dev_chieftain (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
dev_chieftain) wrote2012-05-07 07:17 am
dev_chieftain) wrote2012-05-07 07:17 am
So, Avengers
I think the point of Avengers was to:
a) get everybody who wanted a sequel to (insert whatever movie they liked most here) to watch it as a sequel
b) get everybody who watched Avengers to then go watch whatever movie they missed
In my case, that's a success; Danny and I totally want to see the Captain America movie now. I liked him as a character, so I'm hoping I'll continue to like him in his origin story, even though I can't believe I just put the words "like" and "origin story" together in the same sentence.
Anyway, in the short, non-spoilery part, I'll say I did like the movie well enough. It passed my very basic test for "movies that didn't put me into a spit-frothing rage": No rape! You'd think I'm kidding and that this doesn't come up all the time, but I'm really not. The movie notably does not pass the Bechdel test, despite having two to three female characters with names. They never even talked to each other. Sigh.
But! There was Hawkeye, who I knew I would like from the previews way back when. I was not disappointed. I also enjoyed the Captain America and the Iron Man bits; also enjoyed Thor well enough. My two complaints are, Bruce Banner was utterly different, and seriously, Loki? Snoresville.
Spoilertown:
Things I liked:
Hawkeye. I sort of knew I would (a really awesome archer guy? AND there's mind-control? Yeah, I'm pretty much-- I'm pretty much sold). He's a far cry from a main character, but his storyline essentially got to be the most interesting because he wasn't in the spotlight of another movie, and he wasn't female.
I also liked Iron Man still. I enjoy RDJ's wacky antics, and getting to see him do something a little more serious at the end was nice. Fits right in to that archetype in the superhero team. If the wacky guy is causing trouble, it's usually a given that he'll make a heroic sacrifice. Of course, Iron Man 3 is in production, so it couldn't be too much of a sacrifice. You know how it is. I have to take a moment here to say that even though I think she could have stood to wear something other than denim cutoffs, I liked Gwyneth Paltrow here more than I usually do. I generally like her all right as the Potts character, but I really liked her in the short scene she did get.
Most exciting was Captain America. I don't know why-- probably misleading previews-- but I'd thought the new movie was ALL about modern-day crap, so I didn't think ol' Cap was going to be sleeping in the ice and dealing with being from the past and all. Learning that they actually kept that intact made me interested to see the movie, and his storyline worked for me. Considering Marvel's track record with how they handle their supposed lead in a superhero team with the movies, they did really well with Cap', I thought. I really like Cyclops in X-men, in that had-a-crush-when-was-a-kid way, but he sucked and we all knew it in the X-men movies. It wasn't "Wolverine or Cyclops?!", because there wasn't even a competition. With Cap' serving as the peacemaker between all the loose cannons on the team, you get to see him come to terms with the responsibility of thinking for himself, something he clearly doesn't naturally do in combat situations. He has to be badgered into it by Iron Man, but that's fitting, too. What really made me interested in the Avengers movie was the fact that none of the characters I knew in it were really the sort to take orders from anyone. I guess it's sort of to be expected that, in the crisis situation, Captain America takes charge (good ol' comic book propaganda!), but if the movie did a good job at anything, it was making me believe that of them all, Captain America was the best man for the job.
Despite my issues with certain parts of Thor (especially the incest-happy fandom), I really did like the movie. Thor himself was still fun here, but also very much a bystander. He felt as remote and cold as Martian Manhunter, which really just reminded me often that I kind of wish there could ever be a Justice League movie (even though if they made one NOW it'd have Christian Baleman, and I would weep tears of blood).
Nick Fury was sort of the centerpiece of the movie, representing the guy who'd do anything to prove that he's right, including give his bosses the finger. On the one hand, movies are all about fantasy come to life, and who doesn't occasionally have issues with how things are run at their place of business? On the other hand...you have to wonder how or why people gave him all this money and power and all these resources. Let alone how he advanced in the chain of military command while being so disobedient and headstrong. So I enjoyed him superficially, but his "ends justify the means" subplot wasn't really very interesting.
