Avengers 2 -- My Thoughts

So a little while ago as I'm sure you already know, it was announced that Avengers 2 will be called Age of Ultron, the same name as a comicbook series happening right now. However, that doesn't mean it will follow that story, and I seriously doubt it will for two reasons. Number one is that movies never follow just one comicbook story arc. They usually combine a couple like how Iron Man 2 combined Iron Man: Demon in a Bottle with War Machine's origin story, then added some original story. The other reason is that in the Age of Ultron comicbooks, Ultron basically wins and kills a ton of people, including some superheroes. Marvel wouldn't introduce a new hero into their cinematic universe just to kill off since that would just be a waste. Even more importantly is that the second movie is too soon to do the story where the hero gets broken and has to rise back up. Look at the Iron Man and Dark Knight trilogies. Both of them waited until the third movie. So based on that, I'd say the Avengers will follow the same formula of origin story, hero(es) kicking some butt, then hero(es) almost losing but then making a comeback. We were all expecting Thanos because of his after credits scene, but Ultron is a great villain and I was expecting him to be in some Avengers movie or another. I'm down with Ultron, even though he was created by Ant-Man, and Ant-Man doesn't come out until after Avengers 2, which means they either introduce him early or change Ultron's origin, possibly to being created by Tony Stark, which I would not be down with. Something else I'm not down with is the fact that Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch will be in it. I appreciate that they're trying to incorporate some of the less known characters, but I've never liked Quicksilver or Scarlet Witch. There. I said it. I assume you'll want to know what I have against them, so I'll tell you. And if you don't want to know, then I'd appreciate it if you take your negativity elsewhere. This is a positive environment... except for Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver. Scarlet Witch seems to have mental breakdowns on a weekly basis, plus she eliminated most of the mutants in the world, betrayed the Avengers on several occasions, and also created an alternate universe where the world is ruled by the House of Magnus (aka her family). On top of that, no one really knows what she does. It seems like her power is essentially a deus ex machina that does whatever's convenient at the time. And Quicksilver. Oh, Quicksilver. He was tolerable as a villain, but once he turned good, he just became a less cool version of the Flash and with old guy hair. I know it's supposed to be silver since his name's Quicksilver, but it just looks like white old guy hair. Besides being a watered down Flash with old person hair, he's also extremely overprotective of his sister. Normally, I can understand a guy wanting to protect his sister, but when the sister is the Scarlet Witch, who I just said is a deus ex machina character, it's unnecessary and just gets annoying. The one thing I do like about these two is that they're the son and daughter of Magneto, but oh what's that? Oh, that's right. Since there are two separate studios making Marvel movies, they can't use Magneto! And isn't that just fantastic. Something I can speak positively about without being highly sarcastic is the fact that the Vision will be in it. I like the Vision, and since Ultron is in it, I'm basically sure they'll follow the original story of scientist creates robot, robot evolves and turns evil, robot creates android, android evolves and turns good. It gives the story a nice sense of family, since Ultron is like a son to Dr. Pym, and a father to the Vision, therefore the Vision is Pym's grandson. Kinda. By the way, I know Hank Pym had a pretty bad mental breakdown, but that was only once, and it was because he created a genocidal robot using his own brain patterns, and thus feels responsible for thousands of deaths. What's Scarlet Witch's excuse?

