Is it time for us nerds to start anticipating THE AVENGERS, directed by Joss Whedon?

I still kind of think of the Bendis era Avengers, with Wolverine and Spidey and such, as some wacky experiment despite the fact that it's probably been 10 years now.

Saw this tonight, agree with a lot of stuff upthread - well balanced in backstory vs plot vs smashing stuff, snappily made for a long film, "Puny God" the best line in a film not short of great lines.

I also agree with the point about how there are a lot of well-put-together charming actors reading some well-written lines that exhibit character and move plot forwards, and then there's Mark Ruffalo, showing them how it's done. Possibly helped by the character - he really nailed the idea of a guy who's relaxed and funny and trying to make everyone he's talking to forget that he's a walking unexploded bomb - but there are by this stage hundreds of different angles for all of these characters (sadly all of the different angles for Hawkeye are massively dull - Jeremy Renner's intensity a very good choice here). But yeah, give Josh Whedon a performance like that and he'll give you a great last line as a capper.

I also really liked Scarlet Johansson in the movie, particularly the scene with Loki (featuring a word that would probably not have gotten past the censors if it wasn't as old as it was rude!). I agree that a straight up Black Widow + Hawkeye movie would be fun to watch - whether Jeremy Renner would have to make him interesting can be settled by seeing whether he feels he has to make Bourne interesting.

iirc alcoholism was going to be a big part of iron man 2 but they chickened out

you'd think RDJ would love all the nudge-nudge-wink-wink shit that storyline would offer

I also really liked Scarlet Johansson in the movie, particularly the scene with Loki (featuring a word that would probably not have gotten past the censors if it wasn't as old as it was rude!).

i was gonna mention this -- pretty funny that the dirtiest word in the thing was "quim". hiddleston ripped into it!

RE: The poster who earlier wondered whether the military had any involvement with the movie:

We couldn't reconcile the unreality of this international organization and our place in it. To whom did S.H.I.E.L.D. answer? Did we work for S.H.I.E.L.D.? We hit that roadblock and decided we couldn't do anything [with Avengers].

One of the next few posts will mention Transformers.

Whedon's decision to give Hiddleston one speech designed to give him "motivation" is a failure imo -- it's spotty writing -- but I was surprised by his well-calibrated intensity. Usually actors who go for Shakespearean fire look like Richard Burton-esque fools.

The other "I am impressed they slipped this in" moment was Tony Stark asking Banner if his methods for keeping it together included mellow jazz / bongos / a huge bag of weed.

I'm so used to Downey's MO that I laughed without noticing.

I would love to see security footage of movie audiences to identify the 5% who jerked forward suddenly because WTF Harry Dean Stanton?

.002% = wtf jerzy skolimowski?

DoD aside, the soldiers seen on the ground in the attack at the end were played by real-life Army reservists.

Baez, thanks for that.
I know dod is really involved in a lotta hollywwood these days

'these days' = 30 years at least

HEY PEOPLE WHO KNOW THAT CYCLOPS' DAD IS A SPACE PIRATE -

Was there a ref. buried in that first Fury meeting up w/ the shadowy org. who boss him around? I'm thinking a quick split-second mention of some kind of contingency plan that was gonna gonna supercede the Avengers Initiative, which then looked like it was a no-starter.

fwiw the hulk-loki moment got the most lols, but my favourite gag was when fury left the bridge and radar guy alt-tabs back into space invaders

it was GALAGA man

eh i dunno i saw it as bearla meself

that is my second irish language joke in ten mins btw

alright, i smirked

talking dogs, rly

These days and many days, battleship is basically a recruitment film

A starjammers plot would be dope.
How fractured are marvels film rights? Can spidey be in the next avengers?

If they're starting a new (hopeful) trilogy, then I doubt it. I'm guessing Fantastic Four and X-Men are all tied up as well.

Fox has Daredevil, Fantastic Four, and any and all mutants (including Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch, so don't expect to see them in any Avengers sequels). Sony has Spiderman. It seems unlikely that either studio is going to want to have any of those characters appear in any Marvel Studios pictures. Of course, if Fox doesn't get their planned reboots of Daredevil and Fantastic Four off the ground soon, those rights revert to Marvel.

As far as a contingency plan by the Joss Whedon-brand SHADOWY CONSPIRACY WITH THEIR OWN MYSTERIOUS AGENDA, I think they were referring to Phase 2, which was the whole "weaponizing the cube" thing.

This breaks down who exactly owns what

http://screenrant.com/marvel-comics-movies-characters-carl-6766/

apparently the Navy "balked" at helping with the Avengers film because they didn't want to be seen taking orders from Nick Fury.

man, this was fun. saw a late matinee in an almost completely empty theater this afternoon, and even without a peanut gallery, it was a blast. agree that it took its time ramping up (the first all-cylinders scene, imo, was fury's bridge gathering with the galaga joke), but i guess that's to be expected with such a large ensemble. after that, once things really got moving, it never let up.

a lot's been made of the comedy element, so i was a bit surprised that while it's certainly got moments, it's nowhere near as laugh-a-minute as i perhaps foolishly expected after cabin in the woods. just funny enough, i'd say.

I also agree with the point about how there are a lot of well-put-together charming actors reading some well-written lines that exhibit character and move plot forwards, and then there's Mark Ruffalo, showing them how it's done.

― Andrew Farrell, Monday, May 7, 2012 3:48 PM (5 hours ago).

all the talk about the rest of the marvel universe and "established canon" is interesting, but kind of irrelevant, imo. i would say that these movies create canon as they go and ignorate as they will. it seems pretty clear, wr2 the avengers, for instance, that there are no other known superheros in this universe. there's no west coast branch, no spiderman, no x-men, etc. at least not yet... in the x-men movies, xavier's group was international news in the 60s, and that's very clearly not the case here. so canon exist only to the extent that it's been ratified, i'd say.

was there a second post-credits scene?

yup. was nothing you should feel bad abt missing (though funny).

I saw a still of them all eating at a restaurant.

SPOILAR:

yeah, that's it, the shawarma joint that stark talked about earlier. just one long shot of them eating.

Hey, how did Thor get back to earth for this?

Odin did it, but it pretty much exhausted his power. Something like that

Magic telephone booth

Was that mentioned in the movie? I totally missed that. Just suddenly, Thor was landing on a plane.

I think it was the scene just after, with Loki taunting Thor. I _think_ it was a barb about how Odin would spend all this energy to let Thor go chase after Loki, but not to let him see Natalie Portman.

Odin is wise.

and who could blame Odin?

Yeah, Loki said he must have used all the energy to get there, and he would need the Tesseract just to get back.

How did Loki astral mind control project back from the trans-dimensional abyss at the end of "Thor," then? Tricky, that Loki.

The South Park episode that made fun of Natalie Portman in the Thor movie was so good.

(That is, at the end of "Thor" he's mind-controlling Stellan Skarsgard [who sounds like he could be a Norse warrior].)

i think he's in dethlok

skolimowski!

"i'm always angry" was my favorite line out of the whole thing

I really enjoyed this, too. The minimal Bruce Banner character development scenes were almost better than the two overwrought Hulk movies combined.

btw & imo girl from 'how i met yr mother' > scarjo

She's the other hot one they kept cutting to, even though she didn't look like she was doing anything? Right?

yeah, she was the "look! we do have more than one female character!" character

she managed to avoid being hit from point-blank range by hawkete about ten times at the start, i wasn't too sure about that tbh...

the other hot one that wasn't doung anything could also = hawkeye, cpt america or a couple others tbf.