Avengers movie discussion (news/etc.)

I do have a superpower.

Regarding the, "How was IRON MAN 2 an infomercial for THE AVENGERS?"

Technically, you are both correct in that very little is actually said relating Thor, the Avengers Project and so on. But, it's not about what they say, but what they do.

Fury and Coulson show up and say, "Stark, there's bigger things out there than Whiplash and you. You need to join the Avengers." That's their first appearance, a single scene, and not a big amount of time. However, every scene they're subsequently in them helping Stark. And why? Because they need him to join the Avengers. So every action SHIELD takes in the movie, we know, is done because they want Stark to join the Avengers. So the movie is essentially SHIELD trying to get Stark to join the Avengers. After Whiplash attacks Stark and is arrested, he's in the background and Tony is unaware of a threat against his person until the last twenty minutes of the movie. That entire section is Stark alienating his friends, working for SHIELD, and looking to the past for answers from his father who was working with SHIELD on a secret project.

The entire movie is Stark investigating his family and SHIELD as SHIELD tries to convince him to join the Avengers. Every scene with SHIELD is about the Avengers initiative. Every scene without Whiplash is directly about Howard Stark's secret SHIELD project (since the illness and Pepper Potts are all related). Every scene with Widow retroactively becomes yet another SHIELD scene where they're trying to get him involved in the Avengers.

That's why it's an informercial - almost every scene is SHIELD trying to get Tony to sign up.
 
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Bass said:
I do have a superpower.

Regarding the, "How was IRON MAN 2 an infomercial for THE AVENGERS?"

Technically, you are both correct in that very little is actually said relating Thor, the Avengers Project and so on. But, it's not about what they say, but what they do.

Fury and Coulson show up and say, "Stark, there's bigger things out there than Whiplash and you. You need to join the Avengers." That's their first appearance, a single scene, and not a big amount of time. However, every scene they're subsequently in them helping Stark. And why? Because they need him to join the Avengers. So every action SHIELD takes in the movie, we know, is done because they want Stark to join the Avengers. So the movie is essentially SHIELD trying to get Stark to join the Avengers. After Whiplash attacks Stark and is arrested, he's in the background and Tony is unaware of a threat against his person until the last twenty minutes of the movie. That entire section is Stark alienating his friends, working for SHIELD, and looking to the past for answers from his father who was working with SHIELD on a secret project.

The entire movie is Stark investigating his family and SHIELD as SHIELD tries to convince him to join the Avengers. Every scene with SHIELD is about the Avengers initiative. Every scene without Whiplash is directly about Howard Stark's secret SHIELD project (since the illness and Pepper Potts are all related). Every scene with Widow retroactively becomes yet another SHIELD scene where they're trying to get him involved in the Avengers.

That's why it's an informercial - almost every scene is SHIELD trying to get Tony to sign up.
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I get that to an extent but it really did have that impact on me. I saw it as Shield, a government agency that, has an investment in Stark's survival. And they never mention some bigger threat just that they need to keep Stark in line as part of their jobs. The whole thing with his father never seemed like and Avenger infomercial, but of Stark's legacy with this government agency. The focus of the project was for Iron Man and his mythology. Never crossed out of his territory other than Shield being a quick vehicle to deliver the plot device. I think "Avengers Infomercial" aspect is more audience created, because you know all about the avengers and have much more ideas what will happen in the next movie so our minds may focus on that. For me it added a cool atmosphere and theories to think about later. For you it became a distraction. Really only a few throw away lines and that last scene with Fury ever gave real indications about the Avengers the rest were you're assumptions or fit pretty well into this story
 
I've got to agree with Bass here. I felt like the shoe-horning of SHIELD into the story hurt the film as a whole. Jackson's Fury and Johansen's Widow were easily the weakest characters in the film, and the rest of the supporting cast (Potts and Rhodey, mostly) suffered for it. I don't think the "It was an infomercial line" is the important aspect we should be drawing from it. It didn't necessarily feel like it was "advertising the Avengers" to me, but it definitely felt like they were trying to lay the rails for a coherent universe, and the integrity of the movie suffered for it. The strongest aspects of the film itself were the character aspects. By and large, I felt like the quiet moments between actors were more compelling than the action sequences, which is something surprising for a superhero movie, and that quick sharp right turn the film took with the inclusion of SHIELD prevented a lot of those character relationships from really blossoming.
 
