I saw the midnight showing last night and it is amazing. My favorite superhero movie of all time. Great humor, great action, great dialogue, and everybody gets time to shine. Mark Ruffalo/the Hulk stole the show. Absolute best moments in the movie.

All that being said do not watch this movie in 3d. I saw Avatar 4 times in 3d and Thor twice in 3d. All fine. I still have a migraine from watching the action scenes. It's an awesome movie. Just not an awesome 3d movie.

Now for the trailers shown:

MIB 3 - Looks much better than the second one and raises a question. Have Tommy Lee Jones or Will Smith aged a day since the first one?

Brave - Pixar animated Celtic style fantasy. Looked spectacular animation wise but it's Pixar so I can't give them bonus points for that.

Paranorman - Quirky, kind of cute looking animated Sixth Sense. Looks fun. Probably not going to break any box office records.

Tim Burton's Frankenweenie - It's a black and white Tim Burton film about a kid who raises his dog from the dead. I'm going to see it. Burton is one of my faves.

GI Joe 2 - As much as I detested the first one the trailer looked fun. I mean it starts with Channing Tatum getting killed. That's hard to pass up and it's the Rock in an action movie. Probably mindless fun.

The Amazing Spider-Man - Wow... it looked absolutely awful. It was emo Spider-Man riding skateboards as they completely retcon his backstory into him being genetically engineered to become Spider-Man because his parents were genticists. Oh and the Lizard looked awful. Worse than the Hulk from Ang Lee's Hulk. And the first person scenes looked Doom level in terms of quality.

The Dark Knight Rises - Another trailer that just looked awful. The dialogue was painful. Especially anything Catwoman said. Bane isn't Bane. He is a Christopher Nolan creation with the name slapped on him and he spends the entire trailer looking like a gigolo. And a transforming Batmobile to Batwing? Really? Hey Christopher didn't you say you wanted to stay away from anything too unrealistic?

Oh and approximately 50% of the trailer is Jeffrey Gordon Levitt talking to himself. Batman thy name is Nolan.

Prometheus - Ridley Scott sci-fi horror with consultation from James Cameron and it shows. The visuals were breathtaking and the concept almost a throwback to the days of Asimov and Bradbury. I'm looking forward to it.

Anybody else see it?

Wait, is it a remake of Frankenweeie  or is it a re-release?

It's a full length movie remake.

Wow, that's an incredible list of trailers!  Here in Hong Kong, we're lucky if we get two.

Yeah, here in Argentina we got a *lot* of commercial ads then the trailer for a Richard Gere movie from like 6 months ago (the trailer gives away the most important plot twist in the movie.... yay.. ¬¬) and that's about it.

Bright side: We got Avengers a week earlier xD.
This message was last edited by the user at 19:18, Fri 04 May 2012.

The 3D did little to enhance The Avengers, but didn't really distract from it, either.

It was still AMAZING!!!!

By the way, stay until the VERY END.
There was a little scene after the credits in all the previous movies, Iron Man, Iron Man 2, Thor, and Captain America, as well as the Hulk.
There's one just after the main credits, but there's ANOTHER ONE after the long credits, where they list key grips and hair stylists and whatnot.

STAY UNTIL THE END, UNTIL THE LIGHTS COME BACK ON.
It's nothing you need to see for the sequels, rest assured, but funny, nonethe less.

I have to agree that the Hulk moments stole the show. I was laughing way too hard at most of his moments though I do admit the first time he goes green is freakin terrifying. I would not want that chasing me.

That being said, I thought it was a great movie and combined all of the best parts from the individual movies into one nerd-gasm of a super hero movie. I was quite surprised with the amount of humor they brought to the movie and how well placed it was.

Also what Nuric said. The end-end sequence may not be important but it's awesome lol

Joss Whedon was involved.  So I assumed there would be some wonderful lines, humor, and dialogue.  I was not disappointed.  :)

Puny god.

:D

In reply to pdboddy (msg #9):

This made the movie epic. Just saying.

I was honestly expecting it to be another "well, we didn't have time to showcase everyone", kind of like in X-Men, but I was very surprised.
If you like ANY of the characters, you won't be disappointed.

