Oh ... grr. ARGH.

[themonkeytwin]

Or, How I Pissed Off My Entire FList (Except One And I Know Who You Are)

Yeah, so ... I saw The Avengers. Um. It was ... okay, mostly

Comments

[tahirire]

Sorry, babe. I tried to read this but my brain checked out halfway after you said you hadn't seen the preceding Hulk, and then checked ALL the way out when you said you hadn't seen Thor. To be fair, I also can't read people's objections about Tron Legacy when they open with the fact that they have never seen Tron. Sequels, people. Sequels.

[themonkeytwin]

Heh, no worries, lovely. These things happen.

[fannishliss]

dear monkeytwin, I didn't read your post yet! but I commend you for your critical opinions. I like having opinionated people on my flist -- so after I see it I will be happy to read. :D

Here, have some Angry Rats. :D

[themonkeytwin]

Well, thanks! It is helpful to have opinionated and opinion-loving people amongst ones acquaintances, is it not? Looking forward to yours after you see it. :)

Ooh, Angry Rats! :D

[datenshiblue]

Hi! :)

I adored this movie. I've already seen it twice. Those are my disclaimers. :D

I am regretful that it didn't work for you. And it's fine. Stuff doesn't work for everyone.

Here's what you said that resonated with me, though not in this instance:

I'm - well, let's just say that I'm, um, sensitive to manipulative storytelling. Storytelling that engineers - seeks to control - audience response, rather than allow the viewer to interact with the story in a way that is spontaneous and organic and individual. (Clearly, this is not a problem for everyone, but it's the quickest way to wake my brain up and boot me out of the story. The surest way to make me distrust the storyteller and disbelieve the story.

I said pretty much the same thing, and angrily, when I walked out of my theatrical viewing of E.T., the Extra-Terrestrial, and now I've dated myself! :D

[themonkeytwin]

I'm glad you did adore the movie! I really do wish I had too. Thanks for taking the time to make such a thoughtful reply.

I have lived for decades with that little problem for the guy whom 99% of the universe thinks is God as a director.

Oh, that's interesting. I haven't seen ET, in fact (I know, I know - I haven't seen all of Ghostbusters, either, and I can't seem to convince anyone that this is not a major life failing), but I've never really responded to any of Spielberg's movies (apart from Last Crusade, and I think that had as much to do with Sean Connery as anything). And apart from Aliens and T2, Cameron has been as much a deterrent as a draw for me. So yeah, I hear you - once a storyteller has lost your trust, it's nigh-impossible for them to win it back again. (Unfortunately, I've been increasingly cautious with Whedon for some time now. I went into this ignoring that and hoping it wouldn't be a problem, but, well. :/)

Joss wrote is as a sequel, as a culmination of the story built slowly in the other movies.... It makes a

[datenshiblue]

Heyla :)

the principle that I personally support being that, regardless of the number of previous sources the story references/builds on, it still needs to stand on its own merits as a story. And if it can't, it's not a story. Which is actually not quite the point of the issues I'm having with this movie (because it does work as a story in itself), but it's the first problem I have when there is prerequisite viewing to not just enhance but to actually enjoy a movie.

Not exactly what I was suggesting, though. As you say, the movie does work as a story in itself. I recommended viewing the other movies to my sis because I knew that as a discerning geek, she'd want to get the most out of it. Why not?

The other thing about this particular movie, and something I think they were trying to accomplish, however much they succeeded with each of the movies or not, was not just to make a cool action movie with great special effects, but to make a comic book movie. While there are stand alone stories in comic books, mostly comics have been

[themonkeytwin]

<3

Not exactly what I was suggesting, though.

Oh, okay. Sorry. I think I read the earlier statement of by not having seen those two movies, I think you might have done yourself a disservice when you saw this one. Because there were wonderful character threads established in them that were picked up in this movie, and you kind of gipped yourself of the opportunity to enjoy them as implying that it could have made a difference of whether I enjoyed the movie, not whether I would enjoy it on a deeper level. Does that make sense? Gah, the perils of internet communication, with so much less context, tone, body language, and opportunity for immediate clarification!

It just seemed like you have a very high set of expectations for this movie

I actually think more of my frustration (and disquiet) came from the fact that I didn't have high expectations. But clearly they were different in nature from mainstream fandom, because that's the only way I can account for it all. Like I said, I'm really glad for fandom that so many people DID enjoy

[bitterlimetwist]

I really enjoyed this, even though I have no idea what you're talking about.

I mean, really? In a script that was a veritable smorgasboard of the cliché and the gobsmackingly obvious, I think Germany could be the pièce de résistance. I mean, maybe this is a staple of Cap's story, maybe it was a brilliant call-back/shout-out for those who have read the comics or seen the movie(s). I haven't. It came off quite breathtakingly smug, not to mention arrogant and condescending and slightly nauseating

What's with Germany? Please explain. I am intrigued.

[themonkeytwin]

Ah ... okay. Well. Okay.

