Avengers: Infinity War (a movie review post)

 MCU #19

I think it's fair to say that Avengers has been the most ambitious movie franchise of all time. The Avengers, itself, was possibly the most ambitious movie ever made but, then, Infinity War goes way beyond that. The culmination of 18 other movies, with clues about it going back to... what? the first Captain America movie? I don't remember if there was any hint about the infinity stones before that or not. That's a lot of movies to build one story on, and Marvel pulled it off. Magnificently.

And, then, killed half their characters.
That's a bold move.
Seriously bold.
I was reading back through my previous reviews for this movie (yes, reviews; it was so big, I had to do two) and was reminded at the furor it caused and how upset people were. It's amazing to me in retrospect. Actually, it was amazing to me in "spect." I mean, the first time.

Not even to get to how the movie ends, but it opens with Thanos slaughtering refugees. How much more harsh can you get? These people just had their homeland destroyed and in walks Thanos killing them wholesale. Along with Loki! Possibly the most popular of all of the MCU characters, and Thanos mostly casually snaps his neck and tosses his body aside.

The only drawback to Infinity War is that it is really the first of the Marvel movies that you really can't watch unless you've seen a good number of the other MCU movies. Probably not all of them, but I can't see Infinity War as making much sense to anyone who hasn't been following the story at least somewhat. However, it's also unfair to call that "requirement" a "drawback" since that, really, is the point of the film. No one would expect that you should be able to sit down and watch (or read) Return of the King without consuming the first two parts of Lord of the Rings.

Here's the thing: I've been immersed in Marvel since I was... four? three? Since I first discovered Spider-Man. I read Infinity Gauntlet when it first came out. I know how comics work, and I knew, generally, how this pair of movies was going to end. Knowing all of that, when it got to the part where Peter is "dusted," it still brought me to the brink of tears. And that was watching it this time. I don't remember crying when I saw this the first time, but I know I teared up. That scene was heartbreaking.

And that is saying a lot.

I don't know... Thinking about all this... This movie has a lot of characters in it. A lot. And, yet, Marvel manages to pull that off. It did take them 18 movies to form the foundation for it, but they did it. And, then, I think about -- look, it's not that I want to think about DC, but I can't help making the comparison -- DC and how they seem to think that throwing in more and more characters is how you make a great movie. Or, maybe, they're just using their characters like spaghetti and throwing them at the audience to see what sticks. The characters and the actors. How many different Batmans and Supermans have we had? What I'm saying is that the movie could have gotten bogged down with so many characters, but it didn't. It's a long movie, but you don't feel it. It moves along without having to deal with a bunch of exposition to keep people from getting confused. It's... masterful.

Look, as a writer, I'm telling you this is some good storytelling. That's my expert opinion.

Oh, also, Doctor Strange works out the plan by using the the Time Stone totally knowing he's going to get dusted and goes through with it anyway. That takes some real... I don't know... Courage doesn't cover it. Look at Quill. He knew the stakes and, yet, when they have almost gotten the glove from Thanos, Quill gives into his rage and hands Thanos the victory. Strange stared it all down and hands Thanos the Time Stone, anyway. Man...

And, if you want (almost) all of your favorite MCU characters in one movie, this is the place to see it.

The real test? I just watched this but would not protest watching it again right now. It's that good. Which is true of most of the MCU. Not all, but most. There are a few I feel like I don't need to ever see again, one in  particular (you hear that Norton? (yeah, this is my Norton dig for this post)) but, for most of them, even after just watching them, I would happily watch them again.
So let's get this one ranked!