A Justice League Movie

Considering how successful the Avengers movie was, it's perfectly understandable that DC wants to make a Justice League movie. However, I don't think that's a good idea. The reason Avengers worked was all because of the way they set it up with the other movies. Marvel chose Iron Man to be the movie when the Avengers Initiative was announced, and then some characters like Nick Fury or Agent Coulson were in most of the other movies to tie them all together. So far, all of DC's movies seem to take place in separate universes, so to suddenly say that they don't would just be weird, not to mention raising all kinds of questions like why Superman or Green Lantern didn't help save Gotham from Bane when Batman was gone. Also, the Dark Knight movies are over, and Batman basically retired. You can't have a Justice League without Batman, so they would have to get a new Batman, which would diminish the goodness of the Dark Knight trilogy. If they want to make a Justice League movie, they made their other movies in the wrong order. They should've started with the Flash, since he's probably the most relatable member of the team. Superman is an alien, Wonder Woman is the queen of the Amazons, Green Lantern was recruited by aliens to patrol space, and Batman's dark and brooding nature makes him hard to relate to. That leaves the Flash. He should've been like Iron Man where his story is pretty easy to understand and just serves to begin the process of superhero movies coming out. Maybe at some point it could briefly show someone visiting Metropolis. From that you can probably tell that I think after Flash should've been Superman. That's based mostly on Earth, but it has aliens in it, so they could use it to introduce the planet Oa and/or the Guardians of the Universe. That way you already know a little bit before the Green Lantern movie comes out and they don't have to throw it at you all at once. For people who don't read comicbooks, that was probably a lot of information to digest. The Superman should also just casually mention the fact that Bruce Wayne owns the Daily Planet, thus establishing that Superman and Batman both exist in this universe, but maybe Bruce doesn't don the costume until after the events of Man of Steel. So so far, we start with the Flash, which leads into Superman, which introduces Batman and Green Lantern, but Wonder Woman is still missing. I'm not really sure how to bring her in if I'm going to be honest, which apparently I am since I just said that, but hey, do I have to do everything around here? I suppose DC could have some characters that do what SHIELD does to tie characters together, but that's risky business since the last thing they want to do is look like they're copying Marvel. I've been doing my best to plan it out so they don't need to lean on that crutch, and if someone figures out how to insert Wonder Woman into this mixture, I think it could work, and I'm not just saying that because I wrote it. I am partially saying that because I wrote it, but not completely. But whatever, it's too late for that now unless they want to reboot their whole universe. They could probably keep Man of Steel in the new continuity, but Green Lantern and the Dark Knight movies? Forget about it. Many of you would probably be glad to forget about the Green Lantern movie, but I think it's too soon for a reboot. I can see them getting some negative press if they did that. I really liked the Dark Knight trilogy though, and those only work if they're in their own universe, and it's definitely too soon to reboot Batman. So really, what I'm saying, if I'm saying anything at all, is that I want a Flash movie. That and that DC should really talk to me before making their movie decisions.

A Hawkeye FPS

There have been some good Marvel games, and also a fair amount of bad ones. There are a few though that will probably never be made, but I feel like they would be cool. Like a first person shooter staring Hawkeye. It could benefit from the popularity of the Avengers movie, and be the only fps to my knowledge where your only weapon is a bow, which would make it new and interesting instead of a generic COD clone with a new label on it. I haven't played the newest Crysis yet, but from what I've seen and heard, the bow mechanic works pretty well in that, so a Hawkeye game could have similar bow gameplay. It would have to be a little less overpowered, but I think Clint's different arrow types could fit well into an upgrade system, along with perk trees involving accuracy, attack damage, and things like that. There should be a lot of arrow types, but not too many ammo pickups besides basic broadhead or maybe blunt tip arrows. I don't know about you, but I would totally play this game if it was made (unless it was made by EA, since I can easily see them charging money for additional arrow types... Ok that was a joke, but I still don't feel like EA would be a good fit). As far as traversal goes, one f Barton's most common arrows is the grappling hook arrow, so that could become an important gameplay element. Maybe the player could start the game with unlimited grapple and nonlethal blunt tip arrows and acquire more as the story progresses. I feel like grappling around the map just wouldn't be that fun if you always had to worry about running out of grapples. Rocksteady did a fantastic job with Batman's grappling hook, so something like that would be cool where there are grappleable points marked on the HUD and firing the grapple has its own button so you never have to equip it. Also the camera should move to third person while zipping up to a grapple point. Maybe a little bit of stealth gameplay could be thrown into the action, but definitely not too much. Maybe sneaking to get in position to attack or something like that, but when it comes to taking enemies out, I think this game should be an action packed shooter more than anything else. And that's all I have to say about this genius idea for something I want.

