Avengers: Age of Ultron

[Nic]

A key problem is Ultron. He's a

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villain who can be killed over and over again and not die. The Terminator handled that concept well, but in that film, there was only one nearly-unstoppable robot. Ultron has thousands (millions?) of bodies, so destroying any one of them is meaningless. His bodies are so worthless that at one point Ultron himself destroys one copy just because it's a slightly older model. How can there be any dramatic tension when "destroying Ultron" is such a pointless goal? By the time the Vision destroys what's supposedly the last one, I had no idea if it was actually the last one.

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Just because Ultron can't be destroyed, doesn't mean he can't be inconvenienced. One of his main goals in the movie is to create his ideal vision of life (hence the vibranium and the nano tissue machine) and the scene in China where the Avengers get away the Cradle containing Vision is a partial victory. As to how could his last body actually be the last one, it was established that a damaged JARVIS was able to prevent Ultron from accessing the world's nuclear codes, so "repaired Jarvis + Mind Stone + the body that was meant to permanently house Ultron" could be able to burn out Ultron's connection to the internet, limiting him to his own bodies.

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Also: Where is Ultron getting all of that raw material to create all those versions of himself? It would have been interesting if they had all looked different, like they had been assembled from whatever metal or steel happened to be on hand (ripping off pieces from people's cars, bridges, items found in junkyards, etc.). Instead, thousands upon thousands were created in under a week, and they all looked identical. Did he take over a factory somewhere? Considering how fast they were churning out, were there already facilities somewhere equipped for making killer robots?

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It was established early on that HYDRA was working on their own robotics division in the castle the Avengers stormed, so Ultron would be able to make his first few bodies there. Then, when meeting with Klaue, he actually accessed a bank account (because super intelligent robot, so of course he can do that) and bought as much Vibranium as he could off Klaue legally. His drone bodies were most likely being used to search for more materials while his main bodies were trying to put his Vision together.

--At the end of Iron Man 3, Tony blew up all of his suits and quit being Iron Man. Even at the time, we knew there was going to be an Avengers 2, so it seemed a pretty pointless thing to do, but I was hoping there was going to be some really good story reason why the filmmakers went to the effort of retiring Tony and a really good reason for bringing him back. There wasn't. He was just there with the rest of them, right at the beginning. AoU actually works better if you haven't seen Iron Man 3.

Call this my own interpretation, but in Iron Man 3 it was established that Tony was working on new suits non stop since the Battle of New York, going from seven suits to 42 suits in a year, with each suit being less stable/more easily broken in that film's climax. I maintain that destroying those suits was him putting Pepper before his own insecurities, and he's spent time working on one single bit of armor as well as the Iron Legion, which doesn't require him to be in the suit. Plus, RDJ was obviously coming back for a second and (at the time) third Avengers movie, so it didn't really bother me. Also, you could take his previous fixation with those armors and read more into Ultron with it, since he's also building multiple robot bodies, mostly being cannon fodder and only a few select bodies being actually useful.

--On a similar note (and someone may have said this), but the Avengers were disbanded at the end of their previous team films, all dropping off the grid, only to be called back for the most dire emergency. I was looking forward to that whole "getting the band back together" stuff, but that was just completely skipped over. Ditto for the reveal of the Stark Tower now being the Avengers Tower. That should have been a big moment.

Eh, I would've settled for at least a montage of previous scenes from the other Marvel Studios movies of the Avengers doing badass stuff before leading into the opening action scene. I can see why that might seem a bit too abrupt.

It seems there was really no good reason for Marvel Films to want [Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch] so badly...Joss gives both of them stuff to do in this film, but they're in a movie that's already so overstuffed with characters that there's no time for us to really know or care about them.

I feel like they at least serve a purpose as part of Ultron's character. Both of them are victim's of Tony's business, and Ultron befriends them as a way of distancing himself from his father and trying to build a better world in his own way. As for the characters themselves...ehhh, I feel there's a lot to read into their actions (Pietro is quick tempered, easily bored, and thinks before he acts, like in instances where he grabs Klaue's candy or tries grabbing Mjolnir midair or unplugging Vision's Cradle while everyone is arguing, Wanda is more empathetic and reserved, and cares deeply for her brother's safety to the point of over-protection), but I do feel they needed better actors to make what little actions they did have have more weight. I can see why Marvel would at least want Scarlet Witch so badly because, hey, have to get female superheroes somewhere.

--Falcon was completely wasted in this. He was great in Winter Soldier and Ant-Man, but he shows up and does nothing, and then we're supposed to be excited when it's heavily implied that the next Avengers film will be about him and the other new Avengers that we don't care about.