The infinite ranking:

1. Captain America: Civil War

2. The Avengers
3. Captain America: The First Avenger

4. Avengers: Infinity War

5. Spider-Man: Homecoming
6. Captain America: The Winter Soldier
7. Iron Man

8. Black Panther

9. Doctor Strange

10. Ant-Man

11. Thor: Ragnarok
12. Thor: The Dark World
13. Thor

14. Guardians of the Galaxy

15. Avengers: Age of Ultron

16. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2
17. Iron Man 3
18. Iron Man 2
19. Incredible Hulk

(I discussed with my family what they thought about the placement of A:IW on the list, and I have gone against popular opinion. Well, their popular opinion, anyway, although it seems that a lot of popular opinion has A:IW in the top two of MCU movies. I have my reasons, though, for the placement, most of which have to do with tightness of story. But, man, it was difficult for me for it to fall between Cap and Spidey after the two of those were tied for a while.)

Avengers: Age of Ultron (a movie review post)

 

MCU #11

I'm still waiting for a new solo Hulk movie with Mark Ruffalo. I don't think that's going to happen, but he is going to be in the new She-Hulk series on Disney+, so I guess that will have to do. Oh, you will have to go back and re-read my previous Ultron review to understand that context, I suppose.

Age of Ultron is a difficult movie, at least in comparison to the other MCU films. For one thing, there is no clear victory. Sure, Ultron is destroyed, but he wasn't exactly defeated, not entirely, which is especially difficult since The Avengers were responsible for creating the menace to begin with. And one of the heroes dies, which is the first for that in the MCU. Not to mention that the plot goes off in several directions during the middle of the movie. Not to mention the problematic usage of Black Widow.

Seriously, after writing some of the best scenes for Widow in the first Avengers movie, Whedon reduces Natasha to not much more than an extra in this one while simultaneously raising the value of Hawkeye. Which is not to say that Hawkeye didn't need some focus, but turning Black Widow into, essentially, the Keeper of Hulk isn't exactly cool. Romance or no.

Here is what Ultron did well:
The opening scene where there team is attacking the Hydra base is superb. It shows the dynamic that the team has established and that they have, indeed, come together to work as a team. Each of them has established roles, and they do well in them. They have even made allowances for teammates (Stark) who are unable to play well with others. Whereas Thor and Cap have developed strategies for working with each other, Stark is still mostly a lone wolf kind of character. Within the context of what they are doing, it's fine; dismantling Hydra is not much of a challenge for the super heroes and one they wouldn't be doing at all except that Hydra has run off with Loki's staff, and they need to get it back. Add in other super powered beings, though, and, suddenly, his running off on his own becomes something of a problem.

The creation of Vision is extremely interesting and well done. There's not much more to say about it than that.

The scene where all of guys try to lift Mjolnir is fantastic. It's one of the best scenes in all of the MCU.

What Ultron didn't do well:
The various mind trips caused by Wanda. It breaks up the flow of the movie and really doesn't add to the story. Even the one by Tony during the opening scene is non-essential despite being the supposed catalyst for creating Ultron. The truth is that that is something that Tony would have been prone to do anyway, and we don't need the fear scenario to make us believe that Stark would act so... rashly. Thor's is used an excuse to give exposition about the infinity stones, and Hulk's... another excuse. They want to show us the Hulkbuster armor? Fine. Really, they want a reason for Banner to want to remove Hulk from Earth, but Wanda's manipulation wasn't necessary for that, either. It all seems like a lot of wasted time in the movie to me.

Ultron. In retrospect, I think James Spader was not the right choice to play Ultron. His vibe is not the right kind of kind of creepy. I think someone more like Kevin Spacey, cold and angry, would have been a better fit. Not Kevin Spacey, because fuck that guy, but someone like him.

Mostly, though Age of Ultron is a transitional part of the overall story. It brings together a lot of threads and, then, sends those thread back out again. It sets the stage for both Infinity War and Civil War and introduces both Wanda, who seems like she will be an essential component of what is coming up in the MCU, and Vision. It also puts Hulk in place for Ragnarok. And introduces Wakanda in a more substantial manner. The movie does a lot. The Ultron part of the story is almost... superfluous.

So, yeah, totally enjoyable. It is the least of the actual Avengers movies, but that's not saying much, because they are all so good. Just because it's the least of the Avengers movies doesn't mean that it doesn't totally clobber all of the DC films. Which means I suppose it's time to work it into the rankings...