I have often said I can't stand Whedon's too-witty dialogue, and that was still the case here in some places. There were others where it was cheesily groan-worthy in that way I'd expect of any comic book, though (though nothing in the actual film topped the lines from that stupid Batman preview: "My father always said never to get in a car with a stranger." "It's not a car." *whoosh oh look it's a plane now*). The thing is, I can't REALLY complain, because witty dialogue meant I got this brief exchange between Black Widow and Hawkeye:
[Ohay aliens are invading. Joss Whedon, how heavily did you borrow from the Justice League show's opening two episodes?]
Black Widow: It's just like Budapest all over again.
Hawkeye: You and I remember Budapest very differently.
Also, this was honestly pretty adorable and one of many moments that sold me on "I need to see Captain America":
Fury: [Wizard of Oz reference]
Thor: I do not understand.
Captain America: I do! [cough] I get that reference.
Things I didn't like:
Bruce Banner/The Hulk. Wow, okay. So I don't mind recasting this guy again. I mean, I do, but I understand why they had differences with Norton and couldn't get him in for the amount of money they were willing to pay. But why was his personality completely different AGAIN? I liked The Incredible Hulk, and I kind of liked the zen Bruce Banner we saw there at the end of it. I had a sort of hope that he'd be pretty laid back and it'd actually pick up from there. Instead, we have an emotionally abusive jackass who spent most of the movie picking on Black Widow. He blames her squarely for doing her job (because, you know, NICK FURY isn't responsible for giving out the orders); he continues to fuck with her emotionally, and he's kind of a douche to everyone because he knows he's got the big guns and nobody can actually stop him. (Short of throwing him into a portal to space or ...not-space or whatever. Don't get excited; that didn't actually happen.)
Black Widow. I wanted to like this character, I really did, but she's just the same old weak-female-character in sexy-strong-girl trappings that Joss Whedon always does. For some reason, her suit's neckline is unzipped most of the time all the way down to her cleavage. Don't know why, but it is. Her backstory is the same backstory every assassin has ever had: I was a child soldier, I killed a lot of people, I want to fix it. She's probably in love with Hawkeye (not that I can blame her; he's pretty cool) and that handicaps her throughout the movie. In several situations she has to be rescued, thoroughly discrediting the starting scene where she rescued herself. Her initial scene had promise, even though I still took some issue with it, because I could buy that she was just fucking with the guys she was trying to get information out of and had complete control of the situation.
Then we have a scene of her being completely out of control with Banner being a douche at her; another scene of that where the Hulk nearly kills her but Thor saves her; and then the one that bugged me the most, where she went to try to shut down the portal and had to be walked through it by the scientist. She was able to beat up Hawkeye, which was impressive in the sense that he was pretty terrifying under mind control, but again-- she did it for love, which sort of cheapens it. I also felt annoyed that the scientist had to tell her how to close the portal. I really felt that that was the kind of information she could have just guessed on her own, and it didn't really benefit much to have the scientist alive or even involved in the first place. That's probably the least of my complaints, though.
Edited to add: I completely forgot to include this, but this scene annoyed me the most! It was a double-bad. I think I forgot because I'm actively trying to shunt the Loki scenes, in all their predictable facepalmy badness, right out of my memory. Anyway, so there was also a scene where she goes to...bargain with Loki for Hawkeye's life? Oh wait, no, he was playing her emotionally and getting inside her head; oh wait, no, she was...getting information from him? This scene actually typefies the movie's biggest problem if you're "outside" of it. (There are viewers who engage with movies by being IN the movie, and they kind of get the best deal when a movie is good because they're literally along for the ride and they think what the movie tells them to think. I am not so much this kind of viewer, I always have running commentary going on inside of my head and I'm likely to ruin movies for people. It is a challenge to shut up, seriously.) Aside from being a self-indulgent scene trying to build up how ooo, so scary Loki is (he feels like teacher's pet; the writer clearly thinks he's scary and tough, but I sure don't), the scene also involves a series of events that don't make sense.
I was interested by the possibility that Black Widow really was going to go for it to try to save Hawkeye. It doesn't have to be romantic-- I'd prefer it wasn't-- and it does seem like a kind of awesome friendship thing to do if you're a heartless assassin. Fuck the world, I want my heartless assassin buddy back. I was actually okay with the scene on that principle, while I think I was supposed to be "shocked" that she would even consider making such a deal. However, none of this is the real deal.
