Avengers 2: Age of Ultron

[Underseer]

It's coming out this Friday, so we might as well make a thread.

Some of you may have already seen it. Please use spoiler tags when appropriate.

Wild speculation time!

One of the things that makes the Avengers different from DC's Justice League is that it has a small, rotating roster. Heroes come in, heroes leave, and all of this is done so that Marvel can put out feelers about which heroes might deserve their own comic book. Anyway, with four new heroes being added to the roster (Scarlet Witch, Quicksilver, Vision, War Machine) in the upcoming movie, the team is now going to be unmanageably large, which means the writers are going to have to find a way to pare down the roster through deaths or retirement.

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We all know that Chris Evans' last movie will be Captain America 3, and those of us familiar with the Civil War story know why. So Captain America will be off the roster before Avengers 3 comes out, although Winter Soldier could replace him.

Further, we know that Thor 3 will be based on the Ragnarok story from the comic books. While I never read those comic books and don't even know the synopsis, there is a chance this could be used as an excuse to remove Thor from Midgard, either because he has to go elsewhere to deal with the fallout from Ragnarok, or because he dies.

Hulk would be another candidate for removal. The supplemental material from the first Avengers movie indicates that Hulk's part of the action sequences were more expensive due to the CGI. There are any number of excuses they could come up with that would end up with Banner back on the run like we found him in the first Avengers movie. The character is supposed to get more focus in Avengers 2, and that might be another excuse to "retire" him.

Iron Man is another candidate for removal because the character is very CGI-intensive. Tony Stark was severely traumatized by the events of the first Avengers movie and spent most of Iron Man 3 trying to cope with his emotional trauma. On top of that

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In Avengers 2, his PTSD from the first movie will goad him into doing something that nearly causes the extinction of humanity. Then in Captain America 3, we'll get the Civil War story, Iron Man will blame himself for the death of Captain America, and we'll get to see Tony give that great "It wasn't worth it" speech over Captain America's corpse.

So I'm going to assume that past events and future events in Marvel movies will leave Stark so emotionally damaged that he will want to retire and just provide occasional assistance/manipulation from the background. They might retire the character altogether and just mention him in passing in future movies, or else he'll become a background character like Nick Fury.

Also, rumor has it that

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An Avenger will die in the next movie

...so there's that.

As long as we're indulging in wild speculation, who do you think is going to stay?

Black Widow requires very little in the way of special effects and is wildly popular with the fans. Further, Marvel has made it clear that they want more diversity and as of the end of the upcoming movie, she will be one of only two females on the team. So I think she has plot armor.

On the topic of diversity-based plot armor, War Machine will be the only non-white hero until Black Panther can join the group in phase 3, so I think he has plot armor.

Directors of the Marvel movies seem to rave about working with Paul Bettany as JARVIS in the past. When he starts playing Vision, the character does need some CGI work for the eyes and for the superpowers, but other than that his getup is practical. With those two things in mind, I think we'll see plenty more of Vision in the future.



Anyway, I look forward to the movie.

Ultron can be a fun villain in the hands of the right writers. Like Magneto, what really makes him frightening is that he is probably right about humanity. He hates humanity, but never manages to realize that he has very human failings.

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Also, watching Stark nearly destroy humanity trying to save it sounds like good drama-fodder, and I can't wait to watch Vision betray Ultron the same way Ultron betrayed his creator.

So what are your thoughts?

 

[KeepTalking]

I already have my tickets to see A2 on Friday. For those who have already seen it, as Underseer asked, please let us know that you have, and use spoiler tags (hide tags) if you are going to reveal anything from the movie before then.

As long as we're indulging in wild speculation, who do you think is going to stay?

My guess is they are going to kill off Clint Barton as Hawkeye, to pave the way for Kate Bishop. Hawkeye has been under-utilized (except as a temporary villain) in the Avengers, and has not been as popular as the rest of the cast.

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He was killed off in the comics and was resurrected by Scarlet Witch, so that could be another angle they could take moving forward in the CU instead of bringing in Kate Bishop. If they go the resurrection route, this could also tie in with the Dr. Strange movie, as he helped Hawkeye during his convalescence.

I guess Iron Man is a possibility since War Machine is joining the team (who needs two steel suited Avengers?), or Hulk if they are looking to bring in She Hulk later. She Hulk would not be as CGI intensive as Hulk is. We know it's not going to be Cap, Thor, or Black Widow, but I suppose they could throw us for a loop and take out one of the new team members. My money would be on Quicksilver in that case, given that Scarlet Witch and War Machine serve to diversify the team.

