The Avengers Jeremy Renner is Hawkeye! - Part 1

[Poni_Boy]

Fanboy outrage is just the best.

Funny thing, the article I wrote about the Kickstarter campaign to build an Angry Bird car for Burning Man took a lot longer to write than this post, but nobody told me to get a life or that I had too much time on my hands. They didn't call it nitpicking when I critiqued the archery in BRAVE and THE HUNGER GAMES. They didn't go to the trouble of posting to tell me they don't care when I interviewed Tom Chapin and wrote about WhyHunger's "Do Something" campaign. They didn't call it ranting when I reviewed REED GUNTHER.

But, boy oh boy, say something mildly critical about a superhero movie, and it's like you raped Hello Kitty.

At least now I know I can drive some people into a frothing rage whenever I want to. I wonder if this is how trolls feel? "Dance, monkey! Dance!"

Yikes. Bitter much?

Sounds like somebody can dish out criticism but doesn't know how to take it. Especially when the vast majority of people tell him to peddle his pedantic crap elsewhere.

 

[Quasimod0]

Raped Hello Kitty? Thats harsh.

 

[Raiden]

Fanboy outrage is just the best.

Funny thing, the article I wrote about the Kickstarter campaign to build an Angry Bird car for Burning Man took a lot longer to write than this post, but nobody told me to get a life or that I had too much time on my hands. They didn't call it nitpicking when I critiqued the archery in BRAVE and THE HUNGER GAMES. They didn't go to the trouble of posting to tell me they don't care when I interviewed Tom Chapin and wrote about WhyHunger's "Do Something" campaign. They didn't call it ranting when I reviewed REED GUNTHER.

But, boy oh boy, say something mildly critical about a superhero movie, and it's like you raped Hello Kitty.

At least now I know I can drive some people into a frothing rage whenever I want to. I wonder if this is how trolls feel? "Dance, monkey! Dance!"

It's fine to criticize Renner's archery stance and the fact that he does it wrong, but since 99% of us don't know archery I'm not sure how significant this is. That's why it comes across as nickpicky, because it'd be like an engineer pointing out the mechanical flaws within the Iron Man's armor design. People are just going to enjoy what's presented as long it doesn't look too ridiculous.

 

[Poni_Boy]

It's fine to criticize Renner's archery stance and the fact that he does it wrong, but since 99% of us don't know archery I'm not sure how significant this is. That's why it comes across as nickpicky, because it'd be like an engineer pointing out the mechanical flaws within the Iron Man's armor design. People are just going to enjoy what's presented as long it doesn't look too ridiculous.

The majority of responses I keep seeing is the question, who says Renner is doing it wrong? Hawkeye is supposed to be the best archer in the Marvel Universe, and if you pick up ANY comic with him in it, he's not standing in a forcibly unnatural position like professional archers do. Why? Because he doesn't have to. His innate ability is to get arrows (or whatever he's shooting) precisely on target. Every time. Regardless of his position, stance or mobility. That is the character's comic book canon. That is what's being shown in the film. If anything, Clint would laugh in someone's face if they told him is stance was wrong, because that has nothing to do with making him the best.

 

[Quasimod0]

Maybe Clint is doing it right, and everyone else is doing it wrong.

 

[Poni_Boy]

Maybe Clint is doing it right, and everyone else is doing it wrong.

In the MU, that's exactly what it is. Just like Green Arrow in the DCU

 

[Quasimod0]

And seriously, if everything had to be realistic, hawkeyes form is the least of our worries

 

[Xeno]

And seriously, if everything had to be realistic, hawkeyes form is the least of our worries

The movie has aliens traveling through wormholes on aerodynamically-unsound skycycles, a man in a flying suit of armor, a super-soldier and a green rage monster who ought to both be dead of radiation sickness, "gods" from mythical realms.... Oh, and the archer uses a bad technique.


I can't speak for anyone else, but with all the other weird and impossible things going on in the film, Hawkeye's form or lack thereof doesn't concern me one bit. Disbelief was suspended five movies ago, over far more important things.

 

[Whiskey Tango]

We all have our little pet peeves regarding movie inaccuracies. Mine is manhole covers. Those things are friggin heavy! Yet in the movies people (Columbiana even had an 8 year old girl do it!) are always lifting or sliding them like they're made of cardboard. Gah!

 

[Spider-Vader]

Maybe Clint just invented his own style of archery?

 

[irapogi]

i'm sure most archers don't jump and shoot while turning around as well. he doesnt care about technique. he's SO good that he can make the shot in the tightest of places.

that's pretty darn believable if you ask me.

 

[DJ Kornphlake]

"Holy **** I'm falling! How's my form!?"

 

[Xeno]

We all have our little pet peeves regarding movie inaccuracies. Mine is manhole covers. Those things are friggin heavy! Yet in the movies people (Columbiana even had an 8 year old girl do it!) are always lifting or sliding them like they're made of cardboard. Gah!

Tell me about it!


My cat had been missing since last Saturday, having sneaked out of the apartment and gone wandering. Yesterday a neighbor spotted him near a storm drain and, sure enough, he had gotten himself down inside with no way to escape. The grate over the thing weighs several hundred pounds. My brother, who has arms of steel, partially lifted it so the kitty could get out, but no way could he remove it completely all by himself.


