Lurker > PrivateBiscuit1

It's hard to sit through Iron Man 3 because there's no good interactions for Tony and all the characters are just boring or suck. And it tries so hard to be funny but it's just not. Iron Man 2 at least has Tony palling around with his supporting cast and that's fun, and it has Justin Hammer who is a highlight. It's still boring, but at least it isn't actively hard to sit through.

Cool action scenes are the only thing that this movie has over Iron Man 2, but the waiting for them is so rough in Iron Man 3.

The Card
Zero Hour Pre-Show
AAA Mixed Tag Team Championship - Sammy Guevara & Tay Melo (c)
FTW Championship - Hook (c)
AEW All-Atlantic Championship - PAC (c)
Why The Fuck Not: Eddie Kingston

Main Show
Casino Ladder Match: The Joker
Grudge Match: Christian Cage
Also Grudge Match: Powerhouse Hobbs
AEW Women's World Championship - Toni Storm
AEW TBS Championship - Jade Cargill (c)
AEW World Trios Championship - Kenny Omega & The Young Bucks
IT'S STING match - Darby Allin, Sting & Miro
Customary unneccessary trios match: Wardlow (c?) and FTR
AEW World Tag Team Championship - Keith Lee & Swerve Strickland (c)
Battle for Daniel Garcia's soul - Bryan Danielson
AEW World Heavyweight Championship - CM Punk

It's very easy to forget about the nervous breakdowns because they happen like 4 times, and the plot goes nowhere, and it means nothing, and for some reason he just has them when he's hanging out or people say "New York". And not, you know, when he is piloting the armor in which he used regarding his PTSD or fighting or explosions are happening. It's such a meaningless plot that could have been better if it actually affected him or it was something he had to overcome to be Iron Man, but it's an absolute waste of time and completely forgotten about halfway through the movie.

It absolutely was not the peak of his arrogance. He was having nervous breakdowns before this and doubting himself and builds a bunch of armors to cope with that. He's not even showboating in the film at all prior to that. This is him at his least arrogant, actually!

Oh no, I understand these two things fine.

But I think it's ridiculous to just assume Tony Stark cares so little about Pepper that he won't even have a way to protect her when he KNOWS he's the top of every bad guy's list. And not only that, Tony outright doesn't CARE when Pepper is trying to leave because he called a fucking terrorist to his home without being able to easily get an armor that works and is just telling her to chill. I don't care how arrogant he is.

Tony is arrogant as fuck because he always has things set in place to be arrogant. He has nothing ready, not even an easily accessible armor that functions properly. This movie simultaneously wants you to believe Tony is extremely smart while also having him do the dumbest possible things that make no sense.

Jakyl25 posted...

I resent the notion that Trevor Slattery isnt funny after the reveal.

Hes even better in the Hail to the King one shot

I beg you to re-watch this movie and tell me he's funny after the reveal. The humor absolutely does not hold up in this film.

Maniac64 posted...

The worst part to me is that he somehow has no defenses installed on his house. How is there not a suit or a blaster that can be ordered to blast that helicopter out of the sky?

This is another thing. We're supposed to believe that Tony Stark is such a genius and even if he flies off the handle like this, he has nothing to protect Pepper of all people and there's no defense system or anything to stop MISSILES? That's literally all they were. Instead of building armor obsessively or whatever, it's far more reasonable for Tony to build a defense system. The whole thing is so contrived.

And by the end of the movie, Tony seems to not be nearly as torn up as he should about Pepper falling to her death, and he's still cracking jokes to Killian about it. Killian explodes, which kills most other Extremis folks but I guess Killian has super duper extra Extremis for some reason? And we have Pepper Potts suddenly becoming an incredible fighter inexplicably and killing Killian? This sucks and it's not satisfying. It feels like an apology more than anything for the crappy way her character was treated before this.

It's just a completely messy film that is strung together with some impressive action scenes. I didn't enjoy my time trying to watch this a second time because it's just... not fun to sit through. Iron Man 2, for all of its thoughts, at least tried to give us some interesting characters and developments. Iron Man 3 gives us none of that. It gives us shallow interactions that rely entirely on Robert Downey Jr.'s ability to make anything good and a plot that attempts to be subversive but only delivers something far less interesting than we thought we would get. It's a film of half-baked ideas everywhere but the cool Iron Man stuff they can do. I can at least re-watch Iron Man 2, but I don't think I can watch this movie again. It's tragic.

