Another Pass at Another Pass at Avengers: Age of Ultron

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Case Aiken (00:06):
Hey, everyone, and welcome back to Another Pass at Another Pass podcast. I'm Casey Haken, and as always, I'm joined by my co host, Sam Alicea.

Sam (00:15):
Hi.

Case Aiken (00:16):
And today we are doing what we always do on these episodes, which are bonus episodes of the main show, where we navel gaze at the old episodes from early, early in the run before Sam was part of this show, and in many cases are no longer available on pod players that have limits on how far back they go. So today we're looking at another classic episode. We're looking at the 15th episode of the show.

(00:38):
And I gotta say, I'm pretty happy.
With the episode that we're talking about today.

Sam (00:43):
This is a good episode. There's good sound quality all the way through. Are you all in the same room?

Case Aiken (00:48):
We are, we are. And that does lead to a few things. So let's say actually what the name of the movie is.

Sam (00:53):
Oh, yes, I'm sorry, we're bearing the lead. I apologize to the listener.

Case Aiken (00:57):
So today we're talking about Age of Ultron, and I think that the listener will kind of understand what kind of episode it's going to because it's a movie that kind of just screams mid, but, like, you can't put your finger on why. And this is a really good episode where we really get into it all because we're coming at it. And actually, so it's a Ben and Addie episode because this is an early one in the show. So we're still doing a lot of the stuff in the CPOV Studios that Addie had in his basement back. Back when he and J. Mike lived together. So we're all in the room together. It's. It's a lively discussion. We're very positive about it.

(01:34):
But also, this is coming out after Civil War, but before any of like, Infinity War or Endgame or anything like that comes along. So this is an interesting point in that conversation. But, you know, as we like to point out, audio quality is pretty good overall. There's a little bit where you can tell people are away from the mic because they're, you know, we're animated and so forth. I noticed that for me a bunch, and I'm going to see what I can do in post to sort of like, clean that up a little bit. But overall audio quality is pretty good.

Sam (02:01):
Yeah. Especially compared to some of the older. Older episodes.

Case Aiken (02:05):
Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, it's, I think, a lively discussion. I think we make some really good points. I think the big thing going into it is that we have a lot of really good analysis of the movie itself. And I think that we have interesting ideas about improvements. And I think this is an interesting episode because like it, like Age of Ultron is a movie that is just not as much of a standout as the first Avengers movie or as the one, two punch of Infinity War and Endgame. So it has to stand on its own, being kind of this middle movie in this very big sea of movies that are out there. And I think we get at a lot of the points that were problems in this episode, and so I think listeners should check it out.

(02:54):
I think we have some really good takes on that one. But it is definitely a movie that requires the right perspective to truly appreciate it.

Sam (03:05):
I agree.

Case Aiken (03:06):
Sam, before we get into the episode, anything that you wanted to bring up about this movie or about the episode.

Sam (03:12):
In question, I just want everyone to know that Case will use his infinite knowledge of the Marvel universe. Not just cinematic, just the entire in this episode. And it will be fun for you there. There will be some shout outs to characters that if you are not familiar with in the marathon universe, Case will definitely talk about it. And it made me have the warm feels because that is the Case I know and love.

Case Aiken (03:38):
Oh, this is a peak Case episode.

Sam (03:41):
This is such a Case episode. So I, I actually want to bring attention to that and I just want to be like, if you've ever really wondered, I mean, like, maybe our podcast is enough. But if you've ever wondered what it's like to just like hang out with Case, this episode is just hanging out with Case.

Case Aiken (04:01):
Yeah, I mean we're really like excited about this movie. There's a, I have a lot of notes. I'm, I went so many notes on this movie.

Sam (04:09):
But it's great. It's great. You, like, you are two steps away from like rewriting and also defending this film at the same time at any given moment. And it is honestly possibly my favorite Case episode. And I. Sorry, Ben and Addie, to me, this is a Case episode. It is Case heavy. I just think that it's very enjoyable for me.

Case Aiken (04:35):
Yeah. So why don't we get into the actual episode and then we'll have our more detailed breakdown on the backside. But yeah, so here is the episode of another pass on Age of Ultron. Welcome to Certain Point of View's Another Pass podcast. Be sure to subscribe, rate and review on itunes. Just go to certainpov.com.

(05:05):
Hey nerf earners, thanks for tuning in I'm Case Aiken, and today I'm joined by Ben and Addie. Hey, who could have expected that?

Ben (05:14):
I know.

Case Aiken (05:15):
So thanks for tuning in to another past podcast where we talk about movies that could be good, could be bad, but definitely could be great. And today we're talking about one that is definitely in, or at least in my opinion, in the good camp. We're talking about Avengers 2, Age of Ultron.

Addy (05:29):
Yeah, this is one that a lot of people like. I don't know. It feels like some people tend to put this in a bad category sometimes.

Case Aiken (05:38):
Yeah, well, I think they put it in the bad category for all of the reasons that I have for why it's not great. I love the Marvel movies. It's hard for them to be a true miss, but there are definitely a lot of movies that are kind of forgettable, and this one's not truly forgettable because it's an Avengers movie.
So it's a big pull out, all.
The stops kind of movie, but it definitely doesn't hit some of the notes that other movies in the series have done. The big comparison is Captain Civil War, which was the immediate follow up big Marvel movie and is a big Avengers movie in a lot of ways. And compare it with the first Avengers, where it felt like a victory lap for everything that they'd been trying to achieve at that point. Age of Ultron is a good movie. The scenes are really good, the action's really good, the characterization is nice. But ultimately the consequences and the stakes are pretty low. And that, I think, makes it feel less worthwhile of a movie. Like, you could skip it and just be a little confused about who Vision and Scarlet Witch are in Civil War and where it is. It could better. That's the point.

(06:47):
It could better.

Ben (06:49):
Yeah. I'm not gonna defend this movie. I like this movie. I disagree with you. This is a really hard episode for me to do because I disagree with your. I think the stakes are high. I think there are consequences that come out of this movie that roll into Phase Three, and I thought it was set up very well through the rest of the other Phase two movies that honestly don't give it a lot of wiggle. Like, there's not a lot for me to tweak and change in this movie because it just. It's so good. Like, I, you know, I have a really hard time coming up with things.

Case Aiken (07:23):
I don't like about this movie.

Addy (07:25):
Well, I can tell you one thing, I was like, just on the surface one thing I was sort of disappointed with and it's kind of twofold, really. But it's not like I don't think Ultron was bad. I actually really like him. I like James Spader playing him. He's got the right voice. I like even his emotion, like him being born out of fear. I like the connection with the Mind Stone and Loki staff. I thought that was. That was a nice, like, narrative through line. And thematically, it really worked for me, at least with vision. Vision and him being sort of like the opposites of two attempts at a particular. A particular attempt by Tony Stark.

(07:58):
See, you mentioned before the podcast that there's an arc for Tony Stark through, like, Iron Man 3, Age of Ultron and Civil War that you think is not realized. I actually think is realized. Well, now, see, this is partially because I Love Iron Man 3. I've always loved Iron Man 3. It has been one of my favorites in the. Like, that is right up there with Guardians of the Galaxy for Guardians of the Galaxy is my absolute favorite. But I adore Iron Man 3, and maybe that's because I'm a huge Shane Black fan. But I. I like what it did as far as building on Tony's story left over from Avengers. It was a nice. It was a nice way to develop that character further. And I. My.

(08:42):
My thought process is, you know, you take Tony out of after Iron Man 3, he wants to find an end to what they do. And he says that he wants to find an end to their mission as opposed to having to continue the fight like Cap is. And it was funny. I was watching some of the deleted scenes today, and there was a little bit more of, like, Cap always wanting to be in the fight as opposed to just wanting to end the mission. And it. Like, there was a little bit more narrative things that were narratively interesting, like, things that. That I didn't appreciate the first time around. Like, there was a version of Thor's bat scene that was actually good because that was one scene.

Ben (09:17):
That's the scene.

Addy (09:18):
Yeah, that was one scene that. Because that scene just a. Like, just kind of a. An attempt to connect it to the bigger universe to include the Infinity Stones, to give it a rationale. But he gave. Like, there's a. There's a deleted scene where he's talking like he's possessed by one of the Norn spirits and lashing out and explaining the sacrifice that's going to need to be made. Be made and, like, what the role of the Mind Stone and kind of prophesying Vision. Vision's birth, basically. So. So there are A lot of things that I think are interesting there. I actually think this movie needs an extra half hour, to be perfectly honest.

Case Aiken (09:55):
That's a fair assessment. I mean, I will admit I have not seen the deleted scenes for this movie. The version that I own just didn't have it. And I have not had a chance to go out and get a version that has it. I think that sort of supports thesis, though, that the movie is not there, but it could be.

Addy (10:14):
Right.

Case Aiken (10:16):
And I like this movie. I don't want that to come off as being not the case, but it's not the strong. Like, compare this with Avengers 1. I think this is a weaker movie between the two. I think Avengers 1 is. While. While it's not very complex and this tries to be complex, I think this movie rushes through a lot of things partially because it cuts out scenes clearly that would have made it or that would have unified some of the concepts.

Addy (10:42):
Yeah.

Case Aiken (10:42):
I also think that this movie could have been Iron Man 3. I think that the other characters, aside from it being a continuation of Captain America's story from Winter Soldier, I think a lot of the other characters don't have quite as much of a role that couldn't have just as easily been in someone else's movie. Compare the story arcs that we get for the people in this movie with the ones that we get in Civil War. Civil War goes fairly deep in some characters psyches, I would argue as deep into Thor in this movie as it does into, say, Scarlet Witch or Vision in Civil War.

(11:17):
Yeah.
And I. And it's hard to really go into it being like, oh, look at what the next movie does. But the next movie shows that you can do a Marvel movie that's about one character, but still really spend a lot of time with other characters.

Addy (11:31):
Right. Because there is. There is time spent on those other characters. But I want one place I do agree with you is you mentioned. I. I don't think there's a lack of stakes in this story. I do think there's a lack of consequence. One thing that I like it feel one thing like I would have liked to add to Stark's arc through these movies because I like the idea of him wanting an end to the mission, then regretting his mistakes with Ultron, which is why he takes the stance that he does in Civil War. That's so. Because I've always kind of seen that as the arc. And of course, with Cap, you see his loss of trust in the government and in the institution he once believed in. So that's why he was on the side that he was.

(12:10):
By the time we get to Civil War with Tony, I would have actually really enjoyed if at the end of this movie, they decided to. In a way, it's actually kind of the end to Iron Man 2, but to basically kick him off the team, but keep him on as a consultant. So he continues to develop certain gadgets and stuff, like, to enhance, like, I would have liked.

Ben (12:33):
He's basically the bankroll for the Avengers.

Addy (12:35):
Right. That he's still a valued member, but he can't be in the fight with them anymore. Because the thing is, like. Like, I. I would have liked him to even call out the team on, like, their gadgets that he's clearly the team is. Has been given gadgets as he's developed for them. And this is something that he does. They know that this is who he is. So is it really any different from Cap using his little special magnetic. You know, get the shield back. Yeah. And everything like that. You know, the. Whatever other enhancements he's offered everyone.

Case Aiken (13:06):
Right, right.
And he. And he does make a joke about it earlier on where it's like, no, he's the leader. I'm just the one who pays for everything.

