Episode 137 - The Avengers: LIVE!

[Amy the Gorilla 732]

Here in the US, most people when talking about the comic book movie call it "The Avengers" but in pretty much all advertising, they seem to only refer to it as "Marvel's 'The Avengers'"

 

Just thought I'd throw that out there.

[taylor anne photo 11311]

As I was recording my entry for X-Men on Letterboxd I noticed an interesting similarity in posters...

 

[RyanSz 3140]

As I was recording my entry for X-Men on Letterboxd I noticed an interesting similarity in posters...

 

That's similar to the Marvel movies where each Phase had a similar template for each poster.

[FisterRoboto 7499]

As I was recording my entry for X-Men on Letterboxd I noticed an interesting similarity in posters...

 

Are those your ratings below it? Because I'd rate those movies a lot closer together.

[taylor anne photo 11311]

Are those your ratings below it? Because I'd rate those movies a lot closer together.

Apocalypse is gonna need some ice for that burn! Unless you're giving The Avengers a higher rating then I refuse to acknowledge that nonsense.

[RyanSz 3140]

Are those your ratings below it? Because I'd rate those movies a lot closer together.

Actually thought Apocalypse was pretty good and a bit easier to follow than Days of Future Past. I still don't know why Bryan Singer is hung up on trying to bring a certain character

Phoenix

onto film, which would easily need its own movie to get through THAT storyline. The makeup for Apocalypse was a lot better than what fanboys have been ragging on, and really the only hokey dialogue I noticed was Magneto basically yelling at God, which made me roll my eyes because it was so hammy.

[FisterRoboto 7499]

Actually thought Apocalypse was pretty good and a bit easier to follow than Days of Future Past. I still don't know why Bryan Singer is hung up on trying to bring a certain character

Phoenix

onto film, which would easily need its own movie to get through THAT storyline. The makeup for Apocalypse was a lot better than what fanboys have been ragging on, and really the only hokey dialogue I noticed was Magneto basically yelling at God, which made me roll my eyes because it was so hammy.

 

 

Yeah, that was right after his wife and daughter totally got fridged when the mother leaned down to perfectly line up the arrow so it would skewer them both.

 

Also, this dude has been living in this town and NO ONE has recognized him? They literally have a newspaper with a picture of him in it.

 

The first POC mutant (not counting Apocalypse) is introduced when she gets caught stealing.

 

And I'd take the Phoenix plotline before that really ridiculous shoehorned Weapon X plot.

 

And all of that is to say nothing about the millions of people that Storm and Magneto must have killed by helping Apocalypse, but we're supposed to forget about that so they can reconcile with the X-Men.

 

 

 

I really, really, really hated this movie, which was unfortunate because I had very high hopes because I've really enjoyed the past two movies in the series.

 

 

 

BUT APPARENTLY THE THIRD IS ALWAYS THE WORST, RIGHT GUYS?!

 

 

[RyanSz 3140]

 

 

Yeah, that was right after his wife and daughter totally got fridged when the mother leaned down to perfectly line up the arrow so it would skewer them both.

 

Also, this dude has been living in this town and NO ONE has recognized him? They literally have a newspaper with a picture of him in it.

 

The first POC mutant (not counting Apocalypse) is introduced when she gets caught stealing.

 

And I'd take the Phoenix plotline before that really ridiculous shoehorned Weapon X plot.

 

 

 

I really, really, really hated this movie, which was unfortunate because I had very high hopes.

Yeah regarding the whole Stryker subplot, I get that they are trying to completely remove Origins: Wolverine from the history books, but it's getting to the point of being like Batman's parents, we get it, don't rehash it. What got me was the end credit scene which was an incredibly deep cut as far as an Easter egg goes, I even had to look up the meaning and I have a pretty good knowledge of X-Men folklore.

[FisterRoboto 7499]

Yeah regarding the whole Stryker subplot, I get that they are trying to completely remove Origins: Wolverine from the history books, but it's getting to the point of being like Batman's parents, we get it, don't rehash it. What got me was the end credit scene which was an incredibly deep cut as far as an Easter egg goes, I even had to look up the meaning and I have a pretty good knowledge of X-Men folklore.

Yeah, I'm not sure I would have gotten it either. I went home and read about it because I was in no mood to sit through the credits for another scene.

[taylor anne photo 11311]

Funny story about the end credits scene -

 

So I'm not as knowledgable in X-Men lore as I am with Avengers. Basically what they showed in the animated series and X-Men Evolution is as far as I know because I was a sucker for that shit. Anyway to the point, the end credits scene happens and I actually have no idea what anything meant except it was a lead up to the newest Wolverine movie. My best friend is sitting next to me and says out loud, "Well that meant nothing to me." Her husband turns to her and says, "I told you they were probably gonna do this on the way over here! It was-" and before he can even finish his sentence some fucking guy just stands up and parks himself right in front of us and basically mansplains the whole thing. And my friend is just like, "Cool that still means fucking nothing to me." I bust out laughing and her poor husband just goes, "I was just about to tell you about all of it..." and is basically looking at that dude like wtf dude no one asked you.