I just accepted it as an extended cameo. It was different from Rhody, who kind of has a story arc in this movie (proving that he can play with the Avengers), and would have raised more of an alarm in my mind if he wasn't there.

--While I don't expect that having watched all of Agents of SHIELD should be a requirement for understanding the movies, there was practically no connection between the two. Yes, if one gets into the details, there's some connectivity there (and kudos to the people who did explain those connections so well earlier in this thread), but what it really boils down to is this: SHIELD sent the helicarrier. That's it. And we didn't even know that until the following week's episode. I was hoping for some added emotional resonance or maybe even just a cameo from a beloved character, but the connection between the two was really just an afterthought. Still, I would have gladly overlooked this if the rest of the movie had been more entertaining. (BTW, I initially resisted Agents of SHIELD, but it's a wonderful series.)

Yeah, I agree with that wholeheartedly. AS much as I loved the guy who didn't launch the Helicarriers in Winter Soldier making an appearance, that could have easily been replaced with Fitz, or Mack.

Side note: My favorite thing in the whole movie -- finding out that Hawkeye

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has a family. After two movies where he had very little screen time, I finally care about Hawkeye.

Agreed.

 

[TomH1138]

Fair enough, [MENTION=9504]Nic[/MENTION]. I think you did a good job of helping me understand what the filmmakers were going for. In sharing my opinion, I'm not trying to ruin the enjoyment for anyone who did like the film. It's a respectable effort, not a Phantom Menace or Batman & Robin. As the "Honest Trailer" said, the film just had too many burdens to carry.

Oh, and I meant to give my Marvel movie (and TV) list earlier:

1. The Avengers
2. Captain America: The Winter Soldier
3. Iron Man
4. Iron Man 2 (I'm right there with [MENTION=6357]Gaith[/MENTION] in the "I Like IM2" Club!)
5. Ant-Man
6. Daredevil
7. Agents of SHIELD
8. Captain America: The First Avenger
9. Guardians of the Galaxy
10. Incredible Hulk
11. Thor: The Dark World
12. Thor
13. Iron Man 3
14. Avengers: Age of Ultron (At this point, it's at the bottom of the list because even IM3 had a little bit more fun to it. But maybe it will improve on later viewings. Compared to other non-MCU films, though, this one would be much higher on the list.)

I haven't seen Agent Carter yet. When is that finally coming to Netflix, anyway?

 

[TomH1138]

Thanks for your kind words, [MENTION=9578]Neglify[/MENTION]!

 

[henzINNIT]

I finally saw the movie and read through all of the posts since May, and I agree with the general "meh" reaction. I'm a huge Joss Whedon fan, so I'm not one to dogpile for its own sake, but there was definitely something lacking here.

A key problem is Ultron. I wonder what villain Joss would have picked, or what story he would have told, if he had free rein. Joss is usually very particular about a story he wants to tell -- he might have put his mark on a story from his own younger comic book reading days, or told a completely new story. But in this case, it felt like too many of the blanks had been filled in for him before he even began writing. (But that's just speculation.)

Everything I've seen indicated that Joss was the guy who chose Ultron. There were clearly 101 boxes he had to tick during the film though. This whole film felt like a talented writer spinning way too many plates.

Other thoughts (includes unmarked spoilers on earlier MCU movies, which I guess are fair game at this point):

--At the end of Iron Man 3, Tony blew up all of his suits and quit being Iron Man. Even at the time, we knew there was going to be an Avengers 2, so it seemed a pretty pointless thing to do, but I was hoping there was going to be some really good story reason why the filmmakers went to the effort of retiring Tony and a really good reason for bringing him back. There wasn't. He was just there with the rest of them, right at the beginning. AoU actually works better if you haven't seen Iron Man 3. That's sloppy filmmaking.

Right there with you on this. I think this might actually be Joss' fault, as he was so focused on making a sequel to his Avengers that he seemed to ignore where the characters had gone since. Stark has basically the same arc twice. In Iron Man 3, he's suffering with PTSD and panicking about the new threats he discovered. Age Of Ultron quickly drops him back into a very similar situation. One of the key lines of IM3 is "You create your own demons". Did he learn nothing?

I read into it that Stark has become active again after the collapse of Shield. His Iron Legion project is an attempt to fill the peace-keeping void, and he's being stretched too thin. It's a logical extension of his story, but as with many things in the film, it's not given any time to breathe.

--On a similar note (and someone may have said this), but the Avengers were disbanded at the end of their previous team films, all dropping off the grid, only to be called back for the most dire emergency. I was looking forward to that whole "getting the band back together" stuff, but that was just completely skipped over. Ditto for the reveal of the Stark Tower now being the Avengers Tower. That should have been a big moment.

