• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Avatar Community |OT| Live. Die. Repeat.

Veelk

Banned
Do I need to watch Age of Ultron to understand the events in Civil War? I skipped it because I heard it wasn't great.

Would a synopsis do?

I haven't seen it, but I've yet to see any marvel movie that can't be enjoyed on it's own merits. Marvel understands what basic character and plot introduction are and make the premises clear from the onset. That's all you really need.

For example, I know they'll reference the first avengers, but they just go "Well, in this event, this many people died" and that's all you really need to know from that event.
 
HALP. This is my current list.

Avatar: The Last Airbender

Episodes to keep
Boy in the Iceberg
  • The Avatar Returns
  • The Southern Air Temple
  • The Spirit World
  • Avatar Roku
  • The Storm
  • The Blue Spirit
  • The Waterbending Master (some of it)
  • The Siege of the North Part 1
  • The Siege of the North Part 2
Episodes to cut
  • The King of Omashu
  • Imprisoned
  • The Waterbending Scroll
  • The Great Divide
  • The Fortuneteller
  • Bato of the Water Tribe
  • The Deserter
Not sure
  • The Kyoshi Warriors
  • Jet
  • The Northern Air Temple
Avatar: The Crossroads of Destiny

Episodes to keep
  • The Avatar State
  • The Blind Bandit
  • Zuko Alone
  • The Chase
  • Bitter Work
  • The Library
  • The Desert
  • The Serpent's Pass
  • The Drill
  • City of Walls and Secrets
  • Lake Laogi
  • The Earth King
  • The Guru
  • The Crossroads of Destiny
Episodes to cut
  • Return to Omashu
  • Avatar Day
  • The Tales of Ba Sing Se
Not sure
  • Appa’s Lost Days (some of it)
  • The Cave of Two Lovers
  • The Swamp
Avatar: Into the Inferno

Episodes to keep
  • The Awakening
  • Sokka’s Master
  • The Puppetmaster
  • Nightmares and Daydreams (some of it)
  • The Day of Black Sun Part 1
  • The Day of Black Sun Part 2
  • The Western Air Temple
  • The Firebending Masters
  • The Boiling Rock Part 1
  • The Boiling Rock Part 2
  • Sozin’s Comet Part 1
  • Sozin’s Comet Part 2
  • Sozin’s Comet Part 3
  • Sozin’s Comet Part 4
Episodes to cut
  • The Headband
  • The Painted Lady
  • The Runaway
Not sure
  • The Beach
  • The Avatar and the Firelord
  • The Southern Raiders
Avatar and the Firelord is important for understanding the history of the war and for Zuko's character. I think the rest of the list is alright. Some of it has some important character beats but can't have it all
 

Veelk

Banned
I got back from Civil War and....fuck, I am angry.

I am legitimately angry that I have to surplant my favorite superhero movie trilogy of all time, which had my favorite hero of all time, with Civil War.

But holy goddamn hell, Civil War.

I never wanted my favorite superhero film to not include Batman, but that dark age how now come to pass.

And there isn't even a comparison between it and BvS. A baby vs mike tyson in his prime comparison would be too reserved in stating the gap between BvS and CW
 
tumblr_m51yjnzbIQ1qbfakpo1_540.jpg

Found this nice fanart of Asami from artist lexi-dee. I feel like I should get back into drawing, myself.
 
I got back from Civil War and....fuck, I am angry.

I am legitimately angry that I have to surplant my favorite superhero movie trilogy of all time, which had my favorite hero of all time, with Civil War.

But holy goddamn hell, Civil War.

I never wanted my favorite superhero film to not include Batman, but that dark age how now come to pass.

And there isn't even a comparison between it and BvS. A baby vs mike tyson in his prime comparison would be too reserved in stating the gap between BvS and CW
It's funny how a movie can tackle the same themes as BvS with twice the amount of characters can be 3x as coherent and enjoyable as that train wreck of a movie. I don't know what mystical shit Snyder was smoking to be able to fuck up BvS, but he needs to get off it.
 
