The Marvel Cinematic Universe: The Avengers, etc.

[Dandesun]

Medusa's hair doesn't bother me too much given all the talk about CGI. However... her boobs look odd and I'm going to say it's the way the dress is cut but, man, distracting because it honestly looks like they shoved two tennis balls in there. So distracting that I didn't even see Iwan Rheon standing in the back as Maximus. Color me officially interested now because I love him... he was so adorable as Ash in Vicious and then the complete opposite as that evil bastard (literally!) Ramsay Bolton on Game of Thrones.

Yeah, I have no doubt he can bring it as Maximus.

[rmontro]

I think they look more like grapefruits.  

I can't believe I didn't recognize that guy as Ramsay Bolton!  I knew he looked familiar.  

[romantic idiot]

On April 11, 2017 at 11:03 PM, xaxat said:

Remember that video claiming that Marvel movies looked ugly?

I'm no film scholar, but has Marvel changed their color grading for Guardians 2 and Thor Ragnarok?

So you guys know best so correct me I'm wrong. But I thought the reason Marvel films looked like they did is because they were going for a more 'realistic' look to get more people interested. Now that they are more established, they are experimenting. But in general the Marvel movies are more grounded in reality, as is their color palette. 

[rmontro]

22 hours ago, romantic idiot said:

But in general the Marvel movies are more grounded in reality, as is their color palette. 

Guardians of the Galaxy was very colorful.  At the time I saw it, I thought it was one of the best looking films I'd ever seen, because of their use of color.  The second was also, of course, but that's more recent.

[Lugal]

I never thought the Marvel movies were ugly, but I was happy they seemed to signal a shift away from the dark and desaturated look we've been subjected to for years now.

[Bruinsfan]

I really think that's more of a DC thing. I remember the Avengers movies being quite colorful, and Thor was all shiny gold and day-glo colors.

[stealinghome]

Yeah, I generally have thought the MCU movies are pretty bright. The only one I remember having a muted color palette was CA:TFA and that was clearly for period effect.

[rmontro]

1 hour ago, Bruinsfan said:

I really think that's more of a DC thing.

Yeah, Man of Steel was very drab looking.  That approach doesn't really fit Superman, IMO.  I have yet to see any improvement over the Christopher Reeve movies as far as Superman goes.  Strange, considering how far the comic book movie has come.

[ParadoxLost]

[GHScorpiosRule]

12 minutes ago, ParadoxLost said:

This came on my FB Feed! Made me ?????????

[Jazzy24]

1 hour ago, ParadoxLost said:

I love him so much and Thor is so salty, I need him throwing out shade in Infinity War  to the other Avengers on how he wasn't in Civil War

[ParadoxLost]

32 minutes ago, Jazzy24 said:

I love him so much and Thor is so salty, I need him throwing out shade in Infinity War  to the other Avengers on how he wasn't in Civil War

I think that two things are almost unavoidable in Infinity War

- Iron Man and Captain America having to explain the rift to Thor.  I'm sure shade will be involved.

- Thor and Iron Man getting into some kind of "toxic friendship triangle" where Hulk has to try to convince them that he can have two BFFs. 

[Bruinsfan]

That would be easy—Iron Man gets Banner and Thor gets Hulk.

[Cobalt Stargazer]

6 hours ago, Bruinsfan said:

That would be easy—Iron Man gets Banner and Thor gets Hulk.

That'd work out until it doesn't:
 

The Hulk seems to have a lot of issues with Asgardians. XD

[ChelseaNH]

I think that was just payback for getting whomped with Mjolnir while they were fighting on the helicarrier.

[VCRTracking]

Teaser poster for Black Panther. I think the trailer may debut tonight:

[anna0852]

I was watching Age of Ultron last night and something occurred to me. At the very end Thor makes reference to multiple Infinity Stones having been found and causing trouble in the last few years. Does that mean Thor and thereby Asguard at least are aware of the events of Guardians of the Galaxy vol 1? If they are, it's probably going to make introductions a bit easier when Infinity Wars actually rolls around next year.

[scarynikki12]

Heimdall probably is and has mentioned it to Odin and Thor. 

[ChelseaNH]

Thor has personal experience with three stones: tesseract, aether, scepter.  It would be cool if he knew about the Nova Corps, but Asgard didn't know who the Chitauri were.

In the credits scene for Dr. Strange, Thor observes that Earth "has sorcerers now."  Earth has had sorcerers for a really long time, so maybe it's a variation on "this is a thing now" but it's an odd note.  Does he know what sorcerers are, but hadn't realized they were operating on Earth?

