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Avengers: Assemble
I just realized that I never made a post here after I saw the Avengers movie.
...um, I saw the Avengers movie a few weeks ago! As has probably become obvious already. But by the time I saw it the internet had pretty much said everything there was to say about it, so I don't really have much to add.
(Except Nick Fury you are my very favorite. But I didn't believe even for a second that Coulson was dead, Nick, you are fooling no-one.)
(Also the plot makes no sense once you think about it, and why didn't they just go hit Dr. Selvig over the head as soon as they found him, cut the fight scene by about fifteen minutes, and prevent the destruction of whole swathes of Manhattan? Bah.)
Anyway, I kind of wanted to finally watch the Hulk movie after that, because, well, BRUCE. And I wanted to re-watch Iron Man 2 which I hadn't seen since it came out. So what I did was I went and downloaded the nine-hour fan cut which chronologically meshes together both Iron Man movies, Thor, Captain America, Hulk, and the Coulson short into one long movie. Somebody on my reading list linked to a review of it awhile back, which recommended it as much preferable to trying to watch Hulk straight through. Thank you, whoever linked to that!
I was figuring I'd just skip to the Iron Man 2/Thor/Hulk section, but I kind of wanted to see the transition between the two Iron Man movies, and then I wanted to check some bits of Cap canon, and the next thing I knew it was nine hours later and I'd watched the whole thing (and finished a QUILTBAG for con.txt, so it wasn't a total loss.)
Watching them all put together like that was actually really cool, and it brought out all sorts of themes and recurring issues between the movies that weren't nearly as apparent otherwise.
Also I agree that it's probably the best way to watch the Hulk movie; I suspect I would have been alternately bored and frustrated if I'd watched it straight through, but in the 9-hour fancut, it worked pretty well - just when you were getting a little overwhelmed with the glitter and bombast of Asgard or the frenetic decadence of Stark Industries, it'll cut to a suburban park or a small marketplace or a quiet forest and give you a chance to breathe (and watch Bruce Banner yay.)
A lot of people have said that the problem with the Hulk movie was Norton's Banner, but -- while I do definitely prefer Ruffalo - Banner was basically the only good thing about that movie. The "plot" is formulaic, the action scenes are boring, and all the other characters are flat and cookie-cutter. (Well, I liked a lot of the cinematography too,) but Banner manages to give it at least a little dimensionality.
And poor Betty Ross. ): Betty should have been awesome! Genius scientist who made a terrible mistake! Long-term established relationship! Good taste in men! Defied the entire US Army on principle, outwits them and has more guts! (also her relationship with the guy she's with in the absence of Bruce? Totally justifies the cameo I gave her as someone who can explain the polyamory spectrum, it's pretty clear that they had already negotiated that he was going to be secondary to Bruce in her affections.)
Unfortunately, not only does the movie not pass Bechdel, but as far as I can tell, Betty never has a single thought in the entire film that isn't about Bruce's feelings. Not even about her feelings for Bruce, but about taking care of his. Which I guess if you're dating the Hulk putting his feelings first may be a survival trait, but it makes her incredibly boring and almost completely irrelevant to the movie.
Especially when she's put right next to Jane Foster. And Pepper. And Peggy.
So anyway, while I don't recommend it as a good movie or anything, it's very pretty and not too painful, and if you're thinking about writing anything very substantial about Bruce Banner, you should probably watch it; it didn't so much change my idea of his character as solidify some of the things that had already been bothering me about how people have been writing him lately.
And also write stuff that lets Betty live up to her potential, bah.
More things that I noticed watching the 9-hour cut that I wish fandom would do more with:
1. The Coulson and Tony bit from the end of Hulk. Anybody writing Coulson who hasn't seen this should look up the clip. (Especially the way that he refused to say Tony's name, referring to him only as "the consultant." I want Coulson/Tony hatesex now where Tony calls him 'Agent' and Phil calls him 'Consultant' and they annoy everyone around them incessantly.)
2. Why is Tony Stark so awesome? I mean Avengers was a pretty good movie, I really liked Thor, Captain America wasn't bad, Bruce Banner has all of my emotions, and yet whenever Tony Stark's face comes on screen I just start grinning. He's *fun*.
3. Bruce Banner has to trigger Tony's buried Yinsen issues like crazy. They don't look at all alike, but that whole mild-mannered, self-effacing, zen over a core of bottomless rage, suicidal survivor's guilt and an absolutely terrible sense of humor? Very familiar. Plus that whole world-travelling polyglot genius physicist who does major experimental biotech procedures in crappy conditions and is passionate about weapons proliferation and its effect on the little guy yet still has faith in Tony? And then there's the whole science-buddies-thrown-together-under-hothouse-conditions part.
Yeah. Tony has got to see Yinsen whenever he looks at Bruce. I did. Fandom, write me lots of fic exploring this! (I have actually started writing something that is not this fic, but would be this fic if it could.)
