Look, I don't have any grand thesis on this. It's just an opinion. The machine was hokey. You turn it on and it blankets the area with a magnetic field. It's cheap.
Avengers movie discussion (news/etc.)
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Look, I don't have any grand thesis on this. It's just an opinion. The machine was hokey. You turn it on and it blankets the area with a magnetic field. It's cheap.
ProjectX2
Don't expect me to take you with me when I go to s
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I think whether something is "comic booky" or not depends more on the execution rather than the idea. I agree with E that the first X-Men is hokey and comic booky, but not as a result of Magneto's machine: the dialogue and acting are pretty bad and the whole thing feels very simplistic. But look at X-Men 2: it is a vast improvement over the first, especially in these two areas, and it feels like the source material has been treated more seriously (even though the same people are involved) and has resulted in a much better film.
A lot of ideas can be hokey (Zombipanda has pointed out how silly most of Batman Begins is) but it's how they're executed that really matters.
A lot of ideas can be hokey (Zombipanda has pointed out how silly most of Batman Begins is) but it's how they're executed that really matters.
Zombipanda
My Boom-Boom's mostly gay
I think by and large the second movie in a superhero franchise is generally better than the first. I'd attribute it to the feeling (be it among the writers or the producers or the director) that the character and universe really needs to be "explained" and it ends up coming across as belabored.
ProjectX2 said:
Have I?
ProjectX2
Don't expect me to take you with me when I go to s
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Didn't you? Someone was rambling about the vaporising machine.
Friday
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I don't know if i've done it here but i've let off a couple of rants about how each of nolans Batman movies have an incedibly stupid machine at the end of them that, at least in my eyes, weaken the movie by hurting the ... not the realism but the reality of the film. They don't fit to me.
Captain Canuck
The poster formerly known as captaincanuck65
yeah, this. It's all about making a fun/serious movie that we can get into and care about so we can suspend our disbelief.
Well keep in mind that, with the exception of Blade, X-Men was the very first of the new super hero movies. When it came out it was awesome (at least I thought so), but the genre has matured a lot since then. But yeah, I agree the magneto machine was silly.
what machine in Dark Knight? The boat bombs?
DARKKNIGHT
Well-Known Member
huh?
I've never had a problem with any of the machines at the end of the Nolan Batman films, but I can understand why some people might. I think it has less to do with them being dumb ideas as it is that they are movies very much based in the real world. The machines (water vaporizer, cell phone sonar thing) are a half-step removed from reality, so they feel a bit out of place and jarring. Even though they haven't bothered me before, the earthquake machine in TDKR has me a bit worried...mainly because the CGI looks off.
You said "dumb science". By this I assumed you meant unrealistic science.
Zombipanda
My Boom-Boom's mostly gay
Oh yeah. I probably was. I know I've criticized the subtext of The Dark Knight. The attempts at philosophy and ethics at the heart of it are asinine, but damned if it isn't just a greatly paced succession of brilliant action sequences.
Captain Canuck
The poster formerly known as captaincanuck65
Captain Canuck said:
DARKKNIGHT said:
Oh right, the cell phone sonar. I forgot about that.
By the way, a mod should probably merge the recent posts from this thread with the other avengers thread and close this thread.
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Zombipanda
My Boom-Boom's mostly gay
More precisely, they undermine any attempts at embedding serious themes in the film by turning the conflict into ham-fisted threats.
In Begins, it's ostensibly a question of whether vigilante justice can be justified and where the ethical line stands. It's hard to take that argument seriously when the moral event horizon is a vaporizer that makes everyone trip on bad acid.
In TDK, it's an extension of the same thing: where the balance lies between public security and personal freedoms. And the echo-surveillance device suggests a conclusion of "It's okay to violate personal rights just as long as the situation is totes srs."
Honestly, I didn't find the tech all that implausible. It was more that the technology was used as heavy handed devices to turn the intrinsic arguments into pulp-fisted, black and white conflicts. It's the same problem I have with the X-Men, to be honest. The whole civil rights comparison really doesn't stand up to any serious scrutiny, so the solution is to make anyone who thinks the presence of walking, talking WMD's might require some form of oversight into a murderous, straw man bigot.
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Bass
Nexus of the World
I think you're over-politicizing the films. BATMAN BEGINS is clearly about having the courage to stand up to evil. It's not really about the ethics; you could drop that from the film and it would still work. At it's core, it's all about Batman (and by extension, Gordon, Dawes, and the rest of Gotham) finding the courage to fight.
