The Avengers 2! The Official News and Speculation Thread

[xeno000]

Maybe I'm strange, but when I saw those space whales slamming through buildings and causing them to collapse, I immediately thought that a whole lot of people inside died. Likewise, when Captain America said of people being shot by the soldiers on sky-cycles, "They're like fish in a barrel down there," it was clear that civilians were being slaughtered in the streets. I didn't need to be shown piles of dead bodies to understand what happened, and I assumed (incorrectly) that no one else would, either.

[DrCosmic]

I kinda understand the death complaint. Even if you don't see any dead bodies, if you don't see anyone actually get hit, and all the death is implied, it makes the tension a little bit cartoony. That kinda weakens the appeal ever so slightly. It's one thing not to show dead bodies, it's another thing not to show any humans being harmed at all. The implied death was well done, but a few lasers into some crowds, some people falling, something - similar to what we've seen in other big budget PG-13 films - would have made the movie darker and heavier, and I think I would have appreciated that.

[cherokeesam]

Originally Posted by DrCosmic

I kinda understand the death complaint. Even if you don't see any dead bodies, if you don't see anyone actually get hit, and all the death is implied, it makes the tension a little bit cartoony. That kinda weakens the appeal ever so slightly. It's one thing not to show dead bodies, it's another thing not to show any humans being harmed at all. The implied death was well done, but a few lasers into some crowds, some people falling, something - similar to what we've seen in other big budget PG-13 films - would have made the movie darker and heavier, and I think I would have appreciated that.

**** "darker and heavier."
This is Avengers and Joss Whedon, not TDKR and Chris Nolan.

[DrCosmic]

Hmmm... I think there's a lot of middle ground there, don't you? Transformers 3 for instance.

Regardles, imho, it has to be addressed. You can't keep telling stories about thousands of people dying and keep things too light, or it starts to fall apart thematically, I would think.

[Chewy]

Maybe they should show a whole pile of dead puppies. Frank Miller would smile.

[cherokeesam]

Originally Posted by DrCosmic

Hmmm... I think there's a lot of middle ground there, don't you? Transformers 3 for instance.

Regardles, imho, it has to be addressed. You can't keep telling stories about thousands of people dying and keep things too light, or it starts to fall apart thematically, I would think.

With Thanos in the picture, there remains the very real possibility that half the universe is about to get wiped out. And I'll bet you one shiny silver dollar that Feige and Company have no intention of showing a single casualty in that most massive of mass murders. It's like when the Death Star vaporized Alderaan --- nobody was clamoring to see all the dead bodies to "prove" that a terrible thing had just happened.

[terry78]

Unless they say otherwise, like it was evacuated beforehand or something, if an entire building gets decimated it's assumed almost everyone in the thing is dead.

[DrCosmic]

Originally Posted by cherokeesam

With Thanos in the picture, there remains the very real possibility that half the universe is about to get wiped out. And I'll bet you one shiny silver dollar that Feige and Company have no intention of showing a single casualty in that most massive of mass murders. It's like when the Death Star vaporized Alderaan --- nobody was clamoring to see all the dead bodies to "prove" that a terrible thing had just happened.

Now who said anything about 'proof?'

What Star Wars did, was they killed a few people, I think Obi Wan killed that guy in the bar, and Han shot Greedo, and then you got Owen and Beru's skeleton's smouldering, it addresses the dark themes of the storyline quite well, instead of leaving this big giant chasm between the visuals and the themes/story by having nearly ALL of the death implied. Concrete death was so scarce in Avengers, some people even believe the one person we saw get stabbed through the chest and bleed (as LMDs are prone to do) wasn't dead at all, before any other evidence of him being alive existed!

But again, I'm glad your telepathy is working. I always wonder about Marvel's deepest intentions. I'm usually distracted by their actions, in which showing gruesome deaths of numerous aliens is just fine.

[xeno000]

Originally Posted by cherokeesam

With Thanos in the picture, there remains the very real possibility that half the universe is about to get wiped out. And I'll bet you one shiny silver dollar that Feige and Company have no intention of showing a single casualty in that most massive of mass murders. It's like when the Death Star vaporized Alderaan --- nobody was clamoring to see all the dead bodies to "prove" that a terrible thing had just happened.