4. Obadiah Stane continues to be fucking creepy and you really can't explore Tony's issues accurately without having a Theory of Obadiah.
5. Rhodey's character really, really got screwed up in the second Iron Man movie. On the other hand, Natasha is already calling him Rhodey in that film, even when she's in intense-mission-mode, which opens up worlds of possibility...
6. Dear people who write Tony as an out bisexual and Steve as an innocent who didn't know two men could *do* that: there is more canon evidence for Steve being bi than Tony being bi, okay?
7. On the other hand there's a pretty good argument for Steve being on the ace spectrum, which is also full of possibility. (That whole "never got around to it, other things seemed more important, I figured I'd just wait until I found somebody" speech? Very familiar.)
8. Don Blake was a medical doctor! Stop calling him a physicist. (also still needs more Don Blake. ...in retrospect my Bruce Banner feels were probably fairly predictable.)
9. It's kind of interesting how linked together, and seriously limited, all of the sf elements in these movies are: basically there are two origin points for all of them, the Super-Soldier project and the Tesseract. It's implied that Tony's arc technology and its derivatives came out of Howard's work with the Tesseract and the Hydra guns; Thor's and Loki's powers presumably came from the same source; Bruce and Steve are both a result of work on the original supersoldier project; and the gamma radiation Bruce works with is the same as the energy of the Tesseract (and presumably the Bifrost.) And all of the superpowered villains use things derived from the heroes'. If you assume that Erskine used some of Red Skull's research into the Tesseract and related artifacts as inspiration for his secret Vita-Rays, in fact, it's conceivable that *all* of the explicit SF elements in the canon derive from Tesseract energy and tech.
It'll be interesting to see if they keep to that in future movies, but as it currently stands, that's a great starting point for worldbuilding and really epic Plot in fic, and I think more important than it seems in making the movieverse work - not just in linking the films, but in creating them as one believable, workable world with rules instead of just Superheroes with powers!
...uh, there's more I could talk about but that's probably enough for one post, especially since I should be working on con-txt stuff.
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cap_chronism for historical stuff relevant to Steve Rogers, which you should join. Maybe I will even get around to posting the rest of my collection of risque artifacts from the '30s and '40s!
...um, I saw the Avengers movie a few weeks ago! As has probably become obvious already. But by the time I saw it the internet had pretty much said everything there was to say about it, so I don't really have much to add.
(Except Nick Fury you are my very favorite. But I didn't believe even for a second that Coulson was dead, Nick, you are fooling no-one.)
(Also the plot makes no sense once you think about it, and why didn't they just go hit Dr. Selvig over the head as soon as they found him, cut the fight scene by about fifteen minutes, and prevent the destruction of whole swathes of Manhattan? Bah.)
Anyway, I kind of wanted to finally watch the Hulk movie after that, because, well, BRUCE. And I wanted to re-watch Iron Man 2 which I hadn't seen since it came out. So what I did was I went and downloaded the nine-hour fan cut which chronologically meshes together both Iron Man movies, Thor, Captain America, Hulk, and the Coulson short into one long movie. Somebody on my reading list linked to a review of it awhile back, which recommended it as much preferable to trying to watch Hulk straight through. Thank you, whoever linked to that!
I was figuring I'd just skip to the Iron Man 2/Thor/Hulk section, but I kind of wanted to see the transition between the two Iron Man movies, and then I wanted to check some bits of Cap canon, and the next thing I knew it was nine hours later and I'd watched the whole thing (and finished a QUILTBAG for con.txt, so it wasn't a total loss.)
Watching them all put together like that was actually really cool, and it brought out all sorts of themes and recurring issues between the movies that weren't nearly as apparent otherwise.
Also I agree that it's probably the best way to watch the Hulk movie; I suspect I would have been alternately bored and frustrated if I'd watched it straight through, but in the 9-hour fancut, it worked pretty well - just when you were getting a little overwhelmed with the glitter and bombast of Asgard or the frenetic decadence of Stark Industries, it'll cut to a suburban park or a small marketplace or a quiet forest and give you a chance to breathe (and watch Bruce Banner yay.)
A lot of people have said that the problem with the Hulk movie was Norton's Banner, but -- while I do definitely prefer Ruffalo - Banner was basically the only good thing about that movie. The "plot" is formulaic, the action scenes are boring, and all the other characters are flat and cookie-cutter. (Well, I liked a lot of the cinematography too,) but Banner manages to give it at least a little dimensionality.
And poor Betty Ross. ): Betty should have been awesome! Genius scientist who made a terrible mistake! Long-term established relationship! Good taste in men! Defied the entire US Army on principle, outwits them and has more guts! (also her relationship with the guy she's with in the absence of Bruce? Totally justifies the cameo I gave her as someone who can explain the polyamory spectrum, it's pretty clear that they had already negotiated that he was going to be secondary to Bruce in her affections.)
