Re-watching the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe

[Ryujin]

Too much talking not enough smashing basically sums up the issues with Ang Lee's Hulk. It focused way too much on the daddy issues.

I tend to refer to Ang Lee's "Hulk" as the only movie Jennifer Connelly's body couldn't save.

 

[Umbran]

Jekyll & Hyde, surely?

You could go that way with it, but I think Hyde has more "the inner nature of man is evil" and the Hulk is more, "the inner nature of man is animal" which makes me lean a bit more to it being a Frankenstein/Monster dichotomy.

Well, they did it in "League of Extraordinary Gentlemen", which...

Oh. I see your point.

Actually, no. In LoEG, Jekyll was surrounded by a number of folks who are, in their own way, monstrous. With the exception of Sawyer, none of them is a particularly pure hero, so there's no thematic conflict with the beast there.

 

[Tonguez]

, no. In LoEG, Jekyll was surrounded by a number of folks who are, in their own way, monstrous. With the exception of Sawyer, none of them is a particularly pure hero, so there's no thematic conflict with the beast there.

That could be said of the Avengers too though. Caps (and Falcon) are the only true heroes Black Widows implied to be a rather monstrous assassin, they could play up Thors war-loving barbarian side more and Stark the brooding alky.

 

[Ryujin]

You could go that way with it, but I think Hyde has more "the inner nature of man is evil" and the Hulk is more, "the inner nature of man is animal" which makes me lean a bit more to it being a Frankenstein/Monster dichotomy.

Actually, no. In LoEG, Jekyll was surrounded by a number of folks who are, in their own way, monstrous. With the exception of Sawyer, none of them is a particularly pure hero, so there's no thematic conflict with the beast there.

Jekyll and Hyde approaches the concepts of id/ego vs. super-ego, whereas The Hulk examines the more simple rational mind vs. emotional response. Similar, but not the same.

As far as LoEG goes the Jekyll and Hyde from the first 10 minutes of "Van Helsing" did more to comment on the human condition than did all of LoEG combined. That's not meant as a compliment of "Van Helsing."

 

[Umbran]

That could be said of the Avengers too though. Caps (and Falcon) are the only true heroes Black Widows implied to be a rather monstrous assassin, they could play up Thors war-loving barbarian side more and Stark the brooding alky.

You can't do that with Thor, at least given the canon, "He who is worthy..." thing of Mjolnir. Thor must be a good guy, or he loses the title (as is currently happening in the comics!).

In LoEG, the various characters are *still* monsters, and they rather openly admit to it. One of them is a willing betrayer, one is an unrepentant thief, one's an out and out vampire, without all this, "Me Good Vampire!" stuff Whedon gave us

Black Widow and Stark have things in their pasts they aren't proud of, sure, but have already gotten to the redemption phase long before the Avengers starts.

 

[delericho]

That could be said of the Avengers too though. Caps (and Falcon) are the only true heroes Black Widows implied to be a rather monstrous assassin, they could play up Thors war-loving barbarian side more and Stark the brooding alky.

I think it's hard to argue any of them are monstrous, but they're all at least somewhat flawed - indeed, to the point that the Avengers' greatest enemy is really themselves.

Cap, despite being the out-and-out good guy is also the man out of time; Stark is hugely arrogant, narcissistic, and worryingly short-sighted; Thor is both overly proud (but a different type of pride) and also quite stupid ("Are you ever not going to fall for that?"); Hulk we know about; Widow's the reformed assassin. Hawkeye is the only truly well-adjusted one out of the bunch.

And, of course, that's a really good thing.

 

[Umbran]

I think it's hard to argue any of them are monstrous, but they're all at least somewhat flawed

Yes, but "basically good people with flaws + horror-man-beast" is a thematic conflict, where "monsters and traitors with horror-man-beast" really isn't. And that's a reason for them to have not done the horror-Hulk. That's all I'm saying.

 

[Mercurius]

Continuing my re-watch, Iron Man 3 wasn't quite as good as I remembered. In fact, I think I liked Iron Man 2 better this time around.

I'm working my way through Agents of Shield. As I said in the original post, I watched the pilot when it came out and was underwhelmed. I'm watching episode 5 as I write this and it is decent enough. It is sort of like mediocre X-Files, but with superheroes instead of the supernatural. But it is decent television and I'm willing to stick it out until it supposedly gets better later in the season.

 

[Umbran]

I'm working my way through Agents of Shield. As I said in the original post, I watched the pilot when it came out and was underwhelmed. I'm watching episode 5 as I write this and it is decent enough. It is sort of like mediocre X-Files, but with superheroes instead of the supernatural. But it is decent television and I'm willing to stick it out until it supposedly gets better later in the season.

I took a pass on Agents of Shield for a season and a half. Then, I started having the occasional hour on my own without much to do, so I started getting caught up. It does get somewhat better over time, characters do develop. It never becomes "great television", but it becomes worth the time to watch. I admit to being curious about what happens next.

 

[Mercurius]

I took a pass on Agents of Shield for a season and a half. Then, I started having the occasional hour on my own without much to do, so I started getting caught up. It does get somewhat better over time, characters do develop. It never becomes "great television", but it becomes worth the time to watch. I admit to being curious about what happens next.

That's my sense of things so far. I've become jaded with "premium" TV shows like Game of Thrones and Ray Donovan, and generally have a hard time watching network TV, with a few exceptions (e.g. The Good Wife) because there is usually a big drop-off in terms of both production cost and quality (premium TV shows are generally very "movie-like") but also star talent and acting. But through eight episodes, I do find myself enjoying it enough to at least put on in the background while I'm surfing the web.

That said, there was a real sense of cognitive dissonance when I went from watching Thor: The Dark World to Agents of Shield, episode 8. It was like I had gone from reading a well-established, professional fantasy author to a piece of fanfic. It was decent, even good, fanfic, but the difference was striking and a bit disconcerting.