quote:

ORIGINAL: Rgirvan44

I am not sure just how big a threat the alien army was - Black Widow was pretty decent at taking them out, and Stark was able to shoot them down. It didn't look like there were enough of them to take over the world. But it was still fun seeing the heros take them out.

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ORIGINAL: Emyr Thy King

I did enjoy the film but oddly enough, I didn't come out of the cinema with a great love for it. I think there was a slight uneveness with the overall pace of the film, long stretches of character moments with action interspersed in-between and then a big long action segment at the end. The humour was mostly funny but at the same time a little bit too obvious, perhaps slightly forced and I think some of it was trying to be a bit too clever. I'm guessing it's Joss Whedon's style, I'm not a fan of his and that doesn't mean I have a problem with him but I'm not overly familiar with his writing style and perhaps it just doesn't do much for me. It's odd, because I felt sometimes that I wasn't watching the characters as they've been set-up previously but as "Whedon's" characters which was a bit jarring. I didn't feel there was a sense of continuity in terms of the characters's language if that makes sense.

Tony Stark/Iron Man shone though and I liked the few scenes between him and Pepper Potts, nice to see the relationship developing. I thought Thor was good but again he seems to get the short shirft out of all the characters, he was just angry most of the time and I didn't feel we got a lot of character development from him. I was surprised with Hawkeye and especially Black Window. I think they developed and expanded upon her character quite nicely from Iron Man 2, where she felt like a third rate supporting character. Props to Mark Ruffalo as Bruce Banner/Hulk, he's by far the best fit for the character and it seems they've thrown off the curse of the Hulk! However, the most interesting character for me was Steve Rogers/Captain America. I have to say despite my misgivings about the script, I think he worked exceptionally well. As I was concerned he would be upstaged by more colourful characters such as Iron Man. But the way they handled his character, his adjusting to being in the modern world and how he became a true leader was very well done. I agree with Sanchia, he seems a lot more potent in combat. As though he's more acrobatic and nimble, which wasn't really shown in his origin film. I really liked his first fight with Loki and his talk about when he was last in Germany. That was a nice touch.

The plot was fine but I did have a few problems with certain details. Captain America's awakening scene was just a two-second job. C'mon, the guy's been asleep for 70 years and yet we don't see his moment of 'rebirth'? I also think they skipped over Thor's arrival, with some off-hand explanation about Odin using 'dark magic', righto. And why did Whedon feel the need to kill of Coulson?. I think that was a miscalculation personally. I understand why he did it, as the driving force to unite the team, but it just felt wrong. Particularly after Clark Gregg has done such great work in gradually developing his character.. Unless I'm mistaken, I'm sure the scene where Hulk is fighting Thor on a lower deck of the helicarrier and he jumps onto that F-35 fighter jet was directly ripped off Hulk (2003) "you don't want to make me Ang Lee".

I thought the score by Alan Silvestri was functional. The main Avengers theme is good but the rest of the soundtrack just lacks bombast and a real punch. I felt the same with his work on Captain America, I think they ought to pick a new composer for the next Avengers film. Someone who can craft a more rousing theme, perhaps even develope 'sub-themes' for each character.

Overall a good film with some great moments but it just lacked the magic of Iron Man or Thor for me.

Whedon didn't want to kill Coulson, that was Marvel's idea. Whedon actually argued against it sying 'they are going to blame me for it' as he has a reputation for such things but Marvel insisted. Head of Marvel movie production Kevin Feige said this in in an interview with Empire's podcast. Also, the Hulk jumping onto the plane bit is from the comics, if I'm not mistaken. It's one of his 'moves'.

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ORIGINAL: matty_b
You have a nice face, Shifty. A face I would have a cup of tea with.

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ORIGINAL: Private Hudson

We needed a bit more info on these new bad guys. Why did they want Earth? What were they going to do to humanity? Eat them as in V? They were pretty weak as a threat I felt.

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ORIGINAL: Shifty Bench
Regarding your spoiler text- Whedon didn't want to kill Coulson, that was Marvel's idea. Whedon actually argued against it saying 'they are going to blame me for it' as he has a reputation for such things but Marvel insisted. Head of Marvel movie production Kevin Feige said this in in an interview with Empire's podcast. Also, the Hulk jumping onto the plane bit is from the comics, if I'm not mistaken. It's one of his 'moves'.

