The Avengers (SPOILERS BEWARE0

[Jhaelen]

Question for you - do you only run a character once in a RPG and create a new character every session? If not, why not? Same idea.

Nope. A session is the equivalent of an episode. What I'm talking about is switching the character after every adventure. And that's exactly what's possible in our game groups: Everyone has at least a secondary character.

2. Because often, when new characters are introduced, they're often less interesting than the ones that were replaced.

I disagree. Often they're just as interesting BUT the fans of the previous characters simply won't give them a chance because they prefer seeing their favorites.

It's just like fans screaming for an author to continue a book series about a particular protagonist. Sometimes the author is bored to tears with a character after a while and would like nothing better but to refuse to write another novel _or_ write a final one killing the character off.

Have you seen or read Stephen King's "Misery"? It's a perfect example.

Myself, I prefer reading standalone novels because for me the exciting part is getting to know a new 'world' populated by new characters. Sequels simply lack this kind of freshness. They tend to be just 'more of the same' or rehashing the original story.

3. If fans aren't invested in the characters, their propensity to follow the franchise/series diminishes rapidly. Poor continuity + declining interest = dying/dead franchise/series.

Yup. And that's precisely what I'm complaining about.

Fan is short for 'fanatic' and that shows time and again. For a franchise/series fans are great because once they're hooked, they'll stay until well after the point where things stopped being interesting. The quality of the storyboards can go downhill without it being noticed by fans for a long time, saving the producers a ton of money. In this period their initial investment pays off.

 

[pathfinderq1]

My wife and I saw this over the weekend, and enjoyed it immensely.

Top Moment: Hulk's beatdown of Loki

Secondary Moment: best use of a "highly specific skill set"- Black Widow's scene with Loki. Not everyone can trick a trickster god, after all.

 

[Herschel]

Saw it, was unimpressed.

It wasn't a bad movie, it just wasn't tremendous either.

Likes:
Robert Downey Jr. - He was terrific, as usual. Unfortunately his acting had to carry the rest of the main cast.

The Hulk - The first big screen actual Hulk scenes I've ever enjoyed.

Tom Hiddleston - He did a great job as Loki. He didn't have much room to work, but that was expected with an ensemble this big.

The supporting characters - They were generally very good.

Thor - he showed more emotional depth in a few short blurbs than his entire movie. Chris Hemsworth isn't a great actor, but he was good enough.

The post-credits scene was tremendous.

Dislikes:
The battle for the All-Spark, erm, magic cube of power, erm, Tesselect. Been there, done that. Recently.

The big alien worms and tech were also very "Tansformers" feeling, as was most of the climactic battle.

Chris Evans is a stinking, festering turd of an actor. He had all the gravitas of a young David Caruso without the Shatner-esque comedic quality. He has all the depth of a puddle of spit in the Sahara. He's about as enjoyable as a Marlon Wayans marathon. He really drags the cast/movie down.

Mark Ruffalo - I really like Ruffalo in general, but his mewling, mumbling Dr. Banner was disappointing. I'm not sure what the real story is with Ed Norton but he was missed.

It's worth seeing, but not on any list of great films.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Having some spellcheck issues there, Plane?

Posting from a phone - darn you, autocorrect, darn you to heck!

It's funny enough that I'll leave it as is though

 

[Plane Sailing]

You guys watch Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes? BP's under-utilized in terms of spotlight time, but he's pretty formidable nonetheless.

I think the first Avengers comic I ever bought was #52, where the grim reaper had defeated the Avengers (hawkeye, goliath, wasp) but was in turn defeated to his great surprise by Black Panther.

 

[Felon]

1. Because if the characters are done well, they're interesting enough for fans to want to continue watching/reading about the characters. Question for you - do you only run a character once in a RPG and create a new character every session? If not, why not? Same idea.

In my superhero campaigns, players are recommended to have two or three characters to alternate between. Gives everyone a chance to play characters with different power levels and specialties, and prevents characters from getting stale by relying on the same set of attacks and defenses. (as most superhero RPG"s don't actually serve up a combat system that's dynamic or creative).

What, everyone doesn't play that way?

 

[TarionzCousin]

I'm glad I avoided spoilers before seeing the movie. I saw it tonight and thought it was really, really great. I don't think I've seen the actor playing banner/hulk before, but I've never seen the hulk portrayed so well anywhere, ever. Every scene with him in was a showstopper, from him hunting Black Widow (no wonder she got into a bit of a funk) through to the Loki scene, Hulk was a pretty terrifying character!

Ruffalo has been given a contract for six movies with Marvel.

So that would be this one, a Hulk movie, an Avengers sequel, possibly an Iron Man sequel since they had him leave with him at the end, and then still two more.

Dislikes:

Mark Ruffalo - I really like Ruffalo in general, but his mewling, mumbling Dr. Banner was disappointing. I'm not sure what the real story is with Ed Norton but he was missed.

Ruffalo is getting rave reviews from the critics for his portrayal of Banner. In an interview I read, he said that he and Ed Norton joked that the role of Bruce Banner was their generation's Hamlet.

It's worth seeing, but not on any list of great films.

The majority of critics and filmgoers disagree with you. At Rottentomatoes.com the Avengers currently has a favorable rating of 93% from critics and 96% from audience members.

 

[Herschel]

The Tomatometer is a rather.....squishy measuring stick. Some of the distinctions between what is a positive and negative review are rather arbitrary. It's not a bad movie, it's just not that great.

Chris Evans is an anchor. He's a charmless block of tofu who's acting "depth" can be described by the ability to look kind of pouty at times. He really killed the movie for me.

Ruffalo mumbled a lot, which he's normally soft-spoke but usually enunciates well enough. This bugged me as I generally like him in whatever he does and I like how he went about his portrayal, but the mmbling was too incongruous for such a talented guy. Take the marbles out already, you're better than that!

 

[Azgulor]

Either you saw a different movie than I did or you were in a theater with audio issues. I don't know what mumbling you're talking about. I understood every word Ruffalo said in the film.


I also disagree with you about Chris Evans as cap, but it's pretty evident from your discriptions that it's just better to leave it at "agree to disagree".

 

[Zelda Themelin]

Mmh someone mentioned how much ending fight for artifact is so similar including the artifact in recent movies. Yes, I've noticed. However has anyone else spotted/been bothered with musical score combined with soundeffect, especially this sound is almost exact in same in multiple movie trailers relating to techno-space-magic-alien-stuff.

All transformers have it, there it started actually.
Battleship trailer had it, Avenger had it too, but there sound of effect was modified little bit. Prometheus has almost same one too. Arght and it really brings transformers to my mind and I found those movies painfully boring.

It is kinda cool effect but do they have to use it everywhere?
Same composer guy maybe?

Also there is similarish fantasy variation of this that has appered in all god of war... uh. greek mythology movies recently. It is funny computer games used to imitate movies, but now it's movies imitatating computer games, effect-wise at least.

Tecno-organic-cyber-metal-trantsformer-look seems to be common too, I suspect partial copy-pasting.