Addy (13:12):
Yeah. It would have been nice to have a little bit more of a conflict. Continue the conflict, to really intensify the conflict between him and Steve Rogers, I.

Ben (13:20):
Think, without it being civil war.

Addy (13:22):
Yeah. Well, to really build even. Well, to build towards civil war towards that culmination.

Case Aiken (13:28):
Yeah.
Here's my thought. And so consequences is a better word. Yeah. Because sure.
Stakes.
The world might end. It's hard to really top those stakes specifically. But the consequences are not really there because the team isn't shattered at the end, nor is it actually made far stronger at the end. And I kind of would like the team to shift in a way. The movie has this really great opening scene where it's like, we got the gang back together. Look how well they work together. You get that great shot of all of them in one frame, moving and acting. And at the end of the movie, the team is not worse or better, it's just different. And that, I think, is actually a weakness of this movie. They end with Vision, Scarlet Witch. These are the powerhouses. You get Falcon and War Machine. So you've got tech and skill. So you're not looking at a team.

Ben (14:17):
That'S devoid of dramatically different. Right.

Case Aiken (14:20):
It's a different set of powers, but the Vision has the Mind Stone. We've already established it's one of the most dangerous things ever it might be more powerful than Thor's hammer. So we're not talking about a big drop in power. What would have been kind of interesting, because they keep doing references in this movie to it, is Captain America's Kooky Quartet where it was him, Quicksilver, Scarlet Witch, and Hawkeye, where it was like, if that was the last team left, like, if everyone else was out, maybe not Hawkeye, because Renner was trying to be more prominent, but also not as big a deal. I don't know. Like, Renner doesn't know what he wants to do with this franchise, it seems. Right. Yeah, Well, I. Yeah.

Ben (14:57):
And I don't think they know what they want to do with him either.

Addy (14:59):
But I thought he was used well in this movie.

Case Aiken (15:01):
In this movie, he was. And also in Civil War, I think him kind of popping in, like, you actually could believe, because of the background drama with the actor that, like, oh, Jeremy Renner's not in this movie. And then he shows up.
Right.

Ben (15:12):
Yeah.

Case Aiken (15:12):
I haven't disliked his appearances in these movies. Like, those have been good. The only time I wish he was in Winter Soldier.

Addy (15:19):
Yeah.

Ben (15:20):
It would have made more sense because.

Case Aiken (15:22):
Then it could have been like, that ground level, like, Wetworks team. And he. He definitely should have been on that team.

Addy (15:26):
Right.

Ben (15:26):
Yeah.

Case Aiken (15:27):
But aside from him being missing from that scene, he's been a consistently good part of the Marvel universe. Like, they set him up in Thor. It wasn't a huge setup, but everyone got excited because it's like, he's got the bow.

Addy (15:38):
Yeah.

Case Aiken (15:38):
And then he's around. But, yeah, like, in the movie with them in a worse place because Thor has to leave, Iron man is kicked off the team or has a difference of opinion. They're not at blows. But a difference of opinion from Cap. It's like, well, fine, I'm gonna go off and do things with charity for Stark and stuff like that. Set them up for civil war, have other members, be like, I don't know if I can do this. And then it's just Cap and then the two metahumans that he just picked up and reformed assassin. And it could be Black Widow instead. It could be Falcon instead. Ye. Any of these can kind of play the role, but it should be a human everyman to counter the two nascent superpowers. Yeah.

(16:20):
And the fact that Quicksilver dies in this movie is actually part of what I'm saying in terms of stakes and consequences. He probably should have lived. And I know they killed him because he's a complicated legal character with the X Men franchise. But his death means nothing in this movie. In the narrative of the movie, it does. But in the broader Marvel universe, it means nothing because it's not a huge tipping point for Scarlet Witch for later stuff. At least we haven't seen it yet. And we saw a lot of her in Civil War, so you can't say, oh, we just didn't get it. And he's not a big enough character in the comics, nor is he well established enough that his death has shockwaves. In the Marvel U.

(17:03):
If Iron man died and Tony Stark was just dead, that would have been a huge shockwave. And I don't want that specifically.

Addy (17:08):
But who would you have killed? Because. Because I've thought about that a lot. Like, because that's one thing going into this, like, into my rewatch for this episode, I was like, yeah, the quicksilver death just seems very, like, ultimately meaningless. Again, for, like you said, for the stakes of this movie, it's kind of fine within the movie. But, like, who, Like, I kept on trying to think, like, who would you have killed? Would you have still killed? Would you have actually killed Hawkeye?

Case Aiken (17:29):
Well, that.

Ben (17:29):
That begs, like, the question that I. The one thing that I would not have used Quicksilver.

Addy (17:34):
Well, you wouldn't have used Quicksilver or Scarlet Witch.

Ben (17:37):
I might have used Scarlet Witch because I wouldn't have used Quicksilver, period. Just because he was already being used by Fox, there was no reason to use him. I know that they had already established that with the end credits scene, but as Adi pointed out to me earlier today, that was filmed by Whedon, so they knew that you could have used a different character. I don't think you needed Quicksilver for that role. I think there's plenty of other characters that you could use.

Case Aiken (18:05):
See, I would have rather had him as he was and died as ultimately meaninglessly as that, then completely cut him. Because I really liked both the way they used him and the way that they then referenced the history of the Avengers by having him be around and having Scarlet Witch be around. That felt very reminiscent to that first big roster shift in the Avengers lore. And that was exciting to me. The fact that we don't actually get that as the team at the end of the movie would only be a big shift because that's such a power change. But getting the nods where it's like, okay, we got Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver and Hawkeye and Cap all kind of running around and it feels like the second wave of the Avengers, right? Yeah, I Don't know.

(18:58):
I mean, I've got some thoughts when we get into Ultron and on some of that. That might have had some shift there, but I don't know who I would kill. Like, because Thor, you can't exactly kill. You could actually. Well, I guess you could, but then we just know he'd be coming back.

Addy (19:12):
Yeah.

Case Aiken (19:14):
You can't kill Cap.

Addy (19:15):
Widow.

Ben (19:18):
Meanwhile.

Case Aiken (19:19):
It would have been good. Yeah, it would have been really interesting.

Addy (19:22):
Because I was actually just thinking while you're talking about that there isn't a real roster shift. If you would just. If like, let's say we said, you know, Stark gets kicked off the team, Thor obviously goes back, goes off. I think you do get.

Case Aiken (19:34):
I think you do get a huge roster.

Ben (19:36):
So, yeah, you get. You lose Thor, you lose Hulk, you lose Hawkeye.

Addy (19:39):
Right.

Case Aiken (19:39):
You lose Stark.

Addy (19:41):
So those are four people from the original team that are gone.

Case Aiken (19:44):
Oh, then you add a change in the team. I do agree on that. I'm saying in the scale of the team, is there ever really a huge Ironman? That's true.

Ben (19:53):
Is there ever a huge, like, scale shift?

Case Aiken (19:56):
Yes. The initial roster change going from the original Avengers, which was Iron Man, Thor, Giant Man Wasp, Hulk, who left pretty quickly, but then switched over to essentially Captain America and Hulk switched off.

Addy (20:11):
Right.

Case Aiken (20:12):
And then you go to Cap, Quicksilver, Scarlet Witch and Hawkeye. And at the time, Hawkeye had up until joining the Avengers was a super villain.

Addy (20:21):
Right.

Case Aiken (20:21):
And just a human supervillain at that. You. You go.

Ben (20:27):
Yeah, you do go down.

Case Aiken (20:28):
And also power like Scarlet Witch at no point at that time had been set up.

Ben (20:31):
But I don't think this Scarlet Witch is anywhere near as powerful as, you know, the Scarlet Witch of.

Case Aiken (20:38):
Yeah, she's not as powerful as the age of M. I can do anything Scarlet Witch. But she is very powerful. She's powerful enough to justify her position in a higher tier Avengers group. Like, she's powerful enough to justify her in civil war being cocky about her powers. She's not the 60s era Scarlet Witch who every now and then. Oop, that water main broke the Chaos faction. The power scale on this character has gone a lot from the 60s. That's what I'm talking about. Back then it was really just Quicksilver and Cap and then every now and then Hawkeye and Scarlet Witch contributed. Read it.

Addy (21:13):
Yeah.

Case Aiken (21:15):
Which, let's talk about a few things that I like that I don't want to lose. Before we get into my bigger pitch, I like Quicksilver a lot in this movie. I hate his Look, I bitched about his look online. I think he doesn't look like the character enough.

Addy (21:33):
Looks like a sketcher's ad.

Case Aiken (21:35):
Yeah, exactly. It looks like a makeshift version, which frustrates me because the one that we got over in the X Men movies also doesn't look like the character. And I'm like, I. I just want one guy with, like, the slick back hair and, like, not a shitty costume. Okay. But you know what I really loved about him? So they introduce him as a villain. He's impossibly powerful as a villain.

Addy (21:56):
Yeah.

Case Aiken (21:57):
But then the way they justify it for him being vulnerable and actually not like op as a hero, is that he gets overtaxed being a hero, because doing the right thing is harder than just taking out a person. Like him having to run through a train and save lives. That moment is the first time he's winded. And from that point on, you understand that he is vulnerable when he's actually being pushed to his limits. If you just catch him fresh, you can't beat him. But if he is trying his best to do the right thing, that's when you could actually shoot him. And that's how he gets shot at the end. He's already breathing hard throughout every time he moves.

(22:34):
And they do such a great job of having this character who has a superpower that is such a problem, because it should just be instant win. And they explain very concisely why, yes, if it's a bad guy, it's really hard to win or to beat that. But the second he's trying to do the right thing, it is difficult because he's going. It's too much for him.

Addy (22:53):
That's an interesting perspective, because that's not something I really like. Now that you mention how winded he was during the fight in Sokovia. Like, that's a greater appreciation now that I have for their version.

Case Aiken (23:04):
I like that.
I love that. I don't think it's obvious enough to the audience, because I saw that the first time, because he get. The first time he's breathing hard after using his super speed is when he clears the people off the train. And that is the shift in his personality type. That was great. I thought. I was like, oh, this is a perfect rendition. And this is what I go to a Joss Whedon movie to see. Like, subtle takes and that are, like, comics accurate and also fun and good. I wish he was a little more of a dick, but I like that he was protective of his sister, that he had vendettas against People, these are all great. Hard to really get too mad about.

Addy (23:40):
And they made him a little bit enough of a dick to Hawkeye.

Case Aiken (23:44):
I like that rapport and the fact that it was Hawkeye who also was part of the Kooky quartet. That's a good relationship right there, right? The Hulk Iron man fight.

Addy (23:55):
I totally love it.

Case Aiken (23:57):
You know why I really love it? It is the first time that it happened.
What? You guys are doing great rewrites.

Ben (24:03):
Keep going.

Addy (24:05):
We've already suggested quite a few rewrites.

Case Aiken (24:07):
But I'm listing the things I don't want changed.
Okay.

Ben (24:10):
All right.

Case Aiken (24:11):
The Hulk Iron man fight. This is the first time we get a full superhero fight in public in the Marvel Universe and see the reaction and the fear.

Ben (24:21):
The scale.

Case Aiken (24:22):
Avengers 1 had two scuffles, and they weren't very public. Thor and Hulk had a little bit of a fight on the helicarrier, but the general populace didn't see that. Right. We.