THE DARK KNIGHT isn't about freedom and oppression, it is about enduring the fight against evil. You can remove the whole sonar thing and it doesn't touch the core of the story; Batman being continually tempted to give up his fight and principles.
The nature of the stories make it a clear progression; he stands up to fight, then he has to endure the fight. The points you mention take one or two relevant and key set pieces from the movie and draw it from there, rather than the driving momentum of each film.
As for THE DARK KNIGHT RISES, I'd guess from the trailers it's about the sacrifice required for the crusade to do good. Which is similar to enduring but kinda the reverse; rather than showing how much he can take, it's how much he can give. Just a guess based on how the trailers imply that he's given Gotham everything, but still has to give more.
That's not to say what you said isn't in the film, rather it's simply not the core meaning of it, much like how Han Solo's redemption in STAR WARS isn't the core meaning of that film.
THE DARK KNIGHT isn't about freedom and oppression, it is about enduring the fight against evil. You can remove the whole sonar thing and it doesn't touch the core of the story; Batman being continually tempted to give up his fight and principles.
The nature of the stories make it a clear progression; he stands up to fight, then he has to endure the fight. The points you mention take one or two relevant and key set pieces from the movie and draw it from there, rather than the driving momentum of each film.
As for THE DARK KNIGHT RISES, I'd guess from the trailers it's about the sacrifice required for the crusade to do good. Which is similar to enduring but kinda the reverse; rather than showing how much he can take, it's how much he can give. Just a guess based on how the trailers imply that he's given Gotham everything, but still has to give more.
That's not to say what you said isn't in the film, rather it's simply not the core meaning of it, much like how Han Solo's redemption in STAR WARS isn't the core meaning of that film.
I think the "comic-bookiness" argument can best be compared between the motivations of Magneto in X-Men, X2, the Last Stand and First Class.
In X-Men, Magneto has the asinine belief that if he turns the world's leaders into mutants then humanity would accept them. Sure the "Mutator Ray" is pretty hokey it's not the device that makes his actions moronic but the belief that people would automatically accept mutants when all they would see is a radical group of mutant terrorists launching a biological attack against all nations (and would therefore gain automatic emnity from every country on the planet). Magneto's running on a stupid assumption of people (which is especially egregious when you consider he's seen first-hand that humans are going to be fearful no matter what).
In X2 Magneto's plan comes entirely in the spur of the moment to have Charles kill every human on the planet opposed to the mutants. Now obviously Magneto is working on a more rational idea that whiping out "the enemy" will give his mutants a chance to rise from the ashes and create a new society. If he had succeeded mutants wouldn't come under scrutinty and the only people that could redirect their anger at Magneto personally would be the X-Men. The X-Men themselves would likely be ineffective because Magneto would obviously set himself up as a mutant leader and have an army against the only dissenters to his mutant society. This is the one Magneto plan that would actually place mutants on top of the world while giving him his own selfish desire to be supreme mutant leader.
The Last Stand reverts back to Magneto's unrealistic belief that an army of mutants could really take on every human army in the world. The fact that he willingly wastes about half his forces taking down the cure, loses an assest in Multiple Man to make an awkward escape and abandons his right-hand Mystique off of a ridiculous prejudice shows that he hadn't planned ahead for an actual war on the "comic booky" belief that a small army of mutants (even with ones as powerful as himself, Phoenix and Juggernaut in tow) could topple the world.
At least in First Class Magneto shows that he's a man willing to fight a mutant war both in the open and in the shadows. Since it's so early in the character's history as a terrorist in the Brotherhood all we see is Magneto causing the outing of mutants to the world's two greatest super powers and his break-out of Emma Frost as he builds a mutant army from the Hellfire Club and X-Men. This Magneto's a guerilla and more likely to strike from the shadows a la X2 while causing fear and paranoia to turn regular humans against each other. It's also obvious that he takes his motives from Shaw that lead him to act in X2 in a much more beneficial way for the mutants.
This is a bit of a ramble but what I'm saying is that the two X-Men films that were well received had a villain with motives and actions that made sense in the context of a good narrative while the other two seemed like hack Magneto plots from the comics. Like Zombi said the narratives of X2 and First Class fit in with established genres (A Secret Race War and Arms Race/Sixties Soviet Spy Thriller respectively with Race relations central to each) without being standard comic-booky flicks like X-Men and Last Stand.
Sorry Mods....Go Avengers! Hulk Rules!
