# Going to see the Avengers, haven't seen the prequels **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [May 7, 2012, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/going-to-see-the-avengers-havent-seen-the-prequels/621203 "2012-05-07T18:28:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Fugazi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/f08c70/32.png) [@Fugazi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fugazi)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2012, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/going-to-see-the-avengers-havent-seen-the-prequels/621203/1 "2012-05-07T18:28:54Z")
I wasn’t sure if you call them prequels, but I wanted it to fit in the thread title box. I’m going to go see the Avengers, probably tomorrow. I haven’t seen any of the movies that came before. Is there anything I need to know or should know before going? ---
**Author:** ![Sicks\_Ate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/258eb7/32.png) [@Sicks\_Ate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sicks_Ate)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2012, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/going-to-see-the-avengers-havent-seen-the-prequels/621203/2 "2012-05-07T18:31:17Z")
Good question! I, too, am going to see Avengers tomorrow, having only seen maybe the middle 30 minutes of Iron Man. So, I am also intersted. ---
**Author:** ![AndrewL](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@AndrewL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AndrewL)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2012, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/going-to-see-the-avengers-havent-seen-the-prequels/621203/3 "2012-05-07T18:32:23Z")
Not really. It helps to have some vague knowledge of who the heroes are, but the movie doesn’t require you to know much about what happened in the previous films to enjoy it. ---
**Author:** ![steronz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steronz/32/11765_2.png) [@steronz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/steronz)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2012, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/going-to-see-the-avengers-havent-seen-the-prequels/621203/4 "2012-05-07T18:33:47Z")
I clicked on “Cafe Society,” 8 seconds ago, basically to create this thread. I’ve seen the first _Iron Man_ and _Captain America_. My wife has seen neither. Is it worth 10 hours of our lives to see the 5 “prequels” prior to seeing _The Avengers_? With all the buzz, we’re going to see it regardless, but it’s a question of seeing it this week or in 2 weeks after we’ve had time to catch up. (This question isn’t “do we _need_ to see the prequels,” but rather, _should_ we.) ---
**Author:** ![Moonlitherial](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4bbf92/32.png) [@Moonlitherial](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moonlitherial)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2012, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/going-to-see-the-avengers-havent-seen-the-prequels/621203/5 "2012-05-07T18:47:39Z")
You might miss a few details if you don’t know the backstories but you’ll still enjoy the movies. Their personalities are pretty clear and the dialogue and action are great even without the history. Enjoy! ---
**Author:** ![Blaster\_Master](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/cab0a1/32.png) [@Blaster\_Master](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blaster_Master)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2012, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/going-to-see-the-avengers-havent-seen-the-prequels/621203/6 "2012-05-07T19:07:26Z")
I made a point of making sure I saw all the movies leading up the movie over the last few weeks. I do think it helps with some of the specifics, like the main object around which the plot revolves is explained in more detail in Captain America. So, if you’ve seen that you understand a bit more about what it’s capable of, why people want it, and why it is where it is, but all that really matters is that its really powerful, but right at the very beginning of the movie they demonstrate that it’s really powerful and that’s enough to understand why it’s something that people want. There’s a few other casual references to the other movies as well, like mentioning of Stark’s Arc reactor, which is a major plot point in both of those movies, but all that really matters is that he’s a pioneer in energy. His personality comes through pretty quickly in the movie, so you don’t really miss a whole lot on that. Hulk really doesn’t need much exposition since he’s probably the best known of all of them before the movies. There’s a couple minor points that they make reference to that came up in the movie, but really quite minor. So I’d say probably missing this movie is the least impacting. I do think seeing Thor would be important specifically because you need to understand where he and Loki come from, and while a basic understanding of Norse mythology gives a decent idea, I think you’d miss more of the subtleties, especially with his motivation. Without seeing that movie, he’s just a bad guy seeking world domination. So, I think it’d still be enjoyable without seeing any of the other films, but if you can only see a couple of them, I’d say Captain America and Thor help provide the most that’s not really covered in the film, but nothing that’s really crucial, Iron Man adds a little bit but nothing you can’t do without, and Hulk you can take or leave for back story. It is neat though that, having seen all the movies, you can see how each of them ties to the creation and necessity of the others as far as creating the crisis and being a part of it is. ---
