Avengers: Age of Ultron
So I saw it.
Trailers for Ant-Man, Fantastic Four (which I definitely need to see, hi Jamie Bell), Batman v Superman (which I still think should be a legal drama) and Star Wars (which the audience loved possibly as much as the actual Avengers movie). Plus a truly impressive Loki cosplayer. With the helmet.
Also I have to say I was spoiled for three things:
1. JARVIS dying. Or I guess "dying."
2. Clint having a family.
3. Pietro dying.
(Someone put the Quicksilver thing in their fic summary on AO3 like an hour before I saw the movie. Gee, thanks. I was doing so well. Though I knew Joss was going to kill someone because I have been watching Joss' TV shows since Buffy. HE DOES IT EVERY TIME. My money was on Clint's family, though. You know, like Ults. While we're pulling the family thing from Ults and all. I spent the entire Hulkbuster fight thinking "Hey, remember that issue where the Ultimates had to save NY from the Hulk?")
(Also, I'm sorry, DoFP Quicksilver was better.)
I just... I'm not sure how I felt about it as a whole. It was pretty much exactly the movie I thought it would be. Fighty fight fight, Ultron, team ensemble, trademark Whedon zingers, character death, fighty fight fight, go team. Pretty much just More Avengers. I mean, certainly a lot of it was entertaining, but, like, I walked out of Iron Man 1 thinking, "Oh my God, a comic book movie that is actually a good movie" and I walked out of, oh, Winter Soldier thinking, "So why did no one tell me Steve Rogers was actually an AWESOME HUMAN BEING?" and I walked out of this thinking "I wonder how much more I would have enjoyed this if someone other than Joss Whedon had made it." It was okay. It was good. It just wasn't special. I guess I feel pretty much the same about the first Avengers movie.
Like, a lot of the banter, especially the party scene -- it just felt like I was watching an episode of Buffy. I don't actually want the Avengers to sound like the Scooby Gang. And, yeah, I was already kind of eww about the "prima nocta" line but at least I knew about that one going in; I am also bothered by the conversation where we learn that apparently having had a hysterectomy makes you a monster. Awesome.
(Also the bit at the end where Bruce shows up and rescues Natasha and is like "we can go away and stop fighting" or whatever he says... I seriously thought that was some kind of hallucination or dream sequence at first because it just seemed so OOC. What kind of Avenger is like K BYE GOING HOME NOW in the middle of a fight?)
(On another Natasha note, I had been half-wondering if they were going to have some kind of Secret Bucky Appearance in the Red Room scene, but apparently not. And apparently... Sam's the one out hunting for Bucky? While Steve's Avenging? Okay, then. Um. Also please bring me more Steve/Sam, internet. I think I ran out. But, hey, Sam gets to be on the Avengers now! Woohoo.)
And I just... don't like how Joss writes Steve. I think he dumbs him down (oh God, the bit where he had Wanda and Pietro's powers told to him in SMALL WORDS) and the whole prissy "language" thing just to pay off the one time where he actually swears (because of course you knew that was coming when he started) and I just... there's a reason I didn't know Steve was a character I could like until Winter Soldier. (And of course now I've found 616 and I am basically all over the 616 versions, yep.)
There was a lot of stuff here that didn't really need to be here -- like, okay, great, Ulysses Klaw, gee, thanks. I get that you're making a Black Panther movie. I would have cared if you'd actually shown me T'Challa. Also I liked how that entire sequence took place in "Africa" and in Wakanda they speak "an African dialect." Because it's not like there are countries and languages! No! Anyway. I am bemused as to how there is an additional hour in Whedon's first cut and a different cut apparently coming on the Blu-Ray. This movie did not need an additional hour.
Also I wanted Ultron to feel scarier. He didn't, really. And there was a lot of dialogue that was probably supposed to be profound but didn't really come off that way to me.
But there were definitely a lot of excellent character moments (I thought I was going to dislike the "Tony creates Ultron" thing but I really ended up liking how Tony came off in, well, the whole movie) and #cap-im is enthusing about FRIDAY whom apparently I would have recognized if I'd read more of Iron Man v3 like I'd meant to. (I was running through the list of Tony's AIs in my head and clearly it had to be one but I just didn't know. *hangs head* I have only read Sentient Armor in v3 and I'm pretty sure he only had Jocasta then.)