 

[Underseer]

There has been no rumors of She Hulk so far as I know.

Too bad.

 

[Jayjay]

It'd be fairly easy to replace actors while keeping the same characters. If Robert Downey Jr. doesn't want to do Avengers anymore, all they need to do is put token black guy in the suit. That'd solve the war machine redunancy as well. Same with cap, they can replace him with Falcon or Winter Soldier and it wouldn't be too weird.

 

[Underseer]

Just saw it. First, the spoiler-free part.

I think it's on par with the first Avengers movie, but it feels like less because it's the middle act of a trilogy. Since the third act will be broken up into two movies, it and the rest of phase three require more setup.

The Ultron character was less than I hoped, and in that way, it was less than the first Avengers movie. He just isn't sympathetic enough. As I said before, the thing that really makes the character terrifying to me is that his criticism of humanity (and the excuse for his evil) is perfectly valid. We really are a bunch of murderous, selfish, destructive shits. The fact that he correctly identified the problem but picked the wrong solution makes him tragic. The fact that he hates humans but fails to notice that he shares our flaws also makes him tragic.

I don't think they played up any of those angles sufficiently because the story just had too many balls to juggle. They needed to give more character time to more neglected characters, they had to introduce a bunch of new characters, and they had to set up phase three.

Really, I think the reason Loki was so much more sympathetic was that he had a whole movie (Thor) to establish sympathy for him and establish the tragedy of the character. They should have used Iron Man 3 to do the same for Ultron.

On the upside, Vision, Quicksilver, and Scarlet Witch were great and quite sympathetic. I think Vision is going to be interesting and will quickly become the moral center of the team. Wanda has experienced enough tragedy that if she goes crazy later, it will be understandable and feel natural. Quicksilver was exactly the right mix of cocky asshole and hero to match what we know from the comics, although for obvious reasons, they couldn't go into his complicated daddy issues.

Black Widow got some kind of tech upgrade, which they didn't bother explaining, which is fine. In combat, she feels even more badass. We got more details about her past and why she sees herself as a monster, which made certain spoiler things more compelling.

They fleshed out Hawkeye more, but made him very different from the comics. Unfortunately the differences make him more boring, less of an asshole and less funny, although just as conflicted.

They didn't dwell much on Stark beating himself up over endangering the world, but Downy really sold it with what little time he had to communicate it.

We got to see more of the inherent tragedy of Banner and his struggle with coping with the fact that he is a danger to others. When I heard about the Banner-Black Widow relationship it bothered me, but I really liked what they did with it and how they sold it.

War Machine got a great save-the-day moment, and his camaraderie with the other Avengers felt natural.

The action sequences were all top notch and relentless. The movie is long, not that you will notice. The dialog, the humor, and the touching human moments were predictably great as one would expect from Whedon.

There is a mid-credits scene, but no end-credits scene, so don't bother sticking around to the very end.

We didn't get any cameos from the Agents of SHIELD television show, and there would have been a perfect place to put that.

Oh, and the Hulkbuster fight was every bit as epic as hoped, although technically that suit is called Veronica in the movie.

 

[Underseer]

It'd be fairly easy to replace actors while keeping the same characters. If Robert Downey Jr. doesn't want to do Avengers anymore, all they need to do is put token black guy in the suit. That'd solve the war machine redunancy as well. Same with cap, they can replace him with Falcon or Winter Soldier and it wouldn't be too weird.

Downy has to stay on board at least until Captain America 3 because spoilers.

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If I don't get to see Downy muttering "it wasn't worth it" over Steve Rogers' corpse, I'm gonna have a hissy fit. Full on nerd rage.

 

[Underseer]

...and spoiler stuff.

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Holy crap, they killed off Quicksilver right away! And his last words were epic.

Wanda and Pietro start out siding with Hydra, and their motive for doing so adds even more guilt to Stark's pile. As if he didn't already have enough to feel guilty about. No wonder he retired at the end of the movie (called it). As I expected, he's now a background character like Nick Fury, and he will no doubt come out of retirement for Captain America 3.

Speaking of successful predictions, the Hulk/Banner ran away. The Hulk was the one who actually ran away out of guilt, which surprised me. I'm guessing Hulk and Banner agreed on something for once.

Didn't expect Hawkeye to retire, but they made the character so boring that I can't say I mind. I mean really, Hawkeye as a loving family man with a stable long-term relationship? Hawkeye? Really? Although I have to admit that his "If you walk out that door, you're an Avenger" speech to Scarlet Witch was a lot more touching than I expected. Oddly enough, he could become a nurturing father figure for some of the Avengers, especially Wanda.

