my few cents (just posted over on Whedonesque):
(again: SPOILERS)
– I dug how we got to see everyone’s biggest fear in a scarlet witch vision, except Banner’s. I take it that banner’s very public destruction of that city is him LIVING OUT his biggest fear.
– I felt like the opening action sequence was the best (much preferred it to the robots and ships at the end, which more felt like a big fake empty cartoon fx to me). I think it’s very EmpireStrikesBack to start off with a huge action sequence in the snow.
– Black Widow reminded me a lot of Angel. A character who’s done so many bad things they can never forgive themselves. that their struggle to redeem is what makes them such a great hero.
– Felt like widow and hulk’s love story was sort of a reverse Beauty and the Beast. Where hulk is the innocent beauty, and Widow is the disgusting monster.
this controversy around the sterilization scene is a misread i think. Banner is saying he can’t have kids because he’s a monster, and she’s replying that she chose to not have kids so she could be better at murder – so who’s the bigger monster here?
i don’t think there was meant to be any commentary in there that any woman who can’t have kids is some kind of monstrous thing.
…
but i need to see it again to chew over that scene. Like, when she says “her final trial” was the sterilization, it seems lik we keep seeing this image of her shooting a target then shooting a man with a bag over his head. So you expect her final trial was murder (which often seems to be the final trial for trained agents). I think the core of the sterilization/monster debate is maybe : did she choose to pass this final trial, or was it forced on her.
(i think she felt she chose to do all these bad things, while fans of her think she was brainwashed and forced to do all these things).
– can someone please make a 3D file of that final credits statue so i can print it out? I’m guessing they were going for a classic marble sculptured classy angle, but it’s an obvious nerd merch thing. want.
+ really dug how Tony’s “we’re mad scientists. embrace it” talk to banner echoed his advice in the first Avengers (to embrace his hulk). I adore mad scientist stories, who typically exist on the edge of acceptable human morals (thinking of The Black Hole, or that Star Trek episode “what are little girls made of?”). So for them to hold back and make sure every new invention is best for humanity would be to deny their core nature. DELICIOUS.
+ kinda creeped out that Thor flies in and activates the Vision. seems to send a message that these heroes just aren’t about putting it to a vote or checking with the team. They’re individuals who don’t care about discussion.
i get that it’s kind of what makes them THE Avengers. And makes them opposite to the hive mind that is Ultron. but. still seems to shine a light on how super heroes in general are not in sync with modern society. meh?
anywho. loved the *#$^@% out of the movie. it was SO MUCH MOVIE!