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Edited by Mrph1 on Jul 29th 2024 at 3:09:00 PM
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And giving birth to a horse as the final gag. "Here We Go Again!."
Or they could, ya know, go after the people actually waging war in their country and who were behind the bombing that killed their parents. Which is only part of the reason I found the handling of Wanda and Pietro's plotline to be kind of stupid.
So, I'm still watching Luke Cage, and if I may ask: does Mariah Dillard ever become a genuinely good villain? Because compared to Cottonmouth and Shades, she's kinda weak. She feels more like a typical scummy politician that I've seen probably a hundred times by now.
Have you any dreams you'd like to sell?Hating someone because he created the weapon that killed your parents is pretty justified.
... Of course, then Age of Ultron basically glosses over it after using it as plot motivation, the way it totally forgets about Wanda being responsible for the deaths of a ton of innocent people in South Africa.
I actually enjoyed Ao U better than the first Avengers, but I think the movie has so many problems.
The home of Pietro and Wanda wasn't just hit by a bomb. It was hit and they spend hours staring at a dud, afraid that it might still explode. If you stare for hours on the name "Stark", waiting that it kills you, I would be very surprised if you get away from it NOT messed up.
Btw, if Marvel really wants to further its comic book sales, here is what it should do: It should start selling a special brand of comics at train station, airports, everywhere where people are who might need some last minute read for a long travel. And said comics should be for one tie-in comics for the MCU and stand-alone comics in thick paper backs which don't tie into anything for a quick read. Marvel doesn't do itself any favour by constantly catering to their "old fans" alone, they need to encourage new readers.
I think the reason the movie pulled the bait and switch on Wanda and Pietro's motivations is that, as sympathetic as they are, that's not an argument they can actually win.
- Wanda: Tony Stark is responsible for our childhood being destroyed by the weapons of mass destruction he made to kill us.
- Tony: Actually, I'm pretty sure those were terrorists firing either stolen weapons or weapons sold under the table at Sokovia. Unless there was a war between the U.S. and your nation, but I'm pretty sure that would have been a plot point.
- Wanda: You're still responsible for selling them to terrorists in the first place.
- Tony: I only sold them to the military. My partner was making underhanded deals, which I put an end to as soon as I found out and then personally destroyed as many of the things as I could find. You aren't wrong that it was happening, however, which is why I ended my company's defense contracting. I guess we make phones now or something; the movies never really delved into it.
- Wanda: You should still have to pay us reparations for the trauma.
- Tony: You want to remind me whose house you're living in now that you're conspicuously not in jail for the havoc you unleashed on Brazil?
- Wanda: We spent days staring at a bomb, waiting for it to detonate, before we were rescued.
- Tony: Hey, I feel for you. Again, sympathy is the only reason you're not in jail right now. But if you want to talk staring at a bomb, does everyone remember that time I caught a live nuclear warhead and flew it into space? You're not speaking Chitauri right now because of me, so you're welcome.
The tragedy of their characters is that not only does the Tony Stark they so despise no longer exist, but he never did. They're chasing a bogeyman they built up in their minds as this absolute evil.
edited 12th Apr '17 8:06:11 AM by TobiasDrake
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.I have no problem with them bringing up Stark's past, it just struck me as weak motivation all things considered. Them spending years wanting to kill the guy who built the bomb that killed their family and not, ya know, whoever actually killed their family just struck me as a somewhat contrived narrative decision. It'd be like if instead of going after the guy who murdered his parents, Bruce Wayne decided to go kill the CEO of the company that created the gun the murderer used.
That the plotline is pretty much dropped halfway through and Wanda never even has a conversation with Tony just compounds it.
edited 12th Apr '17 8:59:43 AM by comicwriter
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But isn't that the point? By being forced to join the Avengers to defeat a bigger threat they are also forced to get to know them as people and not as those powerful heroes who mess with other people lives nilly willy.
Thus said, Wanda and Tony should have shared at least one scene in that movie. That they didn't is the result of it being so incredible overstuffed.
