Age of Ultron Thoughts & Discussion
My wife and I caught Avengers: Age of Ultron over the weekend. It wasn’t as strong as its predecessor, but it was a generally fun film. I feel strange saying this about a 2.5 hour movie, but I think it needed to be significantly longer, given the amount of story they were trying to tell.
SPOILERS AHEAD
YOU’VE BEEN WARNED
Okay, one of the biggest problems I saw was the emphasis on big flashy action scenes over development and story. I think the movie does a pretty good job, considering the number of characters it has to deal with, not to mention threads connecting to various other films both past and present, as well as Agents of Shield. But too many things were rushed or glossed over. Thor and the Glorious Pool of Glistening Pecs is a good example. What was that about? How much of his vision was supposed to be real?
Ultron had much more personality than I expected, and I loved his snark. But he wasn’t scary. In the first Avengers movie, we had a villain we’d met before, someone whose backstory and motivations we understood. Ultron comes out of nowhere, because apparently the mindstone is a computer matrix for AI that wants to wipe out humanity. Also, city-meteor! He should have been much more terrifying, and he just wasn’t. He never felt like a genuine threat.
Hawkeye was wonderful. Love the snark. Love the Scarlet Witch-stopping arrow he smacks onto her forehead, and his comment about not doing the mind-control thing again. Love that he has a family. (Though the family didn’t seem to have any existence outside of him; what do they do when he’s not around? Just hang out and hide from the world?) I loved watching him bring the more down-to-earth human being vibe to the team. My favorite bit was his conversation with Scarlet Witch. “…and I have a bow and arrow. None of this makes sense.”
Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver: I liked them both more than I expected. Quicksilver and Hawkeye played off of each other so well, and I’m bummed we won’t get to see more of that. Once again, I would have liked to see a little more backstory and character development, but I thought what we got worked. (Though erasing the characters’ Roma heritage from the comics is a problem.) I particularly liked the choreography for Scarlet Witch when she’s using her powers. I definitely want to see more of her character.
Hulk and Black Widow: Honestly, I just wasn’t feeling it. Bruce Banner and Tony Stark have much better chemistry. There’s been a lot of discussion about Black Widow’s post-shower talk about being sterilized and being a monster. I think at best that was clumsily written, and at worse it’s an asinine suggestion that to be a sterile woman is to be monstrous. I’m leaning more toward bad writing, but either way…meh.
The opening battle was one of my favorite parts of the movie. We got to see the chemistry and development of the Avengers as a team, along with plenty of banter. “Language…” It was just plain fun.
Tony Stark’s prima nocta joke. Was it in character for Tony? Maybe…I’d like to think he’d grown up a bit. But it was also gross and completely unnecessary.
Vision looked a little goofy, but I liked him. His handing Mewmew over to Thor was perfect. Like Ultron, I think we need a little more understanding of just what the hell he is, but I like him. I particularly appreciated his teamwork with Thor. (“I am mighty…I am running out of things to say!”) I also liked his conversation with the last Ultron bot at the end.
The ending was interesting. I don’t know what they’re doing with the Hulk, but I liked his choice to leave. I wasn’t sure about the Hulk calmly riding along in a cloaked quinjet, but leaving the team made sense. He’d been exposed as a monster, and then Natasha basically betrayed him by pushing him into that pit to bring out the Hulk. Totally in character for her, but also not okay. I thought that was a very powerfully written scene. I also liked seeing the beginning of a new team.
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So, what did the rest of you think?
Steven
May 13, 2015 @ 3:09 pm
Like you, I didn’t glom onto the Natasha/Bruce relationship as it seemed to come from left field.
While I sort of understand where Whedon was trying to go with the whole monstrosity undercurrent with Natasha, it’s the sort of overthink that a 19 year old Buffy Summers might make, not a worldly and far more smart than that Natasha; it might’ve worked better if she said she felt like a monster for having made that choice in the past but she’s come to terms with it. I’m with you–sloppy writing (which was more surprising to me, given Whedon’s usual lock on characters).
Jessica
May 13, 2015 @ 3:19 pm
I felt like with Natasha they were trying to link the whole sterilization/graduation thing with her official becoming the assassin/monster/killing machine. It makes sense they would do that to these girls since that what they were creating, but linking the ability to reproduce to her humanity was a bit flimsy. I mean really if Bruce and Natasha decided they wanted a family they could just adopt, but of course that leaves out the whole brainwashed programming that makes her dangerous, the possibility that maybe she’s just not into the idea of having kids of her own and the whole Hulk issue would make caring for a child dangerous as well.