Random said:
I get that to an extent but it really did have that impact on me. I saw it as Shield, a government agency that, has an investment in Stark's survival. And they never mention some bigger threat just that they need to keep Stark in line as part of their jobs. The whole thing with his father never seemed like and Avenger infomercial, but of Stark's legacy with this government agency. The focus of the project was for Iron Man and his mythology. Never crossed out of his territory other than Shield being a quick vehicle to deliver the plot device. I think "Avengers Infomercial" aspect is more audience created, because you know all about the avengers and have much more ideas what will happen in the next movie so our minds may focus on that. For me it added a cool atmosphere and theories to think about later. For you it became a distraction. Really only a few throw away lines and that last scene with Fury ever gave real indications about the Avengers the rest were you're assumptions or fit pretty well into this story
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They do mention the bigger threat almost immediately, as I recall. Howard Stark is inherently linked to SHIELD; Fury knew him, he was working on Cap's shield, and Howard's whole thing was getting ready for the "energy war" that was coming, something SHIELD wants Tony to help them with. Again, SHIELD says, "Big things on the horizons, sign up." Tony says "No" so SHIELD says "Here's some cake. What about now?" Tony, "Hmm. Maybe if I get more cake." and on it goes.

Another way to look at it; compare it to IRON MAN. Coulson had a tiny, teeny part in the movie which was cryptic and completely unrelated to what was going on. Then, at the end, they merge very slightly. SHIELD has an extremely minor presence. Now look at IRON MAN 2, in which SHIELD is a continuous presence throughout the entire movie, and their desire is specifically about getting Iron Man to sign up.

In the first movie, they're barely in it, and we're not sure what they're after. In the second, they're in a large number of scenes, and in each they're trying to get Stark to sign up. Now, the problem isn't that SHIELD is a big part of the movie, but rather this: it goes nowhere.

SHIELD does almost nothing for the story. If SHIELD had a real purpose in the story, if they really did something and it was resolved, it wouldn't feel like a trailer. But because nothing really changes in that sub-plot, it feels like a tease.
 
Bass said:
They do mention the bigger threat almost immediately, as I recall. Howard Stark is inherently linked to SHIELD; Fury knew him, he was working on Cap's shield, and Howard's whole thing was getting ready for the "energy war" that was coming, something SHIELD wants Tony to help them with. Again, SHIELD says, "Big things on the horizons, sign up." Tony says "No" so SHIELD says "Here's some cake. What about now?" Tony, "Hmm. Maybe if I get more cake." and on it goes.

Another way to look at it; compare it to IRON MAN. Coulson had a tiny, teeny part in the movie which was cryptic and completely unrelated to what was going on. Then, at the end, they merge very slightly. SHIELD has an extremely minor presence. Now look at IRON MAN 2, in which SHIELD is a continuous presence throughout the entire movie, and their desire is specifically about getting Iron Man to sign up.

In the first movie, they're barely in it, and we're not sure what they're after. In the second, they're in a large number of scenes, and in each they're trying to get Stark to sign up. Now, the problem isn't that SHIELD is a big part of the movie, but rather this: it goes nowhere.

SHIELD does almost nothing for the story. If SHIELD had a real purpose in the story, if they really did something and it was resolved, it wouldn't feel like a trailer. But because nothing really changes in that sub-plot, it feels like a tease.
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I don't recall the energy war term, but that whole thing links ups perfectly with a major point in the first movie that was the arc reactor. It's not something so unrelated and focused on the Avengers, it is a part of the Iron Man mythology introduced in the first film and further explored in this film. Shield was simply the vehicle for the story of the arc reactor and Tony's father issue. All the Avengers stuff were so minute you're just obsess over what everything there means for future movies and not how it plays into this movie. Yes there are teases and hints but they don't interrupt the story for anything unrelated. Never once did they go on a monologue talking about how the new element tony created was involved in cap's shield, they just did a quick and funny gag, Fury never said "Something bad is coming and I need you" Simply he wants Tony on his side. The story is about Tony's wrestle with the government over control of Iron Man , Shield simply adds another side to this conflict. A secret government organization plant an undercover operation to monitor Stark increase erratic and when the cause is determine and Stark goes off the deep end Fury introduces the top secret work of his father to solve the problem. Right there Shield has a real purpose in the story that has nothing to do with the avengers. What there screams avengers? Anything associated with avengers are just passing comments and things we as an audience infer.