Thor ran off to chase the Thanos plot thread. I assume Thanos is going to be the one to destroy Asgard in the next Thor movie.

So there was a lot more roster shakeup than I expected. Really, only Black Widow and Captain America remain of the original Avengers. The new Avengers are War Machine, Vision, Scarlet Witch, and Falcon. Hopefully, Falcon will get a tech upgrade from Stark, although I love the personality of the character.

I have some mixed feelings about Vision.

On the one hand, the idea of JARVIS getting stuffed into a manufactured biological body is freaking epic. Between having a biological body and an infinity stone embedded into his forehead, there are some personality changes, but Vision is basically JARVIS in a biological body. So far, Vision is a lot less snarky than JARVIS, which I hope gets rectified in the future.

The downside is that Vision's mind was created by Stark instead of Ultron, which makes Vision's betrayal of Ultron a lot less dramatic, although we can still say that Ultron created his own downfall as he manufactured the body.

Oh, and Vision being able to lift Thor's hammer was badass.

Scarlet Witch's reaction to her twin's death was fucking epic. You could almost feel her soul getting hollowed out. Vision saving her from falling to her death was a nice touch. I wonder if they're going to play out that romance.

SHIELD swooping in to save all those civilians was great. I assume that by next week's Agents of SHIELD show, we will find Nick Fury back in charge. I'm so disappointed we didn't at least see a few TV show cameos when that helicarrier showed up.

Natasha's "I'm a monster too" scene with Banner during one of the romance bits was surprisingly moving. It was moving enough to make me mad at Hulk/Banner for running off at the end of the movie.

Having Maria Hill act as coordinator for the Avengers was great. Honestly, I hope she remains in that role in future Avengers movies.

 

[Daioh]

@Underseer
I think you hit the nail on the head and couldn't agree with you more

And that after credits scene............it's got me hyped even more now

 

[bigfield]

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Oh, and Vision being able to lift Thor's hammer was badass.

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It was the 'puny god' moment of this movie.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

That was an awesome movie. Hawkeye had the best line I've heard in a long time:

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"Look, the city is flying, we're fighting an army of robots and I have a bow and arrow. It doesn't make any sense."

There were so many good things about it, but I'm in a nitpicking mood this morning, so:

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WTF was with Iron Man? They made a big deal at the end of Iron Man 3 about how he blew up all of his suits and was out of the business, but then he showed up in a suit with another giant one in orbit and a whole army of robots that he now had. They completely ignored the entire finale of that movie. While Iron Man 3 was a crap film and I'm all in favour of forgetting it, there was a large plot gap there. They did the same thing in the first Avengers with Thor showing up after the Bifrost was destroyed, but at least they tossed in a meaningless throw-away line to explain that away. Here, it just didn't happen.

 

[Underseer]

That was an awesome movie. Hawkeye had the best line I've heard in a long time:

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"Look, the city is flying, we're fighting an army of robots and I have a bow and arrow. It doesn't make any sense."

There were so many good things about it, but I'm in a nitpicking mood this morning, so:

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WTF was with Iron Man? They made a big deal at the end of Iron Man 3 about how he blew up all of his suits and was out of the business, but then he showed up in a suit with another giant one in orbit and a whole army of robots that he now had. They completely ignored the entire finale of that movie. While Iron Man 3 was a crap film and I'm all in favour of forgetting it, there was a large plot gap there. They did the same thing in the first Avengers with Thor showing up after the Bifrost was destroyed, but at least they tossed in a meaningless throw-away line to explain that away. Here, it just didn't happen.

I actually didn't have a problem with the Iron Man thing. The way I read the events of Iron Man 3...

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He said he was not going to spend so much time building suits that he screwed up his relationship with Pepper, not that he would leave the super hero thing entirely.

And even if he did imply the latter, well, he's Tony Stark. He has lots of character flaws even by the standards of Marvel heroes, so would you really be surprised by mister unreliable going back on his word?

 

[Tom Sawyer]

That was an awesome movie. Hawkeye had the best line I've heard in a long time:

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"Look, the city is flying, we're fighting an army of robots and I have a bow and arrow. It doesn't make any sense."

There were so many good things about it, but I'm in a nitpicking mood this morning, so:

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WTF was with Iron Man? They made a big deal at the end of Iron Man 3 about how he blew up all of his suits and was out of the business, but then he showed up in a suit with another giant one in orbit and a whole army of robots that he now had. They completely ignored the entire finale of that movie. While Iron Man 3 was a crap film and I'm all in favour of forgetting it, there was a large plot gap there. They did the same thing in the first Avengers with Thor showing up after the Bifrost was destroyed, but at least they tossed in a meaningless throw-away line to explain that away. Here, it just didn't happen.

