Agents of SHIELD. Season 1 Discussion Thread

Trekker4747: I'll say it again: loving the idea of "Classic" Asgard being depicted as a variant on the Alderson Disc concept.

 

Aldo: You and I are in agreement on that point.

Also, I suspect regional field offices have their own dedicated investigation units.

 

You know you can edit your posts to add more, right?

 

Tired tonight. Halfway brain-dead at the moment.

 

On the other hand, past history with superhumans has shown that they don't always respond well to the hard sell, or to a military organization charging in to surround them. That could get people hurt. Maybe the idea is that a softer sell, approaching them with a smaller team, would be less threatening, less likely to provoke conflict.

 

Plus, as I've probably already pointed out, the flying sports car has been a staple of SHIELD comics for nearly fifty years now. At this point, it's like complaining that the Silver Surfer's cosmic surfboard is kinda silly. Or that Bruce Banner turns into a giant green monster.

It comes with the comic-book universe.

 

<<It's probably worth pointing out, in the MCU at least, Norse gods aren't "real" so much as they're just long-lived, near immortal alien whom ancient humans took to be gods.>>

"You haven't seen his arms"

 

Exactly, the car is a well-known part of shield. I was happy that they kept it.

Regarding the concerns about this being the only team dealing with threats, I did not get that impression. I thought that this was basically a group taking a smaller scale approach than the rest of SHEILD, flying under the radar so to speak. That is why they are using "old" tech rather than the carrier and keeping a low profile. This was also the reason Coulson wanted to recruit Skye.

From a production perspective, this allows for in-universe stories that don't rely on heavy special effects.

 

Yeah, I got the impression that they would be dealing with the smaller scale issues that don't necessarily require the whole agency. You know like the one guy with superpowers we got here, or the one piece of tech we got last week.
Basically I think they'll be the ones dealing with the smaller problems while we see all of the big issues in the movies.

 

Also a way to introduce smaller, more 'street level' characters too. I mean honestly I totally think Cloak and Dagger or Luke Cage, Iron Fist, Misty Knight and Colleen Wing could easily show up in an episode as "Heroes for Hire" and it would work far better on TV than it would on the big screen.

 

Historically internal bookkeeping means that even Marvel has to pay Marvel to use Marvel characters.

Logically all the characters they are allowed to use gratis, everything/one directly associated with S.H.I.E.L.D. as well as their wish-list, which would have been arranged months ago when the lawyers were making out, that will be fixed until it's time to renegotiate after probably season 3 or 5.

 

Probably, but there's a couple of places it would have worked nicely-- notably Ward's entry into level 7 scene at the beginning.

No reason, but if you're going to name drop a relatively obscure anthology title, you'd think they'd pick the one related to the subject matter.

The reason that TV and movie adaptations of superheroes and such pretty much always fail on a creative level (if not the financial level), is that the producers seem embarrassed by the source material and go mainstream. This stuff is supposed to be pure imagination, it's supposed to be about the creativity and the artistry, it's supposed to be off the wall and over the top; watering it down to the level where mundanes are comfortable with it just takes the magic out of it.

 

I liked it but it was a bit campy (though I think that was their goal).

I'm sure if the show gets big enough, we'll see all sorts of one-shot 2nd-string heroes make an appearance (around season 3).

 

I had no problem with the flying car.

 

^I had no problem with it though I couldn't help thinking of back to the future.

 

Seriously, is Back to the Future people's only referent for flying cars? What about The Jetsons, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Supercar, Blade Runner, etc.?

 

The whole thing did scream "Back to the Future" with the wheels going into hover mode, the takeoff and the fact that it was a fun bit tacked on at the end.

 

It was more the staging of the scene, what with Coulson putting on the shades and everything ala Doc Brown. Hell, they should have gone ahead and used the line from BTTF. He could have followed it by dove tailing his comment of "sorry, I couldn't resist" from the beginning of the episode. It would have seemed less "cheesy" I think.