And thinking about about the energy war comment I can't possibly see how that plays into the avengers, He's talk about something happening right now, the current "war for oil" as well as the actual story that's all about energy that can be used for war and the conflicts to acquire it. How is this even a hint for the avengers?

Shield did accomplish something they got Stark and his technology under control, that was their main purpose and they accomplished it. The whole thing with him joining the avengers is only brought up twice, once to establish that during their first meeting Stark declined the offer and again at the end of the movie to tease the avengers. You think that Shield's only there to tease the avengers, but getting Tony to join up is only a motivation their role what they bring to the story is the classified work of his father that would resolved the mortality issue that Stark was facing.


Zombipanda said:
I've got to agree with Bass here. I felt like the shoe-horning of SHIELD into the story hurt the film as a whole. Jackson's Fury and Johansen's Widow were easily the weakest characters in the film, and the rest of the supporting cast (Potts and Rhodey, mostly) suffered for it. I don't think the "It was an infomercial line" is the important aspect we should be drawing from it. It didn't necessarily feel like it was "advertising the Avengers" to me, but it definitely felt like they were trying to lay the rails for a coherent universe, and the integrity of the movie suffered for it. The strongest aspects of the film itself were the character aspects. By and large, I felt like the quiet moments between actors were more compelling than the action sequences, which is something surprising for a superhero movie, and that quick sharp right turn the film took with the inclusion of SHIELD prevented a lot of those character relationships from really blossoming.
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I agree to an extent, I don't think it was shield's inclusion that cause characters from the original to take a step back. Cause as I said before Fury only has like two scenes and I feel there would have been a character in Widow's place regardless. But I think when you add the new characters, whiplash, hammer who need screen time to establish themselves (unlike the first film where there were tonsof focus on the small supporting cast) plus the storyline itself of stark alienating himself from his friends I think caused that. And it's more of an execution and the story's pros and cons than a fundamental idea of shield's involvement.
 
Random said:
Shield was simply the vehicle for the story of the arc reactor and Tony's father issue.
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At the end of IRON MAN, SHIELD says "We need you in the Avengers." In IRON MAN 2, Tony has turned them down. So one of Fury's strategies to get Tony on their side is to say; "Your father worked with us trying to stop an energy war that's coming. Here's his tech. It can cure you of your alcohol-metaphor. See how nice we are? Perhaps you should sign up. You fix these problems and at the end we'll talk about you joining the Avengers."

Random said:
All the Avengers stuff were so minute you're just obsess over what everything there means for future movies and not how it plays into this movie. Yes there are teases and hints but they don't interrupt the story for anything unrelated. Never once did they go on a monologue talking about how the new element tony created was involved in cap's shield, they just did a quick and funny gag, Fury never said "Something bad is coming and I need you" Simply he wants Tony on his side. The story is about Tony's wrestle with the government over control of Iron Man , Shield simply adds another side to this conflict. A secret government organization plant an undercover operation to monitor Stark increase erratic and when the cause is determine and Stark goes off the deep end Fury introduces the top secret work of his father to solve the problem. Right there Shield has a real purpose in the story that has nothing to do with the avengers. What there screams avengers? Anything associated with avengers are just passing comments and things we as an audience infer.
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Okay, your points is: The SHIELD stuff is not unrelated and never explicit, so how does it scream Avengers?

As I said; Fury's desire is to get Tony to join the Avengers. He is explicit in this. All his actions are to get Tony to join the Avengers. That is how it screams "Avengers". The fact that SHIELD is so intertwined into the story is problematic because that means everything in the story is linked to Fury trying to get Tony to join the Avengers. So the underlying sub-plot that glues all the disparate plots together (the Hammer/senate storyline, the Palladium-poisoning storyline, and the Whiplash storyline) is just SHIELD asking Iron Man to join the Avengers.

And at the end he just says "Okay."

The movie ends precisely where it started, with a very insignificant change where Tony decides to join the Avengers, something we already knew of because of his appearance in THE INCREDIBLE HULK.

Random said:
And thinking about about the energy war comment I can't possibly see how that plays into the avengers, He's talk about something happening right now, the current "war for oil" as well as the actual story that's all about energy that can be used for war and the conflicts to acquire it. How is this even a hint for the avengers?

