The Avengers (Marvel)

[Roto13]

Loki is not a fighter. He never has been. He works through trickery, being, you know, a trickster god and all.

And the final battle being "oh look aliens"? What does that even mean?

[Miriel]

I can kinda see what he means. This movie's climax was a balls out holy crap invasion with tons of explosions and things being destroyed. Loki seemed kinda secondary to all that.

I preferred the story Loki had in Thor because it was more tragic and personal. In Avengers he was more RAAAAAH!!! I KILL AND RULE YOU ALL!!!! ALIENS EVERYWHERE!! And in Thor he was more, "NOBODY LOVES ME!! SADNESS AND ANGER!! ;_;" And Tom Hiddleston's sad puppy dog eyes are just so endearing. It's really what sold him to me.

[charliepanayi]

Something with the main villain not getting his butt handed to him almost immediately.

You mean one of the most hilarious movie scenes in recent times - that's the best bit in the film!

[Shaibana]

you njust gotta love the humor in that movie ^^
like those unexpected moves from the hulk :P
devenitly worht seeing, though im still sort of mad they didnt make a movie about Hawkeye and Black Widow. bcaus of that they really feel like outsiders.

[Madonna]

I may as well call SPOILERS ahead of time.

Loki is not a fighter. He never has been. He works through trickery, being, you know, a trickster god and all.

Right, let me break this down for you:

• Tricksters best work when employed on the unsuspecting. Pretty sure he got outed in his last film.
• He was the villain in Thor already. I cannot emphasize that sentence enough. It translates into: boring.
• Action movie. smurf tricksters; Loki plays against an ensemble of the universe's strongest linebackers. All they do is charge and pound at things, namely him. Sure, parse it how you want, but Loki is not physical confrontation material.
• Is there anything else you want me to laugh about when you mention "trickster"? I saw all of one scene where this was well-played (but obvious), where Hulk charges into the dead-drop cell. He cannot outplay Black Widow and in none of his fights did he really do something that struck our heroes sideways and out of left field.

That said, I loved the actor's portrayal was strong, he had some fun lines, and I think there was a lot of depth in the character, BUT ultimately Loki was the wrong guy for what the screenwriters wanted.

And the final battle being "oh look aliens"? What does that even mean?

Right, let me break this down for you:

• Through the film, we see the villains as Loki and his crew of brainwashed SHIELD Agents. At the end, there are suddenly a horde of aliens for bad guys.

That is it. Had it not been obvious, I would have explained.

Yeah, yeah, I get that Loki was trying to bring them in all throughout the film and they are the real enemy, but what do we know about them? Nothing. They want to rule Earth, I... guess? By destroying buildings and killing civilians? We all know that is bad (strategy-wise and moral-wise), and of course the Avengers could not allow that to happen, but motivation and real conflict are missing. The army on the other side could have been anything: bears, llamas, space dragons, space robots, flame demons, anti-matter shadows, cybersharks, or anything, but all these suggestions and the aliens have the same thing in common. They lack depth, and because of that, who cares about the aliens?. Are there many comments in Avenger discussion threads about how much people hated those dreaded aliens and their dreaded not-agendas? How much of an impact did they make the audience?

We will refrain from going into how dumb it was to capture Loki, bring him to your airship, and fall for an obviously dumb trap. We will not talk about how contrived the tension was between the superheroes. We will not talk about how Hawkeye's and Black Widow's love story was started but went nowhere. Is there something else I missed from a short brainstorm? Let me be plain: it was a good movie if you plan on not thinking.

Also, post-script: in advance, smurf the comics. I am sure they have a rich and meaningful history which go into the alien invasion force and their background, but that was not presented at all in the film I watched.

[Slothy]

They want to rule Earth, I... guess?

No, they quite clearly state they don't care about Earth. They want the Tesseract so they can take over a lot more than just Earth and Loki says he can give it to them. His payment being to rule Earth which he only wants to do anyway because he sees himself as a God and he wants to hit Thor where it hurts.