[Cobalt Stargazer]

18 minutes ago, ChelseaNH said:

Thor has personal experience with three stones: tesseract, aether, scepter.  It would be cool if he knew about the Nova Corps, but Asgard didn't know who the Chitauri were.

Minor nitpick: In The Avengers. Thor tells Coulson that Loki had an army (the Chitauri) behind him, and that he'd likely promised them the tesseract in exchange for winning him the earth. So Thor, at least, was aware of who and what they were. I can't recall any specific mention of the rest of Asgard knowing about them, though.

[Perfect Xero]

Didn't Asgard give the Aether to The Collector from Guardians?

[anna0852]

Yup. I'm guessing Thor will be the initial bridge between the Guardians and yhe Avengers. Asguard probably knows all about the events of Vol 1 and Vol 2. Do we think Ego put one of those plant things on Asguard? 

[VCRTracking]

5 hours ago, ChelseaNH said:

Thor has personal experience with three stones: tesseract, aether, scepter.  It would be cool if he knew about the Nova Corps, but Asgard didn't know who the Chitauri were.

The second time Sif was on Agents of SHIELD, she fights an agent of the Kree Empire and tells Coulson and Co about how the Kree created the Inhumans by experimenting on humans a long, long time ago, giving them powers so they could have an army.

[coppersin]

I'm gonna need some kind of "what is it/where is it" chart for the infinity stones before the movie comes out. I know I've googled the info a few times and never bother to retain it.

[Bruinsfan]

16 hours ago, ChelseaNH said:

In the credits scene for Dr. Strange, Thor observes that Earth "has sorcerers now."  Earth has had sorcerers for a really long time, so maybe it's a variation on "this is a thing now" but it's an odd note.  Does he know what sorcerers are, but hadn't realized they were operating on Earth?

Loki's powers (and by association, Frigga's) were explicitly called out as magic in the first Thor movie, so the practice of sorcery is known in Asgard.

[ChelseaNH]

15 hours ago, Cobalt Stargazer said:

Thor tells Coulson that Loki had an army (the Chitauri) behind him, and that he'd likely promised them the tesseract in exchange for winning him the earth. So Thor, at least, was aware of who and what they were.

He also said that he didn't know anything about the Chitauri; therefore, he only knew about them because of their connection to Loki.

 

4 minutes ago, Bruinsfan said:

Loki's powers (and by association, Frigga's) were explicitly called out as magic in the first Thor movie, so the practice of sorcery is known in Asgard.

There are many kinds of magic.  Do we know that Loki and Frigga drew power from other dimensions to create spells, or do they generate illusions by different means?

[tennisgurl]

I'm actually really curious about how the Asgaurdians fit into the rest of the cosmic MCU that's we've seen so far. In the movies or episodes of the various TV shows where we've seen Asgaurdians and their world and culture, we see that they have their home planet, their range of interconnected World Tree planets (which includes Earth), and that's mostly the only places we see any real references to them. Not completely (see the teaser with The Collector and Sif, or the presence of a Dark Elf at The Collectors place), and Thor and his friends at least seem to know who the Kree are, so they do exist in the same vicinity as the Guardians and their part of the Galaxy, but they seem to be rather isolated from everywhere else. I mean, in the Guardians movies, we see space as a very eclectic and diverse place, with multiple worlds and factions and subcultures and species and cops and criminals and all sorts of stuff are more or less coexisting, or at least trying to. The whole thrust of the first Guardians movie was a terrorist trying to screw up a peace treaty between two intergalactic empires that have been at war for years, which definitely implies a very long history and a complex intergalactic society. But, no one every mentions Asgaurdians or Asguard, nor do we see any of them wandering around like we do other alien species. Or, how whenever we see Asguard, it's mostly just Asgaurdians or people from the World Tree planets, while most of the other planets we see have a more diverse population (alien wise). I wonder if, to the Galaxy at large, Asguard is kinda a less hidden Wakanda. Everyone knows who they are and what their deal is, and you see them around every once in awhile, but they mostly prefer to keep to themselves. Of course, it could just be because writing them into the more wacky space movies would be a pain, but I think it could be kind of an interesting angle, especially with the next Thor movie and the Infinity war coming up. 

[Cobalt Stargazer]

4 hours ago, ChelseaNH said:

There are many kinds of magic.  Do we know that Loki and Frigga drew power from other dimensions to create spells, or do they generate illusions by different means?