Unfortunately, not only does the movie not pass Bechdel, but as far as I can tell, Betty never has a single thought in the entire film that isn't about Bruce's feelings. Not even about her feelings for Bruce, but about taking care of his. Which I guess if you're dating the Hulk putting his feelings first may be a survival trait, but it makes her incredibly boring and almost completely irrelevant to the movie.
Especially when she's put right next to Jane Foster. And Pepper. And Peggy.
So anyway, while I don't recommend it as a good movie or anything, it's very pretty and not too painful, and if you're thinking about writing anything very substantial about Bruce Banner, you should probably watch it; it didn't so much change my idea of his character as solidify some of the things that had already been bothering me about how people have been writing him lately.
And also write stuff that lets Betty live up to her potential, bah.
More things that I noticed watching the 9-hour cut that I wish fandom would do more with:
1. The Coulson and Tony bit from the end of Hulk. Anybody writing Coulson who hasn't seen this should look up the clip. (Especially the way that he refused to say Tony's name, referring to him only as "the consultant." I want Coulson/Tony hatesex now where Tony calls him 'Agent' and Phil calls him 'Consultant' and they annoy everyone around them incessantly.)
2. Why is Tony Stark so awesome? I mean Avengers was a pretty good movie, I really liked Thor, Captain America wasn't bad, Bruce Banner has all of my emotions, and yet whenever Tony Stark's face comes on screen I just start grinning. He's *fun*.
3. Bruce Banner has to trigger Tony's buried Yinsen issues like crazy. They don't look at all alike, but that whole mild-mannered, self-effacing, zen over a core of bottomless rage, suicidal survivor's guilt and an absolutely terrible sense of humor? Very familiar. Plus that whole world-travelling polyglot genius physicist who does major experimental biotech procedures in crappy conditions and is passionate about weapons proliferation and its effect on the little guy yet still has faith in Tony? And then there's the whole science-buddies-thrown-together-under-hothouse-conditions part.
Yeah. Tony has got to see Yinsen whenever he looks at Bruce. I did. Fandom, write me lots of fic exploring this! (I have actually started writing something that is not this fic, but would be this fic if it could.)
4. Obadiah Stane continues to be fucking creepy and you really can't explore Tony's issues accurately without having a Theory of Obadiah.
5. Rhodey's character really, really got screwed up in the second Iron Man movie. On the other hand, Natasha is already calling him Rhodey in that film, even when she's in intense-mission-mode, which opens up worlds of possibility...
6. Dear people who write Tony as an out bisexual and Steve as an innocent who didn't know two men could *do* that: there is more canon evidence for Steve being bi than Tony being bi, okay?
7. On the other hand there's a pretty good argument for Steve being on the ace spectrum, which is also full of possibility. (That whole "never got around to it, other things seemed more important, I figured I'd just wait until I found somebody" speech? Very familiar.)
8. Don Blake was a medical doctor! Stop calling him a physicist. (also still needs more Don Blake. ...in retrospect my Bruce Banner feels were probably fairly predictable.)
9. It's kind of interesting how linked together, and seriously limited, all of the sf elements in these movies are: basically there are two origin points for all of them, the Super-Soldier project and the Tesseract. It's implied that Tony's arc technology and its derivatives came out of Howard's work with the Tesseract and the Hydra guns; Thor's and Loki's powers presumably came from the same source; Bruce and Steve are both a result of work on the original supersoldier project; and the gamma radiation Bruce works with is the same as the energy of the Tesseract (and presumably the Bifrost.) And all of the superpowered villains use things derived from the heroes'. If you assume that Erskine used some of Red Skull's research into the Tesseract and related artifacts as inspiration for his secret Vita-Rays, in fact, it's conceivable that *all* of the explicit SF elements in the canon derive from Tesseract energy and tech.
It'll be interesting to see if they keep to that in future movies, but as it currently stands, that's a great starting point for worldbuilding and really epic Plot in fic, and I think more important than it seems in making the movieverse work - not just in linking the films, but in creating them as one believable, workable world with rules instead of just Superheroes with powers!
...uh, there's more I could talk about but that's probably enough for one post, especially since I should be working on con-txt stuff.
Also
brownbetty has made cap_chronism for historical stuff relevant to Steve Rogers, which you should join. Maybe I will even get around to posting the rest of my collection of risque artifacts from the '30s and '40s!
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If they're the sort of thing you might watch just because you like those kinds of movies, though, then you might want to watch them the way they were intended - Thor and Iron Man II especially get pretty chopped up - in, hmm, actually the order I'd go in is sort of in-between? Cap, then Iron Man I, then Iron Man II, then Thor, and Hulk whenever you feel like it. Possibly last, followed immediately by Avengers, which is muchly a Bruce Banner movie anyway. (I suspect it's really not worth watching as a movie-qua-movie to be honest.)