Another one is car batteries. They look small enough but they're extremely heavy. Bro works for a dealership and he pointed out that Tony Stark shouldn't have been able to carry a battery around like it was nothing in Iron Man. Curiously enough, even though he hauls around batteries virtually every day, that point didn't ruin the movie for him or really cause more than a moment's thought.

 

[Xeno]

"Holy **** I'm falling! How's my form!?"

Yeah, but I'll bet he got those aliens right in their -- whatever aliens have between their legs.


Bad form on the patented Hawkeye Ass-Slide, too, though the alien on the right was too busy dying to notice.

 

[C. Lee]

If he was starring in a movie about a real life Olympic archery guy....I might worry about his form....but it's a movie about superpowered people fighting aliens.

 

[Chewy]

Did the guy who wrote that article really register here just to whine about people not taking his article seriously?

I the internet

 

[venom420]

lmao this guy is crackin me up, next thing you know hes gonna take examples from the comics on how hawkeye is a terrible archer. I LOVE THE INTERNET

 

[Matt Mortem]

Its really spectacular. All I know is, I like what I've seen of Hawkeye thus far, and I'm damned certain he's gonna deliver all the awesome I want to see from Hawkeye in the movie.

 

[chris moore]

I'm an archer (though not a teacher or even a competitor of any kind), and although there is the "correct" way of doing things, sometimes you just have to adapt them to fit your own posture, strength, injuries, to make the shot work.

For instance I cannot for the life of me do dominant eye shooting - I have to go instinctive (though I imagine one eye is working more than the other due to natural stigmatisms etc). But my grouping in comparison to when I started out and was taught the "one eye" approach is monumentally better.

Likewise my grip. I've tried the looser grip where the bow almost rocks back and forth after the release, and the shot is just piss poor compared to a much tighter grip.

And overall, if I take time with the shot, really hold it there to line up, it's worse than draw the arrow, nock it, sight the target, raise the bow, draw back, split second focus, release.

Bottom line: Renner might look like he's ballsed it up and that he didn't spend enough time with the coach, or that he didn't have a good coach; but the type of shots an archer in Hawkeye's position is expected to do could well necessitate adapting being able to pull off the shot with an imperfect stance. And the double brace thing seems a little fishy, as I'm certain if Renner were smacking the hell out of his forearm due to bad arm positioning (which, yes in that shot was not like the worlds best archer he was compared to), the prop department would come up with a better protective idea than "hey, let's just stick another one on there". No, they'd have more of a breathable gauntlet design to cover all potential points of impact from the string. So maybe there's a better reason for it being there.

 

[Incredible Hans]

The movie has aliens traveling through wormholes on aerodynamically-unsound skycycles, a man in a flying suit of armor, a super-soldier and a green rage monster who ought to both be dead of radiation sickness, "gods" from mythical realms.... Oh, and the archer uses a bad technique.


I can't speak for anyone else, but with all the other weird and impossible things going on in the film, Hawkeye's form or lack thereof doesn't concern me one bit. Disbelief was suspended five movies ago, over far more important things.

IMO, a superhero film doesn't have to be realistic, but it has to be plausible at least.

 

[Savage]

I like how the guy specifically states in the article that his nitpicks about the archery will have no effect on his view on the movie and people are saying he's taking it too seriously. Like the movie is somehow above criticism. I doubt it's anything that's going to take anybody out of the film. It's just fun knowledge. You'd swear the guy said "Hawkeye's form is bad?! The movie has been ruined!". He's just pointing out stuff that even a novice would know that I find particularly funny that the world's greatest archer doesn't.

Using the Mythbusters example again, I doubt that show is ruining movies everywhere for everyone. But then again I'm into that whole "The Science of Superheroes" thing.

 

[Savage]

IMO, a superhero film doesn't have to be realistic, but it has to be plausible at least.

Yeah, there are certain ground rules you have to set and abide by like how gravity works and not being able to breathe in space. It's just a heightened reality and that's why it works. The little details help in the end when they add up.

I can best compare this to action movies where the hero holds a gun a certain way that would clearly dislocate their shoulder upon firing. It's still cool to watch and all but it's one of those details that can make you think "HA! Get out of here."

 

[Chewy]

What way should someone shoot a grappling hook arrow while falling off a building? It is an entirely impossible act. How one can critique the form involved is a bit mindboggling

 

[chris moore]

If you want to compare form and stance to anyone whose shots are supposed to resemble anything like what Hawkeye is regularly expected to do, compare it to Byron instead of an Olympic/world champion archer. He may not slide across the floor or leap around (god help us the day we see him do that), but he shoots on the fly, shoots moving targets, plenty of things we'd expect from action archery

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfcgsdAZL7Y

 

[Savage]

Not really. If you can't pull all the way then you can't fire. Simple as that. He could always just shoot it like how he would normally but while falling off. But holding it sideways is something we see comic book archers do all the time so it's awesome to see it done in live action. No-one's saying it doesn't LOOK awesome. It's just a fun critique that holding it like that would probably make it miss the target by a mile or not even get that fair to begin with. I dunno. This kind of stuff makes me curious. Yeah, seeing a guy fire a sniper rifle with one arm and hit a guy between the eyes from a mile away would be friggin' awesome but that doesn't make it less implausible or above criticism. I have conversations like these with my friends all the time. It doesn't ruin movies for us.