Ben (24:34):
And then you have the fight in the woods.

Case Aiken (24:35):
Well, the fight in the woods is like such a non fight.

Addy (24:38):
Yeah.

Case Aiken (24:39):
This is the first time the public is really watching the Hulk be a monster in, like, that we see on screen. Because he doesn't in any of the other movie appearances.

Ben (24:49):
Well, there's the college campus and the city fight with Abomination where the military.

Case Aiken (24:53):
Shows up and starts shooting shit with sonic waves.
And where a different monster shows up.
And starts tearing up Harlem. And then he shows up and saves the day. Like, we're talking like, this is the first time the Hulk is an active destroyer of everything.
Yes. Okay.
And one of their heroes has to show up to save it.

Ben (25:07):
Yeah.

Case Aiken (25:08):
And so that fight is great. It's. It's cathartic. We. We've been wanting to see the Hulkbuster armor since. Well, since forever, but especially since the trailers for Iron Man 3 where they had that armor that was basically the Hulkbuster armor, but not sitting in there.

Addy (25:21):
Armor.

Case Aiken (25:22):
Not just sitting in there.

Ben (25:24):
Oh, that's right. Igor. Yeah.

Case Aiken (25:25):
Yeah.
Like, that's what we all thought it was. And then it's like, oh, no, it's not the Hulkbuster armor.

Addy (25:30):
It was worth the wait, though.

Case Aiken (25:31):
And the way it worked where, like, it wasn't able to stand up to the Hulk.

Addy (25:34):
Yeah, that had to replace. Yeah, yeah, it was.

Case Aiken (25:37):
These were great. Yeah, this was. That fight was amazing.

Addy (25:39):
And you know what I also like is there's enough levity in the fight without taking away from the gravity of that fight and the consequences.

Case Aiken (25:46):
Yeah.

Ben (25:46):
Whedon balances that really well.

Case Aiken (25:48):
Yeah, he really does. So the stuff with Wanda early on, where they shoot it like a horror movie, I really liked.

Addy (25:55):
Yes.

Case Aiken (25:56):
Like the kind of the ring style, like jump cuts. Yeah, those are all really good. She doesn't have, like, the same kind of Nerf moment that happens with Quicksilver. Not as subtle a Nerf moment. So all of a sudden, she's just not quite as scary, and then you're.

Addy (26:08):
Like, well, she's distracted.

Case Aiken (26:10):
Yeah.

Addy (26:10):
You know, at the end, I thought she was great.

Ben (26:14):
That, like, when she. When she finds the Ultron and rips its heart out after Quicksilver dies, like, that was a great scene.

Case Aiken (26:21):
Yeah, that was.

Ben (26:22):
That was, like, really cool.

Case Aiken (26:24):
She's still powerful, but, like, Quicksilver goes from being this invincible, like, blur of destruction. Ultimately, he doesn't actually kill anyone, but he's so fast, you can't really fight him. And then you get a justification for why he's not so good. Wanda.
It's really just that. Oh.
Now that we're with her, we see that she's not really that good. Like, that kind of bugged me. But I loved her at the beginning. She seemed so scary. Like, the witch stuff was really good because we don't normally think about the witch thing as much.

Addy (26:52):
Right.

Case Aiken (26:53):
Like, if you really emphasize them being, like, gypsies and.

Addy (26:56):
Yeah. That's the only part where they ever.

Case Aiken (26:57):
Yeah, okay, I get. I get you being called a witch. Otherwise, it's just like, oh, you're just other. You have a different superpower from the other superpower.

Addy (27:04):
Right.

Case Aiken (27:04):
Like, oh, you can make things blow up and you don't without an obvious bolt. Versus, like, oh, well. But that one can fly and shoot.

Addy (27:11):
Right? Yeah.

Case Aiken (27:11):
Yeah.

Addy (27:12):
Because I guess it's hard. Like, I guess because her hex magic and chaos magic is a big part of her tool set. But that's. I guess, how do you visual. Like, how do you represent that visually then?

Case Aiken (27:22):
Yeah. Especially because when she came out in the comics, there weren't that many characters versus, by the time that we get to the 90s and 2000s, there's a lot of characters out there.

Ben (27:33):
Yeah.

Case Aiken (27:34):
Why are people more afraid of her than they are the Hulk or Thor or any. You know, it's the same problem I have with mutants, but even worse here, because it's just like, I don't think we're quite as superstitious or as accepting of superstition as, like, a 60s kind of era thing. Like, I don't know, if some chick.

Ben (27:53):
Came out and, like, you know, was able to Just like, you know, make wiggle her fingers and make people do crazy stuff and make you see weird stuff and blow stuff up with their mind. Like, I would be pretty freaked out.

Case Aiken (28:03):
Yeah, but they had to, like, emphasize that in this movie because otherwise her blowing up something with her fingers versus, like, say, Carol Danvers, like, going like that and, like, explosion coming from her hand. I don't see what the difference would be in the public's eyes, you know, like, why is that? Why is one scarier than the other? Why is one a witch and the other one is just like alien laser beams?

Ben (28:25):
Oh, all right. Yeah, I see what you're saying. Yeah. They would both be just as frightening.

Case Aiken (28:30):
I suppose, to a layperson.
Yeah, yeah, I guess so.
I thought they did a good job at the beginning. I wish they had done better transitioning it, like, finding a happy medium where she still seems kind of supernatural and like a horror film kind of character. But I don't know how you would do that.

Ben (28:48):
I mean, would you mirror her more with, like, what the Enchantress was in Suicide Squad?

Addy (28:55):
Oh, please, Shakira.

Case Aiken (28:57):
Yeah, yeah. We can just have belly dances and that's how the world just is.

Ben (29:02):
She makes a machine out of Bella.

Case Aiken (29:03):
Beam in the sky, like, I'm going to make a machine and blah.

Addy (29:06):
Magic machine.

Ben (29:06):
Magic machine, yeah. No, I mean, yeah. Again, this goes back to like when were, you know, you were like, let's do this movie. I was like, God, I don't. The only thing I can think of to do to fix the problems that I have with Quicksilver or with Scarlet Witch is to replace them. And I know, like, you like the idea of tying it back into. Well, this is what, you know, like that original team up and how they came into the second Avengers or whatever. But like you said, there's so many characters now to pull from them than what they had then. I would have rather have seen ant man or somebody else come in those roles that they used those guys for.

Addy (29:49):
Well, let me ask you this. So part of that is Ant man, they felt deserved his own movie before he joined the team. And, you know, Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch, their origin is sort of intrinsic to being part of the Avengers. Is there another character you could think of that you would want to see done that way rather than getting their own movie? And, like, getting sort of that villain.

Ben (30:14):
Ant man and Wasp would have been.

Addy (30:15):
Awesome, but getting sort of that villain treatment in turn?

Case Aiken (30:19):
Well, Ant man, actually, the Ant man they use in that movie, Scott Lang is The kind of movie that actually would fit. Because like, the other thing to mention about that second of the Avengers is that it's all reformed villains, plus Cap.

Addy (30:32):
Right.

Case Aiken (30:32):
He was like the chaperone for a bunch of people who up until that point had all been villains. And so it's not just less powerful, it's also less obviously the heroes of the story. So Ant man would have actually fit. Well, he is another morally ambiguous character as opposed to, I can lift Thor's hammer vision and I'm such a nice guy. Falcon. Like, if it had been Ant Man, Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver and then Black Widow, that would have been a morally ambiguous team. That then Cap is then the shepherd of the beacon of hope that they have to rally around behind to prove how good they can be.

Addy (31:13):
I think though, for this story with just what they dealt with Ultron and sort of the trust issues that are on the team, I'm okay with them. Like, all right, well, you have your good guy Falcon and War Machine being added to the roster and now you have vision, which they are unsure of. You know, they like, they.

Case Aiken (31:29):
Yeah, I know.

Addy (31:29):
But we are.

Case Aiken (31:31):
We're like, he's good.

Addy (31:33):
He's Jarvis. Here's why.

Ben (31:34):
They warm up to him pretty quick.

Case Aiken (31:35):
It's the Jarvis part that makes him not feel as unsure.

Ben (31:38):
They warm up to him pretty quick.

Addy (31:39):
Well, the moment he. But the thing is, as soon as.

Ben (31:41):
He picks up the hammer, everybody's like.

Addy (31:43):
And that was. That was a very. That was an amazing part of that movie. Yes. Pick up the hammer part is one of my favorite. Set that up really well. Yeah.

Ben (31:51):
And making you think that it was just like a one time gag. But it had a payoff with.

Addy (31:55):
With Vision, which was smart.

Ben (31:57):
Really smart. Because they. Because they gave us that scene at Comic Con and the Internet went crazy for it. So we knew that scene was coming and you just didn't realize that it was actually going to go anywhere. So to have it pay again. This movie's so good.

Addy (32:10):
Yeah, this movie's so good.

Case Aiken (32:11):
Another thing, I love Tony's motives.

Ben (32:13):
Yeah.

Case Aiken (32:14):
So his rationale for everything he does is great.

Addy (32:18):
The timeline shield around the world, like all of those things.

Case Aiken (32:22):
I think the timeline is screwy. I think Iron Man 3 and the conclusion of Iron Man 3 betrays some of that. Now, I've said before, I felt that at the end of Iron Man 3 when he takes his sunglasses off and is like. But really, I am Iron Man. His eyes should have flashed and he should have had the extremis in Him. Okay.

Addy (32:39):
That would have been cool.

Case Aiken (32:41):
I don't like the idea of Iron man ever intentionally powering down. Tony Stark doesn't seem like that kind of person to a point. Or any kind of technology. Yeah. So I like the idea of him constantly pushing too far. And, like, his. Like, him going too far is where he gets bitten in the ass. So I think that Iron Man 3, they could have ended it that way. And then we jump forward, and now he's got extremists being everywhere. And that actually is the thing kind of pushing him. And now he's like, all right, well, but people are still dangerous, and I don't know if I can trust everyone. So how about we take what I've learned about the extremists and about artificial intelligence and combine, merge it, and that's how we get to Ultron.

Addy (33:19):
And so, yeah, I kind of piggybacking on that. I would have loved to see the movie actually kind of open with a press conference of him introducing the Ultron Initiative.

Case Aiken (33:29):
Yes.

Addy (33:29):
Because I wanted to see Ultron as a good thing for a while, turned bad. That's my big issue with the turn.

Case Aiken (33:39):
That is my big note, actually. Here.

Ben (33:41):
For the turn is very quick.

Case Aiken (33:43):
I see a couple ways you can do it, but I think that the ultimate answer that I have for this is have Ultron actually be a corrupted Jarvis, not just a totally new thing. And then once he sort of makes his physical form, and at first it's like, are you Jarvis? I'm not Jarvis. And have him shift his voice to the James Spader Ultron voice, but have it at first be a thing that it's Jarvis now being given a fleet of Iron man armors that is now going to be his thing and that he's in control of. And that the things that they're doing to advance Jarvis and make him more powerful and use the mind gem to make him a more powerful computer, that's what then corrupts him and then he becomes Ultron.

Ben (34:30):
So you're using, like, theme of power corrupts. Absolute power.

Case Aiken (34:32):
Exactly.

Ben (34:33):
Absolutely.