Instead, Loki is apparently subtly manipulating the other characters in the movie with some emotional mojo he has (how? Can it be detected? Can it be protected against? Does he have to concentrate?) and through this emotional manipulation, he accidentally reveals his plan to use the Hulk to...
Hm, well, here's what I'm talking about. Black Widow TELLS us that the Hulk is part of Loki's plan and that he's there to destroy them all, but not how. How is the Hulk being controlled by Loki? How is the Hulk's presence UNDER Loki's control? the ultimate "fuck you, I'm doing my own thing" guy isn't going to just drop down and play puppy for Loki, and we all know that. At no point was it even remotely possible that Loki could win, because, as Tony Stark so aptly stated in an exchange later, we have a Hulk. Since the Hulk is like an entire alien army's worth of guys, and he's not going to do what Loki asks him to do, how precisely is Loki planning to use him?
Other moments like this included Black Widow deciding to go in amongst the hundreds (possibly THOUSANDS) of alien dudes to get to the roof of the Stark building so she could go try to shut the evil portal down. Now, I'm not exactly sure how, because instead of staying on Black Widow the camera decided to do a masturbatory pan/montage of everyone else fighting before coming back into focus on Black Widow again minutes later, but apparently Loki noticed her and decided she was trying to get to the portal, because he was trying to stop her-- HER, the least threatening member of the Avengers, sad to say-- and not ANYONE ELSE, like, I don't know, Thor who he actually has a grudge against, Hulk who was actually a threat, or Iron Man who'd flipped him the verbal bird seconds earlier. Similar to the scene where the Hulk chases and tries to kill her, I couldn't figure out WHY, exactly, Black Widow was being chased, except to make it necessary to save her. (This time Hawkeye, at least, which felt considerably more appropriate. I got much more the feeling that he and she were normal folk standing next to the ridiculousness of everyone else.)
Anyway, back to the rest.
Basically, the movie suffers most noticeably from Whedon's number one problem: Here is a guy who literally cannot do characters different than the ones he first got famous for. Here's your Angel-- he's Captain America this time. Here's Xander; Bruce Banner. Here's Faith and Zoe from Firefly wrapped up in one as Black Widow; Oz or Wash as Hawkeye; Spike as Tony Stark, and Nick Fury as Giles. The only one who doesn't quite fit in there is Thor, but that's because Anya is a girl. Reimagine her as a slightly more serious, male character and ta-da! That's everyone important. Oh, but how could I forget Loki? Who regrettably took on the role of The Master-- the least interesting Buffy character of all? I didn't really feel like Loki matched the Loki we saw in Thor. I liked the idea that there was a possibility for redemption there, and I think it would have been more interesting to have honestly pursued it. But I also think that would have had to be done from the beginning of the movie by showing that Loki had a desire to return, to be forgiven, whatever. To make it possible to appeal to him, instead of just like talking to a wall. I also think it would have made perfect sense to have Loki controlled by the tesseract himself, and then have him come out of it after a severe blow to the head and-- well, okay, I think the plot could have been much more interesting. But that's not surprising. The plot was pretty blah.
In essence, the movie was still an origin story. That's unfortunately standard for comic book movies. In this case it was the origin of a team, which at least means we already know the backstories for all the characters and don't have to suffer through too many introductions and angstings about whether or not to be heroes, boo hoo, but still. Engineered fight scene about how we can't get along! Some pretentious bullshit dialogue about humanity being destined to be obedient! (An actually pretty cool bit with an elderly German gentleman speaking out against it!) And then everybody decides to work together after things get real and it turns out to be for the best.
I think the weirdest thing about the Avengers as a movie is that it thoroughly removed the X-men from its continuity. Distance aside, the idea of banding together a bunch of "freaks" in defense of the Earth sounded totally alien to Fury's powerless council.
Other things of note:
-The tesseract allowed Loki to subjugate people so long as he touched them with the scepter, but this was never explored. Too bad, since it was really interesting! This is as much because Loki wanted to showboat and gain people's fear and obedience without using it as anything, I figure.
-The aliens were apparently a hivemind? I wouldn't have guessed. Too bad they got all the development of a throwaway villain.