Whedon needs to be involved in all the Marvel movies.

Loved it!  Fav scene was Loki v. Hulk.  I really hope the sequel has a few more Avengers in it, even if they are only there for brief apperances.

I'm just looking forward to the villain from the second one.

Oh yah!  Even though someone spolied it for me I was still excited.  I would have been out of my chair excited had I not known what was coming=:)

I live in Cleveland Ohio, where they shot some of the scenes, and one of my buddies was an extra in the movie.  So it was fun pointing out Cleveland locales in the film...like the "biergarten" in Germany is Tower City Center and parts of Public Square.  My buddy was in that scene, and you can see the back of his head as Loki forces everyone to kneel to him.  He said Tom Hiddleston (the actor who plays Loki) was actually really nice, and was a riot on set.  He kept fiddling with the horned helmet and turned to look at everyone and said "Next movie I'm doing, it's just jeans and t-shirts!"

It was a really amazing movie, even the local interest aside.  I was really amazed at how well they managed to balance all the characters.  I know many people were worried it would essentially become "Iron Man 3."  But I think they did an excellent job of giving everyone their moments to shine and developing all the characters.  And it was a surpsingly funny movie.  I'm actually probably one of the few nerds who generally doesn't like Whedon's work (I find it to be highly derivative, with Firefly being for me the only watchable piece) but I really liked this movie.  I'd seen a 30 second clip of the Ironman vs. Thor fight and was really looking forward to it.  But the Thor vs. Hulk fight?  Oh.  My.  God.

"Dost mother know thou art wearing the drapes?"

And yeah..."The Amazing Spider-Man" looks horrible.  I'm not sure why they decided to go with such a dark, gritty design.  Are they trying to distance themselves from the original movies?  Are they trying to go along the Nolan line of grim and gritty reboot?  It just looks all-around mashed up.

As far as "The Dark Knight Rises" goes, I have a feeling it's setting itself up to be a disappointment.  Not that it looks bad (not as bad as "The Amazing Spider-Man" at least), but I think with all the hype it has the potential to set itself up for a fall.  Plus it has the financial and critical successes of the previous two films to live up to.  I'm not really enough of a Batman fan to know much about Bane beyond his appearances in the animated series from the 90s, so I can't comment on that.  But I'm still seriously doubting Anne Hathaway as Catwoman, and the Batmobile-turned-hovercraft does seem to contradict the more realistic style that Nolan's been going for.

So... I just saw this.

Hmmmm. It was okay, but not as awesome I wanted it to be. Great moments, great humour, but the overall plot was by-the-numbers. The trailers spoiled all of it, in fact :(

BTW. What's the big deal with the hidden scenes? The one after the main credits didn't reveal anything new. And there was no second hidden scene after the complete credits... Could anyone describe it to me?

The hidden scence showed a major Marvel villian as being behind the invasion and Loki's plot. Yes, Loki was being manipulated by something else.

I don't know who the bad guy is but someone more familiar with Marvel can tell you. IIRC it was Marvel's countermarket to DC's Apocolapyse (sp?).

Ah, so it was Thanos? Well, this *is* interesting, then.

I initially assumed that this guy was a Skrull. Which would not be in any way interesting, as the Chitauri are Ultimate Marvel's version of Skrulls...

Apocalypse is an X-Men villain. You are referring to DC's Darkseid who rules the planet Apokalips.

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Yes, the villain revealed was indeed Thanos.

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In the SC/Marvel crossovers years ago, Darkseid even referred to him as "A pale imitation of me" as he confronted him.

I thought the acting was very good..but I thought the writing really wasn't. Just as you said Varsovian, it was very by-the-numbers...and worst of all, Whedon's use of the by-the-numbers ended up being lazy. There wasn't good motivation for a number of the things done which made a number of sequences come off poorly (the Thor/Iron Man fight, for example).

It was poorly motivated, the stakes weren't believable, they end battle didn't match the villain thematics used up to that point, there were some real clunkers of one liners, there were a couple of really bad music cues, almost no character had anything resembling a real character arc...or even any time to express any complex human emotions (Hulk and Black Widow being two exceptions).