I can't specifically recall about Loki and Frigga's powers, but the Maximoff twins got their powers after being exposed to the scepter the Avengers were trying to get back during Age of Ultron. They were also the only survivors of Strucker's experiments, so wherever Loki's scepter drew its energy from, it was enough to kill everyone else.

[ChelseaNH]

Loki's scepter was powered by an Infinity Stone, the one that went to Vision.

The Maximoff twins were supposedly the products of human engineering, so their powers aren't technically magic. 

It's not clear yet if Infinity Stones are magic or science.  Although a lot of "science" in Marvel movies is essentially magic.  (And on't get me started on the absence of deceleration injuries.)

Edited June 13, 2017 by ChelseaNH

[Cobalt Stargazer]

24 minutes ago, ChelseaNH said:

Loki's scepter was powered by an Infinity Stone, the one that went to Vision.

The Maximoff twins were supposedly the products of human engineering, so their powers aren't technically magic.

I think it may have been a fanwank on my part about where they got their abilities, but when Loki used the scepter on Barton and Dr. Selvig, they were immediately rendered incapable of resisting or even questioning his whims, so I must have extrapolated from there and presumed that exposure to the Infinity Stone it contained had permanent effects. Particularly since Wanda's powers can be used for everything from mind control to keeping buildings from collapsing. Thanks for the correction. :-)

[Perfect Xero]

I believe it's been confirmed that Loki's scepter contained the Mind Gem, though I don't recall if they said it in AoU.

I think it was heavily implied that the gem/scepter was influencing Stucker's mind and 'telling' him what to create (He was basically working on his own 'Ultron' before the Avengers showed up), and that was why his science was more advanced than what the rest of Hydra had. I do think the twins' powers came from exposure to the gem, that's why Wanda is able to influence Vision in Civil War.

Speaking of, it's always been weird to me that no one thought twice about Stark studying the gem/scepter in AoU. In Avengers 1 the scepter just being on the same ship as them, locked away in a lab, had them all ready to fight, but apparently no one was worried about it influencing any of them this time around.

Edited June 14, 2017 by Perfect Xero

[Athena]

16 hours ago, ChelseaNH said:

The Maximoff twins were supposedly the products of human engineering, so their powers aren't technically magic.

 

15 hours ago, Cobalt Stargazer said:

I think it may have been a fanwank on my part about where they got their abilities, but when Loki used the scepter on Barton and Dr. Selvig, they were immediately rendered incapable of resisting or even questioning his whims, so I must have extrapolated from there and presumed that exposure to the Infinity Stone it contained had permanent effects. Particularly since Wanda's powers can be used for everything from mind control to keeping buildings from collapsing. Thanks for the correction. :-)

It depends on how you define magic, but the twins got their powers by being exposed to the Scepter in tests. They were indeed the only volunteers to survive. It is confirmed in a conversation that Vision has with Wanda in Civil War:

Quote

Vision: Do you know, I don't know what this is
[point at mind gem on his forehead]
Vision: Not really. I know it's not of this world. But it powered Loki staff, gave you your abilities. But its true nature is a mystery. And yet, it is part of me.
Wanda Maximoff: Are you afraid of it?
Vision: I wish to understand it. The more I do the less it controls me. One day, who knows, I may even control it.

[Cobalt Stargazer]

16 hours ago, Perfect Xero said:

Speaking of, it's always been weird to me that no one thought twice about Stark studying the gem/scepter in AoU. In Avengers 1 the scepter just being on the same ship as them, locked away in a lab, had them all ready to fight, but apparently no one was worried about it influencing any of them this time around.

Loki actually tried to use the scepter on Tony during the New York fight, but the arc reactor implanted in Stark's chest prevented it from working. And while I do think the scepter was influencing everyone's mood, a combination of finding out that Fury had been deliberately concealing Phase Two from them, Bruce being kinda pissed that he'd been pulled into the whole mess, and Steve lecturing Tony about pretending to be a hero, tempers were already well-frayed by then and the scepter was just magnifying the general bad mood.

[ChelseaNH]

The Maximoff twins were exposed to Loki's scepter, but that supposedly altered them physically.  Their powers are presumably biological in origin, rather than produced by casting spells.  Of course, it's difficult to parse the boundary between science and magic in the Marvel universe.  Other dimensions?  Science.  Drawing power from other dimensions to cast spells? Magic.  Quantum zone?  Science.  Pym particles?  "Science."

