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Moderately amusing, but sadly the funniest thing Smith has done in years. I wonder if Tara Reid's inclusion means she's in Mallrats 2 since everyone else is from that cast. Or they just needed another person and found her out standing on the street corner.
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Just cut them up like regular chickens

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Saw it, loved it, one hell of a juggling job but Whedon pretty much sticks the landing. It is a very solid sequel to The Avengers; calls back to the original in many ways, and works fine if you are the rare human who has seen the first film but not all the other Marvel stuff. Emphasis on the 'sequel' part though, there's a bit of a 'law of diminishing returns' going on. And a whole fuck of a lot of characters flying around, although they're all given their due. I know a lot of geeks (myself included) were sad to see Joss was moving on after this, but it really feels right, like he's told his stories with the original A-team and others can now take it in new, obviously broader and more cosmic, directions. Will discuss in more spoilery detail once y'all have seen it.
"I'm like a dog chasing cars, I wouldn't know what to do if I caught one. . . . I'm not a schemer. I just do things."

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The more and more I watch it the more I like it. It still needed some editing help with some pacing issues though. But it's growing on me more. My issues with things happening quickly without much reason that I mentioned earlier were these:
We don't really know what Scarlet Witch did to the Hulk to make him go on a rampage. Granted it doesn't take much, but still, we get insight to all the other avenger's past issues but not Banner's. It's a quick cut that feels like something got left out. Also, Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch change and become pals with the Avengers (and Avengers themselves) way too easily. Yes, Ultron wants to destroy the world and they're not down with that, so there's a mutual threat. But they seem to forget holding Tony responsible for what happened in the past way too easily. Hell, if anything, Scarlet Witch should be even more pissed now and blame the Avengers for her bother's death, since if they hadn't created Ultron (which wasn't just Stark but Stark and Banner) he'd still be alive. But instead she's joining up as one of the team. Her change of heart seems a bit to easy.
Just cut them up like regular chickens

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Agreed, and
while I'm OK with them merely suggesting what SW did to Hulk, the Hulkbuster fight just...ends. Without actually ending. They just cut to being back on the quinjet as if they'd let the fight go on too long and it was time to move on with the story. Broadly speaking, there's no way everyone doesn't want to kill Stark and Scarlett Witch, and that they pair doesn't end up in jail for creating Ultron. His nonchalantly walking off amidst a bunch of smiles at the end rings hollow--as does nobody being pissed at Scarlett Witch for essentially running the Hulk off. I guess they're saving the hostilities for Civil War or something, but that piece above all else felt wrong to me.
Still, very fun flick.
And I guess I heard right about Quicksilver.
"I'm like a dog chasing cars, I wouldn't know what to do if I caught one. . . . I'm not a schemer. I just do things."

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well, i saw this saturday. i still don't really know what to say. i mean, i liked it quite a bit, but feel like i need to see it a few times to understand some of the subtext as i was distracted by all the action. i do have some specific issues, same as you noted above, but i also just feel like there were probably 45-65 minutes cut, easy. there was just too much rush through a LOT of things, some of which you'd think were key plot points. in that sense, i feel like it's certainly more of a chaotic mess than the first one. it's also not as funny as the first one, but the parts that are funny are good. lots of the themes covered made me think of Ominus (ultron) and Erasmus (vision) from the dune prequels.
also, i really don't see why it was necessary to kill quicksilver (which whedon has said is "100% dead"). i kind of liked him.
. the third olsen sister is nice. the folks that haven't had a massive backstory through their own movies get a lot of blanks filled in here, but as you've pointed out, there are still quite a few gaps. we do discover that hawkeye is even more boring than previously imagined.
it was kind of amusing to see them not let cap completed the "avengers, assemble" call. oh, and so i guess the spear of destiny is destroyed to create vision? they really glazed right over that one, with thor completely forgetting about his initial mission in the film. also, his "side quest" to the pool of water was very rushed and not explained at all, unless i missed it.
i hated the opening scene, btw. i did not need this to start out with some "let's cram everyone into one scene (even one shot) with lots of action" trope.

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Heh, you sure you liked it? I saw it again yesterday and it worked quite a bit better for me, but the sad fact of the matter is it's just not as fun as the first one. It is, as I said before, a sequel.
I'm sure they killed off Quicksilver so they wouldn't have to worry about the whole Fox rights mess. And they had to kill someone. And I kind of liked the running jokes about Hawkeye, clearly being set up to be the minor teammate who dies, and also that his big secret was he was a total average everyman. FYI Joss has said Marvel forced him to do the whole Thor divining pool bit; he wanted the Hawkeye house stuff, they said he'd have to keep the Thor stuff in or that had to go. So he kept it in.
I think the movie very much feels like Marvel asking the film to be too many things. And whereas there was a certain grace to how all the characters get their due in the first one, this one isn't quite as graceful. I really can't imagine how they're going to pull off Civil War next year.
"I'm like a dog chasing cars, I wouldn't know what to do if I caught one. . . . I'm not a schemer. I just do things."

