If you watch the first Avengers movie, you’ll notice Thanos’ minion has six fingers.
Obviously Thanos chose him because he’d never be able to steal the glove and wield it against Thanos.
Should’ve cast the “Jake, from State Farm” guy.
“Who dares to attack us?”
“Uh, it’s Thor, and the Avengers.”
“Wait, is – is that lightning blasting its way in?”
“No; it’s Thor, and the Avengers.”
"What’s that in your hand, Thor-of-the-Avengers?"
“AN ENCHANTED SLEDGEHAMMER!”
“He sounds serious.”
“Well, he’s a god, so…”
As one of the few people who have apparently listened to the actual podcast, that article badly misrepresents what Whedon actually said. The Thor pool scene was actually much longer, originally, and featured an extended conversation between Selvig and Thor-as-possessed-by-Asgardian-spirits (thereby communicating the knowledge they were after). Sounded like a pretty cool scene, to be honest, as it apparently forced Hemsworth to play a number of different “versions” of the spirits, Dollhouse-style.
However, once they started test screening, Whedon realized that the scene wasn’t really working - it was too long and too far afield from the scifi action of the main film. He realized that diving into Asgardian mythology works fine in the solo Thor films but needs a light hand in the Avengers setting. So he started trimming the scene. Eventually, it got to the point when he was inclined to take it out altogether, but the Marvel execs (correctly) pointed out that this meant that Thor basically leaves without explanation and comes back with even less explanation. So he put the bare minimum of the pool sequence back in, so there’s at least some sense that Thor’s visions tie in with his epiphany about, erm, The Vision.
The “gun to the head” conflict between Joss and the execs was related to this sequence, but IIRC it was more that both the full Asgardian spirit sequence and the farmhouse sequence were quirky Joss creations, and the studio execs were nervous about both of them sucking away the pacing of the film (which at the time was more than 3 hours long). So they basically told him to pick one, and he did. Given that the farmhouse sequence was probably the single most important part of the film from a character standpoint, I think he made the right choice.
There’s a tendency to boil this sort of thing down into a “creator versus corporate monster” war, and while I’m sure there was some real conflict there, the overriding impression I got from Whedon’s interview was that he appreciated it as a needed second-guessing on his own ambitions, even if it rankled him from time to time. And it certainly tired him out - he sounds positively exhausted in every interview I’ve seen about the film - but I don’t think he feels that his “bosses” at Marvel were coming at things from an incorrect point of view, even if it differed from his.
But that’s a level of nuance that’s difficult to convey in a short internet article designed to maximize TEH CLICKZ, I suppose. Plus it would’ve required the AV Club (and all the other sites I’ve seen carrying this non-story) to actually, like, listen to the podcast and think about how the tone with which Joss described things wasn’t that of a bitter, angry man attacking his corporate overlords, but an exhausted director of a multimillion-dollar blockbuster somehow managing to have an honest conversation about what that process was like.
The first Thor movie was the fourth movie of the Marvel Cinematic Universe:
Iron Man 2008
The Incredible Hulk 2008
Iron Man 2 2010
Thor 2011
Captain America: The First Avenger 2011
The Avengers 2012
When they made the first Thor movie they knew they were going at least as far as the first Avengers movie. The Tesseract was introduced in the post-credits scene of Thor, then it was further explained in Captain America.
Thanos was introduced in the mid-credits scene of The Avengers, which was just a year after Thor so someone should have had the foresight to keep the Gauntlet out of Odin’s vault at least as early as the editing process on Thor.
Look, the Hulk has to fly away at the end, because he’s the frikken Hulk. That what Hulk does. Hulk not team player. Hulk have intimacy issues. Hulk not know how relate to puny hu-mons. Hulk must fly away alone, until Hulk find way to control raging spirit that dwells within Hulk. I honestly expected Whedon to play the classic music as the Hulk flies away. Or at least a sound-alike.
And thank goodness we didn’t kill Hawkeye, because that would have been ultimate cheez. It’s his last day on the force, yes? And he says goodbye to his wife and kids for one last mission, yes? Whedon’s smarter than that, real death doesn’t get heavy-handed foreshadowing. YES, someone has to die, and it can’t be a tentpole character. So Quicksilver it is. But, comic book death. He’s only mostly dead.