Case Aiken (34:33):
And then we get the question, which is that Vision isn't his son in that scenario. Vision is like, they reset Jarvis and actually do, like, a proper job. Instead of having him be a giant network, they trap him in one body, and that's the Vision body, and that's where we get his redemption. So the Vision isn't just a child of Ultron. Done. Right. This is actually also a chance to redeem the ills of Ultron.

Addy (34:59):
Yeah.

Case Aiken (35:00):
Okay.

Addy (35:00):
That's Pretty much Exactly. My notes.

Case Aiken (35:02):
YouTube.

Addy (35:03):
All right.

Case Aiken (35:03):
I mean, I have a few other versions.

Addy (35:05):
Let's keep going.

Case Aiken (35:06):
Hold on, guys. So, okay, I'm going to take it back. And here's my actual idea. So my actual idea is that how.

Ben (35:13):
It should have really ended.

Case Aiken (35:15):
The Tesseract destroyed Red Skull, but his mind went up into space, and then it was caught by the time gem. And so when Tony was trying to do it, he actually made the Red Skull into a robot. No, that is a dumber version of Winter Soldier, actually. Right. Yeah, No, I was, like, spitballing ideas. I was like, oh, that now it also means it's not Ultron, it's just Red Skull.

Ben (35:41):
Yeah, right.

Case Aiken (35:42):
Like robot Red Skull.

Addy (35:43):
Yeah. I think the thing is, I think what we're kind of getting as we want more time with Ultron. Yes. Because the. The turn of Ultron and. And my hope is somewhere, even though, like, they were like, oh, we've trapped Ultron from the Internet, my hope he's still, like, on some flash drive.

Case Aiken (35:58):
That's always how they do it in the comics. Like, every time they think they kill him.

Addy (36:02):
Yeah.

Ben (36:02):
Like, he's been downloaded.

Addy (36:04):
I'd like to come back.

Case Aiken (36:05):
Like, Ultron's whole shtick was that he was a rapidly iterating robot. And as we started to learn more about computers, then it became more terrifying. And that's when they did the Ultron unleashed story, which is actually where they draw the most notes from for this movie, where it's like, he, like, all, like, he brings back, like, duplicates of all of his previous bodies and he wipes out. I think it is Sokovia. And that's like, a terrifying story for them that they have to, like, face off against this army of, like, invincible robots. But. So that should be kind of the thing if Jar, like, you need to have a setup to justify us both liking him, being sad that he fell the way he did and justifiably scared of him.

(36:49):
And I think if they have Jarvis being so powerful and they start to set it up, like, everyone uses Jarvis at the beginning of the movie. Right. Jarvis should have been the crowning achievement of everything Tony Stark did. And we've had a bunch of movies with him where we liked him a lot. And then his betrayal because he was corrupted by the Time Stone is the best way to set that up, because you could do it with just Ultron being a separate thing, but you would need a lot of time. And this movie is packed as it is, so have Jarvis be the, like, betray Them, they lose all this network connectivity that they had before. They are crippled as a result of this. And then Jarvis like fully transforms into a villain.

Addy (37:32):
Yeah, then they reset their router and make vision.

Case Aiken (37:34):
Well, exactly, but reverse the polarity. But what would be interesting and like part of this is that I think that Tony shouldn't, when they go off into the final battle, shouldn't just be able to load a new personality. I think the Jarvis should be a really complicated thing. That initially was all of Stark's computers was the network that Jarvis lives on. And when they finally put Jarvis into the vision body and they cut off Ultron. Yeah, it should just be like a very baseline computer. They did a great scene in Nova like that where he was linked up to the world mind and then when the world mind was shut out of him, he had like a very like simple command prompt system that he could use. And that would.

(38:15):
Something like that would have been great for Iron man, where it's still a computer, but his armor is not able to support an artificial intelligence like that by itself. It's always been a giant network of his computers. Like if the Stark.

Ben (38:26):
But the network still exists.

Case Aiken (38:29):
Right, but what I'm saying is that there should be a sacrifice and this should be the Nerf point for Iron Man.

Addy (38:36):
Another pass it edition.

Ben (38:38):
Yeah, I mean, I see what you're saying. Like I, I felt weird about him having a replacement already there. I felt weird about him having Friday like just ready to go.

Case Aiken (38:48):
But I'm like all.

Ben (38:51):
I mean, what if the way they.

Case Aiken (38:52):
Basically really what they Iron man or pardon me, they lock Ultron out is they destroy the supercomputer or like whatever the central server is.

Ben (39:00):
But they already established that he escaped and was running.

Case Aiken (39:02):
Yeah, but he's sophisticated. Like we're not talking about like a JPEG that can just live everywhere. We're talking about a, A computer that normally can only live in an impossibly complex quantum defying stone. Like if Ultron normally could existed in our Internet by way of being in all of the super powerful computers and the big jump that Iron man takes. And this could be like the thing, a continuation of his arc of dismantling his company, of him having to shut down this massively powerful network that he has under his normal control.

Ben (39:39):
Right.

Case Aiken (39:40):
They lose that, you lose Jarvis as we understood him, and so that he only lives on in the body of the primary Ultron, who can still control his drones.

Ben (39:50):
Okay.

Case Aiken (39:51):
And that's why it's Ultron and his drones and not just a Bunch of Ultrons.

Ben (39:54):
Ultrons, right.

Case Aiken (39:55):
And then Vision, who is a synthetic version of Jarvis, like a flesh form of it, but that's it. And so we've sacrificed a resource that they had before in order to stop this villain. Okay. And that from that point on, the Avengers don't have an AI that can just be like bullets coming in on your. Right. And that's when they start being able to get hit a little more easily. And when it weakens them. Yeah, yeah. And at that point.

Ben (40:20):
And then that puts a stress on them because they don't have that backup.

Case Aiken (40:22):
Yeah.
Okay.

Ben (40:24):
I could see that.

Case Aiken (40:25):
I'd watch that.

Ben (40:27):
I mean, I think, like, the big.

Case Aiken (40:29):
Arc is just that Ultron just comes into a being and is evil. Like, that's the problem with this movie. Like, you don't have reason to care about Ultron besides him coming into existence and being evil.

Addy (40:40):
Well, it is born out of Tony's fears of a possible future.

Case Aiken (40:43):
Yes.

Addy (40:44):
And I think that's still a key part of that. And again, you could still do that with Jarvis, or Jarvis becoming Ultron and being good for a while and even gaining people seeing Ultron in the streets and doing good things so that the people trust him. And then the turn. So it's not just a turn on the Avengers, it's a turn on the entire world. So that the whole world has a reason to have lost trust in the Avengers.

Case Aiken (41:11):
Yeah. Continued looking like Stark's drones for a bit. So that people are afraid of Stark's drones, Right?
Yeah.

Ben (41:17):
I thought it was strange that, like.

Addy (41:19):
When people were, like, throwing food, throwing.

Ben (41:21):
Acid and food at the drones, I thought, like, I was like, where did that come from?

Addy (41:26):
Where is this? What kind of acidic fruit is that? That was my first thought.

Case Aiken (41:30):
Tomatoes.
Wow.

Ben (41:32):
They are really susceptible to.

Addy (41:34):
Or. Sokovia has a terrible farming economy. We should drop, they're saying.

Case Aiken (41:39):
I have another thought on this one. Just to tie it back to the comics a little bit more, which is not a major rewrite, because this could just be a line where when we find out that Jarvis has been corrupted by the Times, or, pardon me, by the Mind Stone, and it is now going crazy, it's like, where could he possibly get this? Tony reveals. I based Jarvis on my own brainwaves, even though it sounds like Paul Bettany, because Ultron was based on Hank Pym's brain and all. And that's right. And Vision is based on Wonder Man's brain. And they're never going to do Wonder man because that is such a Long conversation about a character that is not worth it for this movie.

Addy (42:15):
Well, they're never doing Hank Pym either. I mean, because.

Case Aiken (42:17):
Well, they did a nod. I mean.

Addy (42:19):
Well, they're never doing Hank Pym truly as Ant Man.

Case Aiken (42:22):
Right.

Ben (42:22):
So just.

Case Aiken (42:23):
And I like Tony Stark being the one who creates Ultron. I think that's good.

Addy (42:26):
I think that's for the mcu as.

Case Aiken (42:28):
I think this movie could have been. Jarvis takes over one of his suits and runs off. Now a little too crazy. So you see Iron man actually in the like apparently being evil for a minute there.

Ben (42:40):
Well, okay, so how about this? So how about if we got rid. If we replaced Quicksilver with Hank Pym. And Hank Pym is the one who corrupts.

Case Aiken (42:50):
Like, he comes on board and they're working on the Ultron program or he.

Addy (42:53):
Hacks in Michael Douglas.

Case Aiken (42:55):
Yeah.

Ben (42:55):
And make it not even Michael Douglas he cast as somebody else. So we don't know that Hank Pym is Michael Douglas at this point.

Case Aiken (43:00):
But we, the audience did for this movie. Because like the Ant man and Ultron came out the same summer and they could have actually been reversed in terms of their release order. Which is why I'm fine with you. You can do Scott Lang in that movie. Like have that.

Ben (43:14):
Okay, so, all right, so Hank Pym, but still Hank Pym uses Scott Lang as Ant man to go in and.

Case Aiken (43:19):
Hack.

Ben (43:23):
Jarvis, which becomes, you know, or hacks Ultron, which is what? That way you still have then the tie in to Hank Pym creating.

Case Aiken (43:31):
But I don't think that one's as necessary. Like, that is historical.

Ben (43:36):
Yeah, but I'd rather have him in there than Quicksilver.

Addy (43:39):
Yeah, I don't think we're budging on the Quicksilver guys.

Sam (43:41):
Wrong.

Case Aiken (43:42):
I think we're arguing about two different points though, because like Quicksilver's role in this movie has nothing to do with the creation of Ultron.

Ben (43:47):
No, it doesn't. It doesn't. I agree with that.

Case Aiken (43:50):
I think that Ultron being created by Tony Stark works really well in the universe we're building, where it always works really well in the comics. And it's really more just a product that Iron man wasn't on the Avengers when someone wanted to write the Ultron story.
Okay.
That the Ultron being an extension of the man in the Iron suit story, of the Iron man armor becoming sentient and crazy and then going off and building its own body. That's a perfectly fine foundation for Ultron. And the way that they have Ultron develop later as he builds better bodies, I think he gets too good a body too soon. But I like the idea of him iterating. And I think if we saw a few more of those where it starts off as just an Iron man drone and then maybe a beefed up version of that, and then we get to the body, we see most of the movie, and then the Vibranium body, that would have been a great progression for the character.

(44:42):
The origin fidelity does not bother me so much because they can do some cool things with it as it is right now. And that's the Vision. The Vision in the movie we get is amazing. I constantly look at whoever at this thing in the movie and think whoever wrote this is a genius, because they perfectly take a very faithful comic adaptation of the Vision and also Adam Warlock and meld them together in a way that if you didn't know about the other character, you would just think it's that character. It is the best I've ever seen where you've done an amalgam like that. And it's so seamless. Like, the fact that there are rumors now that they might actually bring out Adam Warlock. I'm like, no.

