Marvel Cinematic Universe Running Thread

[airboy]

I will say that I'm surprised I haven't heard a peep out of anyone claiming some mortal offense or trigger warning for the "catholic rabbits" quip.  Personally, this Catholic found it damned funny, but given today's society-of-outrage-at-everything, I'm surprised no one's complained.

Well - I'm Catholic and I shoot.  But I have a sense of humor and am not a nut job.  Catholics have not been killing infidels for 300+ years, unlike some other unnamed religious groups.

[JasonPratt]

I'm near-Catholic and I thought it was pretty hilarious.  O0

[JasonPratt]

Per the order watching: I was going to argue that almost all of the Hulk movie takes place either contemporary to or possibly even before Iron Man 1 (since the military is still buying new Stark weapons, and using them on the Hulk; and since it ties directly into the Captain America plot) -- the epilogue obviously doesn't, but the epilogue could take place anytime not long afterward, as in fact one of the first Marvel one-shot films suggests (while basically retconning the epilogue out of continuity, sort of).

But then the infographic's author admits at the bottom that "this one is totally skippable so watch it in whatever order you want" (no doubt before the first movie). ;)

I have noticed that the Shield and Daredevil TV show, and the Avengers movie, all refer back to the movie as having happened, though, so it hasn't been completely retconned out.


On a completely different related topic, was anyone else expecting Ultron to do something with that behemoth corpse in Strucker's castle, which the film kept occasionally reminding us was there? Because Dad and I did.

(Also, I'm very disappointed that Strucker was written out of the story. He's a fairly major Cap villain, and there aren't many of those around in the MCU anymore. I can't recall what Ultron didn't want the Avengers to learn from him either...?)

[JasonPratt]

Ah, okay (re one of the articles), I wasn't thinking about how it makes sense to split off the Avengers into a new base in order to help the next movie happen, i.e. Civil War.

I was thinking about how it makes no (stated) sense in terms of the story so far as it has happened instead of making sense of stories that haven't happened yet. 

i.e., there's no reason in-story (so far) for Stark not to still be supporting the Avengers, and lending or supplying them his tech, including his tower which so far as the movie goes (assuming he isn't only kidding) he'll have personally less use for soon. The reason is due to future story requirements not anticipated in the stories themselves up to now.

[mirth]

I was surprised that Strucker was taken out so quickly. I was expecting him to have a more prominent and lasting role. That was the biggest letdown in AoU for me.

[mirth]

I thought it made a great deal of sense for Stark to leave the team. Fury's back, SHIELD is back. Tony's never been much of a team player and he's never cared much for SHIELD.

Also he totally screwed up with the creation of Ultron. He pissed off Cap and Thor big time. He basically lost his place on the team. Also Banner's gone and Tony probably respected him more than any other Avenger. Banner's the only one Stark considers his intellectual equal.

And the truth is that Tony really doesn't think he made the wrong call. He still believes he needs something big to protect humanity. He's not going to stick around and have to admit he was wrong. That's just not in his nature. So off he goes on his own, hell bent on saving the world.

One other thing I've been thinking about, Ultron was at least much Banner's fault as Stark's. Banner could have said no to using Strucker's AI research and stopped Tony cold. Tony acknowledged that Banner was the true expert. They had been working on Ultron together and still couldn't make it work without the captured HYDRA research.

Banner let his scientific curiosity get the better of himself. If he had refused to help Stark, Ultron probably wouldn't have happened. The difference between Banner and Stark is that Banner can admit to the mistake.

[JasonPratt]

Stark leaving the team makes sense. Stark leaving Avengers tower in New York makes sense. I've never said otherwise.

What I've been saying is that the Avengers leaving Avengers tower in New York (especially with Stark leaving it) doesn't make sense as presented (or rather as non-presented) in the story.

(I mean, I can imagine a decent collateral damage reason, but that isn't a reason given in the story.)

Possibly this will be fleshed out better in the Blu.

Where, I've incidentally just read on a completely different topic, Thor's sidestory will be spun out better. The black woman disrobing at the pool in the promotional material wasn't just some random arty image that popped into Thor's mind during him being affected by Wanda but which was then rejected equally randomly but which was kept in the promo trailers because it looked striking -- though Whedon tried to explain it that way at least once! According to Whedon elsewhere, Thor was supposed to be possessed by the Norns in that pool, and then to answer questions posed (at his request) by Selkirk about what was 'really' happening (which might also have something to do with the quasi-hinted mystery over why Ultron acted the way he did, presumably thanks to the mind stone and Thanos).