The biggest annoyance I had was that at the end the mook robots blew apart like they were made of Lego. One punch from a normal (OK, badass normal) human, and the battle droids tear apart like tissue paper. One punch takedowns of Hydra mooks, sure. But the robots should be a bit tougher, it should seem like a bit of an effort to destroy one, like you have to crush the CPU after you rip it apart.
Just in case the point hasn’t been made loudly enough, I would pay good money to see the Black Widow origins movie.
Origins? Oh, god, no thank you. We’ve got a pretty good idea what it’s like, and it’s basically torture porn.
No, what I’d really like is a Mission Impossible/Bourne style spy flick that showcases what she brings to the table when she’s not desperately trying to keep up with massively overpowered humans fighting armies of aliens. We got a hint of that in the interrogation scene of Avengers and the search for Whiplash scene in Iron Man 2, but I’d love a whole movie of that, directed by someone like Doug Liman.
So is the podcast as interesting as it sounds? I fully plan on listening to it tomorrow
I suppose Loki could have something to do with an Infinity Glove switcheroo.
I guess I was imagining something more in the middle, her bad girl days, with some flashbacks to training and her epiphany and journey away from the dark side.
Budapest is lovely this time of year.
Torture porn most definitely does not appeal to me.
You and I remember Budapest much differently.
I think that was covered in Agent Carter for the origin, anyways. But like everyone else, I would love to see a Widow/Hawkeye or Widow v Hawkeye in Budapest.
Declan
I got the impression that it was much more confrontational than that. It sounded to me like the executives wanted to excise the dream sequences and the farmhouse stuff and Whedon had to fight them to keep them in, so he relented on the cave scene. I also got the impression that Whedon thought that the cave scene should have been either all or nothing, and that the half-assed “show it but don’t give any context” was not a decision he supported. I think he even said he just gave up saying “what movie is this?”. To me, the interview didn’t sound at all like he “appreciated it as a needed second-guessing on his own ambition” or that “he feels that his “bosses” at Marvel were coming at things from an incorrect point of view, even if it differed from his”, but rather the executives had the final say, and he had to suck it up. Which fits with the other parts of the interview where he points out the inability of the executives to “make a deal” kept parts out of the movie that he wanted, such as Loki and spiderman. He clearly wasn’t too pleased in the business aspect of the movie making experience.
I did like that he pointed out how busy the set magically became the day they filmed the cave scene because Hemsworth was shirtless so much.
I also found it fascinating that he said he had written/planned to bring Tara back to Buffy, but, once again, they couldn’t make a deal.
I think I might have preferred if Ultron had been a bit more impactful… even if you do still have him ultimately defeated and relegated to “Monster of the Week” status.
Wouldn’t even have to change much, still could have done Eastern Europe but have it be Chernobyl-esque… everyone within this 200 mile radius is dead, and the area’s completely uninhabitable now.
It had some great lines, interesting action scenes… but I don’t know that I feel the stakes were raised per se. Not that every comic book sequel necessarily has to be “even more blowy uppyer”, but some manner of escalation could work.
I also wish he hadn’t used the mind control thing in the first one (which in the original sorta just felt like “well what the hell do I do with Hawkeye?”)… b/c now it’s going back to the well. But they did a good job of not relying on it TOO much here.
Oh, I agree. Meg Ryan and the baby can come visit Hawkeye on the aircraft carrier right before he and Maverick take off, but Joss Whedon is NOT going to do a movie where the one character who dies is that one.
I think you mean Linda Cardellini.
Beautiful woman who, in a rare case of hollywood, actually looks like she could be married to Jeremy Renner
I was referring to the scene in Top Gun that exactly parallels what was mentioned above… the sweet wife (Meg Ryan) and kiddo come to visit the guy, who is then doomeded.
Which was awesomely parodied in Hot Shots.
Off-topic but…man what DIDN’T Hot Shots parody awesomely from Top Gun?
Cinnamon Imp:
I was in downtown Manhattan on 9/11 and that was what immediately came to my mind. (though it didn’t upset me)