Shield did accomplish something they got Stark and his technology under control, that was their main purpose and they accomplished it. The whole thing with him joining the avengers is only brought up twice, once to establish that during their first meeting Stark declined the offer and again at the end of the movie to tease the avengers. You think that Shield's only there to tease the avengers, but getting Tony to join up is only a motivation their role what they bring to the story is the classified work of his father that would resolved the mortality issue that Stark was facing.
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Why is Fury telling Stark? Why is he helping Stark? Why is he stationing Black Widow there? Why is he doing anything in the movie at all?

To get Iron Man to join the Avengers.

I'm glad you like the movie, and it's not that I want you to hate it or anything, but the film uses Fury's desire to get Stark on the team as the glue for not just the disparate sub-plots but with at least three other movies still to come (THOR, CAPTAIN AMERICA, and THE AVENGERS).

And unfortunately, that glue story doesn't progress, change, twist or turn with any dynamic. It just shows up, links one plot with another plot, or one movie with another movie, and continues. And that's why some people, like myself, find it rather cheap and like an infomercial. You didn't find it intrusive because they didn't explicitly say that in dialogue, but the desires, sub-text, and use of those scenes in the movie is a very obvious linking mechanism for the franchise and for the movie itself.
 
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Random said:
I agree to an extent, I don't think it was shield's inclusion that cause characters from the original to take a step back. Cause as I said before Fury only has like two scenes and I feel there would have been a character in Widow's place regardless.
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I've got to disagree on the Black Widow front. Her only purpose was to service the SHIELD sub-plot. I'm not opposed to the thought of Black Widow becoming a supporting character in the Iron Man films. I think espionage and Iron Man go well together. The problem is that any meaningful characterization, and for that matter, any significant impact on the story as a whole, were sacrificed for the sake of making SHIELD look cool. To riff off of Bass, she was an advertisement for the Avengers (or, well, let's say she was an advertisement for "the Marvel film universe"). She was a flat character who was defined wholly by being highly competent. Her only role was to legitimize the credibility of SHIELD. They skirted around the possibility of her being a monkey wrench in the relationship between Stark and Potts. If they'd followed through on that plot line, I could have possibly gotten behind that, because then she would have been at the nucleus of the story. She would have become a factor in the character story. If she had been a threat to Stark's monopoly on his own technology, perhaps in the service of the US military complex or Hammer Industries, then it would have provided some depth to the plot as well, and potentially to Rhodey's growth as well.

As for Nick Fury, his only role in the film is to be a deus ex machina. He drops the mcguffin that allows Stark to overcome his problems and win in the end. You say his role was minor, but I say the character dominated the whole second act, to the disservice of the movie as a whole. He appears halfway through the movie and out of the blue introduces a whole new plotline: Tony living up to the legacy of his father. Up until that point, Howard Stark had only been mentioned in a passing bit at the beginning of the film and then suddenly we have a subplot where we discover and then reconcile the relationship between father and son, all revealed through sloppy exposition. Could a Howard/Tony plotline have worked? Sure. It's possibly a little trite, but it's ultimately a sound idea. But the problem is the execution. It's dropped in the middle of the story out of nowhere, all vomited up at once and then quickly resolved so that the hero can rush along to the denouement. It felt shoe-horned in there so they could establish a connection between the Stark legacy and SHIELD.

Random said:
But I think when you add the new characters, whiplash, hammer who need screen time to establish themselves (unlike the first film where there were tonsof focus on the small supporting cast) plus the storyline itself of stark alienating himself from his friends I think caused that. And it's more of an execution and the story's pros and cons than a fundamental idea of shield's involvement.
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When you cut out the SHIELD characters, IM2 has a pretty small cast. You have the hero, his best friend, and his love interest. Then you have two antagonists who were efficiently established and wound together. If you stripped away all the clutter, you would have had significantly more time to explore the relationships between the characters. Tony being away doesn't preclude an expansion of Pepper and Rhodey. Hell, Black Widow and Fury could have been used to offer more insight into the core cast, but they weren't. Instead, they felt like invaders from another film. So, I guess you're right when you say it's not about the inclusion of SHIELD. The presence of the military-industrial complex is a pretty strong element of the film. But that's not the point I'm making. The point is that none of the SHIELD characters were brought organically into the universe. They instead seemed included as an ad for Marvel's crossover plans: to show how cool SHIELD is, to tie Howard Stark back to the organization, to provide Tony with an impetus to join with them.