They lack depth, and because of that, who cares about the aliens?

The aliens aren't the main villain. Loki is. But the aliens are there to provide the Avengers with a rather large challenge to overcome in the end. As such the aliens don't actually need a lot of depth yet, but I'll elaborate in a second.

Also, post-script: in advance, smurf the comics. I am sure they have a rich and meaningful history which go into the alien invasion force and their background, but that was not presented at all in the film I watched.

Of course it wasn't presented in this film. This film was about Loki more than anything else, and was meant to establish that there is more out there than even the Asgardians know about, as well as establish the aliens and Thanos as villains going forward into future movies. Because they will be villains going forward, which is going to be a problem when you consider how hard a time the Avengers had dealing with them this time. You aren't supposed to know a lot about them yet because the focus was clearly on Loki and they will become a major player down the road. You seem to be forgetting that the Avengers film franchises are able to play a pretty long game story-wise so they can get away with introducing them in this film and explaining more about them later when they become the main villains.

[Roto13]

As Vivi22 pointed out, the Chitauri didn't just appear out of thin air, and their intentions were no secret. If they seemed out of place to you, I guess you just weren't paying attention, which I kind of assumed from your post but I wanted to give you the benefit of the doubt.

As for wanting them to change Loki into an brawler character, well, that's nice, I guess. I'd like to have seen Ms. Marvel show up and save the day but that didn't happen either. You have one or two good points about Loki being less effective as a known enemy and maybe they should have just used someone else, but they weren't going to change Loki into something he wasn't for the movie. That'd be dumb.

[Depression Moon]

I'd have liked to see Loki use more magic since he's one of the most powerful sorcerers of Asgard. All he did in the movie was his mind control and illusion casting when he has far more than that in his arsenal.

[Peegee]

comic related question:

Wizard Comics once posted top 10 superheroes. This was back when Spawn was popular, but the point is they ranked Thor under silver surfer, and then superman below Thor.

The question is naturally about Thor - How strong is he physically? Is he just strong, but with Mjolnir he's super duper strong? Because I can't imagine Thor standing toe-to-toe with Hulk and surviving. They might not be able to hurt each other but it will be a one-sided battle if they fought using brute strength.

It's nice to see The Hulk be as strong as he's supposed to be. In the first movie it wasn't very clear how strong Banner would be when he changed. Hulk is supposed to be on par with Superman - was he able to stop Juggernaut at any point in the comics?

[Mercen-X]

Let me be plain: it was a good movie if you plan on not thinking.

Well, I certainly didn't step into that theater with any intention of deep contemplation. I merely absorbed whatever information was NECESSARY to the plot. I can pay attention to the rougher details later when I'm freshening up my memory of the movie before watching the sequel.

I think you must have OCD and it greatly depresses me. I feel sorry for you.

By the way, I'll just ask this: How many superhero flicks have you seen that didn't give you the same basic impression Avengers left on you?

[Sephex]

My dad and I were talking about this near the movie's release. Just thought I would share this here for fun. If they ever rebooted Star Trek: The Next Generation the way they did for the original series, the actor who played Loki would be an excellent Data. This is especially true if they had Lore in the theoretical film.

[Depression Moon]

comic related question:

Wizard Comics once posted top 10 superheroes. This was back when Spawn was popular, but the point is they ranked Thor under silver surfer, and then superman below Thor.

The question is naturally about Thor - How strong is he physically? Is he just strong, but with Mjolnir he's super duper strong? Because I can't imagine Thor standing toe-to-toe with Hulk and surviving. They might not be able to hurt each other but it will be a one-sided battle if they fought using brute strength.

It's nice to see The Hulk be as strong as he's supposed to be. In the first movie it wasn't very clear how strong Banner would be when he changed. Hulk is supposed to be on par with Superman - was he able to stop Juggernaut at any point in the comics?