1. The Avengers
2. Captain America: The First Avenger
3. Captain America: The Winter Soldier
4. Iron Man
5. Thor: The Dark World
6. Thor

7. Guardians of the Galaxy

8. Avengers: Age of Ultron
9. Iron Man 3
10. Iron Man 2
11. Incredible Hulk (It's Norton's fault this whole Black Widow/Hulk romance thing was introduced at all. Betty Ross would have been around as the Banner's love interest if Norton hadn't killed the sequels.)

Rebels: "Vision of Hope" (Ep. 1.11)

"...I have a feeling. Today's the day."
"Well, I have a feeling you're going to get stunned if you don't stay in the moment. This moment."


Ezra has his first vision. Visions of the future are all the rage, you know. Of course, visions are difficult, at least visions of the future are. As Yoda said, "Always in motion is the future." And there's the question of whether Ezra is just seeing what he wants to see.

But, anyway, our rebels are all alone, operating completely independently of any other groups and without any kind of funding or support. They're doing it because they hate the Empire and what it stands for. That does not, however, mean they want to be operating independently of anyone and everyone else. In fact, they really want to be tied into a larger network. And this episode brings them that hope...

We also get to see one of Ezra's cadet friends from that episode where he went undercover in the academy.

The series is beginning to have the feel of being an ongoing story rather than being a series of single episodes, so that's good.


"Wait. You know what I smell like?"

How To Be... a Fighter Pilot

The dad of my best friends when I was a kid was in the Air Force. Every so often, I would get to go to the base with them, the base being Barksdale Air Force Base. It was the coolest place. Except for one thing: no fighter planes. Oh, there were some, but Barksdale was a bomber base, so, mostly, it was full of B-52's. I never did get to go in one, but, man, are they big. I don't know if this is still the case, but, in the 80s, Barksdale had the largest strategic bombing force in the nation and, at need, could "bomb Russia" without the need for refueling. It was great, because it made Barksdale in the top 3 on "Russia's" nuke list. But I digress...

As cool as the bombers were, they were never what we were interested in. My friends (3 brothers (and a sister)) had books and books about fighters, and that's what we wanted to fly. My favorite was, and has always been, the F-16. To put it in Star Wars terms, the F-16 would be the A-wing, as it was designed out of a need to have better air-to-air fighters. Basically, it was a plane designed around dog fighting. The things can pull 9-g maneuvers! Let me just say that when everyone was busy being enamored of the F-14, a Y-wing at best, after Top Gun came out, I was never dissuaded from my love of the F-16, the far superior plane (as attested to by the fact that the F-16 is still in production and the F-14 is not). But I still digress...

The F-16

Although I never wanted to be a fighter pilot, every boy wants to be a fighter pilot. I mean, how cool is that? Unfortunately, it's not the kind of career you can just decide to do and spend your life working toward it. There are physical limitations on the job. Like basketball but in reverse. Yes, there really is a height limit to being a fighter pilot. For the Air Force, that's 77 inches (6'5"). I suppose, above that, there's no way you're cramming yourself into one of those cockpits. There's also a height minimum: 64 inches, along with a sitting height requirement! Between 33 and 40 inches. How many of you have ever thought about how tall you are while sitting? Yeah, that's what I thought. Me, either. So it's not just about height but about body proportion, which is pretty specific.

And we haven't even gotten to the part about the vision yet! Vision requirements are somewhat easier to meet these days. When I was in high school, you had to have at least 20/20 uncorrected vision. Now, as long as it can be corrected to 20/20 vision, you can have vision as low as 20/70. See, my vision, which is in the 20/30-40 range, was the only thing that kept me from accepting an invitation to the Air Force Academy after high school. I'm not a good fit for the military because of that lack of respect for authority thing I have going, that and my tendency to use that word which is the bane of parents everywhere: "Why?" However, I would have gone if it had meant a chance to fly fighters. It's all just as well, I suppose.

