The Avengers or What This Whole Thing Was Building To

I’ve been thinking it over. More and more, I think I should abandon this project. Now this isn’t a “I’m not getting enough comments” whine. I don’t deny that it was an influence on my decision, though. It only further serves to confirm what I suspect that this project isn’t really contributing anything. As such, I’ve decided to walk away from the project, at least for now. But I thought I’d finish off Phase One, just as a courtesy.

Well, the Snyder Cut came out. If you’re expecting me to do a frothing Snyder hate rant, hate to break it to you, but it’s not going to happen. I just found the movie to be okay. It is better than the original in that it doesn’t seem like two very different movies Frankensteined together in a desperate effort to make them work, and I like some of the creative choices. Snyder gave Cyborg an actual character arc and gave Steppenwolf a motivation beyond, “Grrr…I am a villain doing villainous things.” This is very basic storytelling work that goes a long towards improving the story. 

On the whole, though, I just kind of found the movie to be okay. There’s definitely no reason for this movie to be four hours long. Much of the first two hours could be easily excised from the movie without too much trouble, making me wonder if anyone has made a cut of the Snyder cut. 

I just find Snyder’s aesthetic/storytelling to be punishingly dull. Everything is washed in gray and again, he stubbornly refuses to allow any levity. There’s no sense of wonder. All of Snyder’s characterization can be summed up as, “I smolder with generic rage!” Snyder’s heroes save the day not so much because they are driven by a deep compassion/drive to help people, but out of obligation, a begrudging “Well the character is supposed to save people, so we have to put in a few scenes of hero saving people.” 

It feels reflective of Zack Snyder’s Objectivist views where there’s a mindset that we should be grateful that these godlike heroes deem us deserving of their aid and assistance and thus, we shouldn’t deign to question why they don’t bother to take a fight away from a dense population center or do anything to minimize civilian casualties. It’s akin to how it is with Ayn Rand’s innumerable titans of industry, where like with Nietzsche’s Ubermensch, we simply can’t ask them to abide by the ways of lesser men. Though, while my knowledge of Nietzsche is limited to that cool quote about abysses, I imagine even he would find Ayn Rand to be annoyingly simplistic.

Why am I bringing up all this stuff regarding Justice League rather than talking about the movie? Because as already stated, looking over the mess that is the DCEU only makes me more appreciative of the tight plotting of the MCU. To quote the opening quote from The Agony Booth's review of Suicide Squad, which accurately sums up the DCEU: 

The twelve hours that comprise the DCEU represent such a pathetically inept wall-to-wall pooch-screw that dunking on the franchise at this point seems almost mean, like laughing at a little kid who still insists he can eat a whole tub of ice cream even as his shirt drips with vomit and tears. 

There are numerous traps studios fall into when trying to create their own cinematic universes and the DCEU has managed to fall into all of them. 

As stated before, the MCU, before it set out, the people involved, planned. While circumstances may have forced them at times to revise the plan, the important fact is that the creative teams involved knew where the story was going. This kind of planning is probably tedious and most would rather cut to the part where they're pulling in record profits, but this planning meant that each movie feels like a natural continuation of the overall story in addition to being good stories in their own right. We don't have the massive tonal shifts of the DCEU, where only the Snyder trilogy seems like they belong together, have some kind of cohesive story going. 

And most importantly, the people involved with the MCU knew you couldn't declare the battle won even before it's been fought. They may have had visions of the big damn team-up and Thanos showing up, but they knew that if they didn't make people care about the small moments, they weren't going to stick around for the big climaxes. So yeah, when they set out with their solo films, they knew they had to put forth the effort to make these films matter as much as the big ensemble pieces. If the viewers didn't care enough about Tony Stark to follow him for one film, they wouldn't care to follow him over the course of several more. 

And as pointed out, since they were already operating without their best-known characters, they knew they were operating at a disadvantage and planned accordingly. In fact, I think this disadvantage may have been what led to the MCU's success. The disadvantage meant that they had to put forth the effort to flesh out the characters, and not just coast on recognition. As mentioned in the Iron Man review, Marvel got the funding for these films by basically wagering the rights to their entire library, meaning that if the films had completely and absolutely bombed, Marvel would have really screwed themselves over and their failure would become the kind of thing talked about in hushed tones, much like how a long series of bad decisions nearly led to them going bankrupt in the 90s.