In X-Men, Magneto has the asinine belief that if he turns the world's leaders into mutants then humanity would accept them. Sure the "Mutator Ray" is pretty hokey it's not the device that makes his actions moronic but the belief that people would automatically accept mutants when all they would see is a radical group of mutant terrorists launching a biological attack against all nations (and would therefore gain automatic emnity from every country on the planet). Magneto's running on a stupid assumption of people (which is especially egregious when you consider he's seen first-hand that humans are going to be fearful no matter what).
In X2 Magneto's plan comes entirely in the spur of the moment to have Charles kill every human on the planet opposed to the mutants. Now obviously Magneto is working on a more rational idea that whiping out "the enemy" will give his mutants a chance to rise from the ashes and create a new society. If he had succeeded mutants wouldn't come under scrutinty and the only people that could redirect their anger at Magneto personally would be the X-Men. The X-Men themselves would likely be ineffective because Magneto would obviously set himself up as a mutant leader and have an army against the only dissenters to his mutant society. This is the one Magneto plan that would actually place mutants on top of the world while giving him his own selfish desire to be supreme mutant leader.
The Last Stand reverts back to Magneto's unrealistic belief that an army of mutants could really take on every human army in the world. The fact that he willingly wastes about half his forces taking down the cure, loses an assest in Multiple Man to make an awkward escape and abandons his right-hand Mystique off of a ridiculous prejudice shows that he hadn't planned ahead for an actual war on the "comic booky" belief that a small army of mutants (even with ones as powerful as himself, Phoenix and Juggernaut in tow) could topple the world.
At least in First Class Magneto shows that he's a man willing to fight a mutant war both in the open and in the shadows. Since it's so early in the character's history as a terrorist in the Brotherhood all we see is Magneto causing the outing of mutants to the world's two greatest super powers and his break-out of Emma Frost as he builds a mutant army from the Hellfire Club and X-Men. This Magneto's a guerilla and more likely to strike from the shadows a la X2 while causing fear and paranoia to turn regular humans against each other. It's also obvious that he takes his motives from Shaw that lead him to act in X2 in a much more beneficial way for the mutants.
This is a bit of a ramble but what I'm saying is that the two X-Men films that were well received had a villain with motives and actions that made sense in the context of a good narrative while the other two seemed like hack Magneto plots from the comics. Like Zombi said the narratives of X2 and First Class fit in with established genres (A Secret Race War and Arms Race/Sixties Soviet Spy Thriller respectively with Race relations central to each) without being standard comic-booky flicks like X-Men and Last Stand.
Sorry Mods....Go Avengers! Hulk Rules!
the watcher
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check out these bloopers from the Avengers. (Sorry you have use the link to see this on youtube. )
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8quTzQscVmU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8quTzQscVmU
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Ultimate Houde
UC's Resident Genetic Recombinator
I assumed they were.
Captain Canuck
The poster formerly known as captaincanuck65
Did you guys see the alternate opening yet?
It changes the tone for the movie a lot, but Maria Hill seems a whole lot more Maria Hilly
It changes the tone for the movie a lot, but Maria Hill seems a whole lot more Maria Hilly
the watcher
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yeah, I saw it.
Also going to see it again tonight. My nephew and my brother haven't seen it yet. Plus their supposed to be some new footage since they brought it back for this weekend.
Not really. It's not "unrealistic" - a gut getting spider abilities by being bitten by a radioactive spider is unrealistic. I mean dumb as in stupid or poorly done.
Article today from Bleeding Cool that I thought was kind of interesting: Have Marvel Retconned The Avengers On DVD Or Just Censored It?
Summary: in some markets, the scene showing Agent Coulson with Loki's blade sticking out of his chest has been edited to remove the blad tip sticking out.
One of the comments suggests that this is a censorship effort in order to save money by releasing the same version all across Europe (and, I assume, satisfy censorship requirements in countries that wouldn't allow this for whatever reason).
Summary: in some markets, the scene showing Agent Coulson with Loki's blade sticking out of his chest has been edited to remove the blad tip sticking out.
One of the comments suggests that this is a censorship effort in order to save money by releasing the same version all across Europe (and, I assume, satisfy censorship requirements in countries that wouldn't allow this for whatever reason).
the watcher
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It could just be for the commercials for the DVD sales. You know Kids and stuff. There's been a crack down on those type of scenes. After someone accidentally showed a horror trailer during a screening of a kids movie last year.
JanetVanDyne98
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The opening scene does seem more Maria hilly. I have never liked her and this only gives me more reason to dislike her. I hope Sam l Jackson keeps playing fury so they don't make Maria hill the director and just go over the whole switch in director thing. The longer she stays out the happier ill be