In the original Infinity Gauntlet comic books, no bodies were shown when half of all life was killed. The people who died simply flickered out of existence, leaving nothing behind. Now, there was plenty of horror to be had, what with Gamora's rotting, reanimated corpse shambling around and Thanos slaughtering the Avengers, but masses of bodies there weren't because they weren't needed to tell the story.

Originally Posted by terry78

Unless they say otherwise, like it was evacuated beforehand or something, if an entire building gets decimated it's assumed almost everyone in the thing is dead.

The destruction and loss of life would have been akin to the city being hit my a massive earthquake or buildings being bombed. The invasion happened in the middle of a business day, without warning, so the buildings were full and initially there was no time for people to flee. In those circumstances thousands would die within minutes. Then when the survivors and those in buildings spared the first wave of attacks had the chance to flee, there were hordes of Chitauri waiting to slaughter them in the streets. If something like that happened in reality it would be a perfect storm of destruction.

[xeno000]

Originally Posted by DrCosmic

Now who said anything about 'proof?'

What Star Wars did, was they killed a few people, I think Obi Wan killed that guy in the bar, and Han shot Greedo, and then you got Owen and Beru's skeleton's smouldering, it addresses the dark themes of the storyline quite well, instead of leaving this big giant chasm between the visuals and the themes/story by having nearly ALL of the death implied. Concrete death was so scarce in Avengers, some people even believe the one person we saw get stabbed through the chest and bleed (as LMDs are prone to do) wasn't dead at all, before any other evidence of him being alive existed!

But again, I'm glad your telepathy is working. I always wonder about Marvel's deepest intentions. I'm usually distracted by their actions, in which showing gruesome deaths of numerous aliens is just fine.

In The Avengers, Loki literally drilled a man's eye out of its socket while the victim writhed in agony, he killed a bunch of SHIELD agents when he first arrived and even more during the tunnel chase, Hawkeye shot guards down in cold blood, there were several brutal physical confrontations (Natasha/thugs, Natasha/Hulk, Natasha/Barton, Thor/Hulk, Thor/Iron Man). Torture was also discussed as an acceptable means of extracting information from Loki. (As Whedon said in his commentary [paraphrasing]: "Here's the scene where the heroes talk about torturing the villain that's in every superhero movie -- oh, wait, that's not true.") Two of the heroes are trained assassins, one of whom apparently killed a child and set fire to a hospital. You want dark themes? The Avengers definitely has them.


You obviously want a level of graphically and perhaps gratuitously explicit carnage that simply is neither possible nor desirable in a PG-13 rated film. This was The Avengers, not Saving Private Ryan or Platoon. Aliens* were shown dying in graphic ways, but then the MPAA treats what it terms "sci-fi violence" much more leniently than it does the more realistic, human-on-human kind. Where civilian casualties were concerned, the filmmakers relied on the audience's ability to understand what was going on without needing to see details that would only have been appropriate in an R-rated film. In other words, they trusted in the willing suspension of disbelief, that factor that allows us to buy into a movie universe comprised of gods and monsters and people who live with gigantic holes in their sternums (Stark) and survive massive doses of radiation.


* I was referring to the aliens in The Avengers, rather than to the film series of that name.

[DrCosmic]

Originally Posted by xeno000

You obviously want a level of graphically and perhaps gratuitously explicit carnage that simply is neither possible nor desirable in a PG-13 rated film. This was The Avengers, not Saving Private Ryan or Platoon. Aliens were shown dying in graphic ways, but then the MPAA treats what it terms "sci-fi violence" much more leniently than it does the more realistic, human-on-human kind. Where civilian casualties were concerned, the filmmakers relied on the audience's ability to understand what was going on without needing to see details that would only have been appropriate in an R-rated film. In other words, they trusted in the willing suspension of disbelief, that factor that allows us to buy into a movie universe comprised of gods and monsters and people who live with gigantic holes in their sternums (Stark) and survive massive doses of radiation.