-The plane scene. Man, I liked the idea of Stark thinking he's going to die, trying to call Pepper and failing to get through 'cause she's busy, but couldn't it have been for ANY REASON other than that she was on the plane watching the news? People are always watching the news in movies. Do you know how often I or anyone I know WATCHES the news? The REAL news? Once in a blue MOON, man. Maybe every three months. I read the news online; I know a lot of people watch the FAKE news. But everyone in the movies is always watching the breaking news whenever it comes on on the television, and it feels fake to me. I guess the main reason is that I just don't watch television broadcast, so this could NEVER HAPPEN unless I was in a sports bar.
-A problem I think I'd have with the Avengers overall is that two of them, if not three, are just godlike. How can you really be on a team with Thor or the Hulk? Justice League has both Martian Manhunter and Superman in that field, and it's not like other powered heroes aren't ridiculously tough. But somehow, the only one that feels godlike to me is Superman, and he's the 'god' with the most well-documented weakness ever. Any random guy could have found some kryptonite to use against him, so it's not like he's immortal (Thor) or unkillable (Hulk). I just kind of find that less interesting. It also totally invalidates Black Widow and Hawkeye as viable members. Probably Captain America, too, since he's super, but still seemed pretty normal. Oh, and if Tony Stark isn't in his armor, Iron Man, too. ...kind of problematic.
And the previews: So, my guess on the plot of Brave is that Disney is hung up on people magically turning into bears, because it appears that the lead character's going to make a wish to change her fate and turn her family into bears by accident. (Prove me wrong.) I'll still go see it, but Brother Bear really wasn't that good. Also, really? She has identical triplet brothers? Gosh, THAT'S not a tired old device.Also feels like someone wanted to cash in on how much fans love red-head twins; see, Ouran High, Harry Potter.
Preview for the new Batman movie looks as awful as you might expect. And SO cheesy. I don't know, in ten years I'll be able to express my vitriol and distaste for these movies because people won't be excited about how shiny and new they are, but in the meantime...blargh.
Preview for Expendables 2 made me SO FUCKING EXCITED. OH MY GOD THEY GOT VAN DAMME THIS TIME. SO EXCITED.
Anyway, so that said. I really like Settlers of Catan! Having played it for the first time this weekend I can totally see why Emma likes it so much. The Civilization board game is incredible (and incredibly complicated!)
Things to catch up on on Tuesday: Legend of Korra 5; Game of Thrones...5 or 6?; Adventure Time!.
Nearly died laughing at Oglaf this week you guys. It was just. Oh man.
a) get everybody who wanted a sequel to (insert whatever movie they liked most here) to watch it as a sequel
b) get everybody who watched Avengers to then go watch whatever movie they missed
In my case, that's a success; Danny and I totally want to see the Captain America movie now. I liked him as a character, so I'm hoping I'll continue to like him in his origin story, even though I can't believe I just put the words "like" and "origin story" together in the same sentence.
Anyway, in the short, non-spoilery part, I'll say I did like the movie well enough. It passed my very basic test for "movies that didn't put me into a spit-frothing rage": No rape! You'd think I'm kidding and that this doesn't come up all the time, but I'm really not. The movie notably does not pass the Bechdel test, despite having two to three female characters with names. They never even talked to each other. Sigh.
But! There was Hawkeye, who I knew I would like from the previews way back when. I was not disappointed. I also enjoyed the Captain America and the Iron Man bits; also enjoyed Thor well enough. My two complaints are, Bruce Banner was utterly different, and seriously, Loki? Snoresville.
Spoilertown:
Things I liked:
Hawkeye. I sort of knew I would (a really awesome archer guy? AND there's mind-control? Yeah, I'm pretty much-- I'm pretty much sold). He's a far cry from a main character, but his storyline essentially got to be the most interesting because he wasn't in the spotlight of another movie, and he wasn't female.
I also liked Iron Man still. I enjoy RDJ's wacky antics, and getting to see him do something a little more serious at the end was nice. Fits right in to that archetype in the superhero team. If the wacky guy is causing trouble, it's usually a given that he'll make a heroic sacrifice. Of course, Iron Man 3 is in production, so it couldn't be too much of a sacrifice. You know how it is. I have to take a moment here to say that even though I think she could have stood to wear something other than denim cutoffs, I liked Gwyneth Paltrow here more than I usually do. I generally like her all right as the Potts character, but I really liked her in the short scene she did get.