**Author:** ![Scupper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b9bd4f/32.png) [@Scupper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scupper)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2012, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/going-to-see-the-avengers-havent-seen-the-prequels/621203/7 "2012-05-07T19:07:52Z")
In Captain America: A man gets a super-soldier treatment in World War II that, because of sabotage, cannot be replicated. He battles nazis who have in their possession a shiny cube. Later he is frozen in ice and found in the present, along with the cube. In Iron Man (nothing from 2): A man makes a suit of powered armor based on a technology called an “arc reactor” which is briefly important in Avengers. In Thor: Loki, brother of Thor, schemes to exile his brother and become king of Asgard. He fails and falls into the void of space, but being a god, survives. Later he finds out that humans have the mysterious cube and that leads into his scheming in The Avengers. ---
**Author:** ![Le\_Ministre\_de\_l\_au-dela](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/le_ministre_de_l_au-dela/32/12181_2.png) [@Le\_Ministre\_de\_l\_au-dela](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Le_Ministre_de_l_au-dela)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2012, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/going-to-see-the-avengers-havent-seen-the-prequels/621203/8 "2012-05-07T19:16:23Z")
I saw ‘The Avengers’ with almost no knowledge whatsoever of the Marvel comics universe - to me, The Avengers are John Steed and Emma Peel. I still found it a thoroughly enjoyable film. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2012, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/going-to-see-the-avengers-havent-seen-the-prequels/621203/9 "2012-05-07T20:12:31Z")
> [@Scupper](#): > > In Captain America: > > A man gets a super-soldier treatment in World War II that, because of sabotage, cannot be replicated. He battles nazis who have in their possession a shiny cube. Later he is frozen in ice and found in the present, along with the cube. Adding a little bit to this: [spoiler]The “shiny cube” is the Tesseract (referred to as the “Cosmic Cube” in the comics"), and it’s a tremendous, possibly limitless, power source. The bad guy in the Captain America movie uses it to build and power weapons of mass destruction. In the aftermath of the battle in which Captain America was frozen in ice, a Howard Hughes-like character (Iron Man’s father) found the Tesseract in the ocean.[/spoiler] ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2012, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/going-to-see-the-avengers-havent-seen-the-prequels/621203/10 "2012-05-07T20:18:36Z")
Honestly, most of these guys you understand just from hearing the _names_, let alone watching any movies or reading decades of comics. (If you do want to see any of the films, the first Iron Man one is the best recent superhero movie made that didn’t have Heath Ledger in it, IMHO.) I mean, you’ve got Captain America, which tells you everything you need to know. You’ve got The Hulk, I mean, ditto. (He’s, you know, hulkish, and you surely have received through cultural osmosis that you wouldn’t like him when he’s angry.) Iron Man isn’t as obvious but forty seconds minutes of him is all you need to grasp what’s going on there. Thor, big dude with a hammer. Then there are other people who don’t make any sense at all mixing it up with, like, Thor and the freaking Hulk, but you ignore that because they’re played by Scarlett Johanssen’s Ass and That Dude From The Hurt Locker Who Always Looks Like He’s About To Cry. That’s it. ---
**Author:** ![steronz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steronz/32/11765_2.png) [@steronz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/steronz)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2012, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/going-to-see-the-avengers-havent-seen-the-prequels/621203/11 "2012-05-07T20:37:33Z")
I wish Scarlett Johanssen’s Ass had it’s own IMDB page. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2012, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/going-to-see-the-avengers-havent-seen-the-prequels/621203/12 "2012-05-07T22:16:12Z")
It should also be mentioned that during his movie, Thor fell in love with a human woman, but during the climax of the movie, the Rainbow Bridge was destroyed with Thor on the wrong side of it, making it a lot harder for him to come back to Earth. Oh, and Loki has serious daddy issues. Also, if you don’t know this already, Captain America likes fighting (both offensively and defensively) with a shield, and his shield happens to be friggin’ indestructible. ---
**Author:** ![KneadToKnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kneadtoknow/32/3999_2.png) [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2012, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/going-to-see-the-avengers-havent-seen-the-prequels/621203/13 "2012-05-07T22:19:35Z")
> [@steronz](#): > > I wish Scarlett Johanssen’s Ass had it’s own IMDB page. Didn’t they do a wonderful job of filming it when she was talking to Loki? I wonder if it got its own lighting unit. Mmmmmmmmmm. Off to re-watch the first minute or so of _Lost in Translation_ now. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2012, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/going-to-see-the-avengers-havent-seen-the-prequels/621203/14 "2012-05-07T23:25:27Z")
To be fair, there were also contributions by Scarlett Johansson’s Cleavage and Scarlett Johansson’s Face. And there’s also a side character played by Gwenneth Paltrow’s Legs.