This was a very deliberate decision Whedon made. He didn't want to retread the first film, and was dead set on opening the film with the gang together. While I understand the logic, it is jarring as hell every time I watch it. There didn't need to be an extensive set-up, but something as small as a brief news clip reporting that they are active again would have gone a long way; hell give them a Star Wars title crawl. Anything.

And, as the "Honest Trailer" pointed out, of all the things that could have brought the Avengers back together, the opening sequence seemed like a very minor incident.

Agreed. It is especially odd when you have random Hydra strikes taking priority, then Falcon making off-hand comments about looking for the Winter Soldier.

Anyway, the movie isn't outright incompetent, just very unsatisfying. I really hope we get to see an extended edition at some point -- not that the movie really needed to be longer, but because the 3+ hour cut might reveal what Joss' original intentions were, and that there might be a great movie buried in there that can be found in fan editing.

There is very little I dislike about this film. There is just too much going on though. I am confident that a longer cut which allowed everything to breathe just a little would have done wonders. Even the brief deleted scenes added a couple of lines I liked. Just little bits of character and logic.

Sadly I don't see an extended cut coming. Joss wants to stand by his cut, and Marvel have never extended one of their films before.

Side note: My favorite thing in the whole movie -- finding out that Hawkeye

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has a family. After two movies where he had very little screen time, I finally care about Hawkeye.

Loved Hawkeye. He was gold.

 

[Gaith]

Everything I've seen indicated that Joss was the guy who chose Ultron.

Yep. Whedon believes global society is probably headed towards a catastrophic collapse due to ecological crises and resource scarcity, and I think Ultron was his way of expressing that. As Abraham Riesman has convincingly argued, however, Ultron has always been a lame, flat character.

 

[henzINNIT]

Yeah he's not great. I found him fun if a bit (lot) thin.. A more defined motive couldn't hurt though.

 

[TomH1138]

Thanks for your insights, [MENTION=8333]henzINNIT[/MENTION]!

I appreciate the info about Joss choosing Ultron. Before a movie comes out, I try to avoid behind-the-scenes info. Then, if I don't like the movie, I no longer care about looking it up. But I probably should have, in this case.

I really like the explanation about the collapse of SHIELD being what motivated Tony's comeback. That would have been a great bit of info to throw into an episode of Agents of SHIELD (if the writers had thought of that too, and if there had been a logical way to include it). Just a couple of lines of dialogue would have resolved that issue.

I can understand Joss not wanting to retread the first film, but he's the one who decided that they should disband. It seems like he should have picked it up where it left off, or given the first film a different ending. (Again, thank you for the info. I'm just respectfully disagreeing with Joss.)

It is very sad to know that there won't be an extended cut. It seems like this film sorely needs it. And extended cuts are common for popular movies -- heaven knows this one made enough money to warrant one. Oh, well.

 

[henzINNIT]

Thanks for your insights, henzINNIT!
I can understand Joss not wanting to retread the first film, but he's the one who decided that they should disband. It seems like he should have picked it up where it left off, or given the first film a different ending. (Again, thank you for the info. I'm just respectfully disagreeing with Joss.)

It is very sad to know that there won't be an extended cut. It seems like this film sorely needs it. And extended cuts are common for popular movies -- heaven knows this one made enough money to warrant one. Oh, well.

No problem. I recently watched the commentary track so I had a lot of info buzzing around. Joss actually wanted to jump even more directly into the action, making that group money-shot from the first scene the very first shot of the film. Madness.

 

[Nic]

It's a damn shame this scene never made it into the movie.

 

[thecuddlyninja]

^ I think that's a cool standalone scene but I personally prefer the theatrical version. It's a much better intro to Vision and his temperament, in my opinion. Plus then we're not sure how powerful he really is until the end (though we should intuit it, obviously). Plus Thor comes off better in the other version, too. I think his reaction makes more sense than attacking the thing he just helped create. His trying to hit Vision in the face with the hammer just seems not quite right to me.

 

[ManicGuy1989]

It's a damn shame this scene never made it into the movie.

I'd heard about this scene before the film even came out and I was so disappointed when it wasn't there on the big screen

 

[Gaith]

I agree with thecuddlyninja; that's a wretched scene that I'm super-glad wasn't in there.

