The Marvel Cinematic Universe began in 2008 with Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk and so far consists of those two movies with Iron Man 2, Thor and Captain America: The First Avenger, all of which built up to The Avengers (Avengers Assemble in the UK for legal reasons). Each of the movies chronicles the origins and rise of a different superhero and how they came to the notice of Samuel L Jackson Nick Fury and SHIELD for the Avengers Initiative.
As of The Avengers, the six heroes who form said Avengers are: Steve Rodgers as Captain America (played by Chris Evans); Tony Stark as Iron Man (played by Robert Downey Jr); Bruce Banner as The Incredible Hulk (played by Edward Norton in 2008 and Mark Ruffalo in The Avengers); Thor Odinsson as The Mighty Thor (played by Chris Hemsworth); Natasha Romanov as Black Widow (played by Scarlet Johansson); and Clint Barton as Hawkeye (played by Jeremy Renner).
There's also Samuel L Jackson as Samuel L Jackson Nick Fury, Clark Gregg as Agent Phil Coulson and Cobie Smulders as Maria Hill.
All of these people are awesome.
Plot summaries of movies below, for people who haven't seen them (to whom I say: WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?! Go watch them!). Everyone else, feel free to squeal away about how awesome The Avengers was, though it might be polite to keep spoilery squeeing and discussion under spoiler tabs until about May 7th, when it'll have been out in America for a few days.
Spoiler: The Incredible Hulk
Starring Edward Norton as the titular Hulk.
The latest retelling of Dr Bruce Banner's life-changing experiments in gamma radiation, and along with the first Iron Man movie the kickstart of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The movie actually begins about five years after the accident which created the Hulk, probably on the basis that everyone knows about it already. Bruce Banner is trying to keep his head (and temper) down in the backwaters of the world, but a spilled drop of his gamma-irradiated blood is all it takes for General Russo and Emil Blonsky to track him down.
Needless to say, Banner eventually loses his temper, and things get smashed.
Spoiler: Iron Man
Starring Robert Downey Jr as Tony Stark.
Tony Stark is a billionaire, a playboy, and a genius, making his billions creating and selling ever more powerful weapons to the US army- until a terrorist attack in Afghanistan changes his life by nearly ending it. Tony escapes the terrorists that captured him by telling him that he'll build the missile that they want and using the weapon parts that they bring him to create a suit of armour and blow up their base (seriously, how did they think that would end well for them?)
Tony now has a miniature ark reactor in his chest to keep a cluster of shrapnel from digging into his heart, and has realized the true destruction caused by his profession. But he has a plan to set it right. If only he had more money than Bruce Wayne and a powerful but portable power source to work with...
The first movie came out in 2008 and started off the Marvel Cinematic Universe and was followed by Iron Man 2 in 2010, where Tony has to deal with the grudge-bearing Ivan Vanko, a burgeoning relationship with Pepper Potts (Gwenyth Paltrow), SHIELD, and his own mortality.
Spoiler: Thor
Starring Chris Hemsworth as Thor Odinsson and Tom Hiddleston as Loki.
Astrophysicist Jane Foster (Natalie Portman) accidentally runs over a man while following a bizarre cloud formation and aurora- both of which appear to be connected to other worlds, and to the strange man who claims to be the Thunder God Thor...
Thor himself must discover what qualities a true king needs that he is lacking, while dealing with the threat of Jotunheim- and a shadowy danger from within his nearest and dearest.
This film sets up the major antagonist of The Avengers, the very reason that the Avengers themselves were formed.
Spoiler: Captain America
Starring Chris Evans as Captain America.
Steve Rodgers is a sickly, puny guy that the army repeatedly deems unfit for service in WWII, but Dr Erskine thinks that he has the heart and courage fitting for his supersoldier project- a serum that will turn even the scrawniest physical specimen, like Steve, into a nearly immortal superhero. It also enhances everything inside of a person... so while a good man like Steve is turned into the first superhero, the serum's previous test subject, Nazi scientist Johann Schmidt (Hugo Weaving) is ready to match him as its first inhuman supervillian. The two scientifically-enhanced soldiers clash over the Cosmic Cube, a small chunk of unlimited energy that could give Schmidt the power to control the world... or destroy it.
The Cosmic Cube is an extremely important plot point to The Avengers, so keep an eye on it. The movie explains how Steve ended up being frozen in ice for seventy years, allowing him to fight alongside the other heroes against a present-day crisis...