The acting was really good. The fight sequences *looked* good (though often poorly motivated). But the movie wasn't as good as it should have been. It wasn't as good as Thor or Captain America, for example.

I have to disagree with you on almost every point, trooper. I thought Avengers was by far the best actual superhero movie. The dialogue was awesome - in particular the timing of the humor was brilliant. I though the stakes - being the end of the world and all - were plenty high enough. I'll ...I'll just leave it at that really.

For me it was the best superhero movie. Several other comic book movies that have been considered great I absolutely detested. So I'm just gonna chock it up to your mileage may vary.

I really enjoyed the movie. Character wise really was best to watch the prequels Thor, Captain America, Iron Man etc. Only Black Widow and the revised-Hulk* needed to give that background. I wouldn't have considered Avengers a stand alone movie anymore than I would Return of Jedi.


* original newer Hulk movies didnt go so well. The new face motion capture techniques hugely improved the ability to have emotions on the CGI character. It was a much needed tune-up to the big green fist.

In reply to Varsovian (msg #16):

To answer your second question.  The scene 2nd "after" scene isn't a big thing, not even a full scene really.  It was supposedly filmed the night of the London premiere, so that might be why the version you saw did not include it (not sure if it got added to the all releases).

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The bit is just a shot, not long, maybe 30 seconds of the Avengers sitting at a table, mostly still in costume, in a slightly damaged resteraunt enjoying a post-fight meal of shawarma.    In case it's not remembered, this is a call out to Tony's mid-fight comment that he didn't know what shawarma was, but suggested that they should all go out for some at a place he noticed a few blocks away from the heart of the battle.

---

*chuckles*   I will refrain from trying to argue with anyone who didn't like the Avengers, or was disappointed in it.    After all, many of us are the kinds of nerds who obsess over details in Star Trek, Star Wars, Anime, and any superhero movie that comes out.

It wasn't perfect, goodness knows, and the fact that it was trying to appeal to a larger audience than just the superhero geeks like me meant that it might not have been up to the lofty standards that we would have liked, but that happens with all movies, to be honest.

As much as I loved it, it would be easy to pick things apart, especially after the fact.   The fact that many of us wanted and expected this to be a mind-blowing experience might have caused us to raise the bar too high, as well.

It was a wonderful and fun movie.   I'll try to leave it at that.
(though, as a nerd, I know I'll fail to)

Did anyone spot the two Stan Lee cameos in the movie? I bet no one picked THAT up.

I saw only one.

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The interview with him as the "skeptical guy in the park playing chess" at the end of the movie.

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What as the other one?


I feel bad, having seen it more than once, but obviously missing details.

I wouldn't put it up there as the best superhero movie of all time, but I thought it was better than Thor or Captain America and as good as Iron Man 2 or Spider-Man 2 (and the X-Men movies look pretty poor in comparison).  I wouldn't quite elevate it above The Incredibles or The Dark Knight, though.

I loved the snappy interaction on the helicarrier, and yeah, Mark Ruffalo was great.  The big fight at the end was good, although I kept thinking it was a shorter version of the overlong Chicago brawl in Transformers 3.  The best moments were the character interaction and dialogue

I was a little disappointed in the way the Black Widow was portrayed in parts, but that's Whedon.  He creates bad-ass female characters, but still puts them in the "damsel-in-distress" position.

It didn't seem like a 2 and a half hour movie, though.  It didn't blow me away, but I wasn't disappointed, either.  And my companion, though not a superhero or action fan, couldn't stop talking about the film all day.

No second scene after the credits here in Hong Kong, though.  I'll have to wait to see it when it comes out on DVD.
This message was last edited by a moderator, as it was against the forum rules, at 16:37, Mon 21 May 2012.