Most exciting was Captain America. I don't know why-- probably misleading previews-- but I'd thought the new movie was ALL about modern-day crap, so I didn't think ol' Cap was going to be sleeping in the ice and dealing with being from the past and all. Learning that they actually kept that intact made me interested to see the movie, and his storyline worked for me. Considering Marvel's track record with how they handle their supposed lead in a superhero team with the movies, they did really well with Cap', I thought. I really like Cyclops in X-men, in that had-a-crush-when-was-a-kid way, but he sucked and we all knew it in the X-men movies. It wasn't "Wolverine or Cyclops?!", because there wasn't even a competition. With Cap' serving as the peacemaker between all the loose cannons on the team, you get to see him come to terms with the responsibility of thinking for himself, something he clearly doesn't naturally do in combat situations. He has to be badgered into it by Iron Man, but that's fitting, too. What really made me interested in the Avengers movie was the fact that none of the characters I knew in it were really the sort to take orders from anyone. I guess it's sort of to be expected that, in the crisis situation, Captain America takes charge (good ol' comic book propaganda!), but if the movie did a good job at anything, it was making me believe that of them all, Captain America was the best man for the job.
Despite my issues with certain parts of Thor (especially the incest-happy fandom), I really did like the movie. Thor himself was still fun here, but also very much a bystander. He felt as remote and cold as Martian Manhunter, which really just reminded me often that I kind of wish there could ever be a Justice League movie (even though if they made one NOW it'd have Christian Baleman, and I would weep tears of blood).
Nick Fury was sort of the centerpiece of the movie, representing the guy who'd do anything to prove that he's right, including give his bosses the finger. On the one hand, movies are all about fantasy come to life, and who doesn't occasionally have issues with how things are run at their place of business? On the other hand...you have to wonder how or why people gave him all this money and power and all these resources. Let alone how he advanced in the chain of military command while being so disobedient and headstrong. So I enjoyed him superficially, but his "ends justify the means" subplot wasn't really very interesting.
I have often said I can't stand Whedon's too-witty dialogue, and that was still the case here in some places. There were others where it was cheesily groan-worthy in that way I'd expect of any comic book, though (though nothing in the actual film topped the lines from that stupid Batman preview: "My father always said never to get in a car with a stranger." "It's not a car." *whoosh oh look it's a plane now*). The thing is, I can't REALLY complain, because witty dialogue meant I got this brief exchange between Black Widow and Hawkeye:
[Ohay aliens are invading. Joss Whedon, how heavily did you borrow from the Justice League show's opening two episodes?]
Black Widow: It's just like Budapest all over again.
Hawkeye: You and I remember Budapest very differently.
Also, this was honestly pretty adorable and one of many moments that sold me on "I need to see Captain America":
Fury: [Wizard of Oz reference]
Thor: I do not understand.
Captain America: I do! [cough] I get that reference.
Things I didn't like:
Bruce Banner/The Hulk. Wow, okay. So I don't mind recasting this guy again. I mean, I do, but I understand why they had differences with Norton and couldn't get him in for the amount of money they were willing to pay. But why was his personality completely different AGAIN? I liked The Incredible Hulk, and I kind of liked the zen Bruce Banner we saw there at the end of it. I had a sort of hope that he'd be pretty laid back and it'd actually pick up from there. Instead, we have an emotionally abusive jackass who spent most of the movie picking on Black Widow. He blames her squarely for doing her job (because, you know, NICK FURY isn't responsible for giving out the orders); he continues to fuck with her emotionally, and he's kind of a douche to everyone because he knows he's got the big guns and nobody can actually stop him. (Short of throwing him into a portal to space or ...not-space or whatever. Don't get excited; that didn't actually happen.)
Black Widow. I wanted to like this character, I really did, but she's just the same old weak-female-character in sexy-strong-girl trappings that Joss Whedon always does. For some reason, her suit's neckline is unzipped most of the time all the way down to her cleavage. Don't know why, but it is. Her backstory is the same backstory every assassin has ever had: I was a child soldier, I killed a lot of people, I want to fix it. She's probably in love with Hawkeye (not that I can blame her; he's pretty cool) and that handicaps her throughout the movie. In several situations she has to be rescued, thoroughly discrediting the starting scene where she rescued herself. Her initial scene had promise, even though I still took some issue with it, because I could buy that she was just fucking with the guys she was trying to get information out of and had complete control of the situation.