Moving on to the argument about Marvel Studios as a whole and the possible despotic meddling of the producers involved... There's a lot of talk about how big a travesty it is that Ed Norton isn't playing the Hulk. That by itself doesn't upset me. I can perfectly understand why Marvel might not want Ed Norton in the role. I actually really digged the last Hulk movie, but it was clearly something of a love letter to the old TV series. I'm of the mind that the integrity of each film should take precedence over the desire for a shared universe. And I can perfectly understand how the vision for Hulk in the Avengers might differ from Hulk in solo films. They might want to make him a villain, and as such, their vision for the character might not mesh all that well with the version of the character defined by Norton. But, the Norton news, compounded by the fact that they hadn't even started a script and murmurs elsewhere about conflicts between the studio and the talent, makes me a little suspicious. It might be all rumors, but it wouldn't surprise me either. I'll be curious to see how the idea of a "film universe" works out for Marvel.

To be perfectly honest, I'm kind of hoping it crashes and burns, just so it might convince WB to not follow suit with their DC properties. ;)
 
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I really hope its good. I wouldn't mind a JUSTICE LEAGUE film.

I just want the mindset to change from "franchise" to "just make one really good film". I want that feeling I get at the end of other awesome movies where I don't anticipate or desire a sequel like RATATOUILLE, THE FUGITIVE, MIDNIGHT RUN, INCEPTION, or even THE MATRIX. Remember when that came out? No one was expecting a sequel. The movie even kinda ends with the sentiment; "There won't be a sequel". The only superhero movies I can think of that really delivered that was THE DARK KNIGHT, THE INCREDIBLES, and BATMAN: MASK OF THE PHANTASM. I suppose UNBREAKABLE too.
 
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Bass said:
I really hope its good. I wouldn't mind a JUSTICE LEAGUE film.

I just want the mindset to change from "franchise" to "just make one really good film". I want that feeling I get at the end of other awesome movies where I don't anticipate or desire a sequel like RATATOUILLE, THE FUGITIVE, MIDNIGHT RUN, INCEPTION, or even THE MATRIX. Remember when that came out? No one was expecting a sequel. The movie even kinda ends with the sentiment; "There won't be a sequel". The only superhero movies I can think of that really delivered that was THE DARK KNIGHT, THE INCREDIBLES, and BATMAN: MASK OF THE PHANTASM. I suppose UNBREAKABLE too.
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I actually watched Batman: Mask of the Phantasm the other day for the first time in awhile. For my money it might be the best superhero movie ever.
 
Zombipanda said:
I'm honestly not all that convinced that it's possible to create a good superhero team movie.

But I guess we'll see.
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Why not?

INCEPTION worked. STAR TREK worked. INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS worked. GHOSTBUSTERS worked. OCEAN'S ELEVEN worked. POLICE ACADEMY worked. THE INCREDIBLES worked. THE LORD OF THE RINGS worked. SERENITY worked.

All of these were successful, well-made movies that relied on an ensemble cast in an action genre. Why would the Avengers or the Justice League be any different to the Incredibles or the fellowship of the Ring?

DARKKNIGHT said:
I actually watched Batman: Mask of the Phantasm the other day for the first time in awhile. For my money it might be the best superhero movie ever.
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Yeah. I mean, bear in mind how much it does in eighty minutes. It's almost half the length of THE DARK KNIGHT or THE INCREDIBLES and it's still brilliant. I still think MASK OF THE PHANTASM is much better than BATMAN BEGINS in almost every way.

DIrishB said:
Thats like saying "I breathe oxygen".

Of course you do, for the good of us all.

The world will end when some evil jerk somewhere unnecessarily disagrees with Bass.

Jerk.
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palpatinefk4.jpg
 
E said:
Did someone call me in here? I thought I heard someone call me in here.
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Its not you yet. You still haven't had a difference of opinion with our resident infallible God (whom we lowly humans refer to as Bass...his actual name cannot be pronounced with our 3-dimensional tongues). But when you do and damn us all to a quick death, then, yes, you'll be the Evil Jerk.

For now I just refer to Doc Comic that way.
 
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Eh, I've lost motivation to read the lastest ten posts sooo... yeah. So I'm stepping out. My opinion still stands, but this grows tiresome.
 
Random said:
Eh, I've lost motivation to read the lastest ten posts sooo... yeah. So I'm stepping out. My opinion still stands, but this grows tiresome.
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Which is why I didn't bother to start. All I can say is I honestly watched the film and didn't feel as if it was an Avengers teaser movie.
 
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