I don;t read much comics, but I know that Hulk's strength doesnt have any limits as stated on his wiki file. It all depends on how mad he gets and how long he's been fighting. He's been able to lift Thor's hammer before just from his strength. Thor has been able to lift one of the island's of new york and he's pretty decent in magic as well from what I read off of wikis

[Slothy]

The question is naturally about Thor - How strong is he physically?

Thor is very strong, but not Hulk strong. And Mjolnir doesn't actually enhance Thor's strength. It just let's him control weather, fly, and gives him access to a number of other powers which have rarely appeared in comics and I'm not sure how many are even cannon anymore.

As for fighting the Hulk brute strength vs. brute strength, he'd probably lose eventually, but it would take a long time, and I doubt even Thor would resort to trying to simply trade blows with him (at least not after a while).

And yes, the Hulk did once stop the Juggernaut. He was a horseman of Apocalypse at the time and enhanced with some Celestial technology, but it wouldn't surprise me if he could just do it anyway if he was mad enough. The Hulk kind of has his own built in rage based deus ex machina that gets him out of pretty much anything.

[Raistlin]

I think Lynx makes some good points. We might disagree on how much weight to give them and how much they impacted our enjoyment of the movie, but they remain valid points nonetheless.

1. Loki was a truly pathetic, ineffective villain. This is easily ignored in such an action-packed movie, but it remains true. In Thor, he did a lot of major trickster stuff that developed over the whole movie. In The Avengers... he tricked Thor into running into his cage. Yeah.

2. The early fighting between the heroes (thinking of Iron Man and Thor here) was embarrassingly fabricated. I would have liked some sign that Loki was magically causing it somehow (as I first assumed because it made no sense otherwise). I chalked this up to the movie being too fast and cramped to be developed properly.

3. The aliens just sort of happened. There was almost no development of this plot point. See #2.

[Madonna]

They want to rule Earth, I... guess?

No, they quite clearly state they don't care about Earth. They want the Tesseract so they can take over a lot more than just Earth and Loki says he can give it to them. His payment being to rule Earth which he only wants to do anyway because he sees himself as a God and he wants to hit Thor where it hurts.

Yeah, thanks for picking at the small issue instead of the bigger one presented there: the fact they are tearing up New York instead of military installations, the District of Columbia, or something of real military value. I do apologize for getting their motivation wrong; clearly they have a lot more character because their goal is to get a thing to take over more things.

They lack depth, and because of that, who cares about the aliens?

The aliens aren't the main villain. Loki is. But the aliens are there to provide the Avengers with a rather large challenge to overcome in the end. As such the aliens don't actually need a lot of depth yet, but I'll elaborate in a second.

I know the aliens are not the main villain, and that is my problem; they are the only challenge presented in the film. Loki himself is a total pushover at this point, when Thor joins a crew of superheroes because if he cannot beat Thor, what chance does he have against Thor, Iron Man, Captain America, Hawkeye, and Black Widow? I would have preferred a Chitauri commander being the big bad as opposed to Loki, a guy out of his depth.

Also, post-script: in advance, smurf the comics. I am sure they have a rich and meaningful history which go into the alien invasion force and their background, but that was not presented at all in the film I watched.

Of course it wasn't presented in this film. This film was about Loki more than anything else, and was meant to establish that there is more out there than even the Asgardians know about, as well as establish the aliens and Thanos as villains going forward into future movies. Because they will be villains going forward, which is going to be a problem when you consider how hard a time the Avengers had dealing with them this time. You aren't supposed to know a lot about them yet because the focus was clearly on Loki and they will become a major player down the road. You seem to be forgetting that the Avengers film franchises are able to play a pretty long game story-wise so they can get away with introducing them in this film and explaining more about them later when they become the main villains.

