The Avengers (2012)

Copperfox said:
I forget who Alan Silvestri is. But about being a gentleman:

When the comicbook industry made its collective decision, decades ago, that characters WOULD NOT AGE, this produced an Unintended Consequence. When you have to keep on writing stories about a character, but you resist using the plot ideas that come with NATURAL CHANGE -- such as getting married and having children -- then you have to find OTHER things to change if you don't want to be TOTALLY static and fossilized. So they made changes in PERSONALITY TRAITS. One of the farthest-out personality changes was in "Fantastic Four" comics, when the Thing's girlfriend Alicia turned out TO HAVE BEEN A SKRULL ALL THE TIME.

Tony Stark as I remember him was no less courteous a man than Captain America. But it's been many years since I was a regular comicbook reader, and I have not seen any of the Iron Man films yet. DID they decide to make Mr. Stark rude and abrasive?
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Unless you have soap opera aging ( characters will grow up unrealistically fast, or others will never age). You also have comic book time issues, for example a story arch in the Superboy magazine may take 3 years to publish but only takes a few months in the story's time, yet all the pop culture events of those 3 years are current in the comics 3 month story.
Comics (especially DC) have this nasty habit of aging a character, and having a younger new character to take over the superhero role. For example Nightwing is a grown Robin, while Robin is a new boy.
 
Getting back to "The Avengers":

For all who found fault with Captain America's solo movie, I recommend seeing the Captain America movie that was made sometime like 1995, with a cast of unknowns. It was so DUMB AND BORING, that seeing it would cure you of criticizing the newer version.
 
Copperfox said:
Getting back to "The Avengers":

For all who found fault with Captain America's solo movie, I recommend seeing the Captain America movie that was made sometime like 1995, with a cast of unknowns. It was so DUMB AND BORING, that seeing it would cure you of criticizing the newer version.
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XD ROTFL

Not to mention that CA didn't fight honorably and lied.
 
I've actually seen this afformentioned original Captain America movie in the DVD bargain bins...right next to Howard the Duck if that's any indication. Yes Howard the Duck, the movie that all persons involved in have publicaly disavowed. ( and for the better part of their existence were only available in black-market bootleg copies that could be found only at the really sketchy venders at comic book conventions.)

But back to The Avengers, I am probably a bit more excited for that one of all the comic book movies, for the sole reason this is the first time they've brought together several different heroes to make a team .The Fantastic Four were a ready made team, same with X-Men ( just add Wolverine for instant box office success) but to take several characters that were further down on the totem pole, and part of seperate franchises do good films about them and make them part of this shared universe is impressive.

I was especially curious how they would bring together Iron Man, a character steeped in sci-fi, Thor a more mythical fantasy film, and Captain America a character steeped more in Saturday mantinee serials. Sure enough, they've made it work. ( Then again the roots of all those genres are similar, both in film and fiction.)


The other thing I'm looking forward to seeing is the dynamics and interaction between Cap, Thor and Iron Man as they do have such different personalities, and yet that they respect each other. This is actually important in the comics. For example, Iron Man has often said that while he and Steve may have clashed from time to time, he still respected him and Thor had actually even said that Captain America is the only mortal he would follow to the gates of Hades. ( which is odd considering Thor is Norse and it would be Helheim, but eh, minor detail).

Thankfully, the director Joss Whedon has said his favorite of all of them is Captain America because he is such a "straight arrow, wholesome nice guy", so he's not going to send Cap to The Peter Pevensie school of jerkiness, yet at the same time deal with the characters struggle with having missed 70+ years of history, all his friends being dead, and trying to lead this team.

I expect Captain America may butt heads with some of the other heroes, ( in particular Iron Man. That should be fun to watch those two, especially when Steve Rogers knew Tony Stark's father Howard) but that tends to be par for the course with Comic Book team-ups. They meet, have a mis-understanding, beat each other up, realize they are on the same side, and after massive amounts of property damage decide that they should fight their enemy.

oh, and Alan Silvestri also composed the score to Captain America and Back to the Future. That excites me a lot .He compose one of the most iconic and memorable movie themes for BTTF, I am sure he can deliver that for Avengers.
 
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Ironically, many years ago at a Macy's Thanksgiving parade, there was a Marvel Comics float, with superhero actors... and its loudspeakers used the main theme music from "Back to the Future"!
 
Copperfox said:
Ironically, many years ago at a Macy's Thanksgiving parade, there was a Marvel Comics float, with superhero actors... and its loudspeakers used the main theme music from "Back to the Future"!
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Maybe when Universal had the Marvel licence? They produced the Captain America tv movies of the 70s that Seven-El saw in the bargain bin (the 1994 CA, is only a DVD on demand product done through Amazon.com, though the covers are similar), and they do have the Marvel Characters in their American parks.
 
Copperfox said:
Ironically, many years ago at a Macy's Thanksgiving parade, there was a Marvel Comics float, with superhero actors... and its loudspeakers used the main theme music from "Back to the Future"!
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That is ironic. I'll have to look for that one on YouTube.
 