You have a great point until you become either presumptuous or a telepath. Especially overlooking the films and tone I suggested and claiming that I "obviously" want darker films that the ones I mentioned, with a harder rating that the ones that they have, with more graphic violence than I described. The fact is, there is a huge wide swath of levels levity between Avengers and Aliens. Yes, Avengers is darker than I characterized it as, good point, however, if you feel your presumptions are more reliable than the words you're quoting then why bother quoting me at all?

[Joeyjojo72]

The level of graphic violence was exactly what it had to be in order to get a pg-13 rating. I loved TDK, but the laughably bloodless violence was one of my least favorite things about the movie. Same with TDKR. But I understood that it was a trade-off that allowed for pretty much limitless violence/bodycount.

Maybe a subtitle explaining that "a whole lot of people just died" after each scene of disaster would remove any ambiguities.

[Chewy]

Did we not see Hawkeye kill some guards? Did we not see Loki cut some dude's eye out?

Star Wars didn't have more on-screen death than Avengers. Neither featured dead, civilian bodies flailing about. If you want that I assume you don't understand that children are part of the intended audience.

[cherokeesam]

Originally Posted by DrCosmic

You have a great point until you become either presumptuous or a telepath. Especially overlooking the films and tone I suggested and claiming that I "obviously" want darker films that the ones I mentioned, with a harder rating that the ones that they have, with more graphic violence than I described. The fact is, there is a huge wide swath of levels levity between Avengers and Aliens. Yes, Avengers is darker than I characterized it as, good point, however, if you feel your presumptions are more reliable than the words you're quoting then why bother quoting me at all?

Dude, let it go.
Everybody in this thread except you understands that Avengers is a four-color comic book movie, and that it showed the same level of personal violence as Star Wars, while making the mass casualties of warfare implicit, just like Star Wars.

Avengers would not have been "a better movie" with gore and blood and horrific deaths splattered across the screen.

[Hawkingbird]

I'm quite sad that the comics are beggining to be based on the movies rather than the other way round...

[jaqua99]

Originally Posted by cherokeesam

With Thanos in the picture, there remains the very real possibility that half the universe is about to get wiped out. And I'll bet you one shiny silver dollar that Feige and Company have no intention of showing a single casualty in that most massive of mass murders. It's like when the Death Star vaporized Alderaan --- nobody was clamoring to see all the dead bodies to "prove" that a terrible thing had just happened.

Personally, I would like if they then showed like...a compilation, starting off on planets, showing like disasters occuring, aliens..or people being consumed, the scale gets bigger, to a compilation of planets blowing up, then stars, then some galaxies around the universe exploding or imploding, I think that would be cool

[DrCosmic]

Originally Posted by cherokeesam

Dude, let it go.
Everybody in this thread except you understands that Avengers is a four-color comic book movie, and that it showed the same level of personal violence as Star Wars, while making the mass casualties of warfare implicit, just like Star Wars.

Avengers would not have been "a better movie" with gore and blood and horrific deaths splattered across the screen.

What makes you say that I don't understand that. Did I say anything that contradicts the statement you just made?

But if this topic is going on too long for you, feel free to change the subject.

[DrCosmic]

Originally Posted by Chewy

Did we not see Hawkeye kill some guards? Did we not see Loki cut some dude's eye out?

Star Wars didn't have more on-screen death than Avengers. Neither featured dead, civilian bodies flailing about. If you want that I assume you don't understand that children are part of the intended audience.

Hmmm... to restate again: the issue that I underlined was non-implied death, not dead bodies. Showing the people in the buildings that are about to get hit for instance. Avengers did have on-screen deaths earlier in the films of nameless combatants, yes, but that's a different horse than having civilians killed, and understandably so. That may be part of the line that can't be crossed for the rating thing. I think the main difference between Avengers and films like Star Wars and Transformers 3 is the third act though. In the former two, you have lots of clear casualties in that final act, in Avengers... none? Part of that has to do with the Avengers not having an army of redshirts with them, I'm sure, but a few clear deaths I think would have put them that tonal consistency on par with Star Wars and Transformers.