(45:24):
Why?
Because we already got the perfect version of that. Because the way they build the syntheso body with that cocoon is the Adam Warlock thing. The fact that it's got the mind stone there is the Adam Warlock thing. The fact that he's the perfection, like, the perfection of humanity. Adam Warlock's a blank slate made form and given the soul gem, like, this is the exact thing and that we've already created. Take that with the Vision, who's a synthetic human and all of that. And, like, unless you want to get into, like, the backstory of him possibly being the original Human Torch, which no one in the series wants to do. No, no one wants to do. Unless they want to, like, reference how they had the Human Torch, Captain America.

Addy (45:59):
Yeah.

Case Aiken (46:00):
It's like, oh, well, we found this, like, crude body, and now we're going to lay over some skin or something like that. Like, no, we don't need to do that. We can just have the Vision be an amazing amalgam with Adam Warlock. It's so good. And that's why I'm okay with whatever changes you want to make to origin stories. Like, I don't mind callbacks. I don't mind finding ways to, like, fit it all together.

Ben (46:19):
Yeah.

Case Aiken (46:20):
But I don't need to, like, dramatically change something to be weaker because it's more faithful. I agree. And I completely agree with These more, while less faithful to the comics, is a better story where Iron man constantly talks in the comics about how he feels like he's the real rival of Ultron, even though he never created it and had really nothing to do with him.

Ben (46:40):
Right, I agree. I agree.

Case Aiken (46:42):
Technology amok.

Addy (46:43):
Yeah, yeah.

Ben (46:45):
I. I mean, I'm just arguing, Silver.

Case Aiken (46:50):
That technology amok thing is a thing missing in this movie. Like, the Vibranium plot is. Could have just as easily been magic. That, like, this could be a plot from any Thor villain or any character.

Addy (47:00):
Yeah. The Vibranium plot. Yeah. Wasn't. I don't think was as needed, especially because while they kind of introduce you to Wakanda, you don't really get introduced to Wakanda. You get introduced to Klaue. But we didn't really need that, I think.

Case Aiken (47:13):
Yeah, it was fine as it was. I was happy to see Klaue, but I'm happy that they're like.

Addy (47:17):
And we got a claw origin.

Case Aiken (47:19):
Yeah. I'm happy that they're gonna set up the entirety of the Black Panther franchise before we get there so we don't waste our time on just an origin story.

Addy (47:25):
Yeah.

Ben (47:27):
So Joss Whedon, after this film was made, grumbled quite a bit about the constraints that he was with this movie. Like, obviously, he had to do, like, things like the Wakanda story. He had to shoehorn that in. And he had to shoehorn a setup.

Addy (47:45):
For Civil War Thor's bath.

Ben (47:47):
He had to shoehorn in a setup for Ragnarok. Like, he had to accomplish a lot of beats in this movie. As required by Kevin Feige and Marvel Studios. There's not a lot of room to change a lot in this movie. Yeah. And.

Addy (48:06):
And it's already a long movie.

Ben (48:07):
It is a long movie.

Case Aiken (48:09):
Well, because, like, this movie, I don't think should have been the second Avengers movie. I think we're missing a movie somewhere.
Yeah.
Or it could be Avengers 2, but they should have felt comfortable doing a movie like Civil war before Avengers 2, where we get everyone on screen. Because if you look at Phase two up until that.

Ben (48:28):
Or if you look at Phase two, still pretty singular.

Case Aiken (48:30):
It's singular movies where we'll have a nod to these characters, but at no point does it feel like these are people living in a world together, aside from maybe Captain America.

Addy (48:39):
Right, right.

Ben (48:40):
Cause it is odd, like in Dark World that nobody shows up except for Thor.

Case Aiken (48:45):
They have a justification.

Addy (48:46):
Even when they arrive on Earth to.

Ben (48:48):
Fight, SHIELD is collapsing. Nobody shows up for that. It seems odd.

Case Aiken (48:52):
There's A justification. Part of it is speed, Part of it is location, but it still feels weird. Captain Civil War is amazing in that it. It allows them to feel like we're in an Avengers movie, but it's really a Captain America movie, and it truly is. Yeah. It's not perfect. We've already done another pass episode on that one, and that was more pressing because that movie has some more glaring issues. This one, the big issue is the villain is not consequential enough in the long term. He is dangerous, but as soon as they put him down, the world is fine and everything is fine. Thor goes off, and you can still call him back. Hulk's disappeared, but you know that if he shows up again, he's fine. Yeah.

Addy (49:33):
You don't really feel like the team is really all that torn apart.

Case Aiken (49:36):
I do.

Addy (49:37):
I feel like some people have left, but I don't feel like they really just like.

Ben (49:42):
Well, they can't get Thor back.

Case Aiken (49:43):
They don't know where Thor is.

Addy (49:44):
Well, it doesn't feel like they've lost.

Case Aiken (49:45):
But they didn't know where Thor was before. He just shows up again.

Addy (49:49):
Yeah.

Case Aiken (49:51):
Like the. The end of the first Avengers movie. We don't.

Addy (49:54):
He leaves.

Case Aiken (49:55):
They're not a team. At the end of that movie, they got together and did a really swarm.

Ben (49:59):
And then they drive.

Case Aiken (49:59):
We missed a movie of them actually being a team. They talk about they've got an Avengers Tower already.

Ben (50:05):
Well, they reference it of, like, you know, they've been hunting this scepter.

Case Aiken (50:09):
Yeah.

Addy (50:09):
Yeah.

Case Aiken (50:09):
After Captain America. That's the thing, after Winter Soldier, that there should have been a time where they got together and we saw that, and that could have been Iron Man 3 instead, like, the Order's wrong question.

Addy (50:19):
I think. I think it would have been helpful to have additional Avengers, not maybe a full Avengers team show up in Winter Soldier. Like, the way you said Hawkeye at least needs to show up. And maybe doing the same for Iron Man 3. Although, like, there is a rationale for Tony Stark being very arrogant and wanting to handle things on his own for. In that. In that sense. And he did have War Machine. And I do enjoy the chemistry. The chemistry there.

Case Aiken (50:44):
Right.
But War Machine is his sidekick. He's not an Avenger who happens to be showing up.

Addy (50:49):
That's true. I think the problem with saying there's another movie that needs to be there is what's the arc for the team at that point? Are they just going to accomplish something together? And like, what is that? Like, what, what? Where do you develop the team? Because this is. You know, you're right. I know. Like, I'm not. Like, I know it's easy to say, like, well, this is the. In the same way that the second part of a trilogy furthers the development and starts to show the cracks in the team, this. This accomplishes that. I think it just could accomplish it better by having. Having a little bit of time with Ultron as. As a good thing for humanity. Whether that's a continuation of, like, that's why I think, you know, like, I actually think we don't necessarily need the opening fights. That.

(51:33):
We could have a press conference announcing the Ultron Initiative based on his Iron Legion from. From the end of Iron Man 3. Have that announced. There, you see the. You see the Ultron Initiative take care of a few things, including what they accomplished by retrieving Loki's staff.

Case Aiken (51:51):
Tie it back with a fall of shield.

Addy (51:53):
Exactly. And then they're celebrating at Avengers Tower. And there you go. You can just go right on track with the rest of the movie.

Case Aiken (52:00):
Yeah. I mean, I get that they wanted to have that shot of them being so unified as a team and so effective as a team, but again, this isn't Civil War. That would have been a great shot at the beginning of Civil War where at the end of this movie, they're gonna be all at each other's throats and about to kill each other.

Addy (52:13):
Which is one thing that was good about Civil War because the way they work together as a team and it, like, honestly, I felt the way they work together as a team at the beginning of Civil War for me, was a little bit more compelling than the seat. Like, the scene that is cool at the beginning of Age of Ultron and. And I know, like the splash page with all of them in the shot. I wasn't as into it, to be perfectly honest. Like, I like the. The jokes that happen in between them, but the action was okay.

Case Aiken (52:37):
Yeah, it's a little CGI heavy. I.
There's a.
There's a weightlessness to some of the stuff that Thor does that I keep. Keep going back. Yeah.
Throwing people around.

Addy (52:46):
Yeah.

Case Aiken (52:46):
It's the first time we actually even.

Ben (52:47):
Captain's dragging a guy throws his 800 pound motorcycle.

Case Aiken (52:51):
I love that part. That was actually really cool.

Addy (52:53):
It was fun.

Case Aiken (52:54):
But you know what's funny? I was thinking about lining up for us.

Addy (52:56):
You know, the language joke.

Ben (52:58):
Well, the language joke was funny.

Case Aiken (53:00):
That was good. No, the Thor being so strong and, like, all that. We actually haven't seen Thor be super strong that often in. In the Marvel Movies. This is the first time where he's just casually, like, ripping metal apart and just, like, doing, like, Thor y things. Well, doing Hulk level things. Up until that point, aside from him fighting the Hulk, we haven't really seen it, which was just a weird, like, oh, it's very casual. Whereas Captain America we have consistently set up as being that strong. And it's weird that it's like that I get more moments of Captain America being like, look how I can tear metal apart than Thor.

Addy (53:31):
Well, and then. And there's also the code green that we never really hear them call in Hulk when things get really bad in that fight. Like, things are so easy for them and that. And I know that's.

Case Aiken (53:39):
Yeah, they could have had, like, a prologue with the Iron Legion being really effective and, like, going out there and doing all this. And that's when they get to the HYDRA base, and that's when all of a sudden, it's like, okay, now we need code Grain.
Okay, let's get the Hulk and all.
The Avengers and the Avengers.

Addy (53:51):
Call them in.

Case Aiken (53:51):
And, like, we see the Avengers really making their mark on the world because up until that point, they were just a bunch of superheroes who showed up for a fight.

Addy (53:58):
Right.

Case Aiken (53:59):
Like the Avengers one. The end. Like, that arc is the same as all these big event comics where, like, it just happens that be a lot of superheroes. Like, they're not a team. They're like. They know some people in common, like Nick Fury, who can tell them about some stuff together, but aside from having a situation room, they're not a team.

Addy (54:15):
They're just.

Case Aiken (54:17):
They're time bomb. No, but they're. They're just guys who all show up together to fight the same bad or bad guys.

Ben (54:25):
Yeah, yeah.

Case Aiken (54:26):
It's its own thing. Like, that's the thing. This movie doesn't have enough of a status quo at the beginning to really feel like they've shaken it up. So while there are stakes, like we keep saying there are no consequences, it's. We've gotten the gang all together. They're doing, like, they're doing the most beautiful shots we could possibly get in hd. And it looks great. It's all this.

Addy (54:50):
I kind of want to go and.

Case Aiken (54:51):
Watch it now, but, you know, then the next movies where we get those big shakeups, like the big consequences to the Marvel Universe. And that's why I feel like this movie is the Pro bowl and Captain.
Civil War is the Super Bowl.
This movie is. They're at Hawaii. It's gorgeous. They're in Great uniforms. Everything looks awesome. It looks amazing.

Addy (55:13):
Really? You don't think so? Did you think when they were fighting the Ultron bots, you didn't think it was too easy?

Case Aiken (55:21):
No.

Addy (55:22):
Really?

Ben (55:23):
No. They were stressed the entire. They were at their limit. I felt like that team was at its limit. The entire.

Case Aiken (55:31):
Yeah, but Billy and Trini feel really stressed fighting the Putties.
Like.

Ben (55:36):
Okay, but I. Oh, I'm sorry.

Case Aiken (55:38):
You didn't join us for that one.