Slade had dumber reasons to go after the Titans
Batman deciding to fight all crime forever
Grim Reaper deciding to kill the Avengers for his brother instead of the extant masters of evil.
Grief is a chaotic motivator
Anyway, Wanda and Pietro's role in AOU was a very flawed compromise between their origins as members of Magneto's Brotherhood, their history as Avengers, and the needs of the plot
Maybe if they had been unwilling subjects and Ultron convinced them to go after the Avengers after saving them. Not sure how you'd get Wanda to still mind whammy Tony
Maybe the Hydra attack let the twins bust loose but the Avengers thought they were just enhanced Hydra soldiers. Fits in with the fallout from war angle
Wanda runs into Tony and mind whammies him to get away without physically hurting him
Maybe when he says his name is Stark she freaks out. Not mercilessly in a grudge way but staring at the bomb might have given her ptsd triggered by his name
Because the thing is and the thing a lot of modern writers forget is that Wanda and Pietro didn't want to be Brotherhood of Evil Nouns.
They felt they owed Magneto for saving them. So Avengers hunting down the twins because at this point they understand their situation and want to help
Ultron 'saves' them and they feel indebted to him when he tells them he's going to destroy the Avengers and needs their help
Put in some Wanda second guessing during the vibranium heist scene and you have a possibly better set up for heel face turn
And Wanda and Pietro definitely need a conversation with Tony where if they don't necessarily forgive him (grief and anger are often irrational) at least get to say their piece
Maybe a scene toward the end where Wanda explicitly says she wants to join the Avengers to make up for what she had done.
edited 12th Apr '17 8:52:13 AM by Bocaj
Forever liveblogging the AvengersI would say an effective use could have been doing a deeper exploration of the people of Sokovia viewing the Avengers as American imperialists who want to impose their will on foreign countries. That was very briefly touched upon in the movie but I feel you could have done something interesting with that. They are approached by a seeming beneficial group of scientists who claim to want to empower Sokovians to take care of their own problems without needing arrogant Americans, and the twins accept, not realizing it's a front for HYDRA experimentation.
You could even keep the part about them being angry at Tony Stark for building the bombs used in the war that ravaged their country (again, fitting the theme of American imperialism), just without making it their entire motivation and then dropping it halfway through.
edited 12th Apr '17 9:08:47 AM by comicwriter
Maybe the CIA overthrew their government.
Its been known to happen.
Forever liveblogging the Avengers
I'd had no problem with that honestly, the just have to set it up. But they didn't, because the movie was so stuffed already/they thought it didn't matter. Again, lazy writing.
What I meant is that he failed to be both an emotional and intellectual threat before even the skirmish in South Korea. The only time I felt he won (and he didn't do crap) was in Africa, when Wanda (not Ultron) used the Hulk to distract the Avengers.
I mean, the movie would've been called Avengers: Age of Wanda and it'd be much better.
Yeah, I don't know. I mean, what did he accomplish? Stealing the Vibranium, maybe, and that was all thanks to Wanda. He didn't do crap after that.
The whole Civil War thing was a result of everything before it. Ultron didn't cause it. He might have been the last straw, but he sure as hell isn't the reason. The whole plot was set in motion pretty much since the first Avengers movie (or, to go really far, since the first THOR movie).
Or the terrorists were using American weapons made in America and presumably obtained by Americans, and thus the twins leapt to the assumption that theirs was one of the many countries where first-world leaders propped up insurgencies to overthrow politically inconvenient governments.
I mean, we can be pretty sure they had Stark weapons because Stane was selling under the table, but looking at global politics, is the assumption, "Americans are killing us in a proxy war," really that much of a stretch?
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.I think you underestimate the currency of the Starktech name in the MCU. It's probably like hating Coca-Cola or McDonalds— the company just has to be colluding with America politically as well as financially in order to spread the way it has. Whether or not that's fair— and it isn't— that's the perception. Especially if your mind's been warped by being entombed with one of the bombs that killed your parents, and that name is staring you in the face the entire time.
edited 12th Apr '17 11:15:38 AM by Unsung