In reply to nuric (msg #26):

It's tough to spot BUT is was one of the NYPD officers running towards the camera when the invasion took place. (Sorry about the mini spoiler) :(

'Parts'? With the exception of

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the part where the Hulk was chasing her, which is understandable since the Hulk is supposed to be unstoppable

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I can't recall her ever being in any distress that she didn't get herself out of.
Unless you mean the times she appeared to be in great distress, then snapped out of it to the surprise of whoever it was that thought they had her. That is a part of Black Widow's character: acting like the damsel in distress in order to get the men to drop their guards. And it worked wonders each time she used it, including

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tricking Loki, who is supposed to be extremely good at deception himself.

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If you mean any time she was ever in any danger at all, well that's just a side effect of being a super spy in the Marvel universe. There's all sorts of dangerous people there, after all. If it was Nick Fury in those situations, he'd be in just as much danger, but I doubt you'd say he was a 'damsel in distress'.

I can see the "damsel in distress" thing with the two times she showed great fear in her two dealings with the Hulk.   Both of those times, though, were very understandable, since she was up close and personal with an unstoppable monster, which could make anyone wet themselves.    I assume that was Whedon's way of conveying how as scary and terrifying the Hulk can be.

It had the unfortunate effect of making it look like Black Widow was the only one scared of the Hulk, though Widow still did her job and didn't back down, showing just how brave she really was.

I'm assuming that Whedon and the writers thought that modern audiences would react more negatively to showing one of the men acting realistically terrified of the Hulk.

Yup, the second Hulk bit was exactly what I was thinking of.  Wheedon writes his strong female characters like that all the time.  The first time when she brings him in was understandable, but she completely freaked out in the helicarrier.  I was going to compare that to how Wasp faced down the Hulk in the first episode of the Ultimates, but then I remembered Hank Pym going after Janet with the bug spray in the same comic, which I guess illustrates the problem in comics in general.  I'm trying to imagine Captain America curled in a fetal position, hiding behind his shield, cowering in a corner, but I'm getting nothing.  Heck, I can't even imagine Agent Coulson acting that way.

No, the interrogation of Loki is a great reversal of that trope, which I loved, and in the initial interrogation, she is in control the whole time.  (But again, that whole scene can be read as a reinforcement of male gender roles, not unlike all of those early Wonder Woman covers).

And did the Avengers pass the Bechdel test?  I don't think the Shield agent ever talked once to the Black Widow.  I'm thinking no.  Maybe Avengers 2 will.  =)
This message was last edited by the user at 07:13, Tue 22 May 2012.

Well, defining realistic is kind of hard with comic book characters, one a god that could go toe to toe with the Hulk, one in a suit of gadgets and some one that (well, ret-conned anyway) has the base power serum that helped form the Hulk that could take an otherwise shattering blow.

And all of them showed a bit of fear at certain point. Plus, Nick Fury took special precaution because he is scared of the Hulk. Plus, Nick's #2 Was very bad ass and did not even come close to Damsel in Distress. And she is less specially trained than Widow.

I would say that one pilot showed how scared a man should be :-)

"Target angry!  TARGET ANGRY!!"

Serves him right for disobeying orders. He was supposed to fire at maximum range. Did it look like maximum range on a fighter jet to you? At least his parachute opened... eventually.

Just to clear up the misconception over why people think its unreasonible that Natasha is scared in her second encounter of Banner where she remains in complete control in the first is two fold.

First Off: Early on Banner lets slip that he attempted suicide. Gun in mouth and the Hulk transformation saved him. So regardless of how good Natasha was with that gun in her first encounter she had ZERO stopping power at the time. Though at that moment she figured she could cap him before he could transform. This belief was ERADICATED by that confession. Her primary weapons are in short summary: ALL COMPLETELY WORTHLESS AGAINST HIM.

Secondly: Natasha is an agility fighter. Beyond the pistols her primary method of combat is a mix of acrobatics and martial arts which requires FREEDOM OF MOVEMENT. So how does this apply to the encounter? She's pinned to the deck by heavy peices of metal. Very hard to avoid a raging behemoth tearing the hellicarrier apart around you if you're already pinned to the floor not ten feet from certain death. GO FIGURE SHE'S SCARED. Even if the Hulk didn't go directly for her the chances of him ripping a hole in the carrier in his escape and her falling to her death is still a reasonibly high chance...and unlike the other avengers she's still human. Capt America might be able to grab something on his way out and hang on, but no matter how 'trained' a regular person is...you get sucked out of a plane....you get sucked out of a plane.