They could have even had her say I can’t, it’s not that I would want to have one anyway, but that choice was taken from me.
Sarah Wynde
May 13, 2015 @ 3:35 pm
Agree on the Hulk/Black Widow. Wasn’t feeling it. Although I did laugh when she shoved him off the edge.
The other thing that I found unsatisfying was the predictability of Quicksilver’s end. As I was watching, I was thinking, Hawkeye’s being set up to die, therefore he won’t. Someone else will. It should be Natasha — talk about a hit for the team, especially with the budding romance with Hulk. Except that would be classic Joss Whedon, kill the woman, plus the whole fridge thing, and can you imagine the reaction? People would be furious, even if it did make for a great story. So Natasha can’t die, therefore who’s left? Can’t be any of the main guys, for obvious reasons — they’ve got future movies. If they kill Scarlet Witch, they’re killing one of the two female superheros and again, people would be pissed, so therefore… huh, I guess Quicksilver’s going to die. And then about two minutes later, he did. It felt so unimaginative. And practical. Not to mention that if in the middle of a climactic scene, I’m analyzing the story that much, I’m probably not real caught up in it.
That said, my kid and I have a longstanding tradition of going to superhero movies on Mother’s Day and this was definitely one of the better years.
Jim C. Hines
May 13, 2015 @ 3:45 pm
Some of it made sense, but it felt like a lot of what they were going for needed at least one more rewrite to make it work.
Angie
May 13, 2015 @ 3:53 pm
I agree that it should’ve been longer, considering all they were trying to do. I read somewhere that Whedon wanted the Hot Tub of Destiny bit to be longer with more explanation of WTF was going on there, but that the studio suits told him the only way he could add minutes onto that was to take them away from the Clint’s Family At The Farm stuff, so he chose the farm over the hot tub. If this is accurate, then those particular suits need a good whack upside the head. Their target audience for these movies has happily watched films much longer than 2.5 hours; adding another two or five minutes to Thor’s scenes wouldn’t have made any difference at all to viewer reactions — except to make for less, “Wait, what…?” which is always good — and they had to know they’d make enough money that cost wasn’t a reasonable objection there. [sigh]
I’d have been willing to buy the Bruce/Natasha thing if there’d been some set-up for it. Bruce/Hulk and Natasha have had scenes together before, but they don’t even indicate a decent friendship, much less romantic attraction. Romance needs a lot of groundwork if it’s going to feel real, and as you said, this came out of left field. I also agree that Bruce has more chemistry with Tony — Science Bros has been a thing since the first Avenger movie — but of course they couldn’t go there.
I have to say the one change I’d make if I were Ruler Of The Universe is the death of Jarvis. 🙁 Because he is dead. Vision is not Jarvis, despite the same actor playing him and Jarvis’s code being incorporated into Vision. Jarvis is Tony’s eyes, his ears, his right arm, and his best and oldest friend — the loss has to be devastating. What’s he going to do about this? If Tony doesn’t have Jarvis backed up somewhere (and his use of the on-chip replacements for the suit AI afterward makes it seem like he doesn’t, which I’m sorry, is just stupid, and Tony’s not stupid) we really need to see Tony reacting to the loss. Maybe not in front of other people, but when he’s in private? He’d need to mourn, and I want to see that, on screen, at some point.
Hell, I need to mourn. Jarvis was one of my favorite characters, dammit.
Angie
Mason T. Matchak
May 13, 2015 @ 5:19 pm
I think the pool that Thor went to will be explained in greater detail in later movies. I read some interviews with Mr. Whedon, and he said that the execs at Marvel made him keep that scene in – they had to have Thor visit the pool, he couldn’t just show up and say he’d been to a place and had a vision. Thor did mention the pools existed on all Nine Realms, so I’m thinking he or someone else will visit one in Asgard in the next Thor movie.
I agree that it could have been handled much better, though, and I’m looking forward to seeing deleted scenes or a director’s cut of the movie when it comes out on DVD.
Skippy
May 13, 2015 @ 5:32 pm
The prima nocta line really bothered me. Do we really need our heroes to make rape jokes? It was just unnecessary.
Russell
May 13, 2015 @ 5:42 pm
There’s a very good reason to keep the movies short. Shorter movies = more theater showings = more box office take.
If they do a Director’s cut of Avengers 2, that would get people buying the DVDs instead of DVRing the movie.