Girlfriend Thoughts: Most of the humor didn't land for her and she was repeatedly looking over at me after some jokes, particularly in the Harley and Tony parts of the movie, as if to see if I found it funny. She thought Adrich Killian was just weird and didn't really care when he was on screen. This is likely because she hated the Mandarin twist. She had completely forgotten everything about it that's talked about in Shang-Chi and I didn't remind her, because she seemed to really be excited to see Ben Kingsley as the villain. When I reminded her after the twist, it all came rushing back to her. She liked the action too, and wanted to see the Iron Man saving everyone on Air Force One scene again. She just seemed really disinterested for the most part.

Iron Man 3
Release Date: May 3, 2013
Stand-Out Character: Iron Man/Tony Stark (played by Robert Downey Jr.)
Best Scene: The House Party vs. Killian Krew

So I didn't like this movie when I first saw it. Outright disliked it, frankly. I went into this with an open mind. I still think it's an awful movie, but I appreciate some other parts of it more.

Iron Man 3 is about Tony Stark fighting back against the Ten Rings and the evil Mandarin being aided by AIM's Aldrich Killian. After being abandoned from all of his fancy gadgets and gizmos, he comes back and only sometimes is without his fancy gadgets and gizmos as he fights back and exposes that Adrich Killian was really behind everything and almost kills the president to rule America and the biggest terrorist group, but Tony Stark, James Rhodes, and somehow Pepper Potts save the day.

I'm just going to start with what I do like about this movie, because a lot of this will be negative. Tony Stark is the stand out, as is completely unsurprising, but not because Tony Stark is so much more entertaining in this movie, but because everyone else is varying degrees of bland to terrible, even our returning characters. Robert Downey Jr., given the subpar material here, is still enough to really drag this movie into something entertaining between action scenes.

I actually almost gave the honor of the stand-out to Eric Savin, played by James Badge Dale (who I was pleased to be reminded was the lead in The Empty Man). As a villain, he is still pretty bland, but he really ends up chewing the scenery in every scene he was in somehow. You probably don't remember him at all, and that's fine. But I at least enjoyed his presence in this film quite a bit.

But hey! The action is awesome in this film. That's easily the highlight. It's nice seeing them come up with creative stuff to do with Tony Stark's armor and his various gimmick stuff. I don't care for when he's just some secret agent with his makeshift gadgets, but when he's doing cool stuff with his Iron Man armor, or making due with his armor not at full capacity, it's great. In particular, I loved how out of pocket a lot of scenes were like Tony giving Pepper the armor in the attack on his home and when he saves all of the people falling out of Air Force One. I loved that stuff. But as far as action, we get the attack on Tony's home, Savin as Iron Patriot on Air Force One, and the highlight which is The House Party of many Iron Man armors against all of the Extremis folks.

I also really enjoy how cool Extremis looks. As a fan of that arc in the comics, Extremis was done really well here I thought. It was menacing and provided for some unique scenes.

We're done with the good stuff. Here's the bad stuff.

Adrich Killian sucks. He's not interesting, has terrible one liners, and he's just a random freak. His motivations are absolutely horrible. His plan is just stupid and impossibly absurd when you think about it, and he ends up being arguably the lamest villain in the entire MCU. There is nothing redeeming about this character who is just Business Man, but Has A Fake Terrorist Group. Oh and I guess he's big mad because Tony stood him up at a conference like 15 years ago.

Which hey, may as well bring up The Mandarin. God, those scenes with The Mandarin were awesome. They were outrageously cool. He's positively chilling to behold, and I thought it was absolutely the perfect way to give us The Mandarin without the racism. But instead he's a bumbling joke and laughingstock and for what? To give the spotlight to bland as hell Killian? A legitimately good character and good concept that could hit home pretty well and build off the mythos of the first film and we have Ben Kingsley being a coked up idiot who isn't even funny after the reveal. This sucked.