From the looks of things, DC seems to have thrown up their hands and given up on an overarching cinematic universe, content to just work on standalones. On one hand, part of me is saddened by this, because I've seen how the MCU managed to make it work, but also because DC has made it work before, when it did the DC Animated Universe or DCAU for short. 

The DCAU is just such a work of art that you can't help but look at it, look back at the mess of the DCEU, and wonder "What could have been..." Like I said, the people involved with the DCAU knew how to tell deep, well-plotted, character-driven stories capable of being appreciated by both children and adults. I will sing the praises of the Apokolips Now! two-parter and the Cadmus arc until I die, dammit! How many so-called "adult shows" explore the nature of power and its potential for abuse as well as the Cadmus arc did? 

But on the whole, if the people involved with the DCEU don't feel they're capable of a sprawling, interconnected massive plotline, I would rather get decent standalone films rather than an incoherent mishmash of a so-called universe. It would be better to just let the various films do their own thing, have their own fun, than try to frankenstein them all together. I'll just be bitter that the success of the Snyder cut, along with the online cult of personality Zack Snyder has, means that we're going to see more of his edgelord petulant teenage angst, while the truly innovative and fun Birds of Prey is left forgotten. 

Here's a list of videos I compiled regarding the Snyder cut for those interested. For those wanting more talk about Zack Snyder and his overall oeuvre, Maggie Mae Fish did a great series about him, but I am also partial to Curio's A World Based On Spite.

Of course, while I still dislike Zack Snyder and find him to be thuddingly dull and simplistic, it's not quite as easy for me to embark on the hate rants as before. There is the massive elephant in the room as to why he left the Justice League project in the first place, the suicide of his daughter, and Jesus, there's really nothing I can say about the kind of pain he must still be going through due to that. I'm not sure I could wish that kind of tragedy on even the worst people in the world. 

And I must give credit where credit is due in that in that he has called out his own base for their toxic behavior. Calling out toxic fandom is something I am always in favor of, so props to him. 

In fact, much as it pains me to admit it, while I feel Joss Whedon better understands the concept of superheroes and why we love them, from what I can tell, Snyder's driving record is probably cleaner than his. 

It’s always a hard thing, discovering that a favorite creator is a terrible person. The decision as to whether to continue to enjoy the works of said creator, is a personal one. Only you can dictate what is a dealbreaker for you, I’m afraid. With me, I will mostly enjoy the stuff that I’ve already enjoyed, but put a kibosh on checking out any of the creator’s other works. 

Outside of the MCU, I can’t really think of any Whedon properties I’ve been that into, save for Dollhouse. Though given how sprawling and massive Whedon’s career is, that’s not likely true; I’ve probably watched more of him than I think. Still, having heard of his abuses, I don’t feel any real need to check out any of the other stuff he may have done, so I’m not likely to check out Buffy or Firefly. Life is too short, and my watch/read list is hella long as is. However good Whedon’s stuff may be, there’s probably stuff that’s equally as good or even better that wasn’t created by assholes. So why not spend my time on them and less on assholes who don’t deserve it.

Though, I freely admit that I don’t follow this standard too stringently. If the creator is dead, I have an easier time justifying consuming their materials, than if they’re still alive and hurting people. It seems like you put any kind of rule or standard in place for yourself, and you’ll all but guarantee that you’re going to break it at some point. Me, I acknowledge said creator’s failings, decide for myself whether I can still enjoy their creations, and go from there. I know that others have their own standards and while I may disagree with them, I respect their right to their opinion. I am totally of the "Don't tell people how to feel" school when it comes to this kind of criticism. 

Okay, okay, enough is enough. Let's get to the movie. 