I actually didn't have a problem with the Iron Man thing. The way I read the events of Iron Man 3...

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He said he was not going to spend so much time building suits that he screwed up his relationship with Pepper, not that he would leave the super hero thing entirely.

And even if he did imply the latter, well, he's Tony Stark. He has lots of character flaws even by the standards of Marvel heroes, so would you really be surprised by mister unreliable going back on his word?

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All I wanted was a sentence. Some half-assed, poorly thought out bridge between the end of one movie and the beginning of the next, like they gave us with Thor. It wouldn't have to make sense, all it would have to do is acknowledge that the events of the last movie happened and there was some form of transition between the two films. A "Didn't you blow up your suits?" "Ya, but I'm unreliable" would have been fine. We didn't even get that.

Also, these hide tags are getting annoying so ... SPOILER ALERT!!!!!!

If you've read this far into a thread about a movie that's already been released and you haven't seen it, it's your own damn fault that you find out some spoilers.
















What did people think of Quicksilver in this one in relation to Quicksilver in the X-Men? This one didn't have a single scene which was as awesome as the X-Men one, but had a lot more fairly awesome scenes throughout the movie. I particularly liked when he grabbed the guy's gun and lined all the bullets up on the desk and when he was zipping ahead of the train moving all the people out of the way. He was a better character in this one, but that may only be due to the greater amount of screentime fleshing him out and his having his sister there to give his character more dimension. The X-Men's Quicksilver could have a lot more room to grow in upcoming movies to make up for that disparity.

 

[Underseer]

I actually didn't have a problem with the Iron Man thing. The way I read the events of Iron Man 3...

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He said he was not going to spend so much time building suits that he screwed up his relationship with Pepper, not that he would leave the super hero thing entirely.

And even if he did imply the latter, well, he's Tony Stark. He has lots of character flaws even by the standards of Marvel heroes, so would you really be surprised by mister unreliable going back on his word?

Show

All I wanted was a sentence. Some half-assed, poorly thought out bridge between the end of one movie and the beginning of the next, like they gave us with Thor. It wouldn't have to make sense, all it would have to do is acknowledge that the events of the last movie happened and there was some form of transition between the two films. A "Didn't you blow up your suits?" "Ya, but I'm unreliable" would have been fine. We didn't even get that.

Also, these hide tags are getting annoying so ... SPOILER ALERT!!!!!!

If you've read this far into a thread about a movie that's already been released and you haven't seen it, it's your own damn fault that you find out some spoilers.
















What did people think of Quicksilver in this one in relation to Quicksilver in the X-Men? This one didn't have a single scene which was as awesome as the X-Men one, but had a lot more fairly awesome scenes throughout the movie. I particularly liked when he grabbed the guy's gun and lined all the bullets up on the desk and when he was zipping ahead of the train moving all the people out of the way. He was a better character in this one, but that may only be due to the greater amount of screentime fleshing him out and his having his sister there to give his character more dimension. The X-Men's Quicksilver could have a lot more room to grow in upcoming movies to make up for that disparity.

Why explain anything?

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He's obviously continued building suits since then. I'm not convinced this needed an explanation (although Pepper complaining about it would have been great), and they already had too much crap packed into one movie such that they failed to establish any real sympathy for Ultron.

Unfortunately, Quicksilver has to be different in the Marvel movies and the X-Men movies. Marvel had to make this Quicksilver different, couldn't make him a mutant, and couldn't mention that his biological father is Magneto. Each character served a different role in their respective movies, and I thought they did a pretty decent job with both. The version we got in Avengers 2 is older and more traumatized, and yeah, he got more screen time and was thus able to do some pretty impressive/heroic stuff, whereas the Quicksilver in the X-Men film was younger, brattier, and basically just a plot device to get Magneto out of prison. The Quicksilver in Avengers was needed to increase Stark's guilt, flesh out Wanda more, contrast against Hawkeye, etc. The character was simply doing a whole lot more for the story.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

Speaking of Ultron, what exactly was his origin? I got the impression that they were trying to imply that Thanos downloaded him into the Mind Gem before giving it to Loki for ... some reason? A link to Thanos would explain why he was in there and why Thanos had his "Fuck the minions, I'll do it myself" scene immediately upon Ultron's defeat. The mid-credit scene doesn't make any sense absent Ultron being part of Thanos's plan.