And then there's Maya Hansen, played by Rebecca Hall, who gives a frankly mediocre performance in a role that I swear she's not even in the film for more than seven minutes run time. What is the point here? She's not even interesting, impressive, and her arc is completely wasted for Adrich Killian.

But we like all the returning characters, right? Well Happy is gone in the first, what, fifteen minutes? Rhodey is barely in the film too and while he has a couple good bits, he feels kind of wasted here. And Pepper just... exists to be a weird toy for Killian and also kind of an afterthought that feels like they apologize for at the end? But nobody feels as fun because we barely get any meaningful scenes with Tony and any of them, Pepper included.

And then that kid, Harley. Utterly pointless. Not interesting. Not fun. Just exists here to exposition drop and give a weird back and forth with Tony, but it's just not interesting or fun and it goes next to nowhere?

The characters are maddeningly poorly utilized and it drives me nuts. It takes everything we had from the first two movies and just throws it all away for this bizarre film that barely feels like the Iron Man we're used to. Oh, and next to none of the humor lands. It's crazy how poorly the humor in this movie holds up. It's all just these weird jokes.

I've ranted about the Mandarin stuff, so I won't go into that further. But let's talk about it being Christmas. Why is it Christmas? Nothing comes of this. Nothing is relevant to this. It's just arbitrarily Christmas, and it's just a waste. It's a little thing, but... just why? They barely use the Christmas motif at all.

Remember when Tony had PTSD in this film? For like, three selective scenes where they make it seem like a huge freaking big deal? And then it goes NOWHERE? Sorry, you mean to tell me that Tony isn't having panic attacks and feels SAFE in the armor where all the horrible stuff happened? Why isn't the idea that he's afraid to be in the armor in that case? Why isn't he having PTSD when he's trying to fight in the suit again? Why is it only when people are like "Hey Tony, how about New York?" Indefensibly bad writing.

Speaking of, Tony Stark saying "Here's my address, terrorist. Do your worst." With his girlfriend there. And having no intention of leaving. Pepper wants to, but the fact she isn't completely flipping livid over this is crazy. And guess what? It bites Tony and his house is blown up. It's just a contrived excuse to advance this plot along.

They reveal too much about Extremis to us and Killian's plan ahead of time, and we know most things and aren't learning it with Tony, which makes it far less interesting and compelling until they hit us in the face with the Mandarin twist.

And this whole plot with Tony being obsessed with making his armors and then getting rid of them entirely is also, you know, very bad. And it doesn't even make sense when he's back to making new armors in Avengers 2 time. It's not interesting and it's forgotten about for like 95% of the movie from beginning to end.

Before I write up Iron Man 3, I almost forgot I wanted to actually rank these after each phase. So here goes.

The Avengers
Iron Man
Thor
Captain America: The First Avenger
The Incredible Hulk
Iron Man 2

Watching Iron Man 3.

it still sucks

I actually watched a behind the scenes of season 2 of Flight Attendant and they brought on folks who did Orphan Black to help with the season with multiples of the main character, and they had a bunch of doubles and just had to film the scenes multiple times from different perspectives with different outfits. It's actually a bit wild. Kaley Cucuo said it was very exhausting, so I can only imagine how brutal it was for Tatiana Maslany some days.

A little behind the scenes shots of how they're doing She-Hulk. Poor Tatiana Maslany has to wear that damn get-up all the time. I don't know why I thought they would have done this some other way.

https://twitter.com/SestraHulk/status/1566167917905027072?s=20&t=-oyG8nZnkcQ1oyI6__BNJw

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/2/7/2/AATFBfAADoPo.jpg

Zavok
First Appearance: Sonic Lost World

I guess I can talk about Sonic Lost World a bit.

Zavok is a weird red and black creature that is just... confusing. I'm not putting a lot of effort into describing him, but think a not-turtle Bowser honestly and you're most of the way there.

So Sonic Lost World is... kind of not a great story aside from a few specific beats that are actually pretty good. Eggman vowing to destroy the Zeti and a couple Sonic/Tails things are alright. The rest is rather forgettable. It's a game that was made entirely to appeal to the Nintendo crowd, which is fine, but it felt very watered down as a result. We have a bunch of one-note personalities for the villains and one in particular is Zavok, the leader of them.