This is the film that Phase One was building to. Nothing like this had ever been pulled off. Maybe the closest had been with the X-Men films, but those movies could more accurately be called "Wolverine: the X-Men" and the X-Men stuck with each other. You didn't see them team up with Tobey Maguire's Spider-Man to lay the smackdown on Magneto. And after so much buildup, well, they delivered. 

This is very much in Whedon's style with the one-liners and quips flying fast and furious, nearly everyone of them guaranteed to stick in your ears. Though as always, there's plenty of ad-libbing by Robert Downey, Jr. With all the ad libs Downey does and how he has so shaped the MCU with them, increasingly I'm like, "Why didn't you guys give him a screenwriter's credit in addition to everything else?" especially since he created one of the key elements of the MCU right in his first movie. 

But before I get too far into things, here's Linkara's review of the team's debut. It is fitting that just as Loki was the villain who led to everyone coming together in the debut, he also is the villain who brings everyone together in the MCU. Though with the comic, it feels like Thor mostly has this in the bag, and the other Avengers aren't really needed, which is bad form for a team-up. If you're going to have a bunch of heroes who normally work alone, come together, it better be a legitimate threat that demands all their talents. 

That was one of the things that annoyed me about Joss Whedon's version of Justice League, the feeling like Wonder Woman could have just solved all this shit on her own, were it not for the fact the film was turfing her. It is another good fix from the Snyder cut, how the villains were turned into actual threats, and it was made more obvious why the team was needed; Wonder Woman couldn't solve everything as before. 

Now I've said before that supplemental materials such as the wikia are meant to be more like spices where they add a little extra to a dish, but aren't the sole thing holding it together, and I stand by that. But in the case of this movie, there's a detail in the wiki that really should have made it to the movie. 

Basically, according to the MCU timeline, Steve Rogers has only been, ahem, thawed out for two weeks. This is a detail that should have been woven into the movies somehow, mentioned in some form of dialogue or something, because it really adds to his portrayal. If Steve seems like he's being a real butt in this movie, it becomes more understandable when you know that he's only been awake for two weeks, and is still adjusting to life in a world where everyone he knew either has one foot in the grave or is in the grave. So forgive him if he doesn't respond to Tony needling him in the most mature manner. 

In fact, while most of the time, I understand why they may have opted to cut a scene from a movie, I am at a loss as to why they cut this scene: Steve adjusting to the 21st century There is so much genuine pathos and good character-building, and it probably could have been integrated into the narrative without too much trouble. And it has a nice Stan Lee cameo as well.

It also serves to underscore one of the things that irritates me regarding the MCU, how they treat Steve’s PTSD. In fact, while I admire the MCU’s attempt to incorporate PTSD into the storyline, rather than just having them stoically go from threat to threat without feeling much of anything, with the exception of Tony, they don’t do as well when it comes to exploring the consequences of PTSD, and even with Tony, there are flaws.

Tony is the most obvious when it comes to PTSD, but the franchise kind of fails in that it only occasionally realizes that the other characters are also suffering from it. Like I said before, when it comes to Steve Rogers, there’s a repeated thread of disillusionment when it comes to his films, with Steve being continually let down or betrayed by something. It’s not so much with his first solo film, but it definitely starts with this one.

Like well, with this scene, Steve’s obviously thinking, “I got myself frozen over this stupid tesseract, and you idiots want to mess around with it.” For the record though, trying to keep track of the timeline regarding tesseract...Let's just say things get a little convoluted. I will say that in the MCU's defense, no franchise manages to bat a 1000 when it comes to continuity stuff like that. Fans can and will try to explain these flaws away, but ultimately, you enjoy the franchise in spite of stuff like that. Generally, so long as it's a good story and it isn't thuddeningly obvious, I'm willing to play along. 

Though Fury keeps talking about it as a potential source of never ending energy and once again, I’m like, “uh, Tony’s already invented it in Iron Man 2, remember?”

But there’s also this exchange that I want to single out.

Steve Rogers: When I went under, the world was at war. I wake up, they say we won. They didn't say what we lost.

Nick Fury: We've made some mistakes along the way. Some, very recently.