I'm not sure which of us you're referring to, but I was completely understanding of Natasha being scared of the Hulk.   It would be like having a T-Rex locked in a small room with you, only with the T-Rex having more muscular arms.
Freaking Terrifying.

I was just commenting that it was unfortunate that she was the only one allowed to show profound fear, of all the regular Avengers (though I suppose it couldn't really be helped, as she was the only "human" one left among them, since Cap was an enhanced human, Thor was a god, Hawkeye was indisposed, and Iron Man was a raging egomaniac).

But, yes, having her showing fear was actually a very realistic thing, since it was the only reasonable response, even for a seasoned spy, to being that close to the Hulk.

Also, remember that she was also very scared in the first encounter, even when she was holding a gun on him (and still thought it would work).   This is also very realistic, and I thought it worked well.
Again, perhaps I was just a little sensitive to "the girl gets to be the scared one".    But perhaps it couldn't be helped.

Of course it could be helped. Hawkeye is the other one of the team who is just a regular human...and he's never used so show just how scary the Hulk is.

In reply to trooper6 (msg #37):

*grins*  True enough.  I was saying earlier, though, that your average "Joe Moviegoer" would be a lot more accepting of a woman who is scared and then tried to kick butt, as opposed to a man doing it.  It's sad, but it's a truism of our society, at least for the time being.

If they had switched Hawkeye and Widow's roles in the movie.  We'd be getting people saying that they are showing that women are weak willed and easily controlled.

Good point.    There is no perfect answer, certainly, which is why I was happy with how they'd done it.

On the subject of fear: I may be mistaken, but didn't Iron Man show a bit of fear before landing at Stark Tower and going for a chat with Loki?

Yeah, if I remember right, he wasn't expecting things to go at all well.

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And when Loki was about to try to use his mind control staff on him, Tony was visibly worried before that glorious "tink" sounded.

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and we get to see the Avenger Tower and HQ.

I certainly wouldn't say that, and I'm a die hard feminist. Why? Because there were multiple people (including the scientist doctor who was a major character in Thor) who had also been controlled. If the only person to be controlled were a woman...then yeah, I'd start calling foul. Alternately, if they showed Black Widow being so scared and teary eyed, but there were another female member of the team who wasn't...that would also be okay. But there is only one female Avenger and they made her a damsel in distress vs. the Hulk in ways the didn't with other characters.

Also, I didn't read Tony Stark as being afraid with Loki at all, we was all cocky bravado...as usual.

So Maria Hill falls where? I would put her in the same scope as Natasha, even if the skill set is different, yet she never shrivled. Maybe she never went against the Hulk, but she did go through some pretty equally terrifying bits. And I qualify that being in certain doom in any situation.

I enjoyed it for the humor and the explosions. But the team dynamics felt forced. Some of the characters were just goofy (I know, it's comic book characters, but still, someone give that woman a real-sized gun already). And I never felt in anyway worried or tense. It's a light beer & chips movie.

Favorite comic book movie was probably The Watchmen.

Maria Hill is not currently a full fledged character. In the film, she's still an NPC rather than a PC.

Mariah Hill is pretty ok, I think.  She dealt with Loki pretty well, she didn't lose her cool, but she didn't really do anything, either.

It would have been nice to have had her and the Black Widow talk a bit.  They are the two major female characters aboard the helicarrier, so surely they would have had something to say to each other, if only a "what's up" head nod or something.

Wheedon writes excellent female characters, he really does.  He just likes to have them freak out when horrible things happen.

Tony Stark's reaction to Loki is a good contrast.  He clearly has reason to be afraid of a god, and I think it shows, but he stays calm, outwardly, anyway, and Loki's as big a threat as Hulk is.