That would explain the dream image of the woman (she's a Norn); and why Thor even thought to go to the pool (unlike the other dreams his seemed to have real mystical meaning, most likely hinting that something was drastically wrong in Asgard thanks to Loki having taken over pretending to be Odin -- Loki was filmed for those dream sequences, too); and why he asked Selkirk to come along (because someone had to ask the questions to the possessed Thor).

[mirth]

I didn't get the impression he was abandoning the Tower. Pepper still runs Stark Industries. AFAIK that's a Stark property. And  of course,  the stuff about retiring to the sticks was just blowing smoke. Tony would last about two minutes on a country farm.

[JasonPratt]

He would demonstrably be talking to tractors pretty quickly.  >:D

"Could you PLEASE try NOT to bring this one to life!"

(But of course we know already he isn't really retiring anywhere; he's going to be in Cap 3 as the main antagonist, sort of.)

[mirth]

That was one of the best lines of AoU.

[JasonPratt]

Meanwhile, on a different yet sort-of related topic (again):

Originally, the Hulk wasn't involved in the Civil War because he was busy taking over and ruling that gladiator world (having been exiled from Earth), and then coming back for WWH.

We've been hearing tons of rumors swirling around that even though Planet Hulk (and WWH) isn't coming, something like it may be coming.

What if they're setting up a sort-of WWH scenario for the coming movies? Ruffalo still has four more movies under contract (which could be expanded), surely one of which is Infinity War Part 2 (if not Part 1, and it seems likely not).

We know:

1.) Banner (and the Hulk in a way) was worrying about where on Earth he could go that he wouldn't hurt anyone. Somewhere near Fiji apparently. That doesn't necessarily have to mean somewhere still on Earth, but it might.

2.) Banner (and the Hulk in a way) wanted to have a sort-of-normal life with a woman he could marry and settle down with, though he thought it couldn't happen.

3.) Originally Whedon had written a scene for the Hulk near the end of Av2 which he was super proud of and which he thought would have led to a lot of fist-pumping and would be the best scene for the Hulk so far, maybe the best scene so far in the MCU. Whatever that was, he excised it, and has given ambiguous reasons about it being too important or something.

4.) There was a weird little scene toward the end where the Hulk defeats Ultron basically off-camera (with Reddington muttering something like "Oh good Lord, really?" before being thrown out of a Quinjet. I put it that way because, again, I think Ultron's performance though highly entertaining is a big weak-spot in the film.) This should have been the "puny god" moment of the film; it seems clearly designed to have been more than it was. If anything it ought to have been more of a payoff to at least Ultron interrupting his moment with Natasha; and probably should have been a payoff to Banner having been a VERY VOCALLY KEY PART of Ultron's creation -- one that Ultron basically ignored all film, focusing on Stark instead.

5.) The Hulk's final scene shows him, not Banner, regretfully flying the Quinjet off; with the Widow trying to talk him down like she has previously done, but not only is it not working, he sadly turns off her communication. That's a huge signal that, despite physical appearances, either Banner has somehow gained control over the Hulk (mostly -- and moreso than at the end of Av1), or the Hulk himself has merged personalities with Banner. That "unified Hulk" was once the most dangerous (and pretty entertaining) version of the Hulk, as written by Peter David, and he returned royally pissed off in a state of ultimate anger during WWH after Planet Hulk.

6.) Perhaps unimportantly, the CGI designers originally intended for the Hulk to turn grey during the battle with Stark, and did in fact do so (in preliminary stages or renders). That couldn't have been just some random whim, they had to be directed to do that (and there were rumors about this happening). The Grey Hulk is the missing third part of Banner's psyche, crucial to him becoming unified, and would have made a much differently dangerous (though physically somewhat weaker) foe during the fight -- it isn't likely given the major continuity respect to the properties (even in unexpectedly subtle things like Ultron's creation being connected originally to Jarvis) that Whedon (and the other writers? -- were there any?) would have simply changed his tone grey and left his personality still 'green'. (Turning him red would have served better as a more trivially colorful indication, especially with Wanda messing with his mind to unlock more anger.)