Because like I’ve already said, while I understand that superhero films are an inherent romanticization, I still think that leaning on some of the less easily romanticized aspects of the WWII-era (the rampant racism, sexism, etc.) really could have added to the story and fleshed out Steve Rogers a little more.

Judging by the exchange, I imagine that SHIELD has set Steve down and given him something of a crash course in post-WWII history. Obviously, it would be a very truncated course, because you try covering seventy years worth of history in the span of a few days, but I imagine Steve knows some of the broader aspects, like about 9/11 and the like.

What he also likely has learned about, is Truman dropping the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Now, I’m not going to debate whether or not Truman made the right call—that’s just too big a topic to delve into for this series and would take us far too off-topic—but you have to wonder how Steve would have felt about the decision. Even if he did come to agree that Truman made the right call under the circumstances he was working under, brutally murdering people guilty only of being born in the wrong zip code has to be something that would give him pause. 

In fact when it comes to “what we lost” when talking about WWII, I should point out that one of the things the Allies took offense at the Axis Powers for doing, was their bombing of civilian targets. Yet by the end of the war, the Allied forces are also bombing civilian targets. 

Again, I’m not going to litigate WWII, but it is worth exploring how far into the morally gray the Allied Forces went, whether they made the right call (hindsight is always 20/20), and the new form of warfare that came about as a result of the conflict.

Of course, Joss Whedon falls in the trap of assuming that Steve came of age in 1950s Kansas, rather than a Depression-era Brooklyn slum, but I am jumping the gun a little. 

Sometimes I wish the MCU did little shorts before their movies ala Pixar. We can get stuff like Steve Rogers going to Disney World, Jane and Darcy takes Thor shopping and he just rocks every outfit he tries on...I know it's going to cost me so much street cred, but I'd eat that kind of fluff up with a spoon. But they could also tackle more harrowing material, like this infamous cut scene from The Avengers: The Cop and The Waitress 

There is some genuine pathos and wrenching detail to that clip, even if I understand why it was cut. Though it contains some good acting, it pulls too far from the main storyline of the team finally coming together and kicking ass. 

Anyway, I should stop talking about deleted scenes and get back into things. 

So Steve's only been defrosted for a couple of weeks. Meanwhile, Tony, despite being ruled as unsuited for Fury's little initiative, well, after hijinks ensue at the beginning, he gets drafted, along with Bruce Banner, to solve the problem. 

Edward Norton has been replaced by Mark Ruffalo, who will play Bruce Banner for the rest of the franchise. Given that from what I've heard, Norton, like Terrance Howard, may be in the Crazy-Crazy camp as opposed to merely Hollywood-Crazy, it's probably a good call, replacing him. 

We would never see any more Hulk movies. It's your call whether or not that's for the best. Me, I'm not huge into the character, so I have no problem with him being merely an ensemble character, but maybe a huge fanboy could make a better case. 

Suffice to say, despite the character's shaky history, the Hulk has endured for a reason. My theory centers around the mystery of the character. Because while he can be summed up as "Giant green rage monster," at the same time, that's a bit simplistic. The Hulk is capable of thinking and planning, even if he tends to favor the "Smash them until they can't get up" strategy, which I can't say I object to. I've always been on Team Keep It Simple Stupid. The more complicated you make something, the more ways you've made it so that things could go south. 

But there's this exchange between Bruce and Tony that I've always liked:

Tony Stark: Hey, I've read all about your accident. That much gamma exposure should have killed you.

Bruce Banner: So you're saying that the Hulk... the other guy... saved my life? That's nice. It's a nice sentiment. Save it for what?

Tony Stark: I guess we'll find out.

 It's a theory I like, not so much that the Hulk is a mere rage monster, but something akin to a protector. As Tony theorizes, Bruce Banner was in danger from the gamma radiation, so the Hulk acted to protect him. And when there's the heart-breaking moment where Banner references a cut scene from The Incredible Hulk where he tried to kill himself, well, you can make a similar case: Bruce Banner was in danger from the bullet, so the Hulk acted to protect him. 