But why was the Air Force Academy after me to begin with? Test scores. Even though I never applied there or anything. And I'm not talking flyers in the mail kind of stuff, either, although they did send me stuff in the mail. And call me. A lot. And even sent someone to my house to talk to me. So, yeah, you have to be smart. Although, after looking at their requirements on the their website, the current academic requirements don't seem that stringent. At any rate, you have to have pretty high scores to get into the Academy, and you have to have even higher scores to be considered for flying.

And then there are all the physical shape requirements...

So, then, how do you get to be a fighter pilot?
1. Don't be too tall.
2. Don't be too short.
3. Have the right length torso.
4. Have good vision.
5. Be smart or study hard enough to seem like you're really smart,
6. Be in excellent physical condition.
One you've taken care of those basics, you might get the shot at being a fighter pilot.

Are You Brave Enough?

As all Pixar movies, Brave is a beautiful piece of work. The landscapes are gorgeous. The animation excellent. The characters interesting. Despite all of that, I was left slightly unsatisfied at the end of the movie.

It's not that it wasn't a good movie; it was. It was very good. But, I guess, I was just expecting something a little bit more from Pixar, because, in the end, it turns out to be a pretty typical kid-oriented fantasy movie. It's the kind of thing where the kid makes a bad decision but gets rewarded for it anyway. Basically, parents are always wrong and if they would just open their eyes and take a look at you and how deserving you are to have your way then they would just see that that's true and let you have your way. Of course, it's not that simple in these kinds of movies, and the kid has to make a big mistake for the parent to actually take a look at the kid and, instead of the kid having to deal with any consequences of his/her actions, s/he's able to put everything right which enables the parent to say, "Oh, you were right all along. Here, have everything you always wanted."

And this is the unfair bit, I suppose, because, if this movie had been from anyone but Pixar, I would have been fine with it. Not that I would have thought it was a better movie, but I wouldn't have been left with a feeling of disappointment. As it is, though, Pixar has been pretty good about taking that next step in dealing with personal responsibility. They've had characters that have worked through difficult issues, looked at their own behavior, and come out stronger and more mature individuals on the other side (with the exception of Wall-E, which I thought was cute but a bit heavy handed with its message and lacking in the personal growth department (even Cars 2 had a strong dose of personal growth)). The character of Merida does not come out a stronger and more mature person on the other side. She may appreciate her mother a bit more, but, in essence, she's the same at the end as she was at the beginning.

To make matters worse, the whole movie revolves around the question, "Are you brave enough?" Are you brave enough to change your own fate? It's a good question, and it sounds like a Pixar question. So I went into it expecting the heroine to do just that, to be brave and change her fate. But that's not what happens. At no point does she take the brave stance to change her fate. Instead, she runs away and makes a bad choice. It felt very The Little Mermaid to me.

I find it more than a little ironic that Pixar, a movie company known for their "bravery" in movie making, took the less than courageous route in a movie about being brave and taking your fate in your own hands.

Which makes me wonder about the influence Disney is having over them. Pixar kept their own studio headquarters up here near San Francisco when Disney bought them. The idea behind that was so that they could keep their autonomy. Do their own thing. Continue to make the movies they'd been know for. But I'm not sure that's happening. Last summer's Cars 2, which I liked, is considered Pixar's first failure for its overt merchandising. A movie short on story for the sake of being flashy and selling a lot of stuff. That's so very... Disney. And, honestly, even with the stronger than typical female lead, Brave felt much like a typical Disney "Princess" movie. Even Toy Story 3 was pushed through by Disney. Actually, because Disney owned the rights to any Toy Story sequels, they were going to make the movie without Pixar's involvement at all, but after their Pixar acquisition, Pixar took control of it and started completely over on the project (and thank goodness for that!).