Ben (55:39):
No, I didn't. I felt. Yeah, I felt like this team struggled to get this win, and it had a toll on him. And it did. It laid the groundwork. It laid the groundwork for the breakup. And the breakup starts to happen. You lose Thor in Civil War, they go, you know, he. They're asked like, well, where's your buddy Thor? And everybody goes, I don't know.

Case Aiken (56:00):
Well, but was Thor the glue?

Ben (56:01):
Like, no, Thor wasn't the glue, but he's a date.

Case Aiken (56:04):
Did in this movie. But sure, you can say that this sets up Civil War, but we don't have enough moments where we see that. The things they lose in this movie.

Ben (56:11):
They lose Thor, they lose. They lose Iron Man. They lose.

Addy (56:16):
They don't lose Iron Man.

Ben (56:17):
They do.

Case Aiken (56:18):
There's no way actually lose Iron Man.

Addy (56:19):
Like, he builds him a new facility.

Case Aiken (56:21):
He builds in the new facility, and he's like, I'm retired. And then immediately shows up in his armor the next time they do anything.

Ben (56:26):
Well, we don't know that the next time.

Case Aiken (56:28):
Right, but you guys are taking.

Ben (56:31):
You guys are taking that.

Case Aiken (56:32):
Like, but.

Ben (56:33):
But at the end of that.

Case Aiken (56:34):
At the end of that movie by.

Ben (56:35):
Itself, without the knowledge of what happens next, you see him go, all right, well, I'm done.

Case Aiken (56:39):
Like, here's the.

Addy (56:40):
Like, he was done.

Ben (56:41):
I disagree.

Addy (56:42):
I didn't. I didn't get the sense.

Case Aiken (56:43):
I can't claim that a movie that was only, what, a year out from being released or didn't have knowledge that's where it was going.

Ben (56:53):
Like, maybe so.

Case Aiken (56:54):
But problem of the Marvel movies is that they have a lot of foresight and yet sometimes don't feel like they're actually acting on it.

Addy (57:02):
Yeah, I disagree with you, but. Because at the very least, the thing is, he's still joking with the team. Like, they're talking about, like, they're joking about, like, if Mjolnir is on an elevator, that, like, if. If he's quitting, the team that needs to be there needs to be a little bit more gravity at that moment.

Ben (57:16):
I'll give you that.

Addy (57:17):
And it doesn't need to. Yes, he technically quits the team, but like, Cap, like, Cap and him had a major argument. He also, like, he. And he brought. Brings the Vision back against Cap's wishes. Like, all these things that should be a bigger reason for a split to happen right then and there should have resulted in a bit. In more consequence for. For 1, for. For Thor leaving, for Tony leaving. And obviously Hulk's leaving was impactful.

Case Aiken (57:48):
I think that one is a big one.

Addy (57:50):
That one worked. But I think, you know, what I think would have helped though, is I think Widow should have gone too. Not necessarily with Hulk, but she was talking about leaving the team as well. And I think that would have given even more gravity. And yes, you could still bring her back for Civil War. Find a way to bring her back for Civil War in some way.

Case Aiken (58:08):
Deep cover.

Addy (58:09):
Yeah, but. But I think. I think there's, like, having Cap be by himself continuing the fight with this team that they started, I think does lend a little bit more gravity to the consequence of Ultron.

Case Aiken (58:21):
Yeah, he doesn't feel abandoned. Like, if they were going into the fight with Ultron and Cap was like, tony, we're seeing this through, but after this, we're done. And they weren't friends after that movie. Like, they weren't enemies, but they just like, whatever friendship and camaraderie they had, like, that was over. But, like, the reason Thor left wasn't really because, like, something they did. It's because Thor had a bigger mission to go off on.

Addy (58:43):
Right, Right. Which is fine.

Case Aiken (58:45):
Like, if their schism was one which felt self inflicted, as opposed to like, well, I've got to go. I have to go have my own movie. Like, the movie that. This doesn't require a huge change. It only requires them to feel more ambiguous about each other before they get into it, where it's like, well, this fate of the world, so obviously we're gonna be together. And then at the end of it being like, I don't know if that made us cool, because at the end of this movie, they are having banter. They are joking around.

(59:18):
They are pretty cool.
They may not be like, we are a team that I'm gonna see every day, but they're pen pals and they still, you know, and that's. That's why it's not strong enough. Okay.

Addy (59:32):
And unfortunately, we got like, Civil War, which was great. Like, they did some. They did some amazing things with the relationship between the two of them there. So I don't want to discount that, but I think they could have afforded to do a little bit more to push him down that road. That's all.

Case Aiken (59:47):
Okay.
Yeah. I mean, I guess to wrap up, the big ones that we can agree on at least are spend a little more time with Ultron to begin with. However you do that, have it be truly Jarvis and then have him be corrupted into Ultron or have Ultron be a thing they already have at the beginning. Whatever. We need more time with Ultron. He can't just show up as a villain. And then at the end of it all, they should feel a little bit more bitter towards each other. It should feel like Cap's barely holding the Avengers together. And he and Iron man, while not at odds with each other, aren't gonna be happy to see each other the next time there's a meeting about, like, coffee grounds in the sink. And that's. Those are the big ones to change. Because it's a solid movie.

(01:00:30):
It's well structured, good jokes. Again, it's a good movie. It could be great, but it's not just really good.

Ben (01:00:39):
Okay.

Case Aiken (01:00:40):
All right, guys, I gotta disagree, but okay, go ahead.
I can't.

Addy (01:00:46):
I so passive aggressive right now.

I don't.

Ben (01:00:48):
Because everybody.

Yeah.

Ben (01:00:51):
I don't see none of the changes that you guys have suggested have made this movie that much stronger for me, to be honest with you.

Addy (01:01:02):
You yourself admitted that the turn was too quick for Ultron.

Ben (01:01:06):
Yeah, but I don't see how you do that without making it a half hour longer and making the movie, frankly, just too long to watch.

Addy (01:01:13):
It'd be done two and a half hours rather than two hours.

Ben (01:01:15):
Yeah, I mean, then you put an intermission in it.

Addy (01:01:18):
Two and a half hours.

Ben (01:01:19):
Have a. Dude, I could barely sit through that movie without having to go to the bathroom. Yeah, like, lightweight. It's a summer action flick.

Hey, listeners.

Addy (01:01:27):
Lord of the Rings. I sat through for two and a half hours.

Well, no, but that's. That was a winner action flick. They're allowed.

Addy (01:01:33):
Oh, yeah, I did see a winner.

Ben (01:01:35):
I'm drink a jug of Slurpee before that.

Listen, if you're with Ben and you think that the tweaks that we've made are not sufficient to really change it or really jazz you guys up, but that the movie is still really good, right? Yeah, the movie's great. So if you're ambiguously in the it's good category already and doesn't need more work without it being broken, let us know. I'm curious about that, because I don't know anyone who would say that their favorite Marvel movie is Avengers 2 Age of Ultron, which is why I think that it could use some tweaking.

Addy (01:02:11):
And I love Iron Man 3, but I could tweet. I would tweak a few things here and there.

Yeah, I would make.

Addy (01:02:17):
There's not a movie I keep the Mandarin.

Ben (01:02:18):
I haven't seen a movie where I wouldn't like you where you could. Couldn't tweak something. I just, I can't think of anything strikes back.

Addy (01:02:24):
Sir.

Ben (01:02:24):
You could tweak some things in that movie.

Frankly, he's already challenged me on that one. You're no longer part of this podcast.
All right, guys.

Ben (01:02:32):
I don't know who you are anymore, man.

Thank you for joining me. Thank you for sharing how it should have ended. Thank you for sharing your certain point of view about this movie. But it's been great. I think we've done about as much as we can before. We just like killing back. Yeah, we're just repeating next time we're going to be talking about Highlander 2, the Quickening and until then, stay scruffy, my nerf herders.

(01:02:57):
Thanks for listening to Certain Point of View's Another Pass podcast. Don't miss an episode. Just subscribe and review the show on itunes.

Addy (01:03:06):
Just go to certainpov.com.

Sam (01:03:34):
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Subscribe to books that the Fortnightly Book.

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Sam (01:04:03):
Find us on Spotify, itunes, Google Play or wherever you get your podcast.

And we're back. Okay, so now that we. We don't have to like be quiet about just like how much of a blitz of an episode this is in terms of just like we. We're like Ben Addy and I when we get into a tear can go like a mile a minute just like racing with ideas and we're having a lot of fun. This is what one of these episodes is like. And yeah that there's a lot of that going on here. But I want to start off the conversation by saying I am extremely proud of some of the analysis that I gave about this movie. There's not. I was actually not my notes about the. Not the fixes but Just my analysis of the movie itself.

Sam (01:04:49):
Oh, I was actually wondering if you still like now knowing. Right. The full run of at least this first part of the Marvel universe. Do you still agree with some of your analysis? Not even just your analysis, but like your fixes.

So my fixes are rough to talk about because again, this is so early in the whole prospect of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Weird to say considering how many movies deep into this one is. It is like this is like 10 movies in. But looking at where we would eventually go is interesting because I do mention like, oh, it'd be interesting if they had killed Black Widow because she seems like a character that they could get away with killing and then that happens to be what they would go about doing. You know, in terms of like, who could have seen. Because like this before we had the Thor Ragnarok trailer. So we had no idea what was going to be like that Thor yet. Like that. So we, we didn't see that potential for the character yet.

(01:05:48):
So the best we had seen are the two Thor movies and then his two appearances in Avengers. So you know, there's a, a lot of the shifts that we would see for some of the characters. We had no idea, like we had no idea Hulk was going to show up on like, you know, Sicar and that they, that would be where they would have like the whole planet Hulk fight sequence and so forth. Like, you know, like who would have seen that specific thread coming from Hulk running off on a plane? Like again, it's a quinjet. I, I get that it's a super advanced jet, but it's still meant for flying around planet Earth.

Sam (01:06:27):
True. Absolutely.

So, yeah, so fixes are a hard one. And, and like I think that this movie is a really hard one to have real conversations about fixes because the movie has so much going on behind the scenes that locks it into being the movie that it was. So there is a piece of me looking at this where it's like now that this was a Sisyphusian task because what any thread you pull on like there's the Joss Whedon of it all, which by the way, we didn't know about at the time when this movie, when we're talking about this movie, we thought he was going to be the savior of Justice League at this point.

Sam (01:07:03):
Yeah, hindsight man.

Yeah. Now I, I, I stand by, I think this is a well directed movie. So like, I, I don't want to get into any of that actually.

Sam (01:07:16):
I agree with you on that too. I do. I do think that there are elements of this movie that is fun and is still fun. But yeah, there's a lot of, there are a lot of things that you could just that would make it fall apart under heavy scrutiny.

Right. Well, and then you get into like the behind the scenes meddling from like this from the studios, the stuff with like the Thor scenes that they had to cut. You know, like there's all this stuff in the movie that they're trying to cram in there. Like. So for example, I, I have my like the ultimate trimmed down list of movies to watch. If you're trying to watch. If you're trying to watch up to in game and you're like, how do I watch the least number of movies and still understand effectively everything? This movie does not make the cut. My like super trimmed down list is Avengers 1, Guardians of the Galaxy, Captain America, Civil War, Avengers, Infinity War, and then Endgame. And that is, I think the tightest viewing of movies you can get to understand pretty much everyone.