I don't keep up with the MCU at all really, so I didn't really register that it was pretty much Marvel's "BvS" until like halfway through. I enjoyed BvS and all, but this was an exponentially better "version" of it.
 

Veelk

Banned
I hate trying to assess people's characters by their work, so I'm not going to do that. I will, however, assess Snyder's methodology

Snyder's approach to the comics, from what he's said in interviews and the themes in which he told his story, he has, for lack of a better word, an immature approach to comics. Or, I guess, the "dark age" comics ideals.

This is to say that he values the toxic masculinity, oppressive nature, and allusion to higher themes without actually dealing with those higher themes.

The most striking thing here is the difference of regard. At no point do the characters of the movie truly hate each other, whereas BvS has hate as it's driving force.

Batman first regards Superman as a threat to the national safety, and then he's a threat to his ego. Superman hates Batman for his brutality (despite employing brutality himself). And these characters never talk to one another aside from making threats, and then the fight happens, and blah blah blah, and somehow they end up being friends even though the problems they have are never actually resolved. Christ.

In CW,
the discussion never stops between Cap and Tony. They do their best to compromise as best they can, and Tony almost convinces Steve at one point, until he realizes he pulled an underhanded scheme that isn't the dramatic "How could you" but moreso "dude, you just torpedoed your whole argument". And as the drama piles up, even when Tony and Steve are thrown into an emotional meatgrinder, by the end, Steve sends a letter, telling him that even if he doesn't agree with him, they're still friends and he can call him any time for help.

That's the core difference that make CW so much more mature. I would definitely say that they go through more hell than Batman and Superman went through in the time of the movie, but still come out dignified and respectful. That's what real maturity is.
 
Another core difference is that neither
Cap or Tony really tried to kill each other. Sure they beat the shit out of each other, but they never really tried to kill each other
.
Though towards the end Tony gave no fuck for Bucky.
Now that I think about it CW had more respect for human life and more attention was put into the consequence of what trying to save a bunch of people with a fuckton of strength has. Tony got that instantly, but took it to a bit of an extreme with his choices.
 

Veelk

Banned
That's another clever thing CW did. Throughout the movie, it's perfectly true that Cap and Iron man wouldn't kill each other and never tried to do so.

Except in the final fight, where tensions were at their fucking highest, and you are in a state of uncertainty of who you should root for, we have the final blow of the fight. Captain America is on top of Iron man, he's weak and vulnerable. Cap grabs his shield, and is about to bring it down, with Tony not having his helmet on. He makes a face of pure horror, and just for that SPLIT SECOND, you think "Oh my god, is he going to do that?!" and Captain America hits his arc reactor, powering down his suit.

It's a wonderful manipulation of expectations, and the only space in that tension could have worked, because you have no time to second guess it. You're just empathizing with Tony, so when he fears for that one second that he might die, you fear it too.
 
*grumbles about inability to draw*

You can try videos on YouTube. That's how I learned. I looked up a video on how to draw a nose and tried to copy every stroke. I got it after a couple hours and after that I could draw almost anything I could see, but unfortunately I used references so often, that my off the dome drawings are still kindergarten level.
 

Veelk

Banned
I was goin for Cap at the end. Tony felt like a villain to me at that point lol

Again, Hero, villain, they're stupid, outdated terms that don't work when the work is sufficiently complex, which CW is.

Tony was in the wrong, but you can't say that you don't sympathize with him when you factor in that he is looking directly at the man who murdered his parents, something his first scene in the movie establishes that he aches over to this day.

Tony may be in the wrong for what he wants to do, but it's not something anyone can be expected to handle easily. It's brilliant storytelling.
 
There's that and the fact that
no grieving mother threw a picture of their dead son at Captain America. Going "Here's what you did, you 'saved' people, but here's my dead son, I raised him from nothing and now he's dead, you guys just flew away after your 'victory.'"
Steve didn't have to process stuff like this during the movie.
 