My son actually got a trading card of Maria Hill in his first Marvel Attax card pack.  He asked me who she was, and I didn't know (I hadn't seen the movie yet).  I told her she was a member of SHIELD, and that was enough for him.  She doesn't get a spot on any of the movie posters, so she's a secondary character, but still a named one, so she's one step higher than just a Female SHIELD Agent.  Speaking of which, where are the rest of the female SHIELD agents?  Besides BW and MH, are there any others on the helicarrier?  I think I might have seen one more, but the camera tends to linger elsewhere, like on Gwyneth Paltrow's shorts and Maria Hill walking away from the camera.  (In fairness, the dudes were hot, too, but Joss Wheedon knows his target audience).

Edit: here's the Bechdel Test page for The Avengers:  http://bechdeltest.com/view/3205/the_avengers/
This message was last edited by the user at 06:05, Wed 23 May 2012.

Maybe I missed something but I don't recall Black Widow being "terrified" so much as "oh crap, things just got worse, time to leg it"

Yeah, Thor had to come in and save her, but it's the hulk, he's thor. There wasn't any macho one-liners like "never let a woman do a man's job" or anything silly. And then thor had to get saved by the fighter pilot...who had to be saved via parachute.

I think the purpose of that scene wasn't so much to portray Widow as a damsel in distress but to provide the escalation of the conflict. Iron Man was vital to be removed from the scene as he had to fix the rest of the ship.

Granted Black Widow could have gone with Iron Man instead of Captain America, and given that role reversal I think Cappy would have been booking it in terror until Thor came along to knock some sense into hulk.


Accusing Joss Whedon of portraying women poorly is a very difficult arguement to be on given his history of work.
This message was last edited by the user at 15:24, Wed 23 May 2012.

Even still, I kind of find it a bit perplexing to look for anything serious or deep beyond a good romping in a comic book movie.

In reply to praguepride (msg #49):

I think any question of whether or not Black Widow was portrayed as damsel in distress has to take into account this scene...

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She and Hawkeye, the two least powerful and most mundane members of the team, holding off the alien invasion while Captain America is helping people out of the bus...

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That does NOT sound much like a portrayal of a weak individual, regardless of gender.  As for the issue of being confronted by the Hulk...I'd say she showed a lot of good sense.  I mean, she KNEW that Banner was resentful of being manipulated into showing up.  She knew that Loki was intending for Banner to lose it and wreak havoc.  And she was right there, at Ground Zero, as it was happening.  'Run like hell', at that point, is not weakness...it's just good sense.  She's not Thor, who is arguably the only member of the team who's even remotely prepared to stand up to a rampaging Hulk (Iron Man's suit would get crushed, Captain America is superstrong and all, but let's face it, he didn't quadruple in size from the serum injections...pretty sure that Hawkeye doesn't have anything miraculous up his sleeves that would put him in a toe-to-toe scenario that he'd walk out of...)  Running away is the only response to the scenario that doesn't end with Natasha Romanoff smeared all over the walls...

So does that mean that Whedon messed up? This isn't world of darkness here.

Yeah, with as much as she's portrayed as unshakable (unless she's faking) and fearless in every other scene, I think it's safe to say that the Hulk is likely the ONLY thing she really fears, and for exactly the reasons Xiane stated a few posts up.

Her weapons are agile martial arts, deception, and firearms.

Martial Arts?  Anything short of a literal physical GOD would (and does) get splattered.
Deception?  The Hulk is pure rage and aggression.  We all saw what Hulk did to the one guy in the movie who tried to talk him down.  Hulk would either ignore her (not likely) or smash her.
Firearms?  Banner shot down that idea pretty good with his little story.

So yeah, there is quite literally NOTHING she can do but run from him.  Her ENTIRE arsenal is about as useful against the Hulk as spitballs against a tank.

She's got a ****ing right to be afraid of him.
This message was last edited by the user at 16:09, Wed 23 May 2012.