I'm excited about it! My boyfriend got me into all these superhero movies at first, but now I like them just as much as he does. Captain America is one of my favorite recent movies I've seen actually. :)

I'm looking forward to it!
 
CF, to your question of the portrayal of Iron Man in the new movies, rudeness and arrogance are not the only traits that make this new incarnation of Tony Stark ungentlemanly. I mean the word in its fullest sense.
 
~Lava~ said:
CF, to your question of the portrayal of Iron Man in the new movies, rudeness and arrogance are not the only traits that make this new incarnation of Tony Stark ungentlemanly. I mean the word in its fullest sense.
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I haven't finished the 2nd Iron Man yet, but I watched the first one twice. I saw a pretty dramatic turn-around after he was captured. His rudeness and arrogance might have been there for the first 20 minutes, but it seems to me that that was not the case at the end of the movie.
 
Having now seen the first Iron Man movie, I guess the point was to show that coming close to dying can change a man. And the lesson for Mr. Stark was reinforced when he AGAIN came close to dying, and the only reason he survived was that Pepper had sentimentally kept the older heart-booster device that he could thus use as a backup.
 
Also, in Iron Man 2, well, he's "dying".


SPOILERS: The arc reactor that powers his suit and keeps him alive is slowly killing him, and the government tries to take his armor.

If it's a mater of his alcoholism, that is canon with the comic books. Tony Stark does struggle with alcoholism and it was actually featured in a story arc called "Demon in a Bottle". It was written back in the 1970s when comic book writers wanted to try and address more real subjects that teens were facing. You saw the consequences of such a thing and how it affected not only his personal and work life, but his superhero life as well.

Actually it's why I say that Tony Stark's worst enemy is actually himself. That's why I find Iron Man such a compelling character.




Off topic: Ironically, CF, in Russian translastions of The Wizard of Oz, The Tin Man is called "The Iron Man".
 
Sven-El said:
Also, in Iron Man 2, well, he's "dying".


SPOILERS: The arc reactor that powers his suit and keeps him alive is slowly killing him, and the government tries to take his armor.

If it's a mater of his alcoholism, that is canon with the comic books. Tony Stark does struggle with alcoholism and it was actually featured in a story arc called "Demon in a Bottle". It was written back in the 1970s when comic book writers wanted to try and address more real subjects that teens were facing. You saw the consequences of such a thing and how it affected not only his personal and work life, but his superhero life as well.

Actually it's why I say that Tony Stark's worst enemy is actually himself. That's why I find Iron Man such a compelling character.




Off topic: Ironically, CF, in Russian translastions of The Wizard of Oz, The Tin Man is called "The Iron Man".
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Well, I just finished watching Iron Man 2, and I like your comments on it. While I liked Captain America/Steve Rogers because I think he represents the best of Americans, Tony Stark represents some Americans who try to be the best, but have to fight themselves each and every day. I am really looking forward to seeing Avengers now because of Iron Man.

I'm probably going to watch The Hulk (2008) next week; any thoughts on that movie? Better or worse than the 2003 version?
 
Excellent, point, AK.

As for the 2008 Hulk, I felt it was much better then the 2003, one of the things they did with the 2008 version was bato keep the tone closer to that of the TV series starring Bill Bixby and Lou Forrigno, even to the extent that they used the old "Lonely Man Theme". I also felt it got much more into Bruce Banner's struggles with the monster, and focused more on the fact that it is *not* good to be the Hulk and his desire to be rid of it. And much to many fans delight, we saw a big battle between Hulk and Abomination. They don't go into his origin ( that's all dealt with in the opening credits) and you are plunged right into the middle of his story.
 
I've yet to see The Incredible Hulk, although I plan to do so before I see the Avengers.
So we've talked a lot about the the heroes. How about the guy who's going to be the villain in the film: Loki? I thought Tom Hiddleston did a great job of playing him and I'm excited that he's going to get more physical and nasty in this movie (or it appears so in the trailer).
 
kingcaspian said:
I've yet to see The Incredible Hulk, although I plan to do so before I see the Avengers.
So we've talked a lot about the the heroes. How about the guy who's going to be the villain in the film: Loki? I thought Tom Hiddleston did a great job of playing him and I'm excited that he's going to get more physical and nasty in this movie (or it appears so in the trailer).
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I'm not convinced he'll be the only villain. He might be, but I seriously doubt he's powerful enough to put up a fight against Captain America, Iron man, the Hulk, and Thor.
 
At a church potluck the other night, I was startled to learn how many of the adults around me were fans of comic books, or of the movies based on comic books. The question arose of why Marvel's Avengers movie is on track, while DC's Justice League movie has gotten stalled. Someone judged that there are two reasons why the DC film isn't progressing:

1) Their Green Lantern movie did poorly (which is a shame, because the Green Lantern _concept_ is excellent--the hero has to use his own imagination to devise ways that his ring's power can be put to work).

2) Unlike Marvel's merging of individual hero-stories into the ensemble story, DC reportedly substituted new actors to play their heroes when shifting to portray the Justice League, thus impairing the sense of continuity.
 
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