Again, Hero, villain, they're stupid, outdated terms that don't work when the work is sufficiently complex, which CW is.

Tony was in the wrong, but you can't say that you don't sympathize with him when you factor in that he is looking directly at the man who murdered his parents, something his first scene in the movie establishes that he aches over to this day.

Tony may be in the wrong for what he wants to do, but it's not something anyone can be expected to handle easily. It's brilliant storytelling.

I agree, and I did feel for him.

Though I did feel way more worried about Cap n Bucky losing than the other way around lol
 
But a lot of what Cap did was emotional as well though.
Plus his nonsense led to Rhodey getting paralyzed.

I'm just referring to why that whole ending fight happened in the first place.

I don't know for sure if Tony and them could hear Zemos talking at this point, but he was literally spelling out his plan to turn them on each other, and Tony still went on to do exactly what Zemos wanted him to do anyway. So while I understand Tony's reaction, it still felt kinda silly to me in a way considering the person who's manipulating them was literally laying out his evil scheme right there in front of them. But I can't remember if that was supposed to be his inner monologue, or if it was him talking out loud.
 

Veelk

Banned
Would Korra be TeamCap or TeamIronMan?

I'm just referring to why that whole ending fight happened in the first place.

I don't know for sure if Tony and them could hear Zemos talking at this point, but he was literally spelling out his plan to turn them on each other, and Tony still went on to do exactly what Zemos wanted him to do anyway. So while I understand Tony's reaction, it still felt kinda silly to me in a way considering the person who's manipulating them was literally laying out his evil scheme right there in front of them. But I can't remember if that was supposed to be his inner monologue, or if it was him talking out loud.

This whole movie was treating Tony like a living Pinata to a very overly enthiastic kid with a spiked baseball bat, and the kid is actually a 300 pound man made of pure muscle.

The movie introduces him reliving his childhood memory of his last encounter with his parents, his girlfriend left him, people blame him for their children's deaths, and then he is failing to convince his friends to join him on signing this agreement that might make his life just a bit easier. He then has to fight his long time friend, who he genuinely likes but has strings attached due to his neglectful father, who keep escalating the violence. This ends with his best friend getting crippled, wherein he blames himself (because he's tony and that's what he does), and when he has old friends (hawkeye) accusing him of being a traitorous bastard. When he finally gets real with Falcon, he finds Steve, only to discover that it was actually his friend, who he's been trying to protect all this time, that brutally killed his parents. And then, to top it all off, he finds out Steve, his friend, his co-leader, knew about it.

He understands fully well that he's being manipulated, but he's well into the "FUCK EVERYTHING" stage of grief that is the typical immediate reaction to trauma that strong. If he had time to process this, he might move past it (which he does in the final scene, as he reads Steves letter), but at that moment? It's hard to think of anyone who could have handled that kind of day.

In my opinion, this has been the best depiction of Iron man yet. He's reasonable, despite being emotionally vulnerable, and that makes him so much better than the anxiety driven kook you saw him in Iron Man 3 and to a lesser extent AoU.
 
Would Korra be TeamCap or TeamIronMan?

Whoever punches more.

This whole movie was treating Tony like a living Pinata to a very overly enthiastic kid with a spiked baseball bat, and the kid is actually a 300 pound man made of pure muscle.

The movie introduces him reliving his childhood memory of his last encounter with his parents, his girlfriend left him, people blame him for their children's deaths, and then he is failing to convince his friends to join him on signing this agreement that might make his life just a bit easier. He then has to fight his long time friend, who he genuinely likes but has strings attached due to his neglectful father, who keep escalating the violence. This ends with his best friend getting crippled, wherein he blames himself (because he's tony and that's what he does), and when he has old friends (hawkeye) accusing him of being a traitorous bastard. When he finally gets real with Falcon, he finds Steve, only to discover that it was actually his friend, who he's been trying to protect all this time, that brutally killed his parents. And then, to top it all off, he finds out Steve, his friend, his co-leader, knew about it.