I was kind of meh on most of the big action sequences (but it was nice how they fought like they knew each other better, aww) although I am totally here for Vision and the hammer, and Steve hitting things with his shield (the Steve & Ultron showdown was nice) but I think I have to admit that I really really enjoyed the fight surrounding Vizh's birth (you know, with Steve and Tony briefly fighting) and so I guess I probably will like the Civil War movie (I mean, I like the CW comics!) and I am one of those awful fans who likes watching heroes fight heroes.
Also, man, the MCU Steve/Tony fandom is going to be happy. I don't ship them like I ship 616 -- and this movie didn't really give me enough to make me OTP them as hard as I do in the comics -- but I can tell what bits fandom is probably already squeeing about. I didn't ship it in the first movie either and yet fandom managed to write ten thousand stories based pretty much on that, so I'm sure this will keep them going. And I will read it all, but I just don't think they're where I need them to be in canon for me to write it. Not like 616.
(Although, who knows, I might be a sucker for a good Civil War movie. Depends what happens. Clearly reading CW is what got me into the 616 pairing.)
THE DEATH SCENE THOUGH. TONY'S VISION. STEVE DYING. OKAY SEE THERE WAS A THING I LOVED. THAT WAS FOR MEEEEEE. THAT MAKES ME WANT TO SHIP IT. HE DID EVERYTHING HE DID WITH ULTRON FOR STEEEEVE. OKAY, AND THE REST OF THE AVENGERS, BUT STEEEEEEEEEEVE. HE WANTED TO KEEP THEM SAFE. HE JUST FUCKED UP. OKAY SO IT'S A LOT LIKE WHY I LOVE CIVIL WAR.
(You see why "The Confession" got me into 616 again.)
(Okay, yeah, Tony was pretty much the thing I unreservedly loved in this movie.)
Dear Clint/Coulson fans and everyone who shipped Bruce and Nat with other people: I'm sorry.
I realize this sounds very negative on the whole and I guess I should reiterate that I enjoyed the movie. I nitpick because I care? It comes from a place of caring? It just... it felt like we got Joss Whedon Makes Joss Whedon's Avengers Movie Again and it was everything I expected it to be but I was hoping for something that felt... different. I don't know.
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Trailers for Ant-Man, Fantastic Four (which I definitely need to see, hi Jamie Bell), Batman v Superman (which I still think should be a legal drama) and Star Wars (which the audience loved possibly as much as the actual Avengers movie). Plus a truly impressive Loki cosplayer. With the helmet.
Also I have to say I was spoiled for three things:
1. JARVIS dying. Or I guess "dying."
2. Clint having a family.
3. Pietro dying.
(Someone put the Quicksilver thing in their fic summary on AO3 like an hour before I saw the movie. Gee, thanks. I was doing so well. Though I knew Joss was going to kill someone because I have been watching Joss' TV shows since Buffy. HE DOES IT EVERY TIME. My money was on Clint's family, though. You know, like Ults. While we're pulling the family thing from Ults and all. I spent the entire Hulkbuster fight thinking "Hey, remember that issue where the Ultimates had to save NY from the Hulk?")
(Also, I'm sorry, DoFP Quicksilver was better.)
I just... I'm not sure how I felt about it as a whole. It was pretty much exactly the movie I thought it would be. Fighty fight fight, Ultron, team ensemble, trademark Whedon zingers, character death, fighty fight fight, go team. Pretty much just More Avengers. I mean, certainly a lot of it was entertaining, but, like, I walked out of Iron Man 1 thinking, "Oh my God, a comic book movie that is actually a good movie" and I walked out of, oh, Winter Soldier thinking, "So why did no one tell me Steve Rogers was actually an AWESOME HUMAN BEING?" and I walked out of this thinking "I wonder how much more I would have enjoyed this if someone other than Joss Whedon had made it." It was okay. It was good. It just wasn't special. I guess I feel pretty much the same about the first Avengers movie.
Like, a lot of the banter, especially the party scene -- it just felt like I was watching an episode of Buffy. I don't actually want the Avengers to sound like the Scooby Gang. And, yeah, I was already kind of eww about the "prima nocta" line but at least I knew about that one going in; I am also bothered by the conversation where we learn that apparently having had a hysterectomy makes you a monster. Awesome.