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ORIGINAL: Private Hudson

So what was going to happen to Earth?

We needed threats and conflict. A genuine worry that Earth and humanity were going to be in Big Trouble. Being ruled by Loki didn't show us his evil side.

Hopefully a better villain/dastardly plot will be in place for part 2. Though I do think Loki is superb, the aliens were, dare I say it, rubbish!

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ORIGINAL: Emyr Thy King
Regardless of who came up with the idea, it was a bad call full-stop and wasn't necessary. He's proven he's not averse to slaying his 'beloved' characters anyway.

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ORIGINAL: matty_b
You have a nice face, Shifty. A face I would have a cup of tea with.

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ORIGINAL: Shifty Bench
Well- It does matter who came up with the idea, because you wrongly attributed it to Joss. True he has done it before, but this time he didn't actually want to but as a director for hire, he couldn't really say 'no' could he? Plus, the reason they did it was to make the audience think nobody was safe. Now, I do agree with you that it was pointless as it's obvious they weren't going to kill Iron Man or Thor but I was just correcting you on who came up with the idea. Joss really should have come up with a different way to kill him that stabbing him through the chest, though. That seems to be his ''go to' death .

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ORIGINAL: Wild about Wilder

Anyone know anything about the other clip at the end of the credits that the US seem to have got?

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ORIGINAL: Emyr Thy King
Mhmm..but it's irrelevant. It would only matter if wrongly crediting the idea made a difference to my original point. My point was that it was just a bad decision, whoever made it is inconsequential because it ended up in the film anyway. Otherwise it's just erroneous detailing. Although someone of Whedon's standing would have enough sway with a producer if they really wanted to dig their heels in. Perhaps concessions were made elsewhere or he didn't want a repeat of the Norton affair and so went along with it. The irony is it fits with his history on dealing with such characters anyway. Nonetheless, it appeared in a film he directed and co-wrote. So in theory they have joint responsibility for it. Hmm?

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ORIGINAL: matty_b
You have a nice face, Shifty. A face I would have a cup of tea with.

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ORIGINAL: Private Hudson
We needed threats and conflict. A genuine worry that Earth and humanity were going to be in Big Trouble. Being ruled by Loki didn't show us his evil side.

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ORIGINAL: adambatman82

quote:

ORIGINAL: Private Hudson
We needed threats and conflict. A genuine worry that Earth and humanity were going to be in Big Trouble. Being ruled by Loki didn't show us his evil side.

Did you not catch the opening bit of the film, in which he brought down the SHIELD headquarters? Or what about the entirety of the final act, which was essentially an invasion of a major city orchestrated by him? Of course, the emphasis of the narrative in the final act wasn't on the attackers, but the Avengers, but the threat was still there (otherwise, what would they have been fighting?). He also killed a major character, pulled a mans eyeball out and called a woman a "quim", which are all pretty evil things to do in my book.

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ORIGINAL: elab49

I think you need to add the 'mewling' 

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ORIGINAL: Shifty Bench
And I agree with you, was just pointing out who actually came up with the idea. It may be irrelevant but it's still true

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ORIGINAL: adambatman82
Ha, I'm not quite sure what "mewling" means, but it actually kind of softens the "quim" part to me. I'm approaching this from the perspective of someone who has always been taught that the Q word is as bad as the C word and "Motherfucker" in terms of its place in the English language.

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ORIGINAL: adambatman82

quote:

ORIGINAL: Private Hudson
We needed threats and conflict. A genuine worry that Earth and humanity were going to be in Big Trouble. Being ruled by Loki didn't show us his evil side.

Did you not catch the opening bit of the film, in which he brought down the SHIELD headquarters? Or what about the entirety of the final act, which was essentially an invasion of a major city orchestrated by him? Of course, the emphasis of the narrative in the final act wasn't on the attackers, but the Avengers, but the threat was still there (otherwise, what would they have been fighting?). He also killed a major character, pulled a mans eyeball out and called a woman a "quim", which are all pretty evil things to do in my book.