Annalee
May 13, 2015 @ 6:18 pm
I feel the same way. To me the question isn’t whether it’s in character for Tony, but why we tolerate heroes with that kind of character. There are so many things that we consider so over the line that we won’t tolerate them even from antiheroes, let alone lovable assholes. Rape jokes ought to be one of those things.
sistercoyote
May 13, 2015 @ 6:58 pm
At least one. Probably three or four.
As far as Thor’s pool, I *suspect* there will be a deleted scene to go with that.
And may I just say that I loved the “whose girlfriend is better” conversation. I probably shouldn’t have. But I did.
sistercoyote
May 13, 2015 @ 7:00 pm
I was saying to a friend that I would love for actors to say to directors: You know what? No rape jokes, okay? Yeah, I know, the character’s a dick but how else can we show that?
Lkeke35
May 13, 2015 @ 8:05 pm
I agree about the Natasha/Bruce thing. It seemed to come out of left field, to me. It was also kind of saucily to me in that there just wasn’t any chemistry there and Natasha’s behavior felt false and manipulative. Getting close to Bruce would be just another way for her to control the Hulk.
I was kind of glad he left her at the end. Do you think he felt that’s what she was doing or was it just fear of a relationship with her?
Lkeke35
May 13, 2015 @ 8:07 pm
I meant that it felt “squicky.”
Jim C. Hines
May 13, 2015 @ 8:31 pm
My sense was that their feelings for each other were real, regardless of the lousy chemistry on screen. I don’t think it was about controlling the Hulk. But I think that violation of trust (bringing out the Hulk without warning Bruce) crossed a line he couldn’t accept.
I’m reading between the lines and putting my own spin on things, though.
Ken
May 14, 2015 @ 8:00 am
Yep, in my headcanon there was another couple lines in there after the “one less distraction” to the effect of “Do you know who thinks like that? People in the business of making monsters. You’re not the only monster on the team.” or some such.
That’s how I interpreted it when I first saw it, but on reflection, the dialogue isn’t clear at all and could have used work especially for what was built up into a supposed big character moment for Black Widow. Makes more sense that the sterilization itself isn’t the “making me a monster” but the entire program and how it saw her as simply a weapon to be perfected rather than a person and how the operation was the most blatant sign of that. But, as I think most of the world is in agreement on, the dialogue needed to work if they wanted to make that clear.
Gabriel
May 14, 2015 @ 12:59 pm
Honestly, as a woman who can’t have kids (who certainly doesn’t speak for them all, but I did have “resonance” with that twist” – I didn’t see it as her saying being sterile made her a monster. I saw that as a deliberate link with Banner’s sadness that he can’t have kids, and linking it also to EVERYTHING that was done to her in the Red Room. The Red Room made her a monster, and part of that was taking her choice away, and trying to cut her off from all human contact. Much like Banner, being cut off from human warmth and affection (if the first Hulk Marvel movie is canon, he can’t even get it up without hulking out) makes her a monster. His monstrosity is more obvious, but hers should not be overlooked. It’s a bonding moment.
I’ve seen a lot of people bewail that “oh, the one woman on the team wants babies, oh no!” It’s different when the choice is *taken from you.* There’s no way she looks around at Hawkeye’s happy family and doesn’t wonder what it would be like. However, I thought it was fantastic that by joining Hawkeye’s family, she DOES get a valid taste of that family, and she seems happy with that. I certainly didn’t see any anti-feminist “neutering” of the character because she “wants babies.” I didn’t see that at all.
Everyone’s milage varies though.
Beth
May 15, 2015 @ 2:16 am
Isn’t running a farm a lot of work? It looks like that’s an actual working farm. That would probably take up a lot of time for Hawkeye’s family.
Rowanmdm
May 15, 2015 @ 7:20 pm
I finally got to see the movie today. There were several things that needed more depth, but overall it was pretty good. I have to say that my favorite part of the action scenes in this movie was how well the Avengers utilized each other’s strengths. I think I cheered every time Cap and Thor used the shield and hammer together 🙂
chacha1
May 18, 2015 @ 5:07 pm
I have enjoyed all of the Marvel Studios movies that I’ve seen, and enjoyed this one too. The big standout disappointments for other people were standout disappointments for me, too. Will confess I did not get the rape joke at all. Went right over my head.
What I thought most interesting was two things. 1) the implicit “I quit” from both Banner and Stark, and 2) the Avengers Academy setup at the end.
As to “death of Jarvis” I thought that question was answered. Tony had already reconstituted him, to a great extent, by the conclusion. Tony is not a guy who will take death lying down, obviously … his reaction to loss is NOT to mourn, but to cheat. It’s like Kirk and the Kobayashi Maru.