Date: August 13, 2021
Music Video of the Day:
Interstellar News: The new semester begins on Monday. Today I spent most of the day putting out academic fires and ended the day quite late. I’m not even teaching this semester! Oh, and just as I was finishing up this post… a student called my work phone (which gets routed to my cell phone) at 10:41 pm!
Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015)
“You didn’t see that coming?”: Age of Ultron gets a lot of flack from some people, but to me it’s a logical progression from its predecessors. Stark has major PTSD and extreme paranoia when it comes to protecting Earth from the “bad guys”, no matter where they come from. We see a lot more of what Infinity stones are capable of and start to notice each one has a different mastery. When the Avengers are just getting their mojo going and have retrieved Loki’s scepter, the Maximoff twins fuck everything up. Stark and Banner go even further fucking things up by creating Ultron, though that allows for JARVIS to become Vision and become the hero twice over. First when stopping Ultron from gaining access to certain areas and second when he stops Ultron once and forever (but not really because it’s a comic book movie and no one is every really dead dead).
While it’s wonderful the twins eventually see Ultron for what he is, the Avengers are super trusting right away and I don’t know how much of that is because they’re enhanced and the Avengers don’t want them as enemies, or because they needed all the help they could get. It’s devastating to see Pietro killed, especially when he was doing it to save a fellow Avenger and get his redemption arc. It’s also interesting to see where Wanda and Vision both started. After watching all of the other movies and then the WandaVision series, they have really both just begun to explore their powers and themselves. As much as I know about them now, this movie is the teeny, tiny tip of the very large iceberg. No not that one (CATFA), and not that one either (Titanic).
I do absolutely love James Spader as the voice of Ultron and the fact that his character spent all of 5 seconds on the internet and realized that people have been the problem all along. One of my favorite exchanges is when JARVIS tells Ultron he’s in distress and Ultron goes “No. Yes.”, because it’s such a total mood. Ultron also tells JARVIS to “shhh, I’m here to help” right before he attacks JARVIS and that’s such a predatory move. It’s so much fun to watch Ultron try to figure out who he’s going to be, like with Klaue when he’s intimidating and benevolent but then freaks the hell out when Stark’s name is mentioned and relieves Klaue of his arm. Then Ultron is all “whoops, later dude” and peaces out. WHO DOES THAT?
In the end, the remnants of S.H.I.E.L.D. come save the day alongside the Avengers. Hulk peaces out and we won’t see him for some time. Thor helps bring Vision to life and Stark leaves the team, and the newbies, in Cap’s hands. We get Thanos in the credits but it will also be a bit more time before he’s really the big bad, because we first have to get through the in-fighting that is Civil War… a direct sequel to this, and introduce a few more players. Next time I’ll write up Ant-Man either by itself or along with Civil War, since he’s in both. As for this movie, it’s absolutely worth a watch if you’re trying to see the whole story. Honestly, it’s worth it for Cap saying “language” in the first five minutes.
TA Out!
To Boldly Go Where Everyone Has Gone Before 