Coulson Lives

In The Avengers, everyone was sad when Agent Coulson died, and with good reason. He was a great character. But some people say that things aren't as they seem. I don't know about you, but I've been keeping up with Stan Lee on Facebook and Youtube, and there's something I've noticed in some of his videos. On his Youtube channel, there are many different types of videos, including a series of cartoons titled Bad Days, which is about comicbook characters having bad days (I probably didn't need to explain that). But anyway, in a fair amount of these little cartoons, the words "Coulson Lives" appear in the background for maybe one or two seconds. It might be in graffiti, on a passing vehicle, or anything like that. If it was just once, I'd say maybe Marvel is just trolling us (and doing a good job of it). But it's been in way more than one video, so I was thinking something might be up. If I remember correctly, Coulson was wounded from a fight with Loki, then pronounced dead by another character. He looked pretty dead to me, but it wasn't one of those deaths that can't be faked or secretly survived, like falling into lava or something like that. So I suppose he could have survived and they faked his death to motivate the Avengers. To be honest though, that would surprise me. I think it would be more reasonable if they found another explanation (NOT time travel!). However, I did hear that not only is Joss Whedon working with Marvel on a TV show about SHIELD, which is already awesome, but that Phil Coulson is going to be in it! And apparently it will take place after the events of Avengers. If that's true, I feel like the Coulson Lives messages were a subtle way of telling just the fans that we haven't seen the last of him.

Marvel Movie News

Ok, so after a few minutes of research and thinking, I have a lot of news and speculations on upcoming Marvel movies. First of all, Thor 2 will be subtitled The Dark World and Captain America 2 will be subtitled Winter Soldier (which I totally called the first time I saw it). Also, it was rumored that Thor 2 may feature Dr. Stephen Strange, and considering the title, the villain may be Dormammu, which I'm pretty sure I spelled right. But I also heard that Hopkins won't return as Odin, and while it seems a little early to me, Odin might die, and the subtitle might refer to a death related realm. Personally though, I would much rather prefer to see Dormammu, the Lord of the Dark Dimension, on the screen. The same goes for the Radioactive Man, who is rumored to appear in Iron Man 3, along with Mandarin as the confirmed villain. It was also said that they will use elements from the Extremis storyline, such as Tony being able to armor up at will, thanks to microtechnology. But now, Mandarin apparently has an army of enhanced soldiers. At comic con this year, they showed an Iron Man suit that looked a little like the Iron Patriot armor, but the biggest surprise is that it was called the Mark 47. That's right. 47. They also said that to counter Mandarin's Extremis army, Iron Man commands an army of remote controlled armors. If you're as big of an Iron Man fan as I am, and you just heard all of this for the first time, you should be freaking out right now. I'll give you a moment to take in all that awesome. ..............(continue reading when ready) ........... Ok, ready? They apparently plan on bringing in some new Avengers in either Avengers 2, or maybe sometime sooner. On their list are Black Panther, possibly Falcon, and also the Vision, who I was surprised to hear may be played by Vin Diesel, if his posting of a picture of the Vision on Facebook, with some caption that I can't remember wasn't misinterpreted, or just a lie. As for the other two, I'm not sure who's playing them, but hopefully someone cool, since more than one awesome black Avenger would be pretty cool. That actually might be why they chose those two characters, in order to make the superhuman population a little less white. Some people think that neither of those two aren't the best choices, but I think they're both pretty cool, since if they bring Falcon in, he'll probably also be in Captain America 2. Moving on, the Guardians of the Galaxy lineup was confirmed to be the newer version, consisting of Starlord, Drax the Destroyer, Rocket Raccoon, Groot, and Gamora, if my memory is right, which is most of the time. I don't know about you, but besides Gamora, who I'm neutral on, these are some of my favorite Marvel characters. Especially the newer versions of them like smart, knife-wielding Drax, and Starlord-with-cool-helmet-and-many-guns. I've talked in other posts about how much I like his helmet. Someone else with a cool helmet is Ant-Man, whose movie I heard is confirmed to have Wasp in it. In my opinion, the Wasp has always been kind of a fail character, but she needs to be in Ant-Man, and at least one Avengers movie. That's all for now.