[JonSnow 0]

Did anyone else notice Uma and Two-ma had differently coloured eyes?

[NathanGordon 1096]

BUT APPARENTLY THE THIRD IS ALWAYS THE WORST, RIGHT GUYS?!

This annoyed me so much, because in a two hour plus movie that took time out for that unnecessary Weapon X scene and even bothered filming that petty dig at a ten year old movie, they couldn't call Jubilee by name or include this cool little nod to Dazzler -- who I hope is put in an X-film soon because her mutant power is literally turning DISCO MUSIC INTO LIGHT, which is so much cooler than eyebeams from the Punch Dimension (Scott, you are the most boring X-person, in every medium. BTW Wolvie slept with your GF).

 

 

Otherwise this was the second best comic book movie this year, but Civil War was better in every regard. The choreograpy in that film was incredible, while Apocalypse just had people shooting different color CGI lasers.

 

p.s. my dream X-Men movie is something from the Australian Outback arc, when the team was down to about half a dozen and basically just dicking around in the desert, licking their wounds.

[NutRumpus 23]

I have a couple things to bring up. I skimmed through this thread and didn't notice anyone mentioning the same things, but I apologize in advance if I'm repeating something:

 

1. Does anyone else think the entire Bear Board Meeting was an homage to Goldfinger (and A View to a Kill, since that's basically just a rehash of Goldfinger)? The villain meets with all his cronies (which seems to be for the the first time as a group), the villain asks if everyone still wants to go along with the plan, some of said cronies decide it's not for them, so the villain kills them to avoid any potential information leaks. The only thing that's missing is one of the heroes listening in on the conversation from a hidden spot, which could easily have been one of the many cut scenes from this movie.

 

2. I also think the fact that there was nobody in this movie was a reference to the original TV show. I remember watching some episodes of the show when I was younger and, since I was very confused but intrigued by the show, I looked up trivia online. I remember one piece of trivia about the fact that whenever Steed went to normally busy areas, nobody was around. The production team did this because when they put Steed in a normally busy place, like a train station or an airport, he stuck out like a sore thumb and no longer seemed "acceptable" to the TV audience. However, put him in a room full of bad guys and he's right in his element.

[Cinco DeNio 5290]

Given Paul's discourse on human on robot sex, I think June just found out what BB8's mission actually is.

[taylor anne photo 11311]

This annoyed me so much, because in a two hour plus movie that took time out for that unnecessary Weapon X scene and even bothered filming that petty dig at a ten year old movie, they couldn't call Jubilee by name or include this cool little nod to Dazzler -- who I hope is put in an X-film soon because her mutant power is literally turning DISCO MUSIC INTO LIGHT, which is so much cooler than eyebeams from the Punch Dimension (Scott, you are the most boring X-person, in every medium. BTW Wolvie slept with your GF).

 

 

Otherwise this was the second best comic book movie this year, but Civil War was better in every regard. The choreograpy in that film was incredible, while Apocalypse just had people shooting different color CGI lasers.

 

p.s. my dream X-Men movie is something from the Australian Outback arc, when the team was down to about half a dozen and basically just dicking around in the desert, licking their wounds.

Yeah the Jubilee shit is my #1 grievance with this movie cause she has always been one of my favorites. They even hardcore patted themselves on the back that they casted an Asian actress to play her and then basically gave her two lines.

 

Also I have no idea if you liked Deadpool or not but this was sooo not better than Deadpool. Civil War is still first.

[NathanGordon 1096]

Yeah the Jubilee shit is my #1 grievance with this movie cause she has always been one of my favorites. They even hardcore patted themselves on the back that they casted an Asian actress to play her and then basically gave her two lines.

 

Also I have no idea if you liked Deadpool or not but this was sooo not better than Deadpool. Civil War is still first.

Yep, Jubilation is awesome and what I wouldn't give for a road movie with just her and Wolverine, cracking wise and cracking skulls. The banter between them was always fun, and it's a much better surrogate father storyline than anything Professor X does.

 

I liked Deadpool but I just don't have the emotional connection with the material like I do the X-Men. I was never a huge comic nerd but that was the one series whose mythology I dug deep into; even though it wasn't a great film, it threw enough skeeballs that some landed in that 100 point nostalgia hole for me.