He gets enslaved by Eggman with a magic conch (wha) and then he vows to destroy Earth as revenge using an Extractor device and... honestly, it's not that interesting. Zavok is, at least, the most interesting of his crew because he has a bit of menace to him. While the others are just random joke characters, Zavok is treated like a badass leader and that's probably for the best.

Interestingly, they want Zavok to keep existing. I sort of understand why since he looks pretty distinctive and is an easy villain to throw in. He appears in Sonic Forces as a Phantom Ruby clone and he actually gets a boss fight. And then he appears in Team Sonic Racing. Somehow they got more mileage out of Zavok. I suspect to drag in folks who played Sonic Lost Worlds on the Wii U and wanted to hop over for more of him (I question if those people exist though).

That said... Zavok is fine. I enjoy him well enough. If there's a spot for him, he can come around. However, I'm not exactly excited for him. I don't think he can bring a ton more to games he can be in. There are more interesting villains. But Zavok isn't terrible, and he can be utilized well still. I'm honestly just more surprised he's still getting play, and I don't think they're going to let up either. It really is confusing to me though why he gets used as much as he does.

Rank: C

https://youtu.be/rTj-iQ-eAcQ

I really do wish they'd do something about the Avengers because yeah, it's very confusing who is still on the team at this point and in what capacity.

New She-Hulk was good. It's pretty much the vibe I was hoping for the series and anyone complaining it isn't comic accurate enough to that feeling frankly hasn't read She-Hulk.

But good lord the fight scene at the end was absolutely abysmal still. I just do not understand how they're so bad. It's not even just lame action but it's edited terribly, hard to follow, and completely disjointed.

Re: Abomination

I'm trying not to be too bugged by it because it's She-Hulk and not to be taken entirely seriously, but Abomination is just an absolute joke now, and transformed he has that dopey human face and looks terrible. They just went too hard on making him such a joke. There's plenty of characters they could have leaned in on with that, but it's so sad seeing such a badass character be just a lame laughingstock.

I really enjoyed Beast for what it was. I thought the beginning exposition was kind of sloppy and it never had any kind of payoff so I don't know why they even bothered with that. I thought it was extremely well-shot. Really good directing. It felt as long as it needed to be as well.

Also Idris Elba did in fact punch the lion so that's a plus.

The Invitation was the absolute shits. What a bad, bad film. Don't watch.

I'm going to see The Invitation today with friends. I was kinda hoping they'd be more excited for Barbarian since apparently that one is getting rave reviews already.

https://twitter.com/WavePrism_/status/1563727147344297984?s=20&t=ivmVZoDwub9o-InnJZwYeQ

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/8/2/9/AATFBfAADnKN.jpg

King Boom Boo
First Appearance: Sonic Adventure 2

King Boom Boo is so random but I love it.

He's a giant goofy ghost with rainbow eyes and tongue.

This guy is just chilling in Eggman's pyramid and he's just a goofy ghostie guy who screams and laughs at you incoherently. His fight is alright, with Knuckles needing to chase him around, dig him out of the ground, and punch him lots.

He's somehow very distinctive, even though he seems like a knock off of King Boo from Mario, but I like this weird thing regardless. He has a good energy to him, and even Sega hasn't forgotten about him! He appears in the mobile game Sonic Runners and he also has his own level in Team Sonic Racing!

I wouldn't mind seeing King Boom Boo as a reoccuring villain. He's fun. He doesn't need anything else to him--just give us a simple villain that can pop up anywhere like this.

Rank: D

https://youtu.be/fJFaQAnS2gc

Then00bAvenger posted...

Avengers is kind of a weird movie for me since it's supposed to be this epic story where several heroes come together to cooperate against a major threat but the fact that the face of that threat is Loki who is basically a joke character made it hard for me to really get excited. Like, is this a comedy I'm watching? It's true there's a giant army at the end that is actually a threat but it's just a vague giant army without a real face or identity.

I know that's pretty common for Marvel but I guess I just wanted them to drop that and get a bit serious for something big like the first Avengers movies. Basically what Infinity War did, actually.

It was still an enjoyable movie and all but it's not in the top for me.

Sorry, Loki is not a joke character and you're crazy if you think so.

