Isn't Jack Kirby God, canonically?
The MCU's Bruce Banner: where does he go from here?
- Thread starter Gaith
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I dunno. All the French dudes I've ever met were prissy little bitches. Of course I've met all breeds of asshole in America, so I guess our shit stinks as well.
Speaking of Rogers and the Army, is Rogers entitled to 70 years worth of back pay now that he has returned?
doubleohfive
Fleet Admiral
I don't see how.
"Oh hey, let's fork over a small fortune in backpay for the guy who spent the entire time living as an icicle."
Joe Q. Taxpayer would have a shitfit if he found out about something like that.
Heh, I was thinking the same thing.
I think they used that joke in one of the comics. At least it sounds familiar. Maybe I heard it in another property.
ETAL Ah yes, I remember now. They used it in The Philadelphia Project.
I would TOTALLY see that movie.
Yes he is. And in all other ways too.
They actually did that in a Captain America comic in the 70s or 80s; Steve got this great big pay-out (which was probably even bigger before the government deducted all his taxes
), which he then used to set up the Captain America Hotline, where people who needed him could get in touch.
Oh. I thought that was where you dialed a 1-900 number and got the chance to talk to people from all over the globe.
I agree - Bruce can unleash "the other guy" at will, but that doesn't mean he has perfect control. On the helicarrier, the situation and Bruce's anxiety allowed the Hulk to take over even though Bruce didn't want him to.
Then why make a big deal of the fact that he was holding Loki's weapon without realizing it? The tension between all the characters in that scene was way out of proportion of any other conflict in the movie. They were completely out of character--JW doesn't spell it out but I think it is pretty obvious they are being mystically manipulated.
I had gotten the impression that Loki's scepter was what was causing everyone to be at their throats. The only person he managed to get his "hooks into" was Banner (as he was the only he needed to really lose control.) Everyone in the lab scene before the action beat were at each other's throats. Sure Cap and Tony are very opposing personalities but Cap was very antagonistic towards Tony to very "uncharacteristic" levels. Even Thor was getting uncharacteristically smug and snippy (he makes some quip about the squabbling mortals during the height of everyone's bickering.) Sure tensions were already high on the ship just from the situation, opposing personalities, and the secrets SHIELD were keeping but I think Loki's scepter was doing some active manipulation as well possibly augmented or enhanced by the tests Tony and Banner were doing on it.
The only person he really had his hooks on was Banner (note how he rubs his eyes after looking at Loki's perp walk.) Everyone else was being manipulated by the scepter. (Note again they're really only at each other's throats when they're in the same room as it.)
The only person he really had his hooks on was Banner (note how he rubs his eyes after looking at Loki's perp walk.) Everyone else was being manipulated by the scepter. (Note again they're really only at each other's throats when they're in the same room as it.)
No, they weren't out of character. Heck, Whedon has said that the whole reason he was attracted to doing this movie was because these characters simply did not belong together and that if they were brought together, their personalities and values and egos would clash in interesting ways. He would not have written that scene unless the character conflict came organically from who these people were and how they legitimately differed from one another, unless it revealed something about who they really were as people. Reducing it to just "oh, they were all under a magic spell and they'd all be hunky-dory with each other under normal circumstances" is Power Rangers writing, not Joss Whedon writing (and even Power Rangers outgrew that kind of superficial approach to character conflict over a decade ago).
What set them off, what made them all so upset, was Tony's discovery that SHIELD was developing tesseract-based weapons. That was an issue that inflamed tensions between these characters with different philosophies and points of view -- Stark angry at Fury for developing new weapons (a hot-button issue for him, as we know from his prior films), Fury angry at Stark for spying on SHIELD communications, Cap being the good soldier seeing it as justified for defense, etc. All that was perfectly in character, and the issues involved were loaded enough that it makes perfect sense that they'd react so emotionally. So there's no need to invoke magical manipulation.
I do think the spear may have been having an effect on Banner, undermining his control. Maybe it was absorbing the anger from the others and feeding it into him. But it wasn't making them angry; the argument itself was more than sufficient to do that, and the argument arose naturally from the characters' different viewpoints, personalities, and agendas, just as Whedon wanted it.
That's because right after that, they come under attack, and being heroes, they set their personal conflicts aside and work together to save lives. And once they've bonded in battle, they're more willing to look past their differences.
I've only seen the movie once, so I can't rule out the possibility that the spear amplified their reactions to some degree. But I simply do not believe that Joss Whedon would reduce the character arcs to "Oh, now they're under a spell, now they're not." That's just not the way he approaches his writing. Any magic or sci-fi phenomenon he writes about is a vehicle for exploring characters' beliefs and motivations, not a substitute for them.
There were a couple of shots of the staff during the argument which implied (at least to me) that it was amplifying the tensions that already existed between the characters. Cap was clearly being more aggressive with Stark than he probably would have been normally, and even Stark eventually lost the smug, superior tone he normally uses and was genuinely getting angry with Cap. And the shot of Thor (and the look on his face) when he said they were all "so petty...and tiny" seemed kind of off, as if there was something going on under the surface.
Agreed. It's not that Loki's staff was manifesting tensions that wasn't there - and you're right that Whedon wouldn't do that, Christopher - it's that it was amplifying it. Loki's a trickster after all, smoke and mirrors and distortion of what's already there is part of his game.
Exactly. I normally agree with Christopher, but in this case I think you are missing a key element to the scene. You could be right that Banner doesn't always have control of Hulk, but I don't see how all of a sudden after a fall he suddenly develops control. Also, his "I have a secret" line (I can't remember it exactly) doesn't make sense either unless it was something he had been keeping from her.
The bit with Thor is what sells it for me since his grin and "petty" line is way out of character for him which means he must have been under some kind of influence and also, as noted, Cap was also much more aggressive and Tony much more smug.
Yes, I'll grant that the spear was amplifying the emotions that came within them. But it is a complete misunderstanding of the film to say that it created the tensions or that those tensions were "out of character" for them. At most, it was like the spear was getting them drunk -- relaxing their inhibitions and heightening their aggression.
I certainly read it that there was a spell of sorts amplifying tension which was already there. Christopher is right in explaining how the tension was appropriate for the personalities involved, but I felt that there was supposed to be something else exploiting that.
We're good and off-topic here, but while we're at it, did anyone else find this beat kind of ridiculous? Given what little Stark knows of potential alien threats, his blithely comparing SHIELD's weapons research to the Cold War human vs. human nukes buildup (on which point he was quite correct)struck me as more than a bit absurd. Maybe he didn't yet grasp the extent of the threat, especially given how easily he and Cap grabbed Loki, but...
Wasn't Cap just as indignant as Stark, seeing the weapons development as continuing Hydra's legacy? Or am I misremembering the scene?
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