 

[ssj]

finally saw it, and not with a lot of enthusiasm. it was ok. nothing horrible, nothing great, a little too cute for its own good. too many junior ultrons reminded me of the agent smith horde in the matrix sequels.

great comments and insight in this thread. no need for me to echo those. i have only one astrophysics-related comment:

slamming a piece of earth that size back into itself would be regionally calamitous, but i don't think it would cause anywhere near an extinction-level event. even with thrusters built into the rock, it wouldn't be able to achieve the velocity that would provide the kinetic energy for molten rocks to be flung all over the place, including on the other side of the earth.

for comparison, the asteroid thought to spank the dinosaurs should have been about six miles in diameter and traveling 10-15 miles per second. coming from space allowed it to have that velocity.

so ultron's threat wasn't nearly as big as he said it was.

 

[Canon Editor]

"The way of the Westerns" is what I want too, but for me it's because I actually love comic book movies and I think the only way to save them is to make less of them and (mostly) drop the shared universe idea. I want infrequent quality movies of various subgenres (in a comic book movie context), like the way the Western has become a part of the historical drama fold and has produced great films like The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, Ride with the Devil, Brokeback Mountain, and There Will Be Blood, to take four very different films of the last 20 years.

I'm with both of you there.  I loved when just a few came out and... "they were different"

 

[addiesin]

"The way of the Westerns" is what I want too, but for me it's because I actually love comic book movies and I think the only way to save them is to make less of them and (mostly) drop the shared universe idea. I want infrequent quality movies of various subgenres (in a comic book movie context), like the way the Western has become a part of the historical drama fold and has produced great films like The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, Ride with the Devil, Brokeback Mountain, and There Will Be Blood, to take four very different films of the last 20 years.

I'm with both of you there.  I loved when just a few came out and... "they were different"

Haven't you only seen one or two anyway? What difference does it make how many films there are if you don't watch them?

(Also the post to which you're replying is 1.5 years old...)

 

[Canon Editor]

"The way of the Westerns" is what I want too, but for me it's because I actually love comic book movies and I think the only way to save them is to make less of them and (mostly) drop the shared universe idea. I want infrequent quality movies of various subgenres (in a comic book movie context), like the way the Western has become a part of the historical drama fold and has produced great films like The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, Ride with the Devil, Brokeback Mountain, and There Will Be Blood, to take four very different films of the last 20 years.

I'm with both of you there.  I loved when just a few came out and... "they were different"

Haven't you only seen one or two anyway? What difference does it make how many films there are if you don't watch them?

(Also the post to which you're replying is 1.5 years old...)

Yes you are right, but even the few ones I have seen (to be exact: Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Thor, The Avengers, Guardians of the Galaxy and Iron Man 3) just didn't deliver what I expect from this kind of film.  Oh, well, it must be me.

 

[addiesin]

Yes you are right, but even the few ones I have seen (to be exact: Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Thor, The Avengers, Guardians of the Galaxy and Iron Man 3) just didn't deliver what I expect from this kind of film.  Oh, well, it must be me.

That's a perfectly valid takeaway, I don't expect you to change your mind about the film's you've seen. I just feel like getting more superhero films is better than getting no more, if you want films of higher quality. Statistically speaking, a good film can only be made if films are being made. 

For example, people bring up the Dark Knight all the time. It wouldn't have been possible if WB didn't think superhero films were worth making, and also wouldn't have been the same without specifically the Batman films that came before it.

I'd rather have a big pile to sort through with some hidden gems in it than a tiny selection with the same good to bad ratio.

 

[Gaith]

For example, people bring up the Dark Knight all the time. It wouldn't have been possible if WB didn't think superhero films were worth making, and also wouldn't have been the same without specifically the Batman films that came before it.

Not to mention a downright wretched predecessor, IMHO, in Batman Begins.

I'd rather have a big pile to sort through with some hidden gems in it than a tiny selection with the same good to bad ratio.

Hear, hear. I always point to pro sports, especially American football. I don't give a damn about the NFL, and mentally rolled my eyes whenever my former office would start dissecting the latest games, but I didn't wish, on the Internet or otherwise, that the institution would dramatically shrink, or even vanish. (Even though I think I could make solid arguments for why pro sports culture is bad for society in a way that dwarfs any potential downsides of comic book flicks.) I don't use this analogy to attack you, Canon Editor; rather, to promote a carefree, live-and-let live Zen attitude.

 

[ThrowgnCpr]

For example, people bring up the Dark Knight all the time. It wouldn't have been possible if WB didn't think superhero films were worth making, and also wouldn't have been the same without specifically the Batman films that came before it.

Not to mention a downright wretched predecessor, IMHO, in Batman Begins. 

I actually like Batman Begins the most of the three ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[Gaith]

Some very cool ideas here. Abomination!