Spoiler: The Avengers
The big one... so far. The one that the other five have been building up to. Earth is threatened by an utterly deranged Loki, wielding the Cosmic Cube and controlling the armies of the Chitauri. The most remarkable people on earth must come together in order to save it... so long as they can stop snarking at each other, fighting each other, and generally get along for about five minutes straight...
As someone who has seen it twice; yes, it IS worth all that hype.
Iron Man 3 is set to be released on May 3, 2013. Thor 2 is set for November 15, 2013. Captain America 2 is set for April 4, 2014, and an Ant-Man movie is planned for some time in 2014. A Black Widow movie is also being discussed.
So... below is my squeeing rant about how amazing The Avengers was. Feel free to add your own thoughts, chat about the upcoming movies, or whatever about the Marvel Cinematic Universe
Spoiler:
Natasha Romanov is tied to a chair, surrounded by three large men with torture instruments, and is given a phone with Coulson on the other end and asks him to hold. Three minutes of agony later, the Black Widow stops to pick up her shoes on the way out.
My friends singing “Snape, Snape, Sev-er-us Snape!â€
I was worried about Mark Ruffalo too, but he was really good, especially int he moments when he's getting a little unbalanced. Also, it's pretty cool that he gets to play The Hulk too, via motion capture, so The Hulk actually looks like Bruce Banner. Just bigger. And greener. And angrier.
Though.
You forgot someone very important in your list of awesome actors.
THIS MAN:
Spoiler:
-coughs- But, uh, Captain America is my favorite out of all of them. I just think the movie itself has a great sense of humor.
EDIT: Also, for us from the U.S, I watched the Japanese trailer for it. And apparently, it has some footage in it that hasn't been shown in the U.S.
Here it is: http://youtu.be/KrCDmxER-vs
Last edited by alicetama on April 30th, 2012, 9:08 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Well, I did give him title billing next to Chris Hemsworth for Thor XD But yeah, he is a fabulous Loki. He really makes you ache for the character, even as you want to see his face beaten in.
Of course that movie had a great sense of humour, it had Tommy Lee Jones in it XDXD But yeah, it was a really fun movie, especially for history geeks like me XD
As an aside, a friend of mine who's a TREMENDOUS comic book geek mentioned that he could never take Red Skull too seriously because he was half of what he considered to be the worst supervillain pair-up in comic book history. The other half was apparently Magneto. Yeah, that can't have ended well.
Really looking forward to Avengers. It got a 97% on... metacritic? Rottentomato? One of those. Either way, extremely impressive. I don't think The Dark Knight even got that high an approval rating.
Alright. Just finished watching Iron Man 2, Thor, Captain America, and The Incredible Hulk (Probably my longest movie marathon, definitely if you don't count anime). I think I'm ready for The Avengers.
Last edited by phreak_91 on May 1st, 2012, 5:19 am, edited 1 time in total.
GinRei wrote:
Really looking forward to Avengers. It got a 97% on... metacritic? Rottentomato? One of those. Either way, extremely impressive. I don't think The Dark Knight even got that high an approval rating.
The Dark Knight currently holds a 94 percent approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and an 86 on Metacritic.
So, uh, yeah. THE AVENGERS ARE AWESOME. <3
@manga: It may get a higher rating once it comes out in the US. :3
mangaluva wrote:
I was worried about Mark Ruffalo too, but he was really good, especially int he moments when he's getting a little unbalanced. Also, it's pretty cool that he gets to play The Hulk too, via motion capture, so The Hulk actually looks like Bruce Banner. Just bigger. And greener. And angrier.
And Mark Ruffalo said he had to wear a green leotard, with a green thong, me thinks it's easy to be angry when you're wearing that!
And here's more or less what I said on another forum: (Yes, I do critic a bit)
Spoiler:
I thought that even being the God of Mischief, Loki deserved to be more 'evil', he has the right to play with humans, but he needed a level up in badassery, he is defeated too easily. And Thor is a bit too forgiving. It felt like Loki was just a teenager in a rebellious phase...
And Hulk passed from a beast that can't control itself to fighting only the bad guys and saving Tony? The Thor punch at the end doesn't count xD (that bothered me quite a lot)
Mark Ruffalo was really good, I don't understand the hate! He gave an awesome performance! And he was awesome as a near depressed (I mean, he tried suicide!) and calm angry guy.
