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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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brownbetty has made ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
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!