THE AVENGERS (2012) Pre-Release. - Page 4

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ska Oreo 

I might be the only one, but does anyone feel like there's a chance of this absolutely failing?  That isn't even a slight against Joss Whedon (the man is amazing), it's just I don't really see how something like "The Avengers" could actually work in a film medium.  Part of the appeal of a comic-book is that story arcs can play out through multiple issues, lasting months, even years.  Obviously, a film doesn't have that luxury.  I'm just afraid that this movie will turn out to be like The Expendables: a film hyped on the fact that its a massive team-up film, yet only the A-listers (in this case, RDJ and Chris Evans) get most of the screen time, while everyone else gets what amounts to a guest appearance.

I think it absolutely can fail, but I anticipate it will be on par with the other Marvel films. Good, but not great unless it is absolutely your thing*. I think that with the possible exception of the first Iron Man, that's a fair description of all the films in the franchise. Solid.

I don't think the bloat will be a problem. Whedon's done his fair share of ensemble work (read: just about everything he's ever done). I think threat will be the problem. When it comes trailer time, I want to see images of these people that have all been borderline invincible in their films looking terrified and/or beaten up.

*Full disclosure: these films are absolutely my thing. 

Quote:

Originally Posted by MikeI 

When it comes trailer time, I want to see images of these people that have all been borderline invincible in their films looking terrified and/or beaten up.

 

 

*Full disclosure: these films are absolutely my thing. 

Do you know, that literally just gave me goosebumps. That's never happened to me before.
 

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Rain Dog 

That's getting a little too close to the old pizza ice cream logic for me. After all, I like ice cream, I like pizza, so I should like ice cream on a pizza, right?

But this is more like chicken pizza. The characters I listed are all action-adventure characters; they fit together logically. Ice cream pizza would be like combining Lara Croft, Scott Pilgrim, Jane Austen's Emma, Tony Montana, Mater from Cars, and John Cusack's character from Being John Malkovich. AND I WOULD STILL SEE THAT MOVIE.

League of Extraordinary Gentlemen 7!

Agreed that Whedon is an amazing choice for The Avengers. He's basically been writing Marvel comics since he came to prominence, he can handle an ensemble like nobody's business, and he's one of the few genre storytellers out there who's actually trying to insert some challenging ideas and thematic depth into his stuff, beyond just delivering an explosion-fest (though he does that too). And unlike a lot of the recent Marvel movies, it sounds like Whedon's planning this one out pretty carefully, to the extent of inserting material into Cap and Thor, as opposed to Iron Man 2 which was apparently shooting without a script. Marvel studios seems to be run by geeks to a larger extent than other studios--which isn't always a good thing (you can see them treating their characters as the stars and the creatives as disposable, just like often happens in the comics) but I guess Whedon's geek clout has earned him more slack.

I *am* a Whedon fanboy. I acknowledge that there's stuff he can't do (like, say, write an ALIEN sequel) but this is solidly in his wheelhouse.

As for success? I often think these things depend more heavily on the competition than is sometimes acknowledged, and Avengers are the opening gun in a summer that otherwise looks kinda weak--the only other serious contenders are Men in Black 3 and The Dark Knight Rises. Everything else is either a B-list franchise or unproven (I'm putting Spider-man in that category, since it's a reboot, and it sounds like people may be thinking it's too soon). The context seems roughly on par with Iron Man 2. There's also the "positive sequel factor", where you can argue the first movie didn't set the box office on fire, but people liked it enough to make the second one a big hit (Thor, for instance, has made almost as much as Batman Begins did domestically, and MORE internationally) and I think people really liked Thor and Cap. Combine that with a year of hype and, yeah, I think it'll clear $700. People in general are a little burnt out on superhero movies, but I think this feels "special" in a way that the Spider-man reboot doesn't.

Quote:

Originally Posted by MikeI 

League of Extraordinary Gentlemen 7!

Don't laugh, we're still waiting to see who's in the next one. Except they'll be British, so never mind.

Lots of Cleveland set pictures of NEW CAP floating around today.

This is probably the best one.

See, that just looks unnecessarily tricky to put on.