Then we have a scene of her being completely out of control with Banner being a douche at her; another scene of that where the Hulk nearly kills her but Thor saves her; and then the one that bugged me the most, where she went to try to shut down the portal and had to be walked through it by the scientist. She was able to beat up Hawkeye, which was impressive in the sense that he was pretty terrifying under mind control, but again-- she did it for love, which sort of cheapens it. I also felt annoyed that the scientist had to tell her how to close the portal. I really felt that that was the kind of information she could have just guessed on her own, and it didn't really benefit much to have the scientist alive or even involved in the first place. That's probably the least of my complaints, though.
Edited to add: I completely forgot to include this, but this scene annoyed me the most! It was a double-bad. I think I forgot because I'm actively trying to shunt the Loki scenes, in all their predictable facepalmy badness, right out of my memory. Anyway, so there was also a scene where she goes to...bargain with Loki for Hawkeye's life? Oh wait, no, he was playing her emotionally and getting inside her head; oh wait, no, she was...getting information from him? This scene actually typefies the movie's biggest problem if you're "outside" of it. (There are viewers who engage with movies by being IN the movie, and they kind of get the best deal when a movie is good because they're literally along for the ride and they think what the movie tells them to think. I am not so much this kind of viewer, I always have running commentary going on inside of my head and I'm likely to ruin movies for people. It is a challenge to shut up, seriously.) Aside from being a self-indulgent scene trying to build up how ooo, so scary Loki is (he feels like teacher's pet; the writer clearly thinks he's scary and tough, but I sure don't), the scene also involves a series of events that don't make sense.
I was interested by the possibility that Black Widow really was going to go for it to try to save Hawkeye. It doesn't have to be romantic-- I'd prefer it wasn't-- and it does seem like a kind of awesome friendship thing to do if you're a heartless assassin. Fuck the world, I want my heartless assassin buddy back. I was actually okay with the scene on that principle, while I think I was supposed to be "shocked" that she would even consider making such a deal. However, none of this is the real deal.
Instead, Loki is apparently subtly manipulating the other characters in the movie with some emotional mojo he has (how? Can it be detected? Can it be protected against? Does he have to concentrate?) and through this emotional manipulation, he accidentally reveals his plan to use the Hulk to...
Hm, well, here's what I'm talking about. Black Widow TELLS us that the Hulk is part of Loki's plan and that he's there to destroy them all, but not how. How is the Hulk being controlled by Loki? How is the Hulk's presence UNDER Loki's control? the ultimate "fuck you, I'm doing my own thing" guy isn't going to just drop down and play puppy for Loki, and we all know that. At no point was it even remotely possible that Loki could win, because, as Tony Stark so aptly stated in an exchange later, we have a Hulk. Since the Hulk is like an entire alien army's worth of guys, and he's not going to do what Loki asks him to do, how precisely is Loki planning to use him?
Other moments like this included Black Widow deciding to go in amongst the hundreds (possibly THOUSANDS) of alien dudes to get to the roof of the Stark building so she could go try to shut the evil portal down. Now, I'm not exactly sure how, because instead of staying on Black Widow the camera decided to do a masturbatory pan/montage of everyone else fighting before coming back into focus on Black Widow again minutes later, but apparently Loki noticed her and decided she was trying to get to the portal, because he was trying to stop her-- HER, the least threatening member of the Avengers, sad to say-- and not ANYONE ELSE, like, I don't know, Thor who he actually has a grudge against, Hulk who was actually a threat, or Iron Man who'd flipped him the verbal bird seconds earlier. Similar to the scene where the Hulk chases and tries to kill her, I couldn't figure out WHY, exactly, Black Widow was being chased, except to make it necessary to save her. (This time Hawkeye, at least, which felt considerably more appropriate. I got much more the feeling that he and she were normal folk standing next to the ridiculousness of everyone else.)
Anyway, back to the rest.
