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May. 26th, 2012
Interesting Links for 26-05-2012
May. 26th, 2012 12:00 pm- Matt Smith set to carry Olympic torch
- The Bible actually gives instructions on carrying out an abortion.
- Retailer uses 3D QR codes and the sun to deliver discounts only during its quiet times
- 25 True Facts About Scottish Independence.
- The Treehotel in Sweden looks amazing
- From Love To Bingo: A 1 Minute Story Told Through 873 Stock Photographs
- My Heinlein Score is 14/21. What's yours?
- Elon Musk on what's next for SpaceX
- Chris Hemsworth breaks uncomfortable news live on the radio in Thor's voice.
Summary: I liked it. It was exciting. I don't think it was as good as some of the reviews were making out, and I think it's lucky they got Joss Whedon in, because he papered over the cracks very well.
Basically, Marvel's head of movies (Kevin Feige) came to Joss with the structure of the movie, and Joss then worked within that*, and it really, really shows. The basic story is dull beyond belief, repeated from millions of cookie-cutter comics. "Bad guys shows up, good guys fight amongst themselves, things get bad, good guys pull together, epic fight, good guys win." A plot so tired that it can fall asleep itself, probably joined by half of the audience.
What Joss does brilliantly is give character moments through the movie. The interaction of Tony Stark and Bruce Banner, Captain America's observations, Black Widow being generally awesome, and numerous things that I shan't specifically mention, but added up to a sheen of fun and depth placed over the overall structure of nothingness.
None of which makes it a bad movie. For an action movie with a non-existent plot it's great fun, and more deserving of cash than most other examples of that type. It just felt like it could have been more, and it's a shame it wasn't.
My favourite two reviews are this one over on Angry Flower, which points out many of the good things the script does, and Abigail Nussbaum's review at Strange Horizons, which also looks at the good and bad bits of the structure.
*It started out basically with Kevin (Feige) and Jeremy telling me “We know the basic structure of how they come together, what works, what doesn’t work, and how we see the climax,” which was nice, because he gave me a basic skeleton of three acts that I knew I had to hang on and then it was just a question of “How do I get there? How do I earn that? What moments would cause these people to be in that situation?” - from here
Basically, Marvel's head of movies (Kevin Feige) came to Joss with the structure of the movie, and Joss then worked within that*, and it really, really shows. The basic story is dull beyond belief, repeated from millions of cookie-cutter comics. "Bad guys shows up, good guys fight amongst themselves, things get bad, good guys pull together, epic fight, good guys win." A plot so tired that it can fall asleep itself, probably joined by half of the audience.
What Joss does brilliantly is give character moments through the movie. The interaction of Tony Stark and Bruce Banner, Captain America's observations, Black Widow being generally awesome, and numerous things that I shan't specifically mention, but added up to a sheen of fun and depth placed over the overall structure of nothingness.
None of which makes it a bad movie. For an action movie with a non-existent plot it's great fun, and more deserving of cash than most other examples of that type. It just felt like it could have been more, and it's a shame it wasn't.
My favourite two reviews are this one over on Angry Flower, which points out many of the good things the script does, and Abigail Nussbaum's review at Strange Horizons, which also looks at the good and bad bits of the structure.
*It started out basically with Kevin (Feige) and Jeremy telling me “We know the basic structure of how they come together, what works, what doesn’t work, and how we see the climax,” which was nice, because he gave me a basic skeleton of three acts that I knew I had to hang on and then it was just a question of “How do I get there? How do I earn that? What moments would cause these people to be in that situation?” - from here
Interesting Links for 26-05-2012
May. 26th, 2012 01:00 pm- Matt Smith set to carry Olympic torch
- The Bible actually gives instructions on carrying out an abortion.
- Retailer uses 3D QR codes and the sun to deliver discounts only during its quiet times
- 25 True Facts About Scottish Independence.
- The Treehotel in Sweden looks amazing
- From Love To Bingo: A 1 Minute Story Told Through 873 Stock Photographs
- My Heinlein Score is 14/21. What's yours?
- Elon Musk on what's next for SpaceX
- Chris Hemsworth breaks uncomfortable news live on the radio in Thor's voice.