Also, in regard to the end credit scene, or lack thereof - go and fuck yourself, Joss Whedon. Seriously. Just fuck the hell off.

 

[Underseer]

Speaking of Ultron, what exactly was his origin? I got the impression that they were trying to imply that Thanos downloaded him into the Mind Gem before giving it to Loki for ... some reason? A link to Thanos would explain why he was in there and why Thanos had his "Fuck the minions, I'll do it myself" scene immediately upon Ultron's defeat. The mid-credit scene doesn't make any sense absent Ultron being part of Thanos's plan.

Also, in regard to the end credit scene, or lack thereof - go and fuck yourself, Joss Whedon. Seriously. Just fuck the hell off.

They weren't particularly clear on that point (or if they were, it went over my head). About all I can tell is that he was the result of Banner and Stark trying to create an AI based on what they found in the mind gem. It could be that Ultron actually came from the mind gem. If so, this wouldn't be the first infinity stone to gain sentience and go mad.

That's ironic and/or funny given that the infinity stones are supposed to be pieces of god.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

Speaking of Ultron, what exactly was his origin? I got the impression that they were trying to imply that Thanos downloaded him into the Mind Gem before giving it to Loki for ... some reason? A link to Thanos would explain why he was in there and why Thanos had his "Fuck the minions, I'll do it myself" scene immediately upon Ultron's defeat. The mid-credit scene doesn't make any sense absent Ultron being part of Thanos's plan.

Also, in regard to the end credit scene, or lack thereof - go and fuck yourself, Joss Whedon. Seriously. Just fuck the hell off.

They weren't particularly clear on that point (or if they were, it went over my head). About all I can tell is that he was the result of Banner and Stark trying to create an AI based on what they found in the mind gem. It could be that Ultron actually came from the mind gem. If so, this wouldn't be the first infinity stone to gain sentience and go mad.

That's ironic and/or funny given that the infinity stones are supposed to be pieces of god.

They didn't create Ultron, they found Ultron. His code was in the Mind Gem and that's why they had to download it quick before Thor carted the staff off to Asgard because Stark didn't have any computers which could handle the code. They were working on an interface when their probing woke him up and he killed Jarvis and took over a robot. Which is weird because you'd assume that Stark's robot was a computer which could handle the code if Ultron downloaded himself into it.

 

[Underseer]

They weren't particularly clear on that point (or if they were, it went over my head). About all I can tell is that he was the result of Banner and Stark trying to create an AI based on what they found in the mind gem. It could be that Ultron actually came from the mind gem. If so, this wouldn't be the first infinity stone to gain sentience and go mad.

That's ironic and/or funny given that the infinity stones are supposed to be pieces of god.

They didn't create Ultron, they found Ultron. His code was in the Mind Gem and that's why they had to download it quick before Thor carted the staff off to Asgard because Stark didn't have any computers which could handle the code. They were working on an interface when their probing woke him up and he killed Jarvis and took over a robot. Which is weird because you'd assume that Stark's robot was a computer which could handle the code if Ultron downloaded himself into it.

Yeah, that's more or less what I understood from the story, which again brings up the delicious irony that pieces of god confined to stones can become evil and wreak destruction on existence. The more familiar you are with the Bible, the more sense this part of the story makes. Of course pieces of god would become obsessed with destruction.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

As I'm thinking about it, it looks like having Ultron's code stored in the infinity gem was a way to set up having Vision take on the Adam Warlock role in Infinity War.

He's an artificially designed human hero with an Infinity Gem attached to his forehead. Thanos is going to end up getting it, so something is going to happen to Vision and transferring his code into the gem and then taking over the Gauntlet when Thanos has a weak moment would duplicate how Warlock did it.

 

[Underseer]

As I'm thinking about it, it looks like having Ultron's code stored in the infinity gem was a way to set up having Vision take on the Adam Warlock role in Infinity War.

He's an artificially designed human hero with an Infinity Gem attached to his forehead. Thanos is going to end up getting it, so something is going to happen to Vision and transferring his code into the gem and then taking over the Gauntlet when Thanos has a weak moment would duplicate how Warlock did it.

Yeah, I had a very similar thought while watching it, that Vision is going to fill the Adam Warlock role. I wondered why they made such a point of mentioning that Adam Warlock would not appear in the next Guardians of the Galaxy movie, but now I know why.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

Why didn't Thor use his lightning more often? Ultron's robots died when you stabbed them with an arrow, so when they were all lined up gathered to attack, a few thousand lightning bolts blasting into them would have been even more effective than if he'd remembered he could use them when he was fighting the Hydra guys.