Loki was deathly serious in Thor and a massively conniving force who was willing to let everyone he loved die and destroy an entire world of people to get what he wanted and nearly succeeded. He didn't hold back and was vicious.

Avengers continued that. The only difference in Avengers is that they allowed the Avengers to get one up on Loki rather often. That doesn't make him any less formidable, and while he's the butt of a joke a couple times, he's in no way a joke character. The thing is: Loki still succeeds in what he set out to do. He still summoned an army to Earth and decimated New York. He just unluckily had a group of heroes appear who could do things just as impossible as him that brought him down.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/8/5/1/AATFBfAADm67.jpg

Erazor Djinn
First Appearance: Sonic & The Secret Rings

Erazor Djinn is a solid villain for a dumb spin-off storybook game.

He's a pink-skinned genie guy with wacky red hair and a traditional Arabian garb and cape.

Here's a quick summary: Erazor Djinn was locked away in a lamp until he granted wishes for 1,000 people and then eventually he pulled Sonic into the Arabian Nights storybook world and also he was with Shahra at some point. Eventually he destroys/takes over the Arabian Nights world and gains an incredible amount of power and after Sonic gets the seven rings he goes and kills Shahra when she sacrifices herself to save Sonic. Then he turns into some cool looking giant scarab guy but Sonic beats him, and then makes wishes with his lamp to seal him back inside.

You can probably tell discussing Sonic & The Secret Rings is not too interesting to me because... I dunno, I played the game, beat it, and I was never terribly interested in it. I enjoyerd Erazor Djinn enough though. He was a solid villain who was pretty evil and menacing and everything you could ask for. He's just in a game that while it looks nice a lot of the time isn't tremendously fun? And you can't do much with him outside of that one game.

Yeah, it'd be cool to see him pop up somewhere again but I don't think any of us will be too excited about it. Erazor Djinn does everything he needs to in his one off appearance and that's the best you can hope for. I've never really had a ton of complaints about how this game is written until the very end (My wish is for you to have a bunch of tissues, so you can fucking cry about it!), so Erazor does good.

Rank: C

https://youtu.be/PgWZc73XnpE

Or we could have just not done the TVA at all because it's the most boring thing they could have done with Loki.

NFUN posted...

how would he have prevented that decision?

He might not have, but he could have at least not have been a baby bitch push over about it and shown as much energy then as he is now.

https://twitter.com/RTFandub_OOC/status/1563154182198030337?s=20&t=WtBpDoPtTXs0W6XdPJ91sw

UshiromiyaEva posted...

4D Chess argument is that when he realized he was going to be blocked by Manchin for 2 years he laid low until right before the midterms so he could go full Ice Cream mode and maximize it's effectiveness.

But I mean....come on.

Ah, yes. All it took was losing women's rights. Good trade off for at least 50% of us.

Biden should have been like this from Day 1, but I hope he keeps that same energy for the rest of his term. This is exactly the leader we need right now.

Keep pointing out their bullshit and lies. You see how fast they shut up about this student debt relief after they pointed out all the money these idiots got in PPP debt relief? Don't give them air to spout their shit.

Oh I forgot Girlfriend Thoughts:

She really liked The Avengers. Not much else to say. She thought it was awesome. There's actually not much else to say because we were both enthralled by the movie and didn't actually talk too much during it.

She was very sad Coulson died though. And then was shocked Fury lied about the cards. She also enjoyed Hulk a lot and him throwing Loki around got her good. The Cap solo scenes in the final fight got her really excited too.

We both agreed that Cap's helmet was absolutely the dorkiest thing and it's great they went away from that.

She also wanted to rewind to see the Hawkeye exploding arrow at Loki scene a second time. I personally adore that scene too because it's Hawkeye's best moment. I love that.

Jakyl25 posted...

Theyre a hive-mind right? I can buy that if you blow up the actual hive then they die

I mean I looked it up and apparently they are, but if there was a line in the movie about it then I completely missed it and I'm sure most other people missed it too. It's still silly to watch them all fall over dead after all that, and I remember Joss Whedon saying in the director's commentary "Yes, I know that it seems like kind of a stretch for the Chitauri to just all fall over, but it was the only way for us to get to have the rest of the moments with them victorious."

most_games_r_ok posted...