[Perfect Xero]

53 minutes ago, Cobalt Stargazer said:

Loki actually tried to use the scepter on Tony during the New York fight, but the arc reactor implanted in Stark's chest prevented it from working. And while I do think the scepter was influencing everyone's mood, a combination of finding out that Fury had been deliberately concealing Phase Two from them, Bruce being kinda pissed that he'd been pulled into the whole mess, and Steve lecturing Tony about pretending to be a hero, tempers were already well-frayed by then and the scepter was just magnifying the general bad mood.

 

The reactor blocked the scepter from making physical contact and making him a thrall like Clint and Selvig, I don't think it otherwise blocked its influence though. Even if it did, Tony no longer has the reactor in AoU.

I assume that Steve lecturing Tony about being a hero was a lot to do with the scepter, because otherwise Steve is just a giant prick in that scene.

[Cobalt Stargazer]

3 hours ago, Perfect Xero said:

I assume that Steve lecturing Tony about being a hero was a lot to do with the scepter, because otherwise Steve is just a giant prick in that scene.

Oh, don't even get me started about Rogers, and fuck the Russo brothers for shitting all over the Steve/Tony friendship in Civil War. *grumble*

[tennisgurl]

The differences between magic and science in superhero stuff is always a super thin line, especially from the science side. They always throw out tons of technobabble trying to justify how Science Particles let people shrink to tiny levels or travel through space or genes can make people control weather or stuff like that, when, really, they might as well just call it magic for how close it comes to real world science. Personally, I've always found it silly when movies try to act like something weird or fantastic is some kind of biological thing instead of a mythical thing, when they make just about as much sense (looking at you, George Lucas) and, in fact, the scientific explanation is even weirder.

I always felt that when they threw out the stuff about Asguardian magic being advanced alien tech (while downplaying any "real" magic") they made a mistake that lead to a lot of confusion later on about what is space tech or what is straight up magic, that was only thrown in because it was early in the MCU history, and they thought that alien tech was something the audience would buy more than actual magic. Not that the whole magic/technology thing wasn't in the comics, but they REALLY tried to downplay the fantastical elements of Thor, especially in the first one. By the second one, the MCU had already thrown out enough weirdness that the audience was willing to swallow, that they had the magic/science thing be a bit more ambiguous, even while offering science explanations for a number of Asgaurdian things we saw.

At this point in the MCU though, we`ve had interdimensional demons, sorcerers with sentient capes, demonic possession, time travel, resurrection pits, magic cities, super science being done by various unconnected mad scientists,, talking planets with god like powers, evil scientists living in computers, about a billion kinds of aliens, and whatever magic stuff goes on with Thors Hammer, and the audience is mostly like "sure, I buy it", and even the characters look at the mystical aspects of their universe with an increased level of "you know, I have no clue how this works, but whatever", it makes things kind of complicated with what was set up in Thor originally. Now everything is just like "well this does the thing because...".

[VCRTracking]

[SnoGirl]

I feel like I should have more fun things to say like SCIENCE BROS! but all I can think it why is Robert's shirt ripped in the middle?? Its dumb, but I want to know.

[Jazzy24]

10 minutes ago, SnoGirl said:

I feel like I should have more fun things to say like SCIENCE BROS! but all I can think it why is Robert's shirt ripped in the middle?? Its dumb, but I want to know.

Thanos is probably really kicking the Avengers' butt in the scene RDJ and co just shot before sitting down to eat a healthy meal, just a guess. 

[Cobalt Stargazer]

14 minutes ago, SnoGirl said:

I feel like I should have more fun things to say like SCIENCE BROS! but all I can think it why is Robert's shirt ripped in the middle?? Its dumb, but I want to know.

I'll help you, because all I can think looking at Cumberbatch's expression is Blue Steel!

[Perfect Xero]

31 minutes ago, SnoGirl said:

I feel like I should have more fun things to say like SCIENCE BROS! but all I can think it why is Robert's shirt ripped in the middle?? Its dumb, but I want to know.

That's about where the Arc Reactor would go.

[Raja]

14 minutes ago, Perfect Xero said:

That's about where the Arc Reactor would go.

What is this a spoiler or  a speculation about where they are taking the character?

[Perfect Xero]

2 hours ago, Raja said:

What is this a spoiler or  a speculation about where they are taking the character?

It's ... an observation about where the hole in RDJ's shirt is?

[Bruinsfan]

You'd think they'd just draw a circle on the mo-cap suit rather than giving him a Power Girl boob window, though...