Joss Whedon has said that he intended to imply that there were different versions of the Hulk, one which is more the classic feral monster and one probably similar to my theory of him as a protector. Other adaptations have it so that Banner and Hulk have kind of worked out something of an arrangement, enabling them to better work together. With this film, things are still somewhat shaky between the two. Still, we can see some of the duality of the Hulks at work in this film, where there's the Hulk that rampages through the helicarrier contrasted with the one later seen in the Battle of New York who, while is still very much a feral character, he is a more controlled character than the one on the helicarrier. 

To keep up the reoccurring pattern of Steve being disillusioned, as if it wasn't bad enough they dredged up the tesseract despite what he put himself through regarding it, he finds out that SHIELD is planning to make weapons from it.

And I suppose I should talk about this moment. From what I heard, this is one character death that wasn't Whedon's idea, at least, that's what Whedon claims. Still, don't shed too many tears. As the existence of Agents of SHIELD demonstrates, Phil Coulson got better. And well, if you ever doubt the power of the MCU fandom, remember we brought a character back to life by collectively refusing to accept he was dead. 

Once again, I need to reiterate that no one involved expected everyone to go gaga for Coulson. He was created as a bit character to move the story along, was supposed to do his thing, then exit. And yes, I am one of the Coulson fangirls, because like I said suit-wearing government agent with a dry sense of snark whose also a huge fanboy? I'm swooning. 

Regarding the last link, kind of like how well Steve side-steps the "O-kay, this just got weird," part. But because I'm a perv, I'm going to make this a little weirder, with help from Pinterest. 

I should point out that when Steve was pulled from the ice, he was wearing his uniform, not the spiffy tee shirt and khakis. Who wants to speculate about just how obsessed Coulson is with Steve? :P

After many twists and turns, we finally get to the big battle. And once again, the mess that is the DCEU only makes me appreciate the MCU fight scenes as well. We always know who's doing what, where they are in relation to everyone/everything else.

So the Avengers are fighting in New York. Meanwhile Nick's dealing with some stuff.

Y'see the world security council has decided to nuke New York to prevent Earth from being taken over by aliens, kill eight million people to save seven billion, sort of thing. 

I know the previous clip already contained Nick's reaction, but I'm posting it just because I have to admit, I use this kind of logic when it comes to canon I don't like; I'm totally all "I recognize that canon has made its decision, but given that it's a stupid-ass decision, I've elected to ignore it." Y'all can guess about what I've elected to ignore.

I suppose we should talk about how superhero movies tend to give you a dangerously unsafe view of the authorities, but given what the real world authorities are like... 

Fun fact: the official report on the incident stated that the man "fell" and were it not for video evidence contradicting it, that's how it would go down in the record. 

Funner Fact: Only two officers shoved the guy, but not one in the crowd voiced any objections, nor did they seem all that bothered about how he's lying on the pavement, bleeding out his ears. Geez, where oh where were those fabled good cops?

Funnest Fact: despite video-taped evidence demonstrating that they had committed a crime, all the officers involved, wound up facing zero consequences for their actions. 

All right, I'm done bringing depressing reality into this. Granted this movie is set in 2012, but it's not like police brutality wasn't around then. 

Anyway, Tony yeets the nuke through the portal, Loki is captured, and thus, ends the first team-up. Knowing how things would play out in future films, lends this one a certain nostalgia. None of the conflicts that follow would have the easy, straightforward nature of this one. And I have to admit, that with the exception of the party in Age of Ultron, we don't really get much of the team hanging out, being pals, just so much angst. I'm a sucker for angst, but I'm an even bigger sucker for fluff. There, I said it. Bye-bye to whatever street cred I may have had with you people. 

Anyway, that's kind of why I like the world of fanfics so much, how it fills needs that canon cannot or will not. I can get my fanart/fanfics of The Avengers hanging out in the tower together, having movie nights and be somewhat satisfied. 

Anyway, before we hit the road, as far as I'm concerned, the pin that follows is totally canon. 

Anyway, for now, consider this project abandoned. Maybe I'll come back to it someday. Or maybe I'll try something else, see if it comes easier to me. But for now, take care of yourselves and each other.