I'll prefix this by restating that I've only seen it once, and it's possible I was slightly in shock that they were actually going there in the story, so my recall of it may not be perfect. I'll give you the impressions it left with me as accurately as possible, though. (There's a remote possibility that these impressions may present more snarky than the filmmakers intended the sequence itself to. I make no promises as to accuracy on that account.)

Context: Loki (bad guy, inferiority-fueled-power-trip and earth's-my-brother's-favourite-toy-envy issues) has this Sceptre with a blue glowy piece of Phlebotinum, plus a metal pointy bit that he pokes people in the chest with and it converts them to his mastery (and therefore cause). (Ohnoes!) But he needs another Thing to channel the other Phlebotinum Cube's energy into a portal to the Underverse Bad Mean Dimension with the Army of Meanies of Invasion

[themonkeytwin]

So. I. Uh. Yeah.

I'll point out again, it read in-character and not offensive on Cap's part, which, well. There's a compliment for you. Also that this was in the secion of personal nitpicks, because I may honestly be alone in how distasteful the sore winner aspect of US military successes come off.

But from a broader perspective, and not just whinging about Joss's one-note Freedom! ideology drum being beat because he doesn't know how to tell any other story and no one ever went broke pushing that down the throats of American/Western/postmodern audiences, I ping off the inherent judgement and contrast and, yes, blame it's assigning.

Jaydeyn, below, pointed out that it's not a bad idea to remind people of "Germany's legacy". Right, I completely agree - except that it is instinctively (that is, without conscious thought) popularly conceived to be Germany's legacy, rather than humanity's. Because history is depressingly clear that absolutely anyone and everyone will, given the right circumstances, slaughter on an unimaginable scale if

[datenshiblue]

I hate myself for being such an anal obsessive but, Cap's line was, "The last time I was in Germany and a man wanted everyone else to kneel to him, we had a disagreement."

I adored that line, because it was so... mild. ;)

The reason Loki was there was very specifically to create a distraction (1) for Hawkeye - to draw the Avengers or whoever Earth's opposition was going to be (and it worked, and Loki was in control the whole time), as well as to (2) acquire a retinal eyescan (in a very awful way) from a guy attending the event. The guy was wealthy, which makes sense because what they needed his eyescan for was to access a vault where they were stealing a large chunk or iridium, which is astronomically expensive therefore not usually available in large chunks ;)).

I suspect the reason Germany was chosen was as a call back to Rudolf Mössbauer, who died last year. See Mössbauer effect and its connection to gamma rays, a significant plot point built in to the story at that point.

But I could be tripping. :)

*ducks and runs*

[jaydeyn_sitari]

I think you're absolutely right about the point A to point B story arc that Joss had to work with but that's because this is movie 6 in a series with planned sequels (Iron Man III and Thor II are either sequels directly to this (esp Thor) or somewhere around this point in the timeline) and I don't think he could've been more daring and still had the job, y'know? If you had come in on Show two eps before the end of season 4, would you have cared that Dean's going to hell beyond, oh, well that sucks for him. ? (The other movies aren't absolutely essential except for Thor I think, but the reason you're in on Show is because you went to the start and loved them).

(LOLs yes on the science, but I figure this is an alternative universe where k=1.3 or something. *handwave

[themonkeytwin]

Hi! Thanks for coming out and playing with me. It's nice to get an outside, Australian perspective, here, too. :)

(Also, I feel like I need a Ducks icon now.)

this is movie 6 in a series with planned sequels.... The other movies aren't absolutely essential except for Thor I think

I answered the "series/sequel" issue as briefly as possible with datenshiblue's comments above, so I won't bulk out this reply by repeating it again, except to say it was pretty clear what the Thor story thread was. (Not that it was hard to pick up from what was included onscreen anyway, but it did also help that, spending the kind of time I do in internetland, I had picked up the gist of Thor's story anyhow.)

I don't think he could've been more daring and still had the job, y'know?

It's possible. Whether that's objectively true or not, at the very least it seems that he felt so. I can recognise that, but I don't have to respect it, and I'm not obliged to find its insipid calculatedness interesting, regardless of how efficiently it worked.

If you had

[jaydeyn_sitari]

Something else I thought of re: Germany (which I suddenly feel a *facepalm* duh moment over) is that in Captain America, the Big Bad was Hitler's Head of Research into weird Alien/Paranormal power stuff. They went all over conquered territories (at the time of the war while Cap was out punching Nazis etc) stealing up everything they could find that was associated with the cosmic cube (Tesseract) which they stole from Norway right at the start of the movie. In that context, it would make sense that some of those research materials would still be in Germany, particularly as Hydra started there. (Also, that was obvs a museum function).

Hope you're right about Coulson. That would be very cool (and he's signed up for more movies so it's still very possible!)

:)
Jaydeyn

[themonkeytwin]

Ah, thank you for more connections. See? this is why fandom is awesome. I'd feel more comfortable if any of them had been made in the movie itself, but it's still interesting to know. And museum function! I appreciate the expert witness. :)