However, introducing the Grey Hulk for that one sequence would have been hugely difficult plot-wise -- though again there seems to be a missing plot element from the theatrical cut where we don't see what/how Wanda sets Banner off on a rampage. It makes sense to keep the fight simple and understandably within range of what we've seen of the Hulk's behavior so far in the movie series.


So here's a theory. Banner absconds to a remote island somewhere, having somehow gotten more control (maybe even in a merged personality), but still worried he might hurt other people and/or just wanting to be left alone. Maybe in the Blu there's even a much enlarged final confrontation between the unifying Hulk and Ultron (whom after all Banner helped co-create). He finds a wife, like in Planet Hulk (though obviously without the gladiator or emperor issues), who helps him unify even farther. Possibly there are nods to the wife of Banner in the two-part season opening of Season Two of the 70s Hulk TV show (which won an Emmy).  Maybe even the return of Betty from the first movie. (Whedon has admitted that "Veronica" is an explicit nod to Betty Banner via an Archie pun.) Maybe even the Black Widow? -- there were hints he was hoping she'd join him wherever he went, and they sure talked about running off like that. Maybe Jarella, or someone reasonably like her? (Hulk's wife the first time he became unified, in a microverse. Or maybe even really her, in the microverse, from "The Beast Who Shouted Love At the Heart of the Atom"?? Thanks to Pym particles???)

Then whoever she is, she's killed, as a side effect to something else going on but which has a blamable cause (not just a hurricane as on the TV show). Presumably the something else would be the Infinity War Part 1, and Thanos is to blame rather than (mistakenly) Stark, Dr. Strange, etc.

Thus the Hulk returns in IW2, ready to fight Thanos as the unified Hulk -- somewhat as in the original Infinity War series, but with the difference that now he's not only unified in personality but has achieved the perfect anger from World War Hulk which, in that series, allowed him to crush all opponents even ones which could have beaten him previously (even a Superman-expy, except even stronger than pre-Crisis Superman, who had been added to the Marvel Universe stable meanwhile as though he had been around the whole time).

He still might not be able to beat Thanos by himself, but he'd make a much better impact in the dialed-down version of the Infinity Gems story (which are more like Celestial weapons here not omnipotent reality shaping tools) than he did in the 'real' comics during that story.

Thanos + five Celestial weapons (or maybe his minions/army then briefly fighting him) vs an intelligent tactically crafty Hulk whose righteous anger is so strong that HIS VERY FOOTSTEPS CAUSE EARTHQUAKES ON THE EAST COAST! 

A very much toned down version of that (thanks to the Widow being attacked) could have even been what Whedon says he dropped (he certainly dropped something super-important to the Hulk storyline) from the fight against Ultron near the end of Av2, rather than do it sloppily now and dilute its impact later (which is basically his explanation for doing whatever he did).

[JasonPratt]

While that previous speculation / evaluation is original (I haven't seen anyone else try that theory out yet), I did notice in paging around various post-movie articles that Whedon says the original cut of the film was 38 MINUTES LONGER!

So when he says the Blu will be an extended cut, that's probably what he means: a version of the originally intended 179 minute cut (perhaps still 179 or perhaps still trimmed a bit).

Whatever it and the "alternate ending" is, we can be sure of two things: (1) it will have more dream sequences and particularly more Thor plot; (2) it cannot possibly be only more dream sequences and Thor plot.

[GDS_Starfury]

the nerd is strong in you!   O0

[Martok]

Holy epileptic trees Jason!  Have a drink, man.  (Some intriguing theories, though.)  :) 

So when he says the Blu will be an extended cut, that's probably what he means: a version of the originally intended 179 minute cut (perhaps still 179 or perhaps still trimmed a bit).

Whatever it and the "alternate ending" is, we can be sure of two things: (1) it will have more dream sequences and particularly more Thor plot; (2) it cannot possibly be only more dream sequences and Thor plot.

Agreed.  Am already looking forward to the extended edition. 

[JasonPratt]

If the epileptic trees have holes in them, that's because they're where the smoke monster hides.

;D

(For those who don't get the reference: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EpilepticTrees)

At least if the theory is Jossed later, it won't be because of Joss.  O0