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Yeah, Quicksilver's death was a total FU to Fox. But I'm okay with him buying it as he was the most expendable to me. Though I am sad we'll now be denied the Quicksliver/Scarlet Witch incest plotline from the comics.
Getting the scepter back and out of dangerous hands was really the goal and mission at the start of the film. Once Thor had the vision of the Vision it became clear that's where the mind stone was supposed to be. It doesn't matter if it's in the scepter or in the Vision's head as long as its safe. Nor would you want it back on Asgard anyway since the tesseract is already there. Though I am curious as to if they'll have to kill off the Vision in Infinity War so Thanos can have it.
There's actually a lot of stuff snuck into the cave dream in quick cuts if you pause it, but the main point of it is to tell Thor that shit is about to go down with the Infinity Stones and he needs to look into it. From a narrative standpoint I would have had that be a part of his vision the first time around and then he wouldn't have to run off to the cave later. Though it does provide an excuse to get Thor out of the picture for a while so Stark and Rogers can have their philosophical debate.
Just cut them up like regular chickens

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Alexhead wrote:I think the movie very much feels like Marvel asking the film to be too many things.
yes. like they weren't sure the first one would work so they let him do whatever he wanted. now that it has, they need him to do x, y, and z, regardless of where he wanted to take it. too bad, but it is a business i guess. and i guess this is why he wants out - too much BS.
darkness wrote:though it did provide an excuse...
yes, an excuse. and it felt like it to me.

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Oh, he had specific instructions on the first one--Loki had to be the villain, Iron man had to fight Thor, Thor had to fight the Hulk, oh and here's the shitty screenplay Zak Penn wrote, you have to follow those beats. In some respects I think this movie is much more Joss Whedon than that one, but it's still pretty overstuffed.
"I'm like a dog chasing cars, I wouldn't know what to do if I caught one. . . . I'm not a schemer. I just do things."

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joss is the anti-lucas:
DH wrote:No "Ultron" Director's Cut Planned By Whedon

We know that Joss Whedon had to cut out a large chunk of Marvel's "Avengers: Age Of Ultron," almost three-quarters of an hour in fact. It's a move that may have led to the film scoring weaker reviews than first one, but without seeing what was left on the cutting room floor we'll never know.

Now, in a new interview at the Nerd HQ panel at Comic-Con this weekend, Whedon was asked about the possibility of a "Director's Cut" version of the film - one that wouldn't feel as rushed as the final product did. His response was captured by Collider and can be seen below:
"It has always been my ambition never to do a director's cut of anything, and always to make the movie with the studio that we both want to make. Ultron was very complex. There was a lot of back-and-forth. My instinct is no. Just as an artist, I'm super f--king lazy and that sounds like it would be hard.

I don't think there's interest in it, right now. You'll see a bunch of stuff on the DVD in extras that were meant to be there. But the narrative came together very close to the way that I hoped it would, and I don't think it needs me to constantly tweak it. I feel you put something out, and there it is.

The first time I ever heard a re-mix, I was 13 and I was listening to the radio. I heard a song that had been re-mixed and it freaked me out so much that I turned off the radio and never listened to it since, literally. That is an actual truth. I felt like, 'Wait, that was the song. You can't do that.' Our entire culture consists of doing exactly that, but I'm not for it.

If I tell a story, I want that to be the story I told. Ultron may have some transitions that I'm not 100% on board with. It's also one of the most ridiculously personal things I've ever put on screen. The fact that Marvel gave me that opportunity and supported it, I'm very happy and very proud of everybody that worked on it. I don't feel the need to go in and fix. I feel like, there she is."
The Blu-ray release of the film has yet to set a date.
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i get what he's saying, but it's a disservice to fans.

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TC wrote:joss is the anti-lucas:]i get what he's saying, but it's a disservice to fans.
That doesn't mean we won't see the scenes as extras on the discs. I'm with him really. If he made the film he set out to and is happy with what's out there, he's the filmmaker and I respect that. No need to cash in with the Ultron Rogue Cut.
Just cut them up like regular chickens

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darkness wrote:
TC wrote:joss is the anti-lucas:]i get what he's saying, but it's a disservice to fans.
That doesn't mean we won't see the scenes as extras on the discs. I'm with him really. If he made the film he set out to and is happy with what's out there, he's the filmmaker and I respect that. No need to cash in with the Ultron Rogue Cut.
also why there is a huge fan edit community. someone will do the work for him.

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TC wrote:also why there is a huge fan edit community. someone will do the work for him.
Very true. Don't get me wrong, it's interesting to see the scenes put back into a film just as a curiosity. I watched the fan edit of FWWM with the deleted scenes back in - once. You can see, yeah, this was cut for pacing, and this scene maybe doesn't really contribute to the whole story, and such. Like I said, a curiosity. But then back to the regular cut of the film. Mind you that's different than a true Director's cut, where the filmmaker had the film taken away from them and someone else butchered it. That I will go with the Director's Cut on. Brazil and Blade Runner for instance.
Just cut them up like regular chickens

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Yeah I thought it was funny that everyone was sure he'd do a director's cut. He has always, always said the same thing about director's cuts, when asked about this on Serenity and The Avengers.

I'll tell you what, I have really grown to love this movie as a great sequel to the first one. Saw it again at the buck theater last week with some friends and our kids, it improves on each viewing. It is not perfect, but there's a ton of things to love about it, a new delight around every corner.
"I'm like a dog chasing cars, I wouldn't know what to do if I caught one. . . . I'm not a schemer. I just do things."