Maybe it's just the lack of John Lasseter. With the acquisition by Disney and his expanded role as chief creative officer for both Disney and Pixar (along with a handful of other duties (which included the creation of the new Cars theme park at Disneyland)), he's had to be much less involved in the individual projects at Pixar, and it was always Lasseter that was the real heart of Pixar. It was his vision that created Pixar, took it from a failing animation department that George Lucas sold to Steve Jobs and Jobs was considering selling off to Microsoft (or anyone that would take it, really) and turned it into the most profitable movie studio ever (they currently have the highest average box office take across all of their movies of any movie studio). Is it that Lasseter's vision for Pixar has been removed or diluted, or is it that he's finally bought into Disney's way of doing things? I'm hoping with his more direct involvement with next summer's Monsters University that we'll see a return to what is more expected from a Pixar movie.

All of that said, my kids loved Brave, and that's really what matters. As I said, it is a good movie. If it had come out under the Disney banner rather than Pixar, I wouldn't have thought a thing about it. In fact, I would have applauded them for providing a female lead that did not need a man to "complete" her, but from Pixar... well, it just fell short of expectations.

DC vs Marvel and How It Relates To Writing (pt 3): Vision

Comic books are one of the few purely American inventions. Along with jazz. And rabid consumerism. But comic books are my favorite. Really, I love comic books. Just the idea of them. Unfortunately, they are far too expensive to collect anymore. At least in a way that allows you to follow the stories the way the big 2 (Marvel and DC) want you to follow them. Or, maybe, it's just that I love all of them and can't stop myself. Well... except that I did. As I said, they are way too expensive to collect, anymore; although, there was a time... But I digress...

DC Comics started out as National Allied Publications in 1934. Detective Comics, the series that would eventually give DC Comics its name, debuted in 1937. Without Batman. It was what it sounded like: an anthology series of detective stories. But the world of comic books changed forever in 1938 with the introduction of Superman in Action Comics #1. The age of the super hero had begun.

And they couldn't stop there. Superman was such a smash hit that they wanted another super hero, so National hired Bob Kane to create one. The result, with the help of Bill Finger, was the Bat-Man who debuted as the world's greatest detective in Detective Comics #27 in 1939. A whole slew of characters spewed forth in the next couple of years: the Flash, Wonder Woman, and the Green Lantern to name a few.

Although these characters did sometimes interact with each other, as Batman and Superman did in World's Finest and many of the other characters did in Justice Society of America, really, each character was completely independent of each other and, often, the cross-over stories ended up contradicting each other or the character's individual titles. Continuity wasn't important. Each issue was a self-contained entity not to be bothered by the existence of other issues.

Marvel Comics started in 1939 as Timely Comics. Their first series was actually called Marvel Comics and introduced the first Human Torch, an android, and Namor the Sub-Mariner. Captain America Comics came along in 1941, but there were many other heroes and titles sandwiched in there. Timely became Atlas in 1951 as super heroes fell out of fashion in the midst of the McCarthy hearings.

As McCarthyism ended, DC powered a resurgence in super hero comic books centered around the Flash, Green Lantern and the Justice League of America. However, things were still status quo in the super hero world. No continuity. No concern for what was happening in other titles. Often conflicting origin stories for the same character. But all of that was about to change...

Stan Lee had been working at Timely almost since the beginning. He had a new vision for super heroes, a vision of a cohesive world in which the heroes interacted and faced real problems. Like adolescence. And bills. Marvel Comics was launched in June, 1961, and, although the Fantastic Four was not the first issue to sport the Marvel Comics logo, it followed not long after in November. The Fantastic Four introduced what would become known as the Marvel Universe and change the way comic books were written forever.

The important thing to notice, here, is that Stan Lee had a vision for Marvel Comics. He had a particular story that he wanted to tell. Not the individual stories in the issues of the various series that sprang from his imagination, but an overall story of a world in which super heroes existed. DC had never had a vision. DC, if you will, was nothing more than an anthology of stories, some of them great, but each story was isolated and could be taken out of the whole without affecting it. Marvel, on  the other hand, became one vast epic in multiple volumes all hinged on each other. You couldn't just decide to yank something out, because everything else built on what had gone before. Stan Lee had introduced continuity into comic books.

