The Official "Ultimate Avengers" DVD Thread

I don't understand the sheer hate for the Ultimates. I mean, it's a very well written book, and the art kicks major ass. It's not everyone's thing, that I get. But what I don't get is why some people hate it so much. Not just feeling that it isn't your kind of book, but actually hating it. Because it's different from the regular Avengers? Well, that's kind of the point. To try something new.
 
I like Ultimates because it kind of feels like Avengers: Behind the Scenes. You wouldn't see half that **** happen in 616.
 
I liked the movie, and/but I'm already ready for 2.
 
Sabretooth said:
I like Ultimates because it kind of feels like Avengers: Behind the Scenes. You wouldn't see half that **** happen in 616.


Exactly. It's not completely changing the characters. It's looking at the characters from a new angle. I mean, if you think about it, the core Avengers are a group of rather flawed individuals. Iron Man is a womanizing alchoholic. Giant Man is a borderline psychotic who occasionally takes his issues out on his wife and his friends. The Hulk is a nerdy scientist with major anger issues and multiple personality disorder. Hawkeye is basically a street thug playing hero. Scarlet Witch is a former international terrorist with a good deal of psychological baggage. Quicksilver is a former international terrorist who's also an arrogant *****ebag. Captain America is an incredibly patriotic new deal democrat in a time where alot of what the government does is morally ambiguous at best. The Ultimates isn't as much changing them as bringing those flaws to the forefront.
 
The Question said:
Exactly. It's not completely changing the characters. It's looking at the characters from a new angle. I mean, if you think about it, the core Avengers are a group of rather flawed individuals. Iron Man is a womanizing alchoholic. Giant Man is a borderline psychotic who occasionally takes his issues out on his wife and his friends. The Hulk is a nerdy scientist with major anger issues and multiple personality disorder. Hawkeye is nasically a street thug playing hero. Scarlet Witch is a former international terrorist with a good deal of psychological baggage. Quicksilver is a former international terrorist who's also an arrogant *****ebag. Captain America is an incredibly patriotic new deal democrat in a time where alot of what the government does is morally ambiguous at best. The Ultimates isn't as much changing them as bringing those flaws to the forefront.

Best explanation for The Ultimates ever.

Damn good Post.
 
Matt said:
The hell are you talking about? Every friggin character was a Hollywood cliche. You had the loner, the wise-ass arrogant "I should be the leader" guy. The uncertain, fish out of water leader. The loner. The tough girl. The military hard ass, yet loveable authoritarian, etc. Plus the entire story of the rag tag team coming together at the last minute was a Hollywood cliche.

You're right, no Hollywood exec got their hands on any of them...BECAUSE THEY DIDN'T HAVE TO! It was already Hollywood enough.
I meant that they didn't stray the characters too much from who they are in the comics. Cap was confused being in a new time,Iron Man was a playboy,Thor believed he was a god (which turned out to be true in the comics) Bruce was paranoid from what the Hulk has done to his life,etc. The only one who was changed was Hank,and it worked because writers never gave Hank a personality except that he is a wife beater and they never seem to get past that.

What I'm trying to say is that the people on the movie didn't do what Fox did to Dr. Doom or make the characters into something they aren't. Yeah they didn't make Captain America a hardass,but they focused on him being a man out of time. Yeah Hulk didn't eat people or get horny over Thor's hammer,because that's ******ed. You see where I'm getting at?
 
Sabretooth said:
I meant that they didn't stray the characters too much from who they are in the comics. Cap was confused being in a new time,Iron Man was a playboy,Thor believed he was a god (which turned out to be true in the comics) Bruce was paranoid from what the Hulk has done to his life,etc. The only one who was changed was Hank,and it worked because writers never gave Hank a personality except that he is a wife beater and they never seem to get past that.

What I'm trying to say is that the people on the movie didn't do what Fox did to Dr. Doom or make the characters into something they aren't. Yeah they didn't make Captain America a hardass,but they focused on him being a man out of time. Yeah Hulk didn't eat people or get horny over Thor's hammer,because that's ******ed. You see where I'm getting at?

So in other words, they took what makes the Ultimates good (their characters)...dumbed them down to the lowest common denomentator (two or three word stereotyped personalities) and slapped them together? Well, at least someone can enjoy that.


Furthermore...
I don't get why people can't get past Horny Hulk. It was metaphorical. Banner has numerous issues (Anger, sexual frustration, etc)...the Hulk of the Ultimates issue 6 was simply Banner's sexual frustration manifesting itself. And what is the Hulk if not a manifestation of Banners psychological issues?
 