Quote:

Originally Posted by MikeI 

See, that just looks unnecessarily tricky to put on.

"Avengers! Assemble...my trousers!"

Quote:

Originally Posted by Art Decade 

"Avengers! Assemble...my trousers!"

Tony Stark designed him an auto-assembly suitcase version.

I can't decide if Schmoes Know is an awesome name or a terrible one.

I...I just don't think I can wait any longer.

Ooooh...some shit is coming down. Cap's looking hurt and spooked and even Thor doesn't know what the fuck is happening. Me likey.

Me likey so much I might cry

Quote:

Originally Posted by Doc Happenin 

Ooooh...some shit is coming down. Cap's looking hurt and spooked and even Thor doesn't know what the fuck is happening. Me likey.

It'll be interesting to see how/if they explain the ins and outs of what can injure Cap, because if a fucking kamikaze manuveur can leave him pretty much unscathed...

I dunno, it looks like he might be saying something like, "Thor, stop SMASHING stuff!"

Did CHUD have someone at D23 today?

I hope there will be a write up soon. The footage sounded incredible. Give me 'splosions yes, but I'm far more interested in how these characters interact and banter together.

Fuck me, next summer can't come soon enough

Found this on a blog!

During the Arena presentation of Building Worlds: Inside the Walt Disney Studios with Rich Ross there were many previews and

announcements of upcoming film projects, but none was bigger than The Avengers!

The footage they showed was spectacular….SPOILER ALERT!!!!!!!!!!

The footage was about maybe 5 minutes long which showcase how the Avengers are getting together.   The best part of the preview was

the end which had Loki talking to Tony Stark.  They are drinking at a bar and Stark says” You my friend have managed to piss a lot of people off” 

Then it pans to Loki and he says to Stark, ” We have a massive army!”  And Stark replies,”We have the Hulk!”  Then it cuts and it shows

The Hulk screaming and roaring!!!! 

If you want to know what the Hulk will look like, look at the poster from Comic Con that they gave out.  It looks just like that on film.

After the trailer, Kevin Fiege introduced some of the cast that was present.  In came Tom Hiddlestone aka Loki, Jeremy Renner aka Hawkeye,

Scarlet Johansson aka Black Widow, Cobie Smulders aka Agent Hill, Chris Hemsworth aka Thor and of course Robert Downey Jr as Iron Man.

The arena was in a huge uproar when the cast started coming out on stage.  I have to say, it was pretty damn exciting!

We have a massive army!  .... we? NEVERMIND  the actual line goes:  I've got an army..

i'm so ready for this. *patiently waits for 2012*

Yeah, I'm not lacking for descriptions, I'm just looking for the CHUD take.

I hope they get the scale right on this. That's going to be hard to nail down. You want it to feel appropriately epic, probably bigger than all the previous Marvel films. But not leaden and ungainly, like the recent Pirates and Transformers films. Which for all their faults, none of the previous Marvel films have been.

I think Marvel has kind of struggled with scale thus far too. 

I'm just hoping there's NOT gonna be a Hawkeye and Black Widow movie... I'll never make it to Avengers... Until them... I'm watching the animated series on Netflix Streaming...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arjen Rudd 

I hope they get the scale right on this. That's going to be hard to nail down. You want it to feel appropriately epic, probably bigger than all the previous Marvel films. But not leaden and ungainly, like the recent Pirates and Transformers films. Which for all their faults, none of the previous Marvel films have been.

 

I think Marvel has kind of struggled with scale thus far too. 

From the set videos Whedon and co certainly seem to blowing a hell of a lot of shit up. I hope that equates to scale.

Thor (which I loved), more so than the others, suffered from being too small. This can't afford to do the same.

I'm just hoping they take some creative license with the Skrulls. I want freaky/plausible alien shapeshifters, not necessarily little green men with big ears and chin testes.

I'm kind of surprised that no one has debunked the

rumors yet.

There are

rumors? You will find no bigger Marvel cheerleader than me (save possibly Fleed... or Mike's Pants) but I can't imagine that working well.

There's been no debunking because there have been no details coming out at all. 

With that, I haven't heard about any

rumors, until just now when you posted that.