To put in my two cents here... I think the part that people are saying made Black Widow look like the "Damsel in distress" wasn't that she ran from the Hulk so much as it was that she was pretty much reduced to quivering in the fetal position after Thor took over the fight. While I can understand that argument, let's put in perspective that, to the best of the viewer's knowledge, she had never faced anything tougher than a normal person before while everyone else had faced monsters, super humans, gods, etc. I don't care how well trained you were, nothing would prepare you for seeing someone transform into the Hulk... knowing that there's noone else around to draw focus... and especially knowing that he resents you specifically for being there to begin with (which was reinforced by their brief verbal exchange as he was changing). The fact that she was able to pull herself together without years of therapy is a testament to hiw strong willed she is.

I'm not going to bother putting anything in spoilers anymore. If you've read this far and are worried about spoilers, the burden of effort is on your part to STOP READING and go see the movie :D


Again, I didn't get the impression of "quivering in fear" so much as "duck and cover to avoid getting crushed while two titans battle it out on a collapsing, exploding airship"

Also there is the thought that Loki DID get to her. She was just super professional about it and clever enough to turn the tables on him. This is somewhat shot down by her using almost the exact same "damsel" act earlier but then again, it IS Loki, the god of lies.

She was unnerved by Hawkeye's betrayel. She was unnerved by Loki's insight. She lost her last nerve when a big green monster and a mythological god starting smacking each other around.

Whedon thinks of himself as feminist, but his history of work isn't as feminist as he'd like to think it is. Whedon has had a number of problematic things in a lot of his work, to be honest.
This message was last edited by a moderator, as it was against the forum rules, at 05:34, Thu 24 May 2012.

I've read some of those articles about how he's not really a feminist because his "strong female leads" relied upon men, but that theory is trash, in my opinion.

His characters all rely on each other. Buffy needed her Scooby team and Angel for emotional support, but the vice versa was true as well. Xander and Giles needed Buffy, Angel needed Buffy.

Same thing in Firefly, Dollhouse etc.


He's not a feminist because he writes "women only shows that only have women and only have women as being independent etc. etc."

ALL of his characters end up relying on each other. He builds "teams" of people, each with their own realistic strengths and weaknesses and he does so in a way that makes them equal. It's even dice whether the "muscle" of the group is male or female...the point about equality is that gender doesn't limit the roles.

Equality doesn't mean you make women automatically better then men or vice versa. Equality means you make people, and this is what Joss Whedon does.

Black Widow wasn't a damsel, it's proven time and time again she can handle her own. The fact that she ran from the Hulk makes her A) smart and B) believable.

If she would have stared down the hulk and said something like "I run from NO MAN!" that would be just as terrible as if she had cried out "I need a man to save me"

Overcompensation is just as terrible as undercompensation. They're opposite ends of the same spectrum where the ideal measure is in the middle.

That reminded me of the return of the King with Eowyn. I rolled my eyes when I saw the whole interplay between her and hte Witch-King on screen. I then read back and that was in fact legit. Am I wrong to think that was so damn corny?

It makes me wonder about the big picture...concidering that it was well received and what appears to be Avengers 2. I wonder how soon they start fliming for that? Or no one wrote the script yet?

In reply to praguepride (msg #57):

Bravo.

In his defense Tolkien was the first to do it in recent times, but yes that trope is older then dirt.
"I fear no man"
"Good thing I'm a woman!"

Pass the butter :)

In reply to praguepride (msg #61):

That whole thing worked a little better in the book. When he was defeated at Angmar, he prophesied that 'Not by the hand of man shall I be destroyed." Still hopelessly semantic on a Macbeth-like level, but better than "I fear no man." Or "They say no man can kill him."

At least 'hand of man' implies the gender neutral usage of the word.

I mean, really, if you had a prophecy, and it said that 'No man can kill you' wouldn't your first thought be 'I better watch out for women?'

C.S Lewis should have given Tolkien some better pointers.
This message was last edited by the user at 19:50, Thu 24 May 2012.

In reply to Wyrm (msg #63):

More lions?

More fur coats. Winter is coming.

C.S. Lewis wrote Game of Thrones?

I do submit that Peter Dinklage is in both.

Forgive me if I find this irritating. Lewis and Tolkien were co-workers and close friends. There should be no doubt that they did, indeed, give each other pointers.

*clap*
*clap*
*clap*

Well played, sir. Well played.