Basically, the movie suffers most noticeably from Whedon's number one problem: Here is a guy who literally cannot do characters different than the ones he first got famous for. Here's your Angel-- he's Captain America this time. Here's Xander; Bruce Banner. Here's Faith and Zoe from Firefly wrapped up in one as Black Widow; Oz or Wash as Hawkeye; Spike as Tony Stark, and Nick Fury as Giles. The only one who doesn't quite fit in there is Thor, but that's because Anya is a girl. Reimagine her as a slightly more serious, male character and ta-da! That's everyone important. Oh, but how could I forget Loki? Who regrettably took on the role of The Master-- the least interesting Buffy character of all? I didn't really feel like Loki matched the Loki we saw in Thor. I liked the idea that there was a possibility for redemption there, and I think it would have been more interesting to have honestly pursued it. But I also think that would have had to be done from the beginning of the movie by showing that Loki had a desire to return, to be forgiven, whatever. To make it possible to appeal to him, instead of just like talking to a wall. I also think it would have made perfect sense to have Loki controlled by the tesseract himself, and then have him come out of it after a severe blow to the head and-- well, okay, I think the plot could have been much more interesting. But that's not surprising. The plot was pretty blah.
In essence, the movie was still an origin story. That's unfortunately standard for comic book movies. In this case it was the origin of a team, which at least means we already know the backstories for all the characters and don't have to suffer through too many introductions and angstings about whether or not to be heroes, boo hoo, but still. Engineered fight scene about how we can't get along! Some pretentious bullshit dialogue about humanity being destined to be obedient! (An actually pretty cool bit with an elderly German gentleman speaking out against it!) And then everybody decides to work together after things get real and it turns out to be for the best.
I think the weirdest thing about the Avengers as a movie is that it thoroughly removed the X-men from its continuity. Distance aside, the idea of banding together a bunch of "freaks" in defense of the Earth sounded totally alien to Fury's powerless council.
Other things of note:
-The tesseract allowed Loki to subjugate people so long as he touched them with the scepter, but this was never explored. Too bad, since it was really interesting! This is as much because Loki wanted to showboat and gain people's fear and obedience without using it as anything, I figure.
-The aliens were apparently a hivemind? I wouldn't have guessed. Too bad they got all the development of a throwaway villain.
-The plane scene. Man, I liked the idea of Stark thinking he's going to die, trying to call Pepper and failing to get through 'cause she's busy, but couldn't it have been for ANY REASON other than that she was on the plane watching the news? People are always watching the news in movies. Do you know how often I or anyone I know WATCHES the news? The REAL news? Once in a blue MOON, man. Maybe every three months. I read the news online; I know a lot of people watch the FAKE news. But everyone in the movies is always watching the breaking news whenever it comes on on the television, and it feels fake to me. I guess the main reason is that I just don't watch television broadcast, so this could NEVER HAPPEN unless I was in a sports bar.
-A problem I think I'd have with the Avengers overall is that two of them, if not three, are just godlike. How can you really be on a team with Thor or the Hulk? Justice League has both Martian Manhunter and Superman in that field, and it's not like other powered heroes aren't ridiculously tough. But somehow, the only one that feels godlike to me is Superman, and he's the 'god' with the most well-documented weakness ever. Any random guy could have found some kryptonite to use against him, so it's not like he's immortal (Thor) or unkillable (Hulk). I just kind of find that less interesting. It also totally invalidates Black Widow and Hawkeye as viable members. Probably Captain America, too, since he's super, but still seemed pretty normal. Oh, and if Tony Stark isn't in his armor, Iron Man, too. ...kind of problematic.
And the previews: So, my guess on the plot of Brave is that Disney is hung up on people magically turning into bears, because it appears that the lead character's going to make a wish to change her fate and turn her family into bears by accident. (Prove me wrong.) I'll still go see it, but Brother Bear really wasn't that good. Also, really? She has identical triplet brothers? Gosh, THAT'S not a tired old device.
Preview for the new Batman movie looks as awful as you might expect. And SO cheesy. I don't know, in ten years I'll be able to express my vitriol and distaste for these movies because people won't be excited about how shiny and new they are, but in the meantime...blargh.
Preview for Expendables 2 made me SO FUCKING EXCITED. OH MY GOD THEY GOT VAN DAMME THIS TIME. SO EXCITED.
Anyway, so that said. I really like Settlers of Catan! Having played it for the first time this weekend I can totally see why Emma likes it so much. The Civilization board game is incredible (and incredibly complicated!)
Things to catch up on on Tuesday: Legend of Korra 5; Game of Thrones...5 or 6?; Adventure Time!.
Nearly died laughing at Oglaf this week you guys. It was just. Oh man.