Good point. And, as for the psycho Hulk, it's not like The Hulk hasn't been a total bastard before. Banner has a **** load of personalities, some nice and some not so nice. Savage Hulk is the most common one and is the nicest one. Mindless Hulk is rage and instinct personified, and is one that comes out alot and is rather close to Ultimate Hulk. Joe Fixit is cruel and self serving, and is also rather close to Ultimate Hulk. Ultimate Hulk is really an amalgam of mindless Hulk and Joe Fixit.
 
Matt said:
So in other words, they took what makes the Ultimates good (their characters)...dumbed them down to the lowest common denomentator (two or three word stereotyped personalities) and slapped them together? Well, at least someone can enjoy that.
Again,I didn't say they got the characters perfect. They only got the basic stuff down. I would hope they will become more like in the comics come Ultimate Avengers 2 (Cap being more comfortable with being the leader and becoming a hardass,Tony and Black Widow relationship,Thor coming off as a lunatic,Hawkeye,Scarlet Witch,Quicksilver,Hank beating Jan,etc.)

The problem is,I don't know how far they can really go with it being PG-13. I mean, the first was rather kid friendly. I wonder if they'd actually have characters get heavy with the swearing,Hank beating Jan (again,that may be too much) or violence.
 
Actually, in the preview of the next movie, they said there wpuld be major problems between Hank and Jan.
 
-How many Avengers dvd movies are there gonna be?
-What other characters can we expect to see besides Black Panther?
-Did anyone else hate Thor from this movie,or the Wasp?
 
The Question said:
Actually, in the preview of the next movie, they said there wpuld be major problems between Hank and Jan.

The problem is, how much can 'problems' really be? It's a childrens movie, so it clearly isn't going to involve Hank beating Jan. However, the movie is trying to be too adult for children and taking itself waaaay too seriously. Yet, it's not adult enough to be an adult movie. It's like one second 5 people will be killed by aliens, and the next you have Thor burping like a bumbling idiot. And lets face it, Belching isn't funny past the age of 6, I don't care who you are...it's just not funny.
 
GoldGoblin said:
-How many Avengers dvd movies are there gonna be?
-What other characters can we expect to see besides Black Panther?
-Did anyone else hate Thor from this movie,or the Wasp?

Thor was a jackass and Wasp was practically a background filler.
 
-We don't know. Only the two were announced. I guess if they're successes there'll be more like any other movie.

-Nnno clue.

-I loved every character in this movie...except the chitauri...They were just...there...something to beat up.
 
I do agree that there was a sense of ULTIMATE AVENGERS stuck attempting to please both of the "kiddie audience" and "adult audience" in many ways. But I think this was forseeable from the get-go. Anyone who makes animation in America is going to assume that children are likely going to eventually be seeing it, if not buying it or having parents buy it, seeing it on CARTOON NETWORK inevitably. Plus, the best animated projects try to appeal to both groups anyway, such as SHRECK, THE INCREDIBLES, and in some ways the "Timmverse" projects (B:TAS,S:TAS, BEYOND, JL/JLU).

The thing about THE ULTIMATES as they are written is that Mark Millar writes from an extreme point of view, and usually can only depict most characters from an extreme. And one of his flaws is that he has a hard time making a character looks sympathetic without either failing and creating a stereotype, or making the entire story ungodly depressing, much like the Pym/Defenders issue of Ultimates 2. The "stale aliens" plotline was lifted directly from Ultimates; just instead of having the Avengers fight NO threats and only fight the Hulk when Banner wants to give them "something to fight so they don't lose their funding", the film introduced the aliens early with the full intention of fleshing them out more in ULTIMATE AVENGERS 2 (at least that is the theory). Granted, that made the aliens stale here (and in general aliens tend to be stock, boring enemies when compared to supervillians), but the lack of supervillians was the fault of ULTIMATES. Even fans like me of the Ultimates usually tire of the team spending most of their time fighting themselves; only the second half of Ultimates 2 seems set to have bonafide villians.

As for extremes, not only is Hank a "wife-beater", but he viciously puts Wasp into a coma. There is no way to feel sympathy for a man who does that. Cap also spouts morals one minute and then suckerpunches people the next, leaving some to think he is a thug. Ultimate Hulk has no heroic tendancies whatsoever and is simply a monstrous cannibal. Ultimate Thor exists as the "ultimate hippie" as one of Millar's many voices who claims that "America is evil" in Ultimates. The point of extremes is that they will divide your audience if they do not agree. Millar is a Liberal, and like most liberals, he preaches to the choir. The makers of the movie likely wanted to stay out of politics and display an unapologetic superhero thing. While that takes a little away from Ultimates, it is fitting for Avengers (the only time the Avengers usually got political was usually when Cap, a WW2 vet who likely had killed dozens of Nazis over his career, would suddenly go pale if he had to justifiably kill again, even if said threat was worse than a billion Nazis). I DID miss some of that "connection" to the public that the Ultimates had, being media darlings. Iron Man had that for a few moments at least.