(01:08:22):
There's going to be a couple characters that you just have to accept that they show up. But because you understand that you're missing a bunch of movies, but accepting that they show up is a different thing from not understanding who they are. Civil War does a very good job of explaining who Vision is, who Scarlet Witch is, like who, you know, who these characters are. Enough. And Adventures 1 is a fantastic movie for that because effectively it's the sequel to all of the Phase one movies. And so it's assuming that you are coming in having seen one of the tracks that has led to this point.

(01:08:54):
Now presumably you've seen Iron man, but you know, if you're coming in as a Thor fan or a Captain America fan, it sets up everything in the universe as if this is like, okay, we don't necessarily know. But here's the nutshell thing you need to know about Thor. Here's the nutshells thing you need to know about Captain America. Then Guardians of the Galaxy does a really good job of explaining the Infinity Stones and does a really good job of explaining the space stuff that is out there. Civil War then does the like, okay, the adventures are split up. This is why. And here's how the team has changed over time. Okay, cool. And then you got then Infinity War, which ties in the space stuff with all the oh, the team is split up stuff. And then you've got that.

(01:09:36):
And then Infin the Infinity War leads directly into in game.
And that all makes sense.

Sam (01:09:41):
Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense.

So this movie doesn't make that cut. And there's a couple reasons why. Because it could, like, it does try to explain the Infinity Stones to a certain degree. I think that the Thor scenes that were cut probably would have contributed more to that. Like, the whole, like, going into the well and blah, blah. But, you know, it's. It's a weird movie that's doing fine. Like, it ultimately is just. Here's another random threat that kind of people have been asking for sometimes where it's like, I'd rather just have another comic book story instead of it always being necessarily blue light in the sky. The thing is, Ultron takes it almost to that degree where it's like, I'm gonna crush the Earth and make it dead by dropping a city.

Sam (01:10:33):
I mean, like, you always do. I mean, that's just our Saturday night, Right?

So arguably, he's another, like, world ending threat, but he's not quite the same scale world ending threat as, like, the, you know, the Chitauri invading our. Our world from another universe kind of thing.

Sam (01:10:47):
Right, right, right. He's. He's not than us, but. But he's also like. But he's also, like, just wanting to end the Earth. You know what? It is still localized, you know. Yeah, it's just. It's just this planet.

Yeah, exactly. Not all planets, so.

Sam (01:11:03):
All right. But that's where I keep all my stuff, so.

So, yeah, like, fixes. It's hard to say.
Like, I don't know if I really.
Like, at the end of the episode, I'm. I'm hearing it and being like. I kind of agree with Ben that all those things that we said might be addressing nitpicks or may. Maybe even fixing serious issues, but they don't fix the movie as a whole. Whereas I do think I. I want. Like, I draw a lot of attention to Cap's kooky quartet. I. In the episode. And I love discussing the, like, the. The. That particular jump in the Avengers roster is a really big pivotal change. And the fact that they address that in this movie, I thought was really cool. The quicksilver stuff, I think. I think my analysis of it, I'm actually, like, very proud of being like, oh, you see how he's winded here? Like, that's important.

(01:11:51):
And, like, I never see anyone talk about it because they just talk about, like, how did you get shot at the end of the movie? He was so tough.
Yada, yada.
And I'm like, no, but you. You don't see. He. It's because being a hero is harder than being a villain. And so there's that the, you know, obviously we're speculating on the Captain America being able to move the hammer a little bit stuff, you know, because this is before endgame, so we didn't know how they were going to pay it off necessarily.

Sam (01:12:16):
Right.

And then things like the. The analysis of the Vision, Warlock, kind of fused origin for it. And I, I go on and I. I'm like, I rip on Warlock, who ultimately does show up in Guardians of the Galaxy 3. And I rather like the version of. Of Adam Warlock that shows up there, but he's. He's not really like a super faithful depiction of Adam Warlock from the comics. And weirdly, Vision actually kind of remains slightly more accurate to that. I mean, he's not either. It's just like. It's just that somehow they did this, like, weird alchemy with the Vision and Adam Warlock, who are characters who. I never had really thought about being that similar and somehow made them into a fused character that worked really well.

Sam (01:12:58):
Yeah, I mean, I think this is like. I hate giving compliments too, but. But I do think that this is one of those things that Joss Whedon was very good at in terms of, like, because he was very familiar with comics, he was very good at kind of like picking up on traits of characters that people really liked. So, like him writing a good fusion of two characters that would be similar. That doesn't. That's not surprising. Like, that is kind of in his wheelhouse, in his bag of tricks. That makes sense. I do feel that. I think you're right. This movie has so many loose ends, and it's kind of awkward. Kind of, in a way, it's Kyle and. And again, this comes again with some meddling.

(01:13:51):
And I think just like the fighting that happens with these big budget movies where the studio wants one thing and the director wants another. And there are certainly things that Joss did as a whole that I was not super failing in terms of Natasha being the only person who could calm Hulk down. Things like that. I would not. Not super. Whatever about in his run of, like, running it. I actually always thought it should be Thor. Like, I always thought. I always thought that, like, Thor should be the person rubbing his head. Be like, come now. I think that would have been so great to me.

I mean, we see something like that in the third movie and it's really.
Funny when it happens.

Sam (01:14:33):
Yes, yes. But. But it would have ruined that's my friend for work for me. So, like, at least. Least, you know, at least I got that. But I. I did think, like, oh, that, you know, whatever. But I think in general, this movie is kind of clunky and it's really awkward and there's a lot of things that it's trying to do. It doesn't necessarily achieve it. And honestly, I was trying to think of, like, how I would fix it, but it such a juggernaut of not knowing the exact way because, like, the stakes are that he's going to lift this thing right for impact. And it's like, okay, like, is that. Is that. Is that a good plan, my friend? Like, my God. Like, is that like a. You know, and so I think, like.

I mean, I'll give this. It is an Ultron plan. Like, specifically Ultron has plans like that all the time. Like, and by that, I mean, like my introduction to Ultron was reading an Avengers west coast annual where he tried to like, set off multiple volcanoes across the world so that it would. There would be an ash winter that.
Would kill off all of humanity.
So, like, that's his kind of plot. Like, he's often very into the idea of killing all of humanity because he really doesn't like us and then doing. And having some sort of big natural disaster, whatever the buzz natural disaster of the time could be to be like, oh, I can set off the tectonic plates of California. It's gonna wipe out all these people or whatever thing he wants to do. Now. He has kind of pivoted in more recent years because he has become like, upgraded. He like, fused with the phalanx during annihilation conquest and became a, like, a galactic threat. So we've seen upgraded versions of Ultron beyond that point, but at least the Ultron of this movie is very much like the classic Ultron of like, the 70s Avengers run that, you know, led up to this point in the comics.

(01:16:38):
Or like this point in what, 2015 when this movie came out. So, yeah, I will say the plot, you know, fits an Ultron kind of plot. I think. I think this movie is less than the sum of its parts.

Sam (01:16:51):
Oh, yeah.

Because I keep thinking about scenes and shots that I really like in this movie. Like the, like the splash page shot of like, all of the Avengers on frame at like, after that big oner at the opening of the movie. Like, that's a really good shot. Or like, in the final battle when they're all. All doing this, like, cra you know, we're seeing all these, like, beautiful shots of. Of the team working together, being Avengers together against all these Ultron drones.

Sam (01:17:18):
Like, people oohed and odd in theater during that scene. Like, people were genuinely awestruck during that scene, and there was cheering. You know, it is like. It's like, oh, my God.

Right? And like, the. The way that they use some of the characters, like the. The. The freakiness of the Scarlet Witch at the opening of the movie where she, like, kind of looks like the girl from the Ring as she, like, moves around in this, like, weird kind of, like, preternatural form. Like, that's awesome. Again, the quicksilver stuff, the vision stuff. Like, you know, the. The. The party. You know, people talk about how that the party is one of the great scenes in Marvel in. In the mcu because it's one of the few times where we get the Avengers just relaxing and hanging out, and we get a great Stan Lee cameo where he gets to make fun of Thor.

Sam (01:18:03):
Yeah, I love that. And, like, honestly, in term, you're right. The. It. There are so many fun moments in this film that if you just, like, want a summer blockbuster, turn your brain off, kind of, like, feel you can go in and enjoy this if you're not thinking too hard about how it all adds up.

Yeah.
And then it's followed up by Civil War, which is just doing a lot of similar things and is, I think a. I think, has less. Well, it has great scenes. I think that it is a movie where it comes together more into a bigger hole as opposed to this movie where, again, there's all these great scenes. But when I look at. Look at the movie as a whole, it's like. It's kind of mid.

Sam (01:18:55):
I also think that, like, one of my big criticisms is that I just think that this movie lets the Tony Steve Rogers beef, like, come up too high. Like. Like the tension is too much. Like I said, by the time we get to Civil War, I was, like, not even sure that they were more than just work colleagues. Like, you know what I mean? Like. Like. Like, I felt like Civil War had to do a lot of heavy lifting of, like, were friends, were pals. Because I feel like this movie. And I felt this way, like, even when I saw it. But I just felt that some of the arguments that were written in this film felt very forced and contrived, like, the tension between them. And I also felt that it was like, then once we got Civil War, I was like.

(01:19:47):
I felt like those were too early. Like, that precursor was too early. I needed more because in order for civil work lore to work the way that eventually I think they wanted it to work, I needed to see more camaraderie between Cap and. Which is why the party scene is so important. Because like, that they're actually. I just feel like there needed to be more working together and less like tension between the two of them. So that in Civil War that would have worked better. And there was so much kind of angst, links between them and that I honestly, I would really. If there's one thing that I would change about this movie, it would be the dynamic of that relationship. Because I think it would have made a better movie.

(01:20:41):
I think it would have, you know, because this is still a movie like the Avengers have formed, but like their co workers that saved New York. Like, like, you know, I mean, like this movie would have brought them together. This, this is the movie where there should have been more around the campfire things. Like in Lord of the Rings, there should have been more confiding each other and being friends and building that up and like that way the possible losses, you know, or even someone getting hurt. Like we didn't even have to kill anyone specifically, like, I know Quicksilver, blah, you know, Sony Fox, blah. All that shit with all the Marvel stuff. But, but like, literally we could have injured one of the. The top ones and still had him saved and been close to death.

(01:21:34):
We even could have had one of those fake outs where we thought they were gonna die. I don't know. Like, to me there was just not enough emotional connection, especially from those two major characters, which is Tony and Steve, who are the center really of this universe. And the Avenger films, not necessarily like all the build out films, but like one, you know, Avenger one two and like Civil War. I feel like those specifically feel like it's around their story and I just feel like we're missing the Empire Strikes Back. Like, this should have been the Empire Strikes Back. This should have been the middle of the story. And it wasn't. It was more the prelude to the end of their relationship. And so like, I think for me that is the one major nitpicky thing that I would have picked.

(01:22:28):
And I don't know if it would have made like a much better movie, but I think it would have been slightly better than Walk we got.