I'm gonna start me a

rumor and periodically remind people that it hasn't been debunked.

The

rumor gained traction a couple of months ago, Google can give you many results. I found it curious that almost every site that reported on this were specifying that it was a SPOILER, even though the addition of another major character doesn't seem like spoiler territory. But maybe it's nothing.

Since I am a fiend for Avengers spoilers (and mojitos!), I will say that the Avengers IMDb casting page reveals a confirmation of what we suspected all along...

That's the sort of thing I've been reluctant to believe without full proof, but it seems more and more likely.

A

rumor seems like bona fide geek fan wankery as not a soul outside of Marvel geeks know who he is. It would not be shocking or surprising to 90% of the audience find out that the big bad was a

on the other hand, makes sense as a "surprise villain" as

MikeI, That would be...Awesome!

The

As for

, if he actually is in there and it's not a mistaken rumour, I assume he's something they're setting up for the next Avengers movie, not a major character. Maybe a post-credits cameo.

I imagine I won't be commenting too much on The Avengers or the Marvel movie universe in general, but I have to say, I kinda hate Captain America's new costume. There are several shots, some posted in this very thread, that are more flattering to the very toyetic design and I'm sure proper lighting will do it a world of good, but still...

http://www.usmagazine.com/hotpics/photos/sexy-avengers-201159

Fuck, man, he looks like "Gilbert Schenk", pedophile repeat offender, doing reconnaissance as Captain America. Black Widow's wig is better, but her costume still looks like shit. 

The biggest problem with NEW CAP is from the neck-up.

Hopefully they can shoot around it and use angles to make it cool. The WW2 costume looked pretty cool from all angles, though.

I really don't like the thing at all. I suppose some geeks are happy that it's trying to get back to a brighter, more comic booky feel and all that, which is fine, but in pretty much all of the photos I've seen, it looks so goddamn cheap and 80's action figure-like. I will again throw in the caveat that a good DP (whoever has the honors on this production) can make it work, but as a snap judgment, it looks like some shit John Wesley Shipp would have rocked in an alternate universe.

Finally, a straight on pic of Hawkeye.

Yikes, even the 1990 costume looked better than this.

Goddamn. Come on, man, some people have to be on my side for this one. And people actually complain about a pantyless Superman.

JacknifeJohnny, Sorry, I think Cap and Hawkeye look...Awesome!  The problem with Superman is a bit different.  Without the underwear, he just might be too...SUPERSIZED, under his buckle, whenever Amy Adams' Lois Lane, walks into the room!

Yeah, the new Cap suit is crap. The way the helmet attaches to the collar is really goofy, and the whole suit makes him look slight. Which is... not at all how you want Captain America to look.

And something about the new mask makes Evans look like Macaulay Culkin. It's weird.

I'd even take Cap's USO costume over whatever's goin' on here:

He looks like a car dealership mascot...

                                                          ...and he knows it.

Hm not too impressive, but then again the Dark Knight Rises costumes look a bit lame/goofy too. I suspect when we see the final product the lighting and maybe cgi enhancements might make these outfits look more impressive. I hope.

The new Cap suit looks very 80s action figure - I agree with Jacknife. Very puzzling, since the WWII version looked great, even in stills.

Hawkeye's duds work OK, though.

Evans buffs up for the role and they manage to create a dorky suit that makes him look like pre-Super Soldier serum Rogers!

Cylon Baby, I would say they are all supposed to be...Action Figures!  If there isn't enough...Action I...Figure, there will not be a...2nd Assembling of...The Avengers!

Too clean, too tight, too much rubber on the helmet.

But it looks better than the MUSSHHHHED NOSE muscle suit in the 1990 movie, so let's not get ridiculous.

Again, the WW2 costume was much better, but I wouldn't get crazy about this until official stills and footage from the film come out.

I hold out hope that his goofy costume is part of some plotline.

Cap's neck looks all wrong - what works on the comic page rarely works in real life. The separate helmet approach works much better. Oh well.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Art Decade 

Looks very Halloween-costumey. But I also remember a ton of plasticky Thor costume complaints BEFORE the release.
 

Ten bucks says Tony Stark is CONSTANTLY mocking Cap's outfit.