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ORIGINAL: horribleives

quote:

ORIGINAL: adambatman82

Did you not catch the opening bit of the film, in which he brought down the SHIELD headquarters? Or what about the entirety of the final act, which was essentially an invasion of a major city orchestrated by him? Of course, the emphasis of the narrative in the final act wasn't on the attackers, but the Avengers, but the threat was still there (otherwise, what would they have been fighting?). He also killed a major character, pulled a mans eyeball out and called a woman a "quim", which are all pretty evil things to do in my book.

True, but you could say the exact same thing about Transformers: Dark Of The Moon and that contained about as much threat as a game of Snap.

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ORIGINAL: adambatman82

quote:

ORIGINAL: horribleives

quote:

ORIGINAL: adambatman82

Did you not catch the opening bit of the film, in which he brought down the SHIELD headquarters? Or what about the entirety of the final act, which was essentially an invasion of a major city orchestrated by him? Of course, the emphasis of the narrative in the final act wasn't on the attackers, but the Avengers, but the threat was still there (otherwise, what would they have been fighting?). He also killed a major character, pulled a mans eyeball out and called a woman a "quim", which are all pretty evil things to do in my book.

True, but you could say the exact same thing about Transformers: Dark Of The Moon and that contained about as much threat as a game of Snap.

They're different films though, and ones in which a vaguely similar situation is handled very differently. Its all about the execution of the scenario, and from my point of view it worked in Avengers, and didn't work in TF.* Similarity of the premise aside the two final acts are nothing alike.

*Theres a sense of geographical place and scale in Avengers that's completely lacking in TF, and there are a bunch of characters that have actual character Involved within the scenario for a start, as opposed to the tech-demo-esque screaming idiocy of TF.

quote:

ORIGINAL: horribleives
My point was that just because the climax featured an invasion of a major city doesn't automatically give it a sense of real threat (as proven by Michael Bay's last abomination). And as much as The Avengers was on a completely different level to the likes of TF3 in terms of, well, everything, I personally didn't feel any more genuine peril - anonymous alien cannon-fodder on flying bikes vs anonymous robot cannon-fodder with metal beards.

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ORIGINAL: adambatman82

quote:

ORIGINAL: horribleives
My point was that just because the climax featured an invasion of a major city doesn't automatically give it a sense of real threat (as proven by Michael Bay's last abomination). And as much as The Avengers was on a completely different level to the likes of TF3 in terms of, well, everything, I personally didn't feel any more genuine peril - anonymous alien cannon-fodder on flying bikes vs anonymous robot cannon-fodder with metal beards.

As I said in my initial post though, there are a number of reasons that combine to create peril, you just chose to focus on one. It's not really fair to take one aspect of my argument out of context to try and push your own point. To reiterate, a number of things suggested Loki's evilness. Amongst them are - 1) the city battle. 2) The Germany sequence [both the crowd sequence and the eye-gauging). 3) the opening section, which displayed the destructive power of the cosmic cube. 4) The thing he did to that guy that we all like. The four of these things, combined with a number of other incidents that I haven't mentioned, come together to give a sense of peril.

quote:

ORIGINAL: adambatman82

quote:

ORIGINAL: horribleives
My point was that just because the climax featured an invasion of a major city doesn't automatically give it a sense of real threat (as proven by Michael Bay's last abomination). And as much as The Avengers was on a completely different level to the likes of TF3 in terms of, well, everything, I personally didn't feel any more genuine peril - anonymous alien cannon-fodder on flying bikes vs anonymous robot cannon-fodder with metal beards.

As I said in my initial post though, there are a number of reasons that combine to create peril, you just chose to focus on one. It's not really fair to take one aspect of my argument out of context to try and push your own point. To reiterate, a number of things suggested Loki's evilness. Amongst them are - 1) the city battle. 2) The Germany sequence [both the crowd sequence and the eye-gauging). 3) the opening section, which displayed the destructive power of the cosmic cube. 4) The thing he did to that guy that we all like. The four of these things, combined with a number of other incidents that I haven't mentioned, come together to give a sense of peril.