(Also the bit at the end where Bruce shows up and rescues Natasha and is like "we can go away and stop fighting" or whatever he says... I seriously thought that was some kind of hallucination or dream sequence at first because it just seemed so OOC. What kind of Avenger is like K BYE GOING HOME NOW in the middle of a fight?)
(On another Natasha note, I had been half-wondering if they were going to have some kind of Secret Bucky Appearance in the Red Room scene, but apparently not. And apparently... Sam's the one out hunting for Bucky? While Steve's Avenging? Okay, then. Um. Also please bring me more Steve/Sam, internet. I think I ran out. But, hey, Sam gets to be on the Avengers now! Woohoo.)
And I just... don't like how Joss writes Steve. I think he dumbs him down (oh God, the bit where he had Wanda and Pietro's powers told to him in SMALL WORDS) and the whole prissy "language" thing just to pay off the one time where he actually swears (because of course you knew that was coming when he started) and I just... there's a reason I didn't know Steve was a character I could like until Winter Soldier. (And of course now I've found 616 and I am basically all over the 616 versions, yep.)
There was a lot of stuff here that didn't really need to be here -- like, okay, great, Ulysses Klaw, gee, thanks. I get that you're making a Black Panther movie. I would have cared if you'd actually shown me T'Challa. Also I liked how that entire sequence took place in "Africa" and in Wakanda they speak "an African dialect." Because it's not like there are countries and languages! No! Anyway. I am bemused as to how there is an additional hour in Whedon's first cut and a different cut apparently coming on the Blu-Ray. This movie did not need an additional hour.
Also I wanted Ultron to feel scarier. He didn't, really. And there was a lot of dialogue that was probably supposed to be profound but didn't really come off that way to me.
But there were definitely a lot of excellent character moments (I thought I was going to dislike the "Tony creates Ultron" thing but I really ended up liking how Tony came off in, well, the whole movie) and #cap-im is enthusing about FRIDAY whom apparently I would have recognized if I'd read more of Iron Man v3 like I'd meant to. (I was running through the list of Tony's AIs in my head and clearly it had to be one but I just didn't know. *hangs head* I have only read Sentient Armor in v3 and I'm pretty sure he only had Jocasta then.)
I was kind of meh on most of the big action sequences (but it was nice how they fought like they knew each other better, aww) although I am totally here for Vision and the hammer, and Steve hitting things with his shield (the Steve & Ultron showdown was nice) but I think I have to admit that I really really enjoyed the fight surrounding Vizh's birth (you know, with Steve and Tony briefly fighting) and so I guess I probably will like the Civil War movie (I mean, I like the CW comics!) and I am one of those awful fans who likes watching heroes fight heroes.
Also, man, the MCU Steve/Tony fandom is going to be happy. I don't ship them like I ship 616 -- and this movie didn't really give me enough to make me OTP them as hard as I do in the comics -- but I can tell what bits fandom is probably already squeeing about. I didn't ship it in the first movie either and yet fandom managed to write ten thousand stories based pretty much on that, so I'm sure this will keep them going. And I will read it all, but I just don't think they're where I need them to be in canon for me to write it. Not like 616.
(Although, who knows, I might be a sucker for a good Civil War movie. Depends what happens. Clearly reading CW is what got me into the 616 pairing.)
THE DEATH SCENE THOUGH. TONY'S VISION. STEVE DYING. OKAY SEE THERE WAS A THING I LOVED. THAT WAS FOR MEEEEEE. THAT MAKES ME WANT TO SHIP IT. HE DID EVERYTHING HE DID WITH ULTRON FOR STEEEEVE. OKAY, AND THE REST OF THE AVENGERS, BUT STEEEEEEEEEEVE. HE WANTED TO KEEP THEM SAFE. HE JUST FUCKED UP. OKAY SO IT'S A LOT LIKE WHY I LOVE CIVIL WAR.
(You see why "The Confession" got me into 616 again.)
(Okay, yeah, Tony was pretty much the thing I unreservedly loved in this movie.)
Dear Clint/Coulson fans and everyone who shipped Bruce and Nat with other people: I'm sorry.
I realize this sounds very negative on the whole and I guess I should reiterate that I enjoyed the movie. I nitpick because I care? It comes from a place of caring? It just... it felt like we got Joss Whedon Makes Joss Whedon's Avengers Movie Again and it was everything I expected it to be but I was hoping for something that felt... different. I don't know.
Read this entry on Dreamwidth ||
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