The scene the Hulk has with Black Widow was kind of scary, and Scarlett was cool as playing someone very, very scared, showing that yes, you're a badass, but when the hulk is after you, you're kinda screwed!
Oh, by the way, have any of you noticed the blond waitress? There was a lot of focus on her, and she was saved by Captain America, blah blah, someone told me her name was Beth on her...waitress tag? We'll see^^
Also, I want character development for Hawkeye, and not because I developed a fangirl crush on Jeremy Renner, Clint Barton had an important role, and he's badass enough to have a bigger part in a film
Ant-man, the movie? How credible is that?
Self-proclaimed Cat-chef and Catetician on DCTP family
I'm not sure, really, because after seeing the avengers, spider-man must be happening before. But I don't understand how Fury would let that mess happening in front of his eyes and not doing anything...anyway, we'll see when it comes out in july
Self-proclaimed Cat-chef and Catetician on DCTP family
Spiderman was never part of the Avengers in the comics, so I doubt they'd include him this time around either, although it would be cool if they would. Iron Man vs. Doc Ock = EPIC! Anyways, I think the movie should be pretty good, although I won't be able to see it on release day b/c it's my mom's birthday.
Knowing the truth and knowing what to do with the truth are two completely separate ideas. Learn to distinguish them. OR ELSE.
The thing about Loki is that, in this universe, the characters of Thor, Loki and Odin have all been very geared towards father-son relationships, and Loki as such is very focused around the fact that he has spent centuries playing second fiddle to Thor, the "favourite son", though he desperately wants Odin's approval. In i]Thor[/i], all that built-up resentment comes to a head when Thor is about to be crowned King of Asgard despite clearly not being emotionally mature enough for it, as his attack on Jotunheim proves. A very important scene for Loki, as a character, is the one where he finds out his true parentage. How well would you do if you'd just found out that not only you were adopted, but that you are, in reality, a creature that you have been told your entire life is a monster and an enemy? Emotionally, he is very much a confused teenager, and it makes him go to extreme lengths to win Odin's approval and lash out violently against Jotunheim.
Loki in Avengers is a slightly different matter.
Spoiler:
At the end of Thor, Loki let go because he thought he'd been rejected by Odin. He's blatantly burned his bridges with Laufey and Jotunheim, so he's falling through space feeling that he has no home or family, alone and unloved. Thanos apparently "showed him things", I'm guessing of a "things men were not meant to know" variety, so he's spent goodness knows how long with his brain going through the wringer until he's utterly insane.
My personal theory on this is that Loki was given foresight. The original Norse myths were very heavy on fate and how everything that ever happened ever is predestined. Loki has seen that everything that has happened to him, everything that he is and has done and will do has already been decided for him and that he has no control over his life. That's why he goes on about the "lie of freedom" and constantly refuses to change his course, no matter what- he genuinely believes that he can't.
This predestiny, in one of the myths, is the reason Loki got Baldur killed. He had forseen his punishment at the hands of the other Gods, snapped and decided that he might as well do something to deserve it. Perhaps he foresaw whatever "Asgardian Justice" he's about to suffer, and decided to just go on a rampage until then...
By the way, Loki probably will only grow in badassery. After all, at Ragnarok, he and Heimdall will kill each other. Even though he will die in the process, Loki will kill Heimdall. Is that badass or what?
Also, concerning the Hulk
Spoiler:
I don't know about you, but I thought it was implied that the Hulk's intelligence and control is directly related to how he transformed. Banner is shocked into a transformation and possibly influenced by Loki's staff while on the airship, which is why Hulk is an uncontrollable monster. In the Battle of Manhatten, by contrast, he chose to transform and directed his rage at the Chitauri, which gave him greater presence of mind- enough to follow Cap's orders and save Tony.
I think Beth the waitress was just there to give us a human focus point during the fight, but who knows.
I think a Hawkeye movie was discussed and then shelved, but I agree that it needs to happen, along with the Black Widow movie. I have no idea about Ant-man, but hey, they made Hulk a credible character...
By the way, the problem with the previous Spiderman movies is that they weren't made by Marvel and so weren't set into this universe. Checking the wiki page for the new one, though, it turns out it is being made by Marvel, so fingers crossed it'll be in this universe and Spidey'll be around for Avengers II. And what do you mean, CoolKid? Spiderman was often part of the Avengers, IIRC.
The X-Men are also supposed to exist in the Marvel universe, but as long as the movie rights still belong to Fox, that isn't going to happen.
