shows having any real impact on the movies go already. It's pretty clear the film division has little interest in that.
Daredevil maybe but not Luke or Jessica.
edited 23rd Jan '16 11:19:39 AM by comicwriter
I just had a thought (and a better one than my earlier thought):
With the Big Three of The Avengers (Iron Man, Captain America, and Thor), they each have a trilogy to them. Out of those trilogies (so far), the first Iron Man and the second Captain America are considered some of the best films in the MCU.
Maybe the third Thor film will get that kind of recognition as well? Kinda like a pattern or something, ya know?
Have you any dreams you'd like to sell?That's what I'm saying.
Of the Big Three in the MCU, Iron Man's first film is considered great, but his next two are divisive.
In Captain America's films, the first one is considered average and the second one is considered awesome (the third one isn't out yet, but I'm doubtful it'll match up to Winter Soldier).
In Thor's films, the first one is considered average and the second one is seen as the worst MCU film (not terrible but it was kinda meh). The third one isn't out yet, of course.
Now, look at how it's been going: one franchise has its first film seen as the best and one has the second one seen as the best. It's just a weird pattern I ended up noticing, which makes me think Thor: Ragnarok will be the best.
I'm explaining this to where you can understand, right?
Have you any dreams you'd like to sell?My main problem with the first Thor is that the only really interesting part of it is the stuff with Loki and Asgard. Loki is an unexpectedly complex villain whose actual motivations for his scheme came as a surprise relative to the villains in Marvel movies beforehand and arguably since then, and Asgard was visually interesting and was a new setting with potential.
Unfortunately, while both of these elements got to shine to a degree (especially Loki), they are undercut by the other elements of the movie.
As far as the main character goes, we are treated to a similar character arc as Iron Man 1, where an immature manchild learns the value of responsibility and personal sacrifice (not exactly the same obviously, but similar enough to be notable).
This isn't inherently bad, but the problem is that most of the stuff with Thor in the human world is bland "fish out of water" situations we've seen dozens of times over, and an equally bland love interest. In the end, even with Chris Hemsworth trying to be hammy and charismatic, he just isn't as entertaining as RDJ was in his respective movie, where he pretty much made the character and was a significant strength of that particular film.
The result is that there is a pretty decent movie fighting against a much more boring movie, with the latter significantly overpowering the former.
it wasn't an execrable movie, but is one of the weakest marvel films in my opinion, and this is coming from someone who actually likes Thor as a character.
i was disappointed enough by it that I didn't immediately go see dark world, and its lackluster critical reception has made me steer clear of it since.
edited 23rd Jan '16 1:24:21 PM by wehrmacht
the problem of the first Thor movie is an excess of Midgard in the plot. Everything connected to Asgard (Thor, Loki, Odin, the works) is interesting, but the parts on Midgard drag the movie a whole lot.
The Dark World was again besieged by Midgard and, according to some (not to open this can of worms for the zenith time), a unwise Executive Meddling decision to chop up the movie in favor of some characters.
If Ragnarok cuts Midgard for the greater part, it'll already improve immensely.
"All you Fascists bound to lose."

I don't know if it was him or Marvel who tried to cut it down, but I think they should have cut down on some of the story arcs if they weren't going to make it longer. On the other hand, The Vision is the best character in the movie.
Have you any dreams you'd like to sell?