Avengers: Age of Ultron

[DRW50]

[Vee]

I'm pretty sure

That happens. Didn't bug me.

I preferred it to the first, but I know why it freaks some of critics out - it plays entirely by its own rules, where all these big Marvel films have become intertwined and yet the mix somehow works. I also loved the new team at the end.

Originally, the ending scene also featured Carol Danvers/Captain Marvel, but Marvel overruled Whedon on that, not wanting to drop the character into a line-up without having properly introduced her.

[DRW50]

How did you feel about Black Widow saying being infertile makes you a monster?

[Vee]

I didn't feel anything about it, because I didn't take that scene that way and I don't agree with the premise.

As she said (both in that scene in this film and in the previous one), the Widow has a horrific past where she was trained to murder countless people, and as part of that process she was also physically mutilated by the organization that made her into that assassin - sterilized. All of that is what she carries on her conscience, spiritually and emotionally as well as what they did to her physically. I didn't take what she said to Banner to specifically be about her being sterilized. What was done to her via medical procedure was only the final finishing touch, IMO. What Natasha fears is what she believes she was made into both body and soul. That's what she said to Banner in the film. It wasn't just a scene where the Black Widow says, "me no babies!"

As for the reproduction issue, my mother went through a lot of rough, rough stuff as a woman, both as a professional and as a potential mother before I ever came along, and I didn't know about any of it until I was much older. So that scene hit me hard emotionally, and I already very much liked the Widow/Banner subplot.

[Cheap21]

she didnt say being infertile made you a monster. She said her being a killer made her a monster. Her backstory and why she was made infertile add to that and you completely lose the context of her statement, if you dont take that into account

[Vee]

That was also the purpose of her flashback sequence in the Red Room with Julie Delpy, who I hope there's more of in the longer cut - and I hope they finally greenlight a Widow film where those two can fight to the death, but ScarJo's salary may be prohibitive.

[DRW50]

Given Whedon's weird issues with fertility and pregnancy, I can't bring myself to believe he sees it any other way, but I'm glad it worked for you.

[DRW50]

I actually laughed at this once or twice, which by last 15-20 years of SNL standards is pretty good.

[DRW50]

http://www.ew.com/article/2015/04/29/entertainment-geekly-black-widow-conundrum

[Vee]

I think they should make a Widow film, but I think Johansson's asking price as a movie star at this point is likely prohibitive for how Marvel tends to try and get people locked in on a specific number. They will not shell out for her or most of the others, not after RDJ already took them to the cleaners to re-up his own deal.

I don't agree with most of the rest of that article, which seems to struggle to incorporate literally any piece of unrelated opening month publicity into some sort of unified freshman year thesis about how it all leads back to the Black Widow, but my reasoning has to do with the film I saw and how I view the Widow in the context of that and the other films. Every single film since the original Avengers, especially the excellent Winter Soldier, has indicated that Natasha - much like her comic book counterpart - is haunted by her past and her choices as a covert operative. The comics' Natasha is also actually much older than she appears (and was also sterilized). With S.H.I.E.L.D. as it was pre-TWS gone, and the team having hit a public low mid-AOU after their fight on the African coast, I had no problem believing

during the course of AOU. And at the end of the film, the Widow has instead re-dedicated herself while most of the original line-up has walked away.

I didn't see anything in the film as a betrayal of any version of the Black Widow I am familiar with. I think the argument in articles like this just come out of a convenient and ultimately momentary backlash that spreads based on a general vague feeling but is never well sourced, and instead of arguing the history they're often unfortunately based in an urgent moral imperative that ransoms either gender or sexuality to try and make me feel guilty or complicit if I don't agree with it. I guess it's just a question of how each of us personally takes Age of Ultron (and the other MCU films) when you see them.

[DRW50]

I agree about social media, but EW is hipper-than-thou central - Whedon's greatest hits are catnip to them. That's what they live for. They even had a big article about how logical Bruce/Natasha are. So for them to allow that article on their site at all was a real surprise.

[Vee]

I love Banner and Natasha, myself. I don't have an issue with that. My issues with AOU, few though they are, are mostly slight nitpicks about the pacing which have to do with Whedon personally insisting on cutting the running time down to well under three hours. They just barely made it work. I also thought the character death was a mistake, but I don't think it hurt the movie, really - the character is barely there and it's more their counterpart's story.

As for Whedon, the man's definitely not infallible, but it's 2015, not 2000 - to come at him now seems like the Internet's at least a month late and twenty dollars short, to mangle an old saying. But I understand why it happens. He's low hanging fruit because the man has gone from the perennial underdog to the king of geek media, at which point any king's (or queen's) flaws become magnified and they become history's greatest monster. Next week it will be someone else. Eventually poor Patty Jenkins (who has not been able to get a feature made in years, despite being incredibly talented) will surely take her turn in the barrel if she gets stuck grinding out sausage for DC on the Wonder Woman movie. Low hanging fruit just bores me. (Speaking of DC, the first cast photo of Suicide Squad looks like a really bad night out with the Insane Clown Posse.)

[DRW50]

Anyone gets criticism, but Whedon's gone for eons barely getting a peep, with, "but...but Firefly!!! Buffy, sort of, if you ignore 4 seasons of the show!!!" used as some sort of holy shield. I think it's his bizarre decision to appoint himself a "genderist" and tell the world what is and is not sexist that put a spotlight on just what a real, and longstanding, problem he has had writing for women.

[Vee]

I don't agree about Buffy overall, but I think he did get shielded too much at times in the past. That said, I don't think this has to be a question of settling a larger score or balancing a sheet - I think most of his work is pretty good with some bumps in the road, and I think his Avengers films are very good. I think he's been overrated at times but I don't think this is one of those times. I do think there are issues with how he's worked with female characters in some instances, and that he's not infallible, but I don't think the Black Widow or this film is the example to take a stand on; I think the hot take on her character arc in this movie is inaccurate and unfair to the film, to the character and to Johansson's performance.

Everything popular is flawed in some way, but not everything popular and/or flawed is therefore fundamentally broken, or good or bad. That goes for movie franchises or creative personalities or comics or TV shows or whatever else. I can be sick and tired of hearing about Firefly while also really loving the Avengers flicks, while also thinking AOU is better than the first film, while also thinking it's time for Whedon to move on. I don't feel any of that is a balancing act for me so much as a kind of equanimity. It's the same way I try to look at most things.

[ChitHappens]

I liked the movie, but I didn't love it like the first one. Just didn't seem like The Avengers but a movie where someone tossed in the characters from The Avengers. Thank goodness for all of the action and James Spader's voice. But Chris Emsworth!!!!! My Gawd!!!!! The height, the arms, the voice. Good lord, the indelicate thoughts running thru my head during the movie - to be hammered by that guy. Lawd!!!!!