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Edited by Mrph1 on Jul 29th 2024 at 3:09:00 PM
I can't remember if we've ever had a villain that was usually quippy all movie and then when it came time to get serious, they get ''dead'' serious and the movie basically turns into a horror movie.
This song needs more love.I don't even think it was about making Ultron menacing. It was the payoff to a joke. Joss is all about subverting expectations, and throughout the movie, Whedon flashed, "HAWKEYE GONNA DIE" in huge neon letters. He makes it pretty clear in no uncertain terms that Hawkeye is that one cop who's just three days from retirement, dammit!
This all sets up the point where Ultron comes gunning for him and suddenly, surprise of surprises, Hawkeye lives and someone else dies instead.
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.Yeah I was pretty convinced Hawkeye was gonna bite it up until he didn't.
Forever liveblogging the AvengersThe bait and switch shadowed by a Leaning on the Fourth Wall jab ("What, you didn't see that coming?") is a somewhat clever idea. The problem was its execution which was terrible.
If Quicksilver had been killed in a hardfought battle against Ultron alongside Hawkeye, his last words being a bittersweet quip of "what, you didn't see that coming?" would have a lot more impact.
"All you Fascists bound to lose."Pietro should have seen about getting a movie on the slate. That will protect you like nothing else.
Forever liveblogging the AvengersI think the biggest problem with Ultron's menace level is simply that he loses so much. He loses every altercation in the movie. Every single time he comes to blows with the Avengers, Ultron is the one forced to flee at the end.
When he shows up with his shiny new body and shreds one of his old ones to show how much more dangerous this one is, instead of being like, "Oh f*ck, the scary guy got scarier," it instead comes off like, "Oh, is this one going to not be garbage?"
Likewise, the Zerg Rush of Ultron drones doesn't feel like a huge mob of scary dudes. It feels like a goblin swarm - a foe who needs a number advantage to compensate for how utterly harmless a single unit is. We're never really given any impression that an Ultron drone is, by itself, dangerous. Captain America even manages to match one blow for blow on top of a moving vehicle, and he's hardly one of the Avengers' big guns.
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.(By the way, for those who didn't find Ultron menacing: it's not just Ultron, Joss has a bit of a problem making big, huge villains menacing. The First Evil of Buffy Season 7 came off as more petty then evil and the Turuk-Hans all ended up a joke. The only Buffy villains who were truly menacing were the Master, Angelus, and the Mayor — all villains who combined a very dark humor in with real menace. Unfortunately, that doesn't always work out. Me, I liked Ultron fine, because I thought we weren't supposed to see him as menacing — we were supposed to see him as a child having a tantrum.)
edited 30th Apr '17 9:15:21 PM by alliterator
When Tony claimed towards the start of the movie that the Mind Gem AI was an construct worth reviving the Ultron Project for, and comparing its neural complexity to that of Jarvis, I thought the implication was that Jarvis was helpful but ultimately ill-suited to managing multitudes of drones and Ultron would increase their effectiveness (hence why the Iron Legion took many losses in IM3 and why they stayed out of the fight at the start of AUO). But that seems to have not been the case.
I think the movie still could've worked had it been the Avengers being heavily outgunned by Ultron's legions on aimbot hacks for most of the movie, until Vision emerges as the catalyst they need to turn the tide.
edited 30th Apr '17 9:21:05 PM by Tuckerscreator
That's not quite the same thing, though. Mainly because it exists mostly in throwaway lines and doesn't directly impact anything that's happening onscreen.
The entire concept of Ultron existing on the internet is underutilized. The only thing he ever achieves through it is more escaping from fights he can't win. This makes Vision shutting him out - which, again, is established in a few lines of dialogue rather than being any kind of thing we can see and cheer for - come off less like a huge game-changer and more like finally closing the door on the helpless rat so they can deal with the pest once and for all.
edited 30th Apr '17 9:41:28 PM by TobiasDrake
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.And Ultron was doing more than just surviving on the internet — he was actively trying to hack into the nuclear arsenal, but JARVIS had been stopping him.
I'm gonna have to call nay on Angelus being menacing as he comes across more like a jerkass ex-boyfriend. The only reason he lasts as long as he does is because Buffy couldn't bring herself to kill until the end.
@tuckerscreator hell when you think about it the name of the movie is false advertising. Age of Ultron? What age? The guy's alive for some weeks at most.
Whedon's trick might have worked for a small scale villain but for bill of Ultron's Cali bet it was just the wrong move.
edited 30th Apr '17 11:45:16 PM by windleopard
It's more "The Annoyance of Ultron"
"The Distraction of Ultron"
"Ah, this fucking guy of Ultron."
My various fanfics.Supposedly there were other takes done where Quicksilver survived the movie. It may have been done to keep spoilers at bay, but if just because they weren't sure who would die it demonstrates the problem at hand. The death was done for the sake of surprising the audience rather than because the story naturally went in that direction. Even if Hawkeye was the one to die, all that really needs to change is a couple short scenes in the epilogue. If Quicksilver performed his sacrifice in the middle of the movie there is time to actually make it matter and impact the characters, but it happens so casually after the Big Bad is already on the run that it feels tacked on.
edited 1st May '17 1:33:45 AM by alliterator
Ah, okay I rewatched it:
So here's what actually happened: Quicksilver moved a car in front of Hawkeye and the kid so they wouldn't be hit by the bullets. But because moving a whole car probably takes time, he didn't have time to get behind it himself, so he died. The sequence goes:
- Hawkeye picks up kid.
- Ultron fires machine gun everywhere, trying to kill Hawkeye.
- Quicksilver sees Hawkeye and kid are about to die
- Hawkeye closes his eyes
- Whoosh
- Hawkeye opens his eyes and sees there's now a car in front of them blocking the bullets
- Quicksilver is riddled with bullets through
edited 1st May '17 1:37:48 AM by alliterator
I wonder why Ultron didn't install some guns on himself. If it's good enough for Tony Stark...
Ultron and Cap fight on truck. Cap loses shield. Ultron opens fire. No Civil War.
Ultron does a flyby on Hawkeye, Quick, and kid. Fires tank missile. Three in one shot.
edited 1st May '17 2:33:56 AM by Tuckerscreator

It's not even really an achievement on Ultron's part. It's blind luck that he fires towards Hawkeye who's holding a kid and can't get out of the way.
"All you Fascists bound to lose."