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

Yes.

[ely_wa]

Thank you!! You just beautifully wrote out everything I was feeling after seeing this movie!
FUCK NO! to Natasha's sterilization thread is right!

Re: Yes.

[astolat]

Yeah. I just, words cannot encompass my loathing of that bit. That scene launched me out into space on the force of the DNW. :P

[walmer92]

Thank god someone agrees with me about Clint. It seriously bothered me from the moment it became clear that was the back story. Also, totally with you on the twins - Pietro's death was really well done, but their tragic back story didn't make up for the fact that a) they were helping some dude kill people and b) Wanda was fucking with people's minds

[astolat]

Yeah, it does seem to me like a bit of a waste and failed setup, in that you've got Civil War coming, why are you throwing away the Iron Man vs Cap fighting here in just a couple of scenes? Really it should've been Steve and Tony closer rather than otherwise, or maybe with Thor and Bruce somehow shown as helping them work together (which would have meant that when the two of them go away at the end of this movie it would make Steve and Tony's breakup more likely and explain it in an emotional way).

[sheron]

[liviapenn]

The whole sequence at Clint's house, while it seemed kind of nice to me initially, has been bothering me more and more the longer I think about it. The idea of him having a family was nice, but it also felt... obvious? It made him feel oddly MORE a generic dude than before -- like, having a wife and kids and a house is not actually a substitute for characterization? And his wife -- wow, that woman is living some kind of horrifying nightmare, she's alone in an isolated house with two small children and pregnant, I don't see how she can even have a support network or so much as go out and talk to people because it would expose their secret, and clearly she's not even allowed to be angry that her husband abandons her constantly because his job involves actually saving the world. But... do we know any of this? How do we know they don't live 5 miles from Clint's parents and a whole town full of Barton aunts & uncles & cousins? I mean, it's entirely possible Laura has a part-time nanny or whatever that she sent home when Nick Fury showed up

[veronica_rich]

See, that's me. I figured Laura has as much of a life as any SAHM and farm wife (which isn't enough for me personally, but yay, the point of choice). Clint clearly respects her and thinks she's capable of running the place in his absence (she might actually be the farm manager; happens a lot) - and he doesn't leave behind a big strong man to watch her when he leaves. It's almost like they've worked out ahead of time what can happen, and he figures she knows what to do if she sees baddies coming. :-)

[astolat]

Well, if you're talking about realm of possibility, sure, you can imagine there's actually a second quinjet in hiding behind the trees to the left and an entire city on the right off the screen, lol

[walmer92]

This is definitely part of the problem I had with Clint's background, although you put it far better than I ever could. But it does also bother me that it's such a big departure from the comics, where Clint Barton is anything but a family man. The comic and MCU characters are obviously different, but given that we got no real characterisation for Clint in A1, there seems to be nothing of comic Clint at all in the movie version, and I don't feel much of a connection to him

[sp23]

I agree with the vast majority of your rant. Ultron/James Spader's voice was such a total letdown after the utterly adorable batshit craziness of Tom Hiddleston's Loki. The bajillion robots were boring. I even went home and rewatched Avengers 1 to make sure I was right about liking it better, and yes, I was.

I love the characters, so I'm not sorry I went to see it, but I'm sorry it wasn't a better movie.

[astolat]

Yeah, this is where I am, too. It's not like I want my two hours and $18 back, but it wasn't as good for me.

[mzyra]

Yeah, Natasha's 'monster' thing didn't flow quite right. I think what they were going for was that she was referencing the way that she's meant to be a perfect assassin and killer who cares about nothing more than the hit (part of why she was sterilised) which makes her a monster in her view. I'd have to watch that scene again or read the exact dialogue, but the wording or something did make it such that I winced at the implication that she was more saying that as a woman unable to have children

[astolat]

I agree that's what they were going for, but man, how badly they missed! That is just one of those pieces of dialogue that has no excuse for being as bad as it is

[bruinsfan]

While I took Natasha's monster comment in the way the filmmakers intended, I can see how the other interpretation of that scene could *easily* be arrived at; it really needed a much more explicit connection between being a monster and being trained as a murderer.

I also agree that there's a big double standard in the treatment of Natasha and Clint as (potential) parents. Apparently everyone in Hollywood is unaware of the existence of adoption unless they're making a wacky comedy about twins separated at birth. And as an adopted kid myself, I bristle at the implication that having a functioning uterus is the be-all end-all of being a mother-that horribly trivializes the significance of putting years of love and effort into raising a child. The reason Natasha can't have children with Bruce isn't that she's been sterilized; it's that the Hulk might kill and eat their hypothetical kids during their Terrible Twos.