[Cameron H. 23786]

In regard to the X-Men movies, my biggest issue with them (and I may have said this before--in which case--I'm sorry) is that they are married to too many things (especially the actors) that actually hinders them from making better films or just doing something different. They are also too committed to the idea of "being an outsider/freak." And while I think that is an important theme in X-Men comics, I don't think we need, I don't know, seven movies or so, about that same exact thing. What about "Fall of the Mutants," "The Brood Saga," or "Inferno?" If you want to do "God Loves, Man Kills," great--but make that one movie. I think the X-Men are so much more than just the social allegory. And I'm not saying get rid of it altogether, just not the main thrust every single time.

 

If I had my druthers, after The Last Stand, they should have just gone with a true reboot, which In my mind that would have been:

• A First Class-type thing (set in modern day) with a teenage cast. Prof X is there, but merely to facilitate. The cast would be: Cyclops, Jean, Iceman, Beast, and Angel. Make Iceman or Jean your "new student/POV" and have them go up against (as much as I hate to say it) Magneto and the Brotherhood. However, after this movie, Magneto, if not gone for good, should off the table for a long time.
  

• All-New X-Men. In the opening scene, everyone would be captured instead of Cyclops. Or maybe, the opening scene is just of Scott escaping. He returns to Prof X and they recruit a new team. Here's where Wolverine, Storm, Colossus, and Nightcrawler would come in. Again, not too old, maybe early twenties. In this, maybe they go against Sinister who is harvesting mutant DNA since Krakoa the Living Island is a little dumb.
  

 

 

You can now split the franchise with half of the cast going to X-Factor and the other half continuing as X-Men. You do Apocalypse in X-Factor and Fall of the Mutants/Mutant Massacre in X-Men. Then, a la The Avengers, you bring them all together for something like "Inferno" (Demons), "Brood Saga" (Sci-Fi Horror), or if you need a reason to do a hard reboot, "Age of Apocalypse" (Alternate Reality).

 

 

And. if this sounds like it might actually work, it's because I'm pretty much following the comics timeline. It's all been done and story boarded for them! It doesn't have to be a literal translation and you can swap team members out if you want. I mean, I just read (or heard) the other day that Brina Singer won't even let his actors read X-Men comics. What the fuck? You made one version of X-Men, dude, but you didn't invent them and you're certainly not the final word on how they should be portrayed.

 

I just think we're all done with the ideological arguments for now (as important as they are), and I would really like to see some wacky Sci-Fi stuff.

 

But, most of all, give every character their due. Wolverine can have his own solo movie, but someone like Nightcrawler never will, so let's be fair.

[FisterRoboto 7499]

Yeah the Jubilee shit is my #1 grievance with this movie cause she has always been one of my favorites. They even hardcore patted themselves on the back that they casted an Asian actress to play her and then basically gave her two lines.

 

Also I have no idea if you liked Deadpool or not but this was sooo not better than Deadpool. Civil War is still first.

I think it was just barely above BvS, honestly (but, as we've talked about before, I didn't hate that as much as the rest of the internet did).

 

This annoyed me so much, because in a two hour plus movie that took time out for that unnecessary Weapon X scene and even bothered filming that petty dig at a ten year old movie,

I feel like they only went to the mall just so they could throw in that dig. And that's probably what bothered me most about the movie. They went through the longest detours just to get to meaningless conclusions.

 

 

 

Also, I'm kind of tired of having to see where every single tiny thing came from. That whole over-CGI'd sequence at the beginning telling us how En Sabah Nur got buried and later became Apocalypse was 100% unnecessary and just put a bad taste in my mouth. I know the first rule of writing is "show; don't tell," but you don't need to show every single detail. I don't feel that anything was gained from that sequence that we couldn't have gotten from Moira McTaggart going in and seeing the people revive him, seeing him enhance Storm's powers (side note: Apocalypse holding his hand up to the TV and saying "learning" was probably the funniest part of the movie), and then listening to them talk in McTaggart's office.

 

 

[Cinco DeNio 5290]

All the talk about there supposedly being no one else in London got me thinking about a 1991 issue of Miracleman by Neil Gaiman (spoilers for the issue and the Miracleman series in general). It takes place after Alan Moore’s run in which superheroes decide to take over the world and shape it into a peaceful utopia. This issue is set in a fake mini-city inhabited by all the former Cold War spies who no longer serve any purpose. Since they’re all too paranoid to function in the real world, they’re basically just brainwashed into thinking that nothing has changed and spend their days receiving missions and spying on each other.