DC has been playing catch up ever since. They still don't have it right. Just this month, they have begun a re-launch of all of their titles with issue #1 trying to establish the DC Universe as a cohesive whole. This is something like the 3rd or 4th time they've tried this (I've lost count). The issue, here, is a lack of vision. The only vision is to compete with Marvel who has dominated the comics world since their inception as Marvel Comics. There is no vision to the over arching story, only to competing. Or, to put it more simply, to make money.

Let's jump to the movies. When Marvel began their production company, Marvel Studios, with Iron Man, they did it with a vision. Sure, they wanted to make money, to be successful, but the vision wasn't about the money. The vision was to make movies that existed within a cohesive universe. A movie universe where the characters would interact and depend on each other much like Marvel Comics started out in 1961. In establishing this vision, they have been able to construct excellent movies with excellent stories that are building on each other and telling a much broader-scoped story. Warner Brothers, as with DC, has attempted to just make blockbuster movies. They have no vision. Because they have no vision, what we get are movies like Green Lantern and Superman Returns. With Marvel, with vision, we get Iron Man and Captain America.

I'm not saying that DC doesn't have some good characters and hasn't had some good stories. And Warner Brothers has managed to produce the Nolan Batman films; however, overall, DC remains less interesting than Marvel because of their lack of vision to the story and to the world. Granted, DC never had a Stan Lee. Never had someone with a vision that introduced the characters and tied them all together, but it doesn't seem to me to be a far leap of logic to understand what Stan did and to replicate it. After five decades of trying, though, they  have failed to do this.

All of this comes down to one point: vision is important. In fact, I would say that vision is close to all important. Your vision. The vision of the writer. The vision of the writer to know what it is s/he is trying to do and the story s/he is trying to tell. Without vision, you end up with a collection of stories that just don't work together. In a novel, that just doesn't work.

Not to step on any one's fingers or toes, okay, well, maybe some toes, but one of the most common things I see on other writer's blogs is how they've become stuck. S/he was writing along, listening to the voices in said writer's head, and, eventually, got to a place where s/he didn't know what was supposed to happen next. Inevitably, s/he resorts to going back and starting over, gutting, major re-writes, or just plain abandoning that project and switching to something else entirely. This seems a lot like what DC has been doing for several decades, now.

I might sound like I'm advocating for plotting, at this point, over pantsing, but I'm really not. I'm certainly not a plotter. I hate outlines. In school, I only ever did them after the fact because they had to be turned in. Except for those times when the outlines had to be turned in weeks in advance of the actual paper, and, then, I would just hate the entire process of making the outline first. Don't constrain me with those things, man!

However, I always write with a vision, a plan, of what I want to accomplish. Always. I do know where it is I want to go, even if I don't know the route I'm going to take. I'm not saying that my way is right or better or anything like that. However, as often as I read other people talking about getting "lost" in their stories, I have to wonder if it's because the writer didn't have some kind of vision when s/he was starting out.

Of course, the other issue I see is people that are writing with their only goal being to get published. The story is not the goal, just being published. That results in ripping and re-ripping any given manuscript apart at every stray word of any agent or publisher that comes along. This strikes me as being what Warner Brothers has done in trying to get a blockbuster super hero movie out (other than Batman). They're not focused on telling the story; they're focused on what they can do to make money.

As writers, I think the only thing we can do is tell our stories. That should be our vision. Once we have a story, it's great to work on getting it published, but if we're focused on just getting published... well, we may get published, but we'll end up washed away in the tide of all the other writers who just wanted to be published. No one will care. No one will remember. And, unfortunately, it might even be that no one will read. Just another book with its cover ripped off and sent back to be destroyed.

As much as I don't like Twilight, I have to say that Meyer did have vision. Her story came first. Ideas of publication only came after she had her stories. Maybe that's what all the people that have flocked to her books can see... her vision for her story. Because, really, that's what people want to see, the vision of the artist. Not the artist's attempt to duplicate someone else's vision.