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I'm thinking I'll probably watch Cap, Iron Man I, and Thor on their own in some order, since those are the movies people have recommended to me for their own sake, then maybe watch the combined version for the rest of it, since it sounds like that improves Hulk and maybe also Iron Man II. Or just watch the entire combined version, too, as one does. (You know, in the fantasy universe where I have the time to do all that right now the way I want to.)
And thank you for the advice!
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...I bet if one put a request out at the Avengers panel Friday morning, someone else would have it with them, though.
Do you torrent? I could give you an invite to the private tracker I dl'd it from. (although I understand it's actually all over the internet if you know what corners to look in.)
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Besides, I'm ace and I'm pretty sure I'd make an exception for Monica Rambeau. I mean, well, who wouldn't.
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I don't suppose you might be able to point 3 fannish women in the direction of this cut?
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I'm willing to donate demonoid invites to fannish households, though, if you can't find it anywhere you already have access to.
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O__O pictures?? Please???
6. I liked that one fic I read where Tony was all, "FFfff, what are you doing, man, I am totally straight!" While I can totally accept a quick little fannish retcon to make Tony always-already bi, it would be interesting to read more of the other version. Also, would you elaborate on canon evidence for Steve being bi? *chinhands*
7. I sort of love that idea. I think the only reason I haven't been giving that idea more though up to this point, is that I've been pretty happily enjoying all the Steve first-time fic :D But you're right, that speech is very familiar!
You should definitely do that.
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(well, and that his reaction when people started catcalling him with "Tinkerbell" and "sweetheart"-with-a-lisp was less "I'm not gay!!!" and more "oh no, not again," although that's not really evidence of anything except that people had done similar to him before.)
Whereas for Tony there's no actual evidence - he has sexual chemistry with everything onscreen up to and including algae shakes, but the Iron Man movies point him up as pretty resolutely only into girls; the closest it even comes to a joking reference like Steve's fondue thing is his cringingly transphobic reference to Spring Break with Rhodey. Given the sexual chemistry thing I'll buy him as repressed or closeted-even-with-family bi (thank you Obie) in a heartbeat, and maybe having opened up some since he started dating Pepper, but if you're writing him as happily pansexual and shamelessly out since college, which admittedly I enjoy doing, you've got to admit you're going AU a little.
7. ETA: and given Peggy I suspect he's more what we'd call gray/demi than pure ace, so you can keep enjoying the first time fics *and* ponder this. :)
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I agree that there is no evidence Tony has ever really had those thoughts. His relationship with Rhodey, while I like to read it as primary or at least primary-in-the-past, doesn't have that vibe to me. Or, more likely it's actually Rhodey who mostly has that straight-man vibe. Oh Gosh, I think it is totally possible that Obie has more or less tacitly managed to convey that, "You may act out as you wish, Tony. Up to a certain point." Public image, blahblah.
Hmm, well, I'm not sure I have enough to go on to hazard a gray/demi reading, actually? But that doesn't mean I can't still enjoy all the fics :o) I can accept various interpretations as equally valid :o)
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There is something there with Rhodey, but it's complicated by the fact that Rhodey changes completely between the movies - there is way, way, way less chemistry (and friendship) between them in Iron Man II - more than can really be explained just by the course of time. Rhodey I/Tony I can totally buy just based on the way they are with each other, but Rhodey II, not so much.
And yeah I usually go with Obie doing something like that - maybe even Obie outright teaching Tony that anything you do with girls is just boyish hijinx, but doing things with men is weak/unmanly/shameful/unamerican/not to be mentioned in company, etc., and Tony internalized it enough that he never really examined that even after Obie. Not even for public image, Obie seems like the sort of person who might believe it himself.
Or he really is just heterosexual, I guess that's possible.
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You are right, totally different Rhodeys, but I think I was mostly thinking of Rhodey I, because there's where most of the interaction between them is anyway...
I am a pretty big fan of internalised homophobia as a fic trope and as a characterization point, because it makes for some interesting (and, I think, believable and complex) characters. So I like that version.
I love this sentence, and I hope I'm not too terrible a person for being first like, "Oh right. I guess that's an option?" and then, "But that would be so boring!" :D
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(and so many people here want a copy that I'm considering trying to put it on thevault or something, but I am an uploading n00b, and it's so big I'd probably have to do complicated stuff like splitting the file.)
Yes...
Re: Yes...
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3. OOH I WOULD READ THAT FIC TOOOOO
4. It has been too long since I've seen those movies to have a thorough Theory of Obadiah, but now I am curious -- what's yours?
7. alkhdflksdhflsdjflsdjfls HOW DID I NEVER THINK OF THAT/NOTICE THAT MYSELF. I would read a millionty fics about this!
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