Overall, though, I enjoyed the film as escapist superhero adventure that, unlike Ultimates, isn't so busy trying to convince me of some political point that it is forgetting about the superheroics (even though I do like The Ultimates a great deal and anxiously await every late issue). It was supposed to combine a mishmash of both 616 Avengers and Ultimates and somewhere have a voice to its own and while it wasn't perfect, it was a bright spot in Marvel's currently shady animation history. Recall that this was their latest project since MTV SPIDER-MAN and the finale of X-MEN EVOLUTION. And surely it was better than past incarnations of animated Avengers as seen in AVENGERS: UNITED THEY STAND in the 90's.

I am concerned that instead of focusing on the remaining Avengers in ULTIMATE AVENGERS 2 or introducing Hawkeye (who DID show up in the second half of Ultimates), they are going with Black Panther to tie him into the Cap/Klieser thing. That may be interesting but I do hope the film is longer and delves into the other characters (it does seem Thor will be covered a little from what the featurette mentioned, at least). I do see where a sequal could be far better, much like X2 was a bit better than X-MEN was. And IRON MAN will naturally flesh out Iron Man a bit more, much like Superman and Batman in JL had their own series behind them, so they didn't have as much focus in the beginning.

And naturally if ULTIMATE AVENGERS 1 & 2 sell well, Marvel & Lion's Gate will make more (perhaps that is why their deal is for about 7-8 DTV's and only about half of them so far have been announced; they are testing the waters for sequals), which could be cool. If anime can make OAV series on their own Japanese comics, why can't we with OUR comics? This is a trend I want to see continue and improve, so I'm supporting it now.
 
One can only hope. I'm looking more forward to an X-men crossover though...an animated Ultimate War would rule.
 
If Spider-Man 3 is the last of the Spider-Man movies,they should have him in one of these animated movies. Preferably his own.
 
I'm glad I passed on the ultimate avengers in comic book form.

I bought the dvd, and the storyline isn't bad, although isn't there enough of the leftist ecological activist thing in movies already? And Thor of all people being a save the whales kind of guy, I don't really see it. I guess that was in the comic so it had to be in the movie.

I'm still to make it through the whole thing. I'm about 3/4 of the way through it, and I keep falling asleep because the animation is SO slack. Honestly, the justice league cartoon looks better than this does, and this is being billed as a "movie". It's really painful to watch animation wise. Perhaps a LITTLE more money could be spent on animation when they try to bill something as a "movie"?
 
knownote said:
I'm glad I passed on the ultimate avengers in comic book form.


You really shouldn't be. It's one of Marvel's best books.
 
Borrowed the movie today from a friend of mine. Wasn't too bad, but I think next time the Avengers should leave the world saving to the Justice League. :p
 
What I liked about it:

The animation was pretty good. Not quite Last Exile good, but pretty good.

I liked that they used the antagonists from "Homeland Security."

I liked that Ultimate Thor was pretty much in charecter.


What I didn't like:

1. Cap, while the fish out of water, doesn't come across as tough mentally as the impression I got from Millar and Finch.

2. Iron Man the fly-by-night dogooder rather than the public test pilot. They also toned down the womanizing and merely implied the drinking.

3. Hank Pym isn't the jerk and wife-beater he should be yet.

4. Since they have Black Widow, where the hell are Hawkeye, Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch?

5. Did they really have to tone it down that much? Ultimates is just as much a political commentary as it is a superhero story, maybe more.
 
The Question said:
Good point. And, as for the psycho Hulk, it's not like The Hulk hasn't been a total bastard before. Banner has a **** load of personalities, some nice and some not so nice. Savage Hulk is the most common one and is the nicest one. Mindless Hulk is rage and instinct personified, and is one that comes out alot and is rather close to Ultimate Hulk. Joe Fixit is cruel and self serving, and is also rather close to Ultimate Hulk. Ultimate Hulk is really an amalgam of mindless Hulk and Joe Fixit.
If he was the Ramping Hulk he could've beat Superman in Marvel v.s. DC most of the fights in that book were cheated
 

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