Coulson's death was a missed opportunity to introduce LMDs imo.

Yeah, we're supposed to get Coulson again in Secret Invasion if I remember right, but I really don't think Coulson's death is all that impactful in that movie. It gives us the awesome moment of Fury using it to his advantage to get Iron Man and Cap fired up on the same page, but I think there's more value in keeping him around and not in a spin-off TV show that may or may not be canon.

scarletspeed7 posted...

I mean, I'm super-biased - Wanda "No More Mutant"ed once, nearly two decades ago, and I haven't forgiven her since.

It's funny, I absolutely loathe Wanda in the comics. She's the drizzling shits of a character with nonsense powers and just comes across as completely dopey and also No More Mutants. But I think the MCU just does such a better job with the character it's crazy. They hit all of the beats of her character without wading too far into the shit.

I think the one slip up they've done with her is definitely the Rambeau line at the end of WandaVision though. I would have definitely liked seeing people talking about how awful Wanda is in the news or something, justifying Wanda being in hiding and feeling more shunned from the world.

The Avengers
Release Date: May 4, 2012
Stand-Out Character: Loki (played by Tom Hiddleston)
Best Scene: The Avengers vs. Chitauri (Post-Money Shot)

Controversial opinion (not really): Avengers holds up extremely well. The long of it is that Avengers is such an awesome film that does literally everything right and I have minimal complaints. It's really a great film I can watch any time and still be enamored by it.

I might as well start by addressing Joss Whedon, the film's director. He's scum, and I think we can all agree on that given what's come out about him, and it feels a little bit bad complimenting him, but I feel like I kind of have to, and I'll get it out of the way immediately. It's really difficult to avoid, because he's really an amazing visionary for this film. I don't know how many other directors can take The Avengers and all of these pieces and then come out making a film that does justice to (almost) all of them and gives such an awesome and fun experience.

There's such a perfect handle on all of these characters, and you can really feel they understand each of them perfectly from Maria Hill to Iron Man. Not a single thing feels off here, and their interactions are fun, awesome, and feel personal to those characters. Their banter works entirely well but doesn't undercut any drama. I love that this film adds to every single character we've seen and they all come out more fleshed out and interesting as a result.

I legitimately struggled to decide who would be the stand-out, and I'll get to that character, but I want to talk about Samuel L. Jackson's Nick Fury first, because I almost gave it to him. This character is so actualized it's mind-blowing. His motivations, his role, his personality is all so well-done for this film. All of SHIELD is such a great addition here and really fits in well in this world. Nick Fury as a central piece makes the entire film work and without him I think it's much weaker.

Iron Man gets a focus by having other people to bounce off of and joke with, while bringing plenty of drama and seriousness to the role to prove himself an actual hero and a smart dude. The scene where he works on the turbine on the helicarrier is wonderful, and stuff like that is the creativity I wish we had more of in these films instead of just nonstop battles and fights: heroes using their wits and abilities to save the day without punching someone in the face.

Captain America comes out in the world with his strong sense of moral justice and his humanity is impeccable as we watch him become a living legend all over again: it's just how he's built. That's the kind of person he is, and he does a great job leading the crew.

Thor has some really, really good scenes that build off his movie. Where he talks with Loki and they have a tragic heart-to-heart about their situation, and Thor gets to have serious moments where we see him wanting peace and to stop his brother from going too far.

Hulk gets every god damned thing you need. I think I would have liked the Incredible Hulk style more, because Banner Hulk face doesn't do it for me, but Mark Ruffalo does a great job in this movie. I feel like his performance as Hulk kind of diminishes from what I really care about the character. As in, he's a torture man barely keeping it together, but seems happy to be able to let loose with his alter-ego to help for a change. I really appreciate you being able to be afraid of Hulk and enamored with his strength still rather than having him be a silly green strong man like he currently is.

Black Widow gets to use her wits and subterfuge well, as well as trying to find alternate methods to succeed and win. We also delve into her own past where she wants to escape her demons that she created on her way. Scarlett Johanson really stepped up her game with this movie, I suspect because they had a much more solid idea for her character. She gets it better than in Iron Man 2.

Hawkeye has a USB Arrow.