Guardians of the Galaxy Movie

In my last post, I said that an Ant-Man movie isn't a total shock to me. Guardians of the Galaxy is. I would never have expected them to get a movie. I didn't think the original Guardians of the Galaxy were that cool, but I did like the newer incarnation that they'll be making a movie of. I'm pretty shocked that they want to expand their movies into the cosmic side of Marvel, but even more surprised that to do it, they're using a title that wasn't very popular and was cancelled relatively soon after it began. I would've expected them to start with a movie introducing one or two cosmic heroes and work their way up to a whole team. It would be hard to do Nova or Quasar without looking like a Green Lantern knockoff, so I'm not sure who they could start with. Not that I'm complaining. I liked Annihilation Conquest and thought the Guardians were a cool team for the most part. I just never would've expected to see Groot or Rocket Raccoon in a movie, so if they're in it, that'll be pretty cool. The only problem I can see is that Marvel has been trying to do the whole "fun for the whole family" thing (it's all Disney's fault; they must be stopped, no matter the cost. Assemble at their headquarters next Guy Fawkes Day), which I'm worried might force them to diminish the quality of some characters like the talking raccoon. They might modify him to appeal more to younger audiences, which I think is a bad idea. He's always been kind of a comic relief character, but I think they should modify him the other way and make him a little more mature. The biggest surprise of all though is that I heard they're making Guardians to set up a Thanos Imperative to introduce Thanos, so when he comes on the screen in Avengers 2, even the non comic book readers will all say "Oh ****! It's Thanos!". That makes sense to me, but as much as I liked it, the Thanos Imperative just seems waaaaay too out there to make into a movie. It has the Shi'ar, the Inhumans, Adam Magus, Nova, a whole new universe that requires extensive knowledge of the mainstream universe to understand, and a whole bunch of other stuff that makes it seem to me like one of those titles that will never be a movie, but apparently, I was wrong. The only thing about that that bothers me is that they'll have to kill off Starlord in only the second movie he's been in, just like how in the comic books they killed him off just a short time after he started being cool. And Nova a slightly longer but still short time after his coolness got a major boost. Right now, it's too early to tell what my feelings on Marvel movies going cosmic are. I've never thought any interstellar story arcs could translate well to the big screen, but I could be wrong. If they do this right, it'll be pure awesomeness.

Ant-Man Movie

Apparently, Marvel plans on giving Ant-Man a movie. That's not a total shock to me since I think it would've been nice if his movie had come before the  Avengers so then he could be a founding member like he should be. But I also thought they might not introduce him into the Marvel movie universe since some people might not think he's very cool. They would be wrong of course, but some people would think that. I actually thought they would skip Ant-Man, Giant-Man, etc. and go right to Yellowjacket. But that's assuming they use Hank Pym, who, from what I hear won't be the main character. He'll be in it, but mostly for the purpose of passing down the mantle to Scott Lang. Personally, I have nothing against Scott Lang; he can be pretty cool. But for me, the real Ant-Man will always be Hank Pym. From what I've heard, they've decided against Hank being the protagonist because of a couple chapters in his history that would prevent it from being as family friendly as they want. I guess beating the Wasp and being indirectly responsible for the deaths of hundreds of people because of the robot he created is a little dark. Plus, they probably thought it would be harder to support a man who once beat his wife. Understandable, but they didn't have to put that in the movie. And I don't think that makes him a bad person. He was insane at the time, and should be considered a good person who, while insane, did one really bad thing. Moving on, I think Ultron would've be a great villain for the movie if they were willing to make it a little darker and  about the original Ant-Man. But they're not. Mind you, I like Scott Lang, but I just think Pym could use a movie. At least if they put Lang in Avengers 2, which they'd better do, he's not a founding Avenger, so Lang joining later stays consistent with the comic books. And who knows, maybe they'll put Ultron in there too. Even if the Ant-Man movie won't be the way I would make it, I'm still excited since I think both Ant-Men are underrated and awesome.