Again, it's understandable, not wanting to tell the story of a pyrric victory, but it's not something that was very compelling to me. The case in point was the ending montage, yes, we can guess a lot of people died by the candlelight vigils, but the core message was one of victory and hope. Put the natural consequences out of your mind. It's a creative choice, probably the right one in this case, but it does create an unanswered dichotomy.

Originally Posted by Joeyjojo72

The level of graphic violence was exactly what it had to be in order to get a pg-13 rating. I loved TDK, but the laughably bloodless violence was one of my least favorite things about the movie. Same with TDKR. But I understood that it was a trade-off that allowed for pretty much limitless violence/bodycount.

Maybe a subtitle explaining that "a whole lot of people just died" after each scene of disaster would remove any ambiguities.

I guess that parallels my issue, I loved Avengers, but one of my least favorite things about the Avengers was the comically unharmed civilians during the third act. My reaction to the people running in the streets and not getting hit at all was the same in Avengers and TDKR. Lots of people running around, getting shot at, but it was like an episode of GI Joe in both cases, everybody's fine. I think that's weak, perhaps necessary, but weak.

[BobJM]

I didn't go to Avengers to see innocents get fried. An army was attacking the city, **** was hitting the fan. I didn't need a body count or see people dying to know that aliens attacking New York City is, all-in-all, a bad thing.

I don't get how this is even a discussion...? Are we really at a place in society where we need to visually see brutal violence to understand when things are bad for the heroes?

I can honestly say that not once in Avengers, or any MCU film for instance, did I think "damn, I wish I could just see some dead people! Then, I'll believe this!"

[Chewy]

This might be the worst "discussion" in the history of SHH. And that's saying something.

[cherokeesam]

Originally Posted by DrCosmic

Hmmm... to restate again: the issue that I underlined was non-implied death, not dead bodies. Showing the people in the buildings that are about to get hit for instance. Avengers did have on-screen deaths earlier in the films of nameless combatants, yes, but that's a different horse than having civilians killed, and understandably so. That may be part of the line that can't be crossed for the rating thing. I think the main difference between Avengers and films like Star Wars and Transformers 3 is the third act though. In the former two, you have lots of clear casualties in that final act, in Avengers... none? Part of that has to do with the Avengers not having an army of redshirts with them, I'm sure, but a few clear deaths I think would have put them that tonal consistency on par with Star Wars and Transformers.

Again, it's understandable, not wanting to tell the story of a pyrric victory, but it's not something that was very compelling to me. The case in point was the ending montage, yes, we can guess a lot of people died by the candlelight vigils, but the core message was one of victory and hope. Put the natural consequences out of your mind. It's a creative choice, probably the right one in this case, but it does create an unanswered dichotomy.



I guess that parallels my issue, I loved Avengers, but one of my least favorite things about the Avengers was the comically unharmed civilians during the third act. My reaction to the people running in the streets and not getting hit at all was the same in Avengers and TDKR. Lots of people running around, getting shot at, but it was like an episode of GI Joe in both cases, everybody's fine. I think that's weak, perhaps necessary, but weak.

So, you're still saying that you don't need to see dead bodies for Avengers to be a better movie, but you just need to see dead bodies for Avengers to be a better movie.....?

You're just circumlocuting now, and it ain't pretty. Why don't you tell us *exactly* what you could have seen to make it give you the proper level of violence and gore to be satisfied?

[KangConquers]

Originally Posted by DrCosmic

Hmmm... I think there's a lot of middle ground there, don't you? Transformers 3 for instance.

Regardles, imho, it has to be addressed. You can't keep telling stories about thousands of people dying and keep things too light, or it starts to fall apart thematically, I would think.

Transformers 3 was darker than Avengers?!?!?!?!

[Chewy]

I can't, I just can't

Please, subject change

Do we think Thor will wear his helmet?

[KangConquers]

Originally Posted by Chewy

This might be the worst "discussion" in the history of SHH. And that's saying something.

We topped Menapaunster in just one week! *High five!*

[Chewy]

Originally Posted by KangConquers

We topped Menapaunster in just one week! *High five!*

Nah, the previous high point was Cap's hobbit feet