Sure. If I was witnessing an alien invasion, my first instinct would be to start shooting lasers at the 50,000 dudes on flying jet skis and making a big target out of myself. Oooh, or maybe I should shoot at the two city block long robo-mosasaur alien ship monster.
It wouldn’t be my first instinct, but it would probably be my second. As in, “Fuck these guys, If I’m going to die, I’m taking some of them with me.”
I suspect you’d be in a very distinct minority versus the “Screw this, I’m going to hide in a closet” demographic.
But since this was about the Avengers, I suppose it’s possible some random nobody picked up a laser rifle off-screen and lasted twelve seconds before being turned into a red puddle in a crater.
Sure, but that’s the stupidity and the movie universe thing that only the Avengers fight.
Because in real life, the cops would go “Wait, we can just shoot them?” and start fighting back.
Again, we’re watching the Avengers. If someone wants to say “a block over, some cop shot at a couple aliens before getting disintegrated” then sure, why not. It’s not as though there’s a veritable army of cops, much less ones who think “My 9mm against umpteen thousand laser-rifles, sounds good”. We’re not seeing his story because his story was brief, tragic and relatively uninteresting.
Honestly, if a cop was standing around and a thousand mundane humans rushed down the street with machine guns, I’d expect him to have a better plan than “Derp, guess I stand here and shoot the thousand guys!” Try and fall back unseen, radio for help, hole up and prepare to shoot whoever comes through your door, etc.
Because you didn’t actually read my post, did you. Knock it off.
Nope. If the PO are any good, they facilitate the evacuation because they are outnumbered and outgunned, especially at the outset. The safety of the civilians is their primary responsibility, not taking pot shots until they’ve expended their 2-3 clips. Maybe, if possible, they prepare a route for special tactics units to approach the area.
If they aren’t any good, they just make themselves targets who don’t have the safety of plot. That was one block over from where CA and BW were fighting. Their dead and dying bodies didn’t make the documentary because of the PG-13 rating.
What you and the OP are suggesting isn’t ‘realism in a superhero setting’. It’s simply swapping one stupidity for another.
Are you agreeing with me about the first spider man?
Of course they’re not doing that in the movie, it’s “the Avengers”. I thought I made that point.
But the cops were standing around looking confused and wondering what to do until Cap ordered them to start helping the civilians, and even then it took a bit to get them to cooperate. You’re not going to convince me that all or even most real life cops would naturally think of getting civilians to safety. They also formed a perimeter, which is a defensive formation, implying that they were doing more than just sitting there waiting for the Avengers to do all of the work.
And SWAT teams and the like? They’re almost never special squads that just sit on their asses until called. They’re regular cops with special training who gather with their little armories and weapons vans before responding. So they’re already out there, on the streets and in their stations nearby. Those guys are going to be on the radio going “Hold on, we’ll drive the heavy weapons out to you. Kick some ass until we get there.”
…indeed. It wouldn’t just be the cops, how many army veterans are in New York? Its been invaded by aliens, the top brass has decided to blow everything up, hell yes some of the people will fight back. Its what people did on Flight 93. Not everyone would take up arms. But in a city full of millions of people yeah, some are going to fight back. It probably wouldn’t be my “first instinct.” But if Aliens are walking down the street killing people in front of you, who knows what exactly we are capable of?
Its all very good to “facilitate the evacuation.” But there is no “evacuation plan.” Because maybe they’ve cut off all communications. And they don’t know the city is going to get blown up. The aliens are all over the place. Blowing shit up and slaughtering people. Do you stand in front of civilians pointing your peashooter at the aliens, hopefully giving them time to get away? Even though it probably means certain death? Yeah, people are going to do that.
I dislike Marvel movies because the vast majority of them have extremely simple writing and scenarios, which is pretty deliberate since they’re trying to get both kids and foreign markets into it but makes the overall product feel very generic and flaccid. The DC movies on the other hand are entirely overwritten with very confusing plot points and twists but at the very least they’re memorable messes. MARTHA still gets constantly referenced in places which at least means people remember the plot.
You didn’t actually understand my answer, did you?
I saw what you did. GOD of Thunder.
I love superhero movies, especially Marvel, but also DC, especially Wonder Woman. If I ever start feeling like the OP, I hope I’m dead by then.
I disagree with the OP in so far as; I don’t think the major weakness of the genre is plot holes or inconsistencies – they certainly have inconsistencies but no more than big action films generally have (in fact I find it easier to suspend disbelief than with something like John Wick).
No, the problem is just there’s no sense of peril, because I know that the heroes are important IP and are not going to get a scratch (yes I know one or two *peripheral *characters have died). I know there’s zero percent chance that any character is going to switch out their favorite weapon / tool.
And I know there’s even a limit on the degree to which any major character can lose. Yes, the Big Bad has to knock them around, but ultimately every major character has got to make a contribution to victory at the end of the movie.
I can’t get sucked into a story where I can guess the beginning, middle and end in advance.
I thought that the cops were handled pretty well in The Avengers. Yeah, they’re brave men, and they’ve been well-trained to put themselves in danger to protect others… but this is a situation their training never covered, and they have no clue what to do. Even the bravest humans need leadership, and once Cap provides that for them, they spring into action and are competent at what they’re doing, which is what needed to be done and was the most effective thing they could be doing.
EDIT:
That happened in Thor: Ragnarok. He loses his favorite weapon right at the beginning of the movie, and spends the rest of the time having to make do with whatever weapons he has at hand, or without any. He even spends a good bit of time trying to talk his way out of problems, something that he definitely doesn’t have a history of.
For that matter, you could also say the same of Iron Man 3. For a large part of the movie, he’s without his armor, and just has a taser glove.
But I said switch out.
Just losing (or even horror damaging), one of their weapons temporarily and then getting it back, 100% restored before the end of the movie is actually a common plot point.
However there cannot be a significant replacement used for a long time, or any ambiguity about whether the original weapon is back before the end.
BTW This is not a Marvel thing, it’s a superhero thing. My rant was more about superhero movies in general; I forgot the OP was just about Marvel specifically.
That’s not my recollection of that movie. I’m prepared to be proven wrong though.
If stark indeed uses the taser glove extensively through that movie then I will take back (that) point.
To be clear, when Chronos says that Thor “loses hs favourite weapon”, he means it’s destroyed, gone, not coming back. At all, apparently.
Ha in that case this is the most wrong I’ve been about something all…day
-or-
Someone at Marvel wiretapped me and heard my previous complaints 
Or at least, if it does come back, it’s not in that movie (it’s not inconceivable that he might get it reforged somehow).
Well, you’re not the only one saying it; and you’re not wrong, either (in general terms, at least).
I can certainly see why Marvel, having hit on a successful formula, would be cautious of moving too far from it: the movies continue to be hugely popular, and they’re not exactly losing money.
Nevertheless, Marvel are clearly aware of the criticisms, and there are signs that they are changing things up quite significantly for the next phase, after a big finish with the next two Avengers films. They have had the luxury of being able to play the long game, over the last ten years, and while they certainly have something of a formula, it’s proven to be one they’ve been able ring a surprising number of changes on.