Yeah, because I also felt that were just treading the same beats of like the Cap and Iron man, like having frictions kind of plot thread. Here and then doing the same thing in Civil War. And, and I agree with you.
It.
It didn't. It felt like we had this very forced arc in this movie, and then went through the same arc in the next movie, and the next movie is the one where they had to do it. So it's like this movie felt like, well, why do we even bother with that? Like. Like there's a lot of spots in this movie where characters do things and they even call it out. It's like, are we really doing this again? Like, when. When it comes time to create vision, you know, like that's a mea culpa. That isn't necessarily saying, like that doesn't necessarily make it better to say, like, hey, I know what we're doing is wrong. Like, it's calling attention to the fact that you know it's wrong.

Sam (01:23:23):
Yeah. Calling yourself out doesn't necessarily make it better.

So, like, some of the drama between Steve and Tony, like, you know, I don't think it was necessary. I think that they could have been a more like having them get split off for reasons makes enough sense. Like having Cap have his kooky quartet sequences. Like, we need to have those. Like, that those are important and they're really good in this movie, so I don't want to lose those. But it. It does feel like the we. We just didn't need them butting heads because that we. Because that's the next goddamn movie.

Sam (01:23:56):
Yeah. Like, there just needs to be like, I feel like. I feel that there may have been a misguided, like, oh, this is the setup for the next movie. But no, like, you literally did too much in this film. Like, it needed to be like, I'm not saying that they had to be like Kumbaya the whole movie right There could. I needed. There could be seed. But this movie felt like nothing but, like, head butting. It felt like sometimes it felt like they were like in a pissing contest, rather on the same team. And which is why, like, in Civil War, at the beginning, when they're like, what's happening? Why are you, like, you've been fighting for like, at least one other movie? What are you talking about? What's happening?

(01:24:43):
So it, like, it definitely, like, it bothered me when I was watching it originally, but then it really bothered me after I saw Civil War because I was just like, I always feel like you need. You need the space. And I think sometimes, like with. With Marvel, with the Marvel films, and I think this has become like an ever Increasing issue with them is that there's like, not enough space in them sometimes for the characters to grieve. And they don't. Or they don't know when those moments should because they're so focused on like, the huge ensemble of it all. And that is a challenge when you have so many characters and you're trying to set up so many set pieces to kind of keep people interested and excited, which is like, part of the game. Right.

(01:25:38):
Like, we want to see those big group battle scenes for sure. But I do think that this movie in particular is the beginning of them of just like the Marvel habit of not necessarily always knowing when to let the characters grieve.

Yeah, maybe not the beginning, but it's certainly if the Avengers movies are sort of the, the ultimate thesis of each phase that they are a part of, you know, or the, or like where the first one's the big victory lap of the sort of weird slapdash project that was Phase one. And then this is the, the culmination of phase 2, which is a much more uneven phase, in my opinion. But it's generally looked upon fondly because it has two of the best of the Marvel movies of all time, because it has Captain America, Winter Soldier, and it has Guardian of the Galaxy one. And as a result, like, people are like, it's a great phase. Even though, like, Iron Man 3 and Thor, the Dark World are generally not looked upon as fondly in the Marvel pantheon.

(01:26:52):
And then this one is not looked upon as fondly as an Avengers movie in the Marvel pantheon as well. So. Yeah, so I, I, you know, I think that I also, I don't want to be like, too dismissive of all the points that we make in it. I do think that we address some of the issues of this mov, such as the weird, like, just rapidly creating Ultron kind of sequence that occurs in this movie. We, we do address that and we address ways to make it a little bit more logical that they get down to a singular, like Ultron to fight in it. Also, we are tackling problems that this movie has. This movie just has a lot of problems.

Sam (01:27:32):
Yeah, it can still be fun because again, there are a lot of really fun great jobs. And so if you haven't seen it, like, oh, it's totally worth watch folding your laundry. Yeah, it's worth watching.

Super worth watching. And like, I don't want to be that negative. I'm super positive in the episode. And like, I remain positive about this movie. Like, I think there's a lot to really like about the movie, but I think that is a lot of it is the trees and not the forest.

Sam (01:28:01):
Yeah.

Like again, that this movie is better as pieces than rather as the sum.

Sam (01:28:07):
Yeah. Definitely go into it thinking it's a popcorn film. Popcorn summer film. Not, not a deep thesis on anything.

So I guess now that we've discussed the episode a bit, what do you think we missed out on? Like, is it, do you have a pitch that you would give or, you know what are your thoughts on that?

Sam (01:28:26):
I, I mean, honestly, everything you said, except, you know, with my caveat or with what I just said, with making sure that Tony and Steve's relationship has more tender moments in this film. I want to, I want to see their friendship and I want to, even if they have a disagreement at one point, I want to see them trust each other later. I want like a, a, a good old fashioned, like, even if it's like a nod or something or like see you on the other side, you know, like that kind of thing. Like my buddy, my pal. I want, I want to feel like they're buddy cops even if they're not together. Like their partners, they're gonna go on their own mission.

(01:29:13):
But like, I want the dynamic of like Steve feeling like he's too old for this and RDJ just jumping off a bridge and like I want a lethal weapon then, you know, other than that, like everything that you guys said, like such good coins. I mean, like, even with your point about Jarvis and also just everything that was said, there are no points that you guys missed.

We were thorough.

Sam (01:29:42):
You were very thorough. But that's the only thing I would really add because that was like something that really bugged me even while I was watching it. And then like, even like, because a lot of the arguments felt to me so contrived. They felt, they felt ham fisted, like shoved in there to like make that happen. So. But I don't know, but I think that's it because you guys really covered everything.

Yeah, this was like, again, this was animated episode. So. Yeah, I, I, I guess I hope listeners got a lot out of listening to this episode of Age of Ultron.

Sam (01:30:28):
I, if anything, they definitely got to know what it's like to hang out with you.

Yes, I, I actually really hope that this is a chance for people to check this episode out if they weren't listening to the show back in the day. And this was one that was missed because I actually think this is a really good conversation about the mov think that adjustments that were making, you know, was from the window when were doing it made sense. But from the perspective of like now with like all, you know, in game and everything already long since passed.

Sam (01:31:00):
Right.

Grace at this point now what, five years ago?

Sam (01:31:06):
Yeah.

Because Jesus, time keeps moving. Yeah. So I, I, I, I hope that listeners really enjoyed this episode. And I, and I hope that this is a chance for people to check out an episode that is earlier in our run that I, I was pretty proud of. And you know, I, I realize that these are bonus episodes sometimes people skip them. I realize that like on our YouTube, for example, like these have way less views than our regular episodes because they're on their own separate playlist. But you know, I, I do think this is a really good one that's worth checking out. And so I, I, obviously if you're listening to this point, you've checked it out, so. Thank you. Yeah. So aside from that, let's get into the general housekeeping that we do on these bonus episodes.

(01:31:50):
So when this episode is dropping a little bit late in our production schedule because we've had issues recording just you and I, like we've been able to get like with guests but like when it's been just like, oh, we'll just do the apps, it's been kind of hard. So when this is dropping, we just dropped two back to back Star Trek episodes of Another past. So we did Star Trek Generations with Hope Wyatt from Mind Brain Movies and we did Star Trek 5 the Final Frontier with William J. Who is from Farragut Forward. And on that note, the next episode of Another Pass that is coming out is episode 170. So that's a fifth episode. So we're looking at Farragut Forward because it is an independent fan film and it is hard to make those. And you know what?

(01:32:35):
I know everyone involved in that. I am currently editing the table read for our Indiegogo investors. And like it's just, Yep. I've got everyone in the production just like in on a screen in front of me and I'm just like cutting the, cutting our clips together. Like I know everyone. So we've got the director, we've got the executive producers and we've got the writer coming on to chat.

Sam (01:32:59):
And it's also a fifth episode. It deserves to because it is a good film and if you haven't watched it, you should. It's on YouTube, very easy to find.

Yeah, yeah, definitely check out Farragut Forward plugs. Plugs for that. But that. That's the next episode of another pass that is coming out now in terms of the next bonus episode that is going to be. Ooh, this is going to be on X Men 3. This is actually a really fun one also, so I'm excited for that one. This is when I'm like, really feeling myself in terms of like, the moves that we're doing.

Sam (01:33:33):
I feel like that's going to be another Case episode. I feel.

Oh, it's a Case and Jeff episode.

Sam (01:33:40):
Very special for me. I cannot wait.

It's gonna be.
If you're familiar with what a Jeff episode is like and you're familiar with how much a Case episode can go, The X Men 3 episode is going to be that and more. It's, it's gonna be a fun one, listeners.

Sam (01:33:56):
I'm excited. I hope you're excited too.

But otherwise, Sam, what have you got going on outside of here?

Sam (01:34:05):
Nothing. I only live here in my fluking piece of land that I hope the evil robot that's keeping it up won't drop onto Earth, ending all of civilization. But in the meantime, if I remember in between my screams of terror that our Discord still exists, I will check it out. Please pray for me. Please pray for me. Okay, but if you can't reach me because I have died, you can find Case at.

Well, in addition to the Discord server. That is such a terrible handoff. I'm sorry. Yeah, no, it's staying in. You can find me on the Discord server as well. You can also find me on Blue Sky. I'm kind of trying to push my social media peeps to. To that specifically. So you can find me there at Case Aiken, B Sky, whatever Dot, Social or whatever. Whatever the whole part of it is. But if you just search for Case Ain, you'll. You'll find me and that's where you can find threads that I'm doing on.

(01:35:14):
On comics and D stuff.
And where I'll share links to the respective new episodes that are coming out for this and for Men of Steel. Because I host two podcasts, this and then Men of Steel, which is a Superman and Superman adjacent show where my co host, J. Mike Falson and I talk about the man of Steel and how. How cool it would be to be Superman and like all the fun permutations on that fantasy. So check those out. Check out our YouTube channel where we post full episodes of this as well as in videos like my Superman analog series, my. My DND class analysis series that's been going strong. All kinds of stuff on our YouTube channel that's really fun to check out. It is Great. And. Yeah, then you should circle back and.

(01:36:00):
Check us out for our next time.
Like I said, we've got Fair Good Forward coming up as the next main episode, and Then X Men 3 coming up as the next bonus episode. But otherwise, until then, pass it on.

Addy (01:36:17):
All right, Josue, let's go through our new comic day stack.

We have a lot to review.

Sam (01:36:21):
I know.

Addy (01:36:21):
Maybe we've gone too far. Let's see. Marvel, of course, dc.

I got Image, Dark Horse, Black Mask, Boom. Idw, Aftershock, Vault, of course.

Addy (01:36:33):
Mad Cave, Oni, Valiant, Scout, Magma, Behemoth.

Wow, that's a lot.

Addy (01:36:41):
Well, all we need now is a.

Name for our show. We need a name for a show.

Addy (01:36:44):
About reviewing comic books every week. Something clever, but not too clever, like a pun.

It's kind of cheesy.

Addy (01:36:53):
Yeah. Something that seems funny at first, but.

We might regret later on as an impulsive decision.

Addy (01:36:57):
A few dozen episodes in. Yeah, we'll think of something. Choice, Keith and Hosui for we have issues. A weekly show reviewing almost every new comic released each week available on Geek Elite Media and wherever you listen to your podcast.

I really almost did say scruffy. I really almost said stay scrappy.

Sam (01:37:15):
I actually almost said scrappy nerd.

Oh, that's gonna be my blooper.

Addy (01:37:22):
Cpov.

Certainpov.com.

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Another Pass at Another Pass at Avengers: Age of Ultron

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