 

Maybe that’s what’s going on here. It’s 1998 so the Cold War is well over, and all these characters who were so used to having elaborate spy adventures are put into a fake London and made to think that they’re still useful. Villainous ex-spies like Sean Connery get to develop crazy technology and weapons without posing any real threat to the outside world, and people like Steed get to feel like they saved the day by stopping them. Maybe once in a while everyone’s memory is wiped and the whole thing starts again. We could even think of it as a sequel to the original series in this sense. Steed and Peel already knew each other and had a bunch of adventures together, but we’re witnessing the beginning of a new cycle. This would also explain why, despite clearly being set in the current day, there’s a 60s retro vibe to everything. It’s just the world that these characters are most comfortable in. This could even all be taking place on that weird island for ex-spies from The Prisoner, if we want to tie it into another classic British spy show.

This is an AMAZING first post! Way to knock it out of the park and welcome to the forums!

 

[FisterRoboto 7499]

Wolverine can have his own solo movie, but someone like Nightcrawler never will, so let's be fair.

 

And Wolverine needs about 80% less movies. Wolverine is the crutch that the X-Men films use because they're afraid no one will see them if he's not in them (much like Joker is the crutch for basically anything DC). I really liked Days of Future Past, but my biggest problem with it was that they felt they needed to basically make it a Wolverine movie.

 

They got away from that here, but I worry that the lesson that Fox and Singer are going to take away from it isn't that the movie had a billion narrative issues, but that people didn't like it because there was only one shoehorned Wolverine sequence. If they actually spent time creating a good narrative and developing interesting characters, they could have non-Wolverine solo movies because people would actually want to learn more about them.

 

I really want to see a Storm/Morlocks story (that actually uses the Morlocks correctly because they basically cut out all of the Morlocks from Apocalypse and, of course, the version in The Last Stand was a joke).

[taylor anne photo 11311]

Also if we're gonna talk about Wolverine in this movie

 

 

The part where Jean gives him back some of his memories really made me uncomfortable. Knowing their history together and the way they were looking at each other during that waaay too long scene just kinda made me turn to my friend and say, "I really am not liking this." Sophie Turner is 20 years old and is playing a high school student while Hugh Jackman is 48 (actually thought he was 55 sorry Hugh I had no idea...) and I am still foggy on what age Logan is supposed to be in that time but it doesn't matter BECAUSE IT'S STILL INAPPROPRIATE! Out of everything they did in that film that is the one fucking thing I wish they had waited on.

 

[jarrycanada 2483]

other then the best part of waking up is folgers in a cup or

outstanding Paul Stanley! I just found that today.

 

the best part of this show was Jason's support for the don, can we just call him the don.

 

*I am dyslexic and I misspelled that word "president!" on purpose people!

[paultab 225]

 

When revealing his evil plan, Sean Connery says, "Now is the winter of your discontent" to threaten world leaders. "Winter of your discontent" is a pun on de Wynter's name but it is more notably a reference to the opening of Shakespeare's Richard the III, where the main character says, "now is the winter of our discontent / made glorious summer by this son of York."

 

Connery is supposed to be extorting money from these people. But that phrase actually means that the period of discontent is coming to an end. (The winter is now turning into summer thanks to my bro, Edward.) So as the prelude to an evil plan, this is a terrible reference to make. He's basically saying things are looking up for them!

 

 

 

Frequently, people make the mistake of thinking that "wherefore art thou Romeo" means "where are you Romeo," when it in fact means "why are you Romeo," as in "why is your name Romeo Montague," but this is not that kind of mistake.

 

"Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by this son of York" is a complete thought ("The winter of our discontent has now been changed into glorious summer by this guy") -- but if you lift "Now is the winter of our discontent" out of that, you have a different thought entirely ("It is, at present time, the winter of our discontent.")

 

I'm splitting hairs -- the screenwriter either knew the context and was making a lyrical pun by removing the latter half, or didn't know the context and was being an idiot -- but without the second half of the sentence, the first part means what it means.

[Smigg 1488]

When Sean Connery and his League of Extraordinary Supervillains turned up in bear suits, The Avengers should have drafted in this guy, who knows exactly what to do with men in bear suits

 

 

 

 

[jarrycanada 2483]

DAY TWO: thank you Cameron H I still have that Randy Newman - Short People song in my head. it's driving me crazy and I am now making up my own words to the song. Old people got no reason to live!!

 

They like hard candy, ands lots of cakes.

Old people, they've got no reason to live.

 

Sit in lazy boys and do nothing but complain.

they got wrinkled hands and a weathered face.

 

old people got no business being in front of me.

 

what i've got so far.

 

I hope you all know i am kidding when I wrote that song.

I love my mom and dad dearly but they drive me nuts.

 

and no ones better to them then me.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-EhpnOxN4Q

 

 

The word for that is Mondegreen when you hear a song and misunderstand the words.

 

that link may work for you guys in the states not sure, it could change and stop, just look it up in google or youtube then.

 

Main site link.