[scriggle]

But the arc reactor was removed in IM3. There's no longer any shrapnel in his chest. Why would the arc reactor be back now? Flashback maybe?

I hope I'm wrong but I have a bad feeling that Infinity War is going to be a hot mess. And all it will be is set pieces of characters fighting and massive explosions. There's just too many characters involved to do any of them justice.

[benteen]

I just hope we don't get another scene of the heroes in a circle fighting CGI hordes.  It was so lazy when Whedon did it again during Age of Ultron.

[Cobalt Stargazer]

1 hour ago, scriggle said:

I hope I'm wrong but I have a bad feeling that Infinity War is going to be a hot mess. And all it will be is set pieces of characters fighting and massive explosions. There's just too many characters involved to do any of them justice.

I'll be honest, sometimes its actually worse when they go for depth. Whedon has Banner run away because of angst over the Hulk, leaving Natasha behind like a war widow (no pun intended), and I'll say it again, the Russos can bite me for turning Cap into a hypocrite and Tony into even more of an ass than usual just to drive the split between the Avengers home in Civil War.

That said, as the movies become top-heavy due to adding so many characters, there's going to be some short-changing. I'd like to see more of the relationships between these people, not just a bunch of fighty-fight-fight. The actors seem to really get along behind the scenes, as per the Twitter pic RDJ posted, so more of that translating to the screen would be great, please and thank you.

[Perfect Xero]

10 hours ago, Bruinsfan said:

You'd think they'd just draw a circle on the mo-cap suit rather than giving him a Power Girl boob window, though...

It's probably cheaper to just stick the prop on his chest.

3 hours ago, scriggle said:

But the arc reactor was removed in IM3. There's no longer any shrapnel in his chest. Why would the arc reactor be back now? Flashback maybe?

I hope I'm wrong but I have a bad feeling that Infinity War is going to be a hot mess. And all it will be is set pieces of characters fighting and massive explosions. There's just too many characters involved to do any of them justice.

Flashback, time travel, or dream sequence would be the most obvious. Or maybe there was a fight on set over who is the better Holmes.

[tennisgurl]

I think, with Civil War, the Russos did as good as the could with the concept, which I'm pretty sure was kind of forced on them by the studio, and at least tried to keep the characters as consistent as possible in a movie that really shouldn't have existed until later in the film series, if ever. Honestly though, the movie Civil War was Citizen Kane next to the damn comic book version. Like, if you think Steve and Tony were assholes in the movie, they were a million times WORSE in the comics, where Cap was a way bigger hypocrite who even treated his own team like shit, and Tony was such an asshole fascist that its taken the comics literal years to try to make his character even remotely likable again. I mean, the guy built a prison in a hell dimension to lock up his friends who didn't agree with him, without a trail or anything! Basically every character became a totally out of character dickhead, the general public became such a mass of ungrateful assholes who totally forgot about the billion times the heroes have saved the world all because of the actions of a VILLAIN who gets less scorn than the people who died trying to stop him that you wonder why the heroes, and by the end of the whole debacle, we were apparently supposed to have been on Tony's side, when he was CLEARLY shown to be the lesser of two evils the whole time. And all in the service of some half assed political commentary. I mean, I'm not a fan of heroes fighting each other instead of the villains in general, but I appreciated that the Russos at least tried to add some nuisance to their Civil War and tried to keep everyone at least understandable, even if you didn't like them.  

There was actually a hilarious scene in a later story where (I'm paraphrasing because it was a long time ago when I read this) a bunch of the galactic heroes, who, during Civil War, were fighting a battle that could have destroyed the entire universe and were suffering heavy losses, show up right after Civil War to ask why the Earth based heroes never answered their calls for help, and they have to explain they couldn't help because they were all fighting each other over legislation, and the galactic heroes were like "Are you freaking kidding me?!?! We have been killing ourselves trying to keep the universe from being torn apart, and you've all been too busy fighting EACH OTHER! OVER SOME STUPID LAWS! to help us out?!?!" and the Earth heroes are super sheepish.

3 hours ago, scriggle said:

But the arc reactor was removed in IM3. There's no longer any shrapnel in his chest. Why would the arc reactor be back now? Flashback maybe?

I wonder if the arc reactor will come back? Like, his heart gets screwed up again and he needs it back. I thought Tony removing his arc reactor was the worst part of the otherwise enjoyable Iron Man 3, so I'm fine with them sticking it back in. Its such a big part of the characters, removing it just seemed...wrong.