The core Avengers all really work incredibly well together and in scenes where they talk with one another, you can really get a solid idea for who all of them are. The script is really fantastic.

But let's talk about the guy who ties this all together: Loki. Tom Hiddleston is cold, vicious, ravenous, and hungry for success in this role. He makes everything better. He's smart and has set himself up for success and doesn't care what he has to do in order to get his. If you had to pick a single character from the movies to be the villain in Avengers, Loki is the guy. Picking up where Thor left off, he's even more of a threat. Scenes where he is allowed to just let loose and talk about his ambitions and tear down those across from him are just astounding to witness. Hiddleston is just such an impeccable actor. And even though the movie is less about him in the final act, as a catalyst for everything, he performs admirably.

And I guess I need to address the film itself. Loki steals the Tesseract and uses it to summon an alien invasion in order to take over Earth before the Avengers stop them. That's it. It's so simple but padded with such meaningful and cool scenes. No complicated plot or anything and it works so well. It really feels more like a character piece for each character, and Hawkeye is there. But because of that, it really solidifies these characters into what we really love about all of them.

I don't think the franchise is a success without this movie being what it was. It showed the value of crossovers like these, and it let the characters be more than just the contained universes they're in. You can relate to them more as they riff on each other. All of these very different characters just work seamlessly together in a single film and it's wonderful to behold.

Specific things I would like to touch on is that my favorite scene is definitely after Hulk drops by and the fight against the Chitauri is really moving. Everyone gets something to do in that scene and the helicarrier fight scene and it's great. Just seeing them all work together is great, after we slowly build up to them getting together as a team: because they know what they need to do to succeed. They feel legitimately heroic, moreso than they ever did in their original films. They take on impossible threats, do incredible things, and don't let up at all. It's action-packed, doesn't let up, and it keeps you enthralled through it all.

Other notable scenes are Fury talking about Coulson's sacrifice to Cap and Iron Man, Iron Man vs. Thor (vs. Cap), the scene where they're bickering under the influence of Loki's staff, and the helicarrier battle.

I know I'm kind of not focusing on anything in particular, but I think this film is hard to in a good way. It's about the characters more than it is the film in general. If I spent time talking about my favorite moments I'd be listing them out forever. I said it before, but this movie is practically perfect in its simplicity. The moving parts all work, the cast is just tremendous, and it gives all of the awesome action you need to tie it all together.

My one complaint is that the Chitauri just fucking die once their mother ship blows up. lol What the fuck is that they just fall over dead come on. I know it's hard to come up with something better to wrap things up BUT COME ON.

There, I'm done. Go watch Avengers, and also post your favorite stuff from this movie so I don't need to talk about them individually in this post.

What is this school nonsense? Most jobs unless you're talking about like the top 5% of schools only care about what you graduated with.

HeroicCrono posted...

If you are being pushed into poor financial decisions, it may be predatory.

Yeah, like teachers, parents, adults, media, and the government itself telling you since age 10 that you need to go to college to get a good job and have a good life and treating college like a prestigious thing, leaving you to have to make a life deciding decision by age 17, but not a single soul informing you about what a scam and robbery that it is and how the interest is completely horrific.

Just make a better decision as a teenager bro.

HeroicCrono posted...

I see wall to wall coverage regarding ideas about forgiving student loans, virtually no discussion about how to lower tuitions. Outside of a few profit schools, little discussion about the problem of bad schools that don't add value for their students.

I wonder why you're seeing that right now because of the immediate issue of people being too poor to start a life because of their loans and the other side screaming endlessly about how nobody should be forgiven and "fairness".

red_sox_777 posted...

I don't see many people advocating for making student loans less predatory. As in, not disbursing vast sums for study at really bad colleges that add little to no value for their students. Not just the ones that are out and out scams but the colleges that are just not worth the money.

If you don't see many people advocating for making student loans less predatory, you can start by opening your eyes.

LordoftheMorons posted...

PPP wasn't really debt forgiveness. It was just a structuring of the program that allowed them to give money to companies but force them to actually spend that money on payroll. The idea is that in the absence of PPP they wouldn't have spent that money at all, and people would have just been laid off. It was also a response to an economic emergency, which is fundamentally different from a longstanding structural problem that a one-time student debt forgiveness doesn't address (in fact, it will likely make the long-term problem worse by incentivizing colleges to further raise tuition).

