Avengers Age of Ultron thoughts

[astolat]

OK, I saw it tonight! Massive spoilers here under the cut-tags! I had a reasonably good time at the movie, but, er, you probably can't tell by the relative volumes of what's under the cuts? My main reaction was, it was fine, I didn't have a bad time watching, it kept flowing nicely, but I just didn't care much about it the whole time.

Comments

[astolat]

For my part, I am inclined to be kinder to Joss -- if you read Cesperanza's tumblr she had a good Doylist post about the show. As a viewer of the movie, I don't care, in that I'm only interested in my final experience. But in terms of analyzing his performance, I can't say that I'd judge him based on this movie and I do agree that Joss had a really tough job to do here because of the massive set of constraints.

He had to fit all the character work into a plot where almost every beat was predetermined for him by the requisite fight scenes and the broader demands of the MCU, and he had WAY too large an ensemble to work with. Honestly, I don't really think anyone could do anything great with a cast of six main, six supporting, three introduced, and a million identical robots when you have what, maybe 30 minutes of screen time where things aren't blowing up? It's really more a miracle that he managed to make the first Avengers a good movie, and it had a better villain and far fewer characters to juggle.

I wouldn't at all be surprised if there were like five minutes on the cutting room floor of that conversation that makes it actually function even if not make it something I actually would want, and he did a great job with Natasha in Avengers 1, IMO. I think he WANTED her to have a good storyline. Which isn't to say that makes it okay for me -- I think he flubbed it really badly and I'm overall disappointed in this work. But I wouldn't say that therefore he's a terrible writer and will never again do anything I like.

[citrusjava]

I agree with your points about this movie. It was a very complicated project, and must have required tremendous planning, skill and grace to even be airborne. And I agree, regarding those magical five minutes. I hate how often the thing that gets cut is the thing that would have made it work.

But, for me, it's really not just this movie. I mean - I love Joss, I've loved him for years. He changed my life, and no one is taking that away.

But I can't think of a single female character of his that I could really connect with since BtVS. I appreciated some, there could be good fic about some, but not anyone I connected with, and I really wanted to. Skye, May, Penny, Echo, Simmons, Bobbi, Adelle, Inara, Kaylee, even River and Zoe - there is a lot of potential there, and I love them like you love family you're obligated to, but there's very little that moves me about any of them, despite some of the actresses being great.

I know Joss' writing becomes good after he's spent a lot of time with the character, perhaps it's because these were shorter projects. But I don't feel he puts as much soul into these characters anymore - or perhaps I just don't recognize it, or appreciate it.

Sounds like your experience is different - if it is, good for you!

[citrusjava]

Oh - of course I am not saying he's a terrible writer - he's one of the best writers in the business . And I'm not writing him off - I definitely intend to keep checking out his work! I'm just not excited about it, and not really expecting to get much that I want or need out of it.