In a geek's world, in a place where we care about cameos of unnamed villains, we know these things matter. We know the aliens are going to be back and we know Thanos is going to wipe the floor, ceiling, and entire space-time continuum with the Avengers. I unfortunately know a lot about comics I do not read, but I do not know how informed the rest of the non-comic book world is, so all they get is that the Chitauri are bastards and there is a bigger bad in the shadows. That clearly is not enough for anyone who is just going to watch one film. I am glad it is understood that this film alone is not enough, and that this franchise is about making you want or need to see the other films to get the full import. The problem here, for me, is that clearly sucks balls. I like movies that stand by themselves and are well-contained. I do not want to be told by anyone that I need to see the film before this or after this to get what is going on. If I wanted to do that, I would watch one big movie that had everything in it. I do not want to have to suffer another The Matrix: Reloaded and Revolutions issue; gods, how those two films depended on each other. The Avengers should have had a subtitle, something like The Preface. Ugh.

My response on the Loki issue: again, crap main villain. That he is the major focus in The Avengers is a terrible, horrible, abhorrent idea.

As Vivi22 pointed out, the Chitauri didn't just appear out of thin air, and their intentions were no secret. If they seemed out of place to you, I guess you just weren't paying attention, which I kind of assumed from your post but I wanted to give you the benefit of the doubt.

I did sort of space it out, I admit. However, having a new enemy appear suddenly at the end is still super weak. I guess it is good writing to set up for another film, but it really is used as an excuse to avoid a good climatic battle with the film's bad guy, Loki. They simply could not have one done well, apparently, because what they had was the Hulk slam Loki around like a ragdoll.

As for wanting them to change Loki into an brawler character, well, that's nice, I guess. I'd like to have seen Ms. Marvel show up and save the day but that didn't happen either. You have one or two good points about Loki being less effective as a known enemy and maybe they should have just used someone else, but they weren't going to change Loki into something he wasn't for the movie. That'd be dumb.

You misunderstand; why would I want to change Loki into a brawler? I plain just did not want Loki as the bad guy because they were not using him to his full trickster potential. I wanted to see him battle the heroes, perhaps one at a time, and use circumstance, terrain, and some ingenuity to best the heroes, or at least make them sweat. The only people Loki got the best of were SHIELD agents.

Let me be plain: it was a good movie if you plan on not thinking.

Well, I certainly didn't step into that theater with any intention of deep contemplation. I merely absorbed whatever information was NECESSARY to the plot. I can pay attention to the rougher details later when I'm freshening up my memory of the movie before watching the sequel.

I think you must have OCD and it greatly depresses me. I feel sorry for you.

By the way, I'll just ask this: How many superhero flicks have you seen that didn't give you the same basic impression Avengers left on you?

Good on you, Mercen-X, for being able to swallow everything you are fed, no matter how stupidly it is served up. I need not your sympathy.

When I start obsessively cataloging all the films I have seen and write out full-scale reviews for each of them, I can get back to you. I liked the first Spiderman, and the first and second X-Men. I cannot recall how much they hurt my brain because I last viewed them years ago. I can agree a great many superhero movies need to be done better, and consider a little logic when screenwriting, but is there anything else which is not The Avengers you wish to dredge up in a thread about this particular film?

I think Lynx makes some good points. We might disagree on how much weight to give them and how much they impacted our enjoyment of the movie, but they remain valid points nonetheless.

1. Loki was a truly pathetic, ineffective villain. This is easily ignored in such an action-packed movie, but it remains true. In Thor, he did a lot of major trickster stuff that developed over the whole movie. In The Avengers... he tricked Thor into running into his cage. Yeah.

2. The early fighting between the heroes (thinking of Iron Man and Thor here) was embarrassingly fabricated. I would have liked some sign that Loki was magically causing it somehow (as I first assumed because it made no sense otherwise). I chalked this up to the movie being too fast and cramped to be developed properly.

3. The aliens just sort of happened. There was almost no development of this plot point. See #2.

1. I believe I made the mistake of remembering it as the Hulk who ended up in the Hulk cage. Sorry, it was another hero with stronger logic faculties.
2. Yes.
3. I see how the aliens had to have happened, but that they only showed up to get thrashed is my big sore point. They do not talk, not even to each other, and are completely bland villains.