Dude, I work for a small company got the PPP loan filling out everything and they called back and said "Actually if you add these things we can give you even more." Our business got better DURING the pandemic. We didn't need that shit at all. Most of these people didn't!

There are real, tangible people who could really use this. This isn't to say fuck everyone who got a PPP loan, but imagine the amount of money that this went to just for CEOs to get even more cash at the end of that year.

Just let people get money back on the enormous scam that is student loans that NOBODY explained to anyone. Did any one of us who went into college understand how predatory these student loans were? Did anyone's parents know that? It's a fucking scam and there should have been something done sooner.

Also they passed a reduction on how much people will be required to pay per month, so it's not only just a benefit for those immediately. And it opens the door to do more in the future to stop this shit.

I don't see how Wanda's characterization was wrong (aside from that shitty line at the end of WandaVision). She was always heading deeper and deeper into her own madness and desperation to have any kind of semblance of belonging or for anyone to truly care about her.

She lost her parents, then lost her brother, was outcasted from being a beloved hero and hated by everyone, then lost her lover, and she was desperate to give herself any sort of happiness.

So after being woefully alone after Avengers Endgame, she created her own world where things were simple and she could be loved again. And when that was shattered, she had a taste of her perfect life and while Vision made it clear he didn't want any part of it, she still wanted to at least have her children. And so she went deeper and more desperate and found bad book to try to use it but it ended up making her use it for more sinister purposes.

It's a pretty understandable and natural descent to villainy. I don't think it was out of nowhere at all.

Don't Worry Darling has Chris Pine and Hayden Penetierre in it. It's more of a thriller movie. I'm excited for it! It looks good!

Well it's also because WBD said they can only afford to release two more major films this year. lol Don't Worry Darling which is coming out next month and Black Adam. They also pushed two more movies to a minor film release.

The Ring is absolutely better than Ringu and it's not close.

UshiromiyaEva posted...

I mean they already sold The CW off, so who knows that the legalese is there.

They also already released trailers for these, which is the key difference between this and Batgirl because Batgirl was dissolved before any advertisement or intention to put it out was made past filming.

Shazam 2 moved to February, and now Aquaman 2 is moved to December 2023. Makes me think they're re-shooting, unless they hope people will forget about Amber Heard by then.

Edit: And of course, The Flash does not move and is still on the same schedule.

They're doing an American remake of Goodnight Mommy with Naomi Watts. Big ol' meh to that. I really enjoyed the original.

https://youtu.be/bBQ3eEOvMdI

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/5/4/6/AATFBfAADmHS.jpg

Jet the Hawk
First Appearance: Sonic Riders

Jet's alright.

He does have a good look though. He's a distinctive shade of green with a beak, goggles, and some cool gloves and shoes. Actually really quality design on this dude.

He's really just a super arrogant bird fella who leads the Babylon Rogues, but it feels like he barely leads them which I guess is part of the joke? He's sorta lazy, easy to piss off, and pretty selfish, but he's got a heart of gold sometimes.

I like Wave more than Jet, generally, but Jet's perfectly fine. I generally enjoy seeing him around in the Riders games. He's a fun character to have around and fills his niche, and I feel like he could do with more appearances with the other Rogues.

I don't have terribly strong opinions on Jet though! He's a very middling character for me!

Rating: C

https://youtu.be/W54NvLGfTgU

It's wild to me they're setting up Young Avengers but then they'll all be in their mid-20s by the time they get around to filming it. It makes no sense to me, and it feels like leaving money on the table for something easy.

https://twitter.com/AxisTheTiger/status/1562162569724530688?s=20&t=IJ6fWvpt61vkUEeSw7Yh2A

shane15 posted...

People still care about those zombie 'musou' games?

No, but Dead Island is more of a first person RPG-like game.

But nobody cares about those either.

KILLER KLOWNS FROM OUTER SPACE GAME

YEEEEEEEEAH

Fucking HYPE

I didn't write this Justin Roiland game off but this is legitimate fucking awful.

Twitch chat shits on anything that isn't a Triple A realistic shooter

Gimme Moonbreaker