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?

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.