He understands fully well that he's being manipulated, but he's well into the "FUCK EVERYTHING" stage of grief that is the typical immediate reaction to trauma that strong. If he had time to process this, he might move past it (which he does in the final scene, as he reads Steves letter), but at that moment? It's hard to think of anyone who could have handled that kind of day.

Not saying I don't think his reactions weren't understandable, just sayin why I was definitely on Cap's side at that point in time and wanted him to win that fight.
 

Veelk

Banned
Whoever punches more.

That's true. Team cap then. Asami woukd be pro Tony since they're engineers and can swap notes.

Not saying I don't think his reactions weren't understandable, just sayin why I was definitely on Cap's side at that point in time and wanted him to win that fight.
That's fine, I get that. I just meant that it's hard not to just understand, but also sympathize.
 
I was personally sick of Cap wrecking shit because of his bond with his best friend honestly. His actions got his best friends thrown in an underwater supermax and Clint can't even see his family anymore.
 

Veelk

Banned
I was personally sick of Cap wrecking shit because of his bond with his best friend honestly. His actions got his best friends thrown in an underwater supermax and Clint can't even see his family anymore.

Didn't you see the ending? Cap broke them all out and Clints family is a national secret. Maybe Ross will try and be a dick, but he probably will fail.
The only thing I really hate is how the avengers keep trying to retire but marvel won't let them. Iron Man meant to end it in 2 AND 3, and AoU had Clints entire character arc be centered around 1 last mission. But there he is, not a week later, back in action.
 
Didn't you see the ending? Cap broke them all out and Clints family is a national secret. Maybe Ross will try and be a dick, but he probably will fail.
The only thing I really hate is how the avengers keep trying to retire but marvel won't let them. Iron Man meant to end it in 2 AND 3, and AoU had Clints entire character arc be centered around 1 last mission. But there he is, not a week later, back in action.
Yes I saw the ending and I know he broke them out, I'd still have some choice words with Cap if that was me though. Besides Tony helped out Spidey, he's not all bad. In fact Tony told his ass to go home so he wouldn't be caught up in the aftermath.
 
I was personally sick of Cap wrecking shit because of his bond with his best friend honestly. His actions got his best friends thrown in an underwater supermax and Clint can't even see his family anymore.

I saw someone in the thread say that Cap had a "Sasuke Complex" and I laughed in my head.

That's fine, I get that. I just meant that it's hard not to just understand, but also sympathize.

For sure.
Though I still think that fight scene would have been better off without Zemo repeating his plan again. I'm pretty sure he had already said it before at some point anyway.
 

Veelk

Banned
Yes I saw the ending and I know he broke them out, I'd still have some choice words with Cap if that was me though. Besides Tony helped out Spidey, he's not all bad. In fact Tony told his ass to go home so he wouldn't be caught up in the aftermath.

Keep in mind that they joined knowing the risks.
There was a scene where Cap told Ant-Man that he'd be a criminal and he shrugged it off. What happens to criminals when they're caught? Well, there you go. They knew what they were getting into.
 

Veelk

Banned
For sure.
Though I still think that fight scene would have been better off without Zemo repeating his plan again. I'm pretty sure he had already said it before at some point anyway.

Nah, first explanation was to just get the point across. Second explanation was when he has to emotionally disclose himself to BP, who had been on a similar track, and it was a good motto on how revenge is bad.
I love that theme. The distinction between revenge and justice is one of the best in storytelling, and I'm glad they did it well here.

Dammit, Icy, why'd you make me go and DP
 
Keep in mind that they joined knowing the risks.
There was a scene where Cap told Ant-Man that he'd be a criminal and he shrugged it off. What happens to criminals when they're caught? Well, there you go. They knew what they were getting into.
Wasn't Ant Man practically drunk though? He was the only one not even mad at Tony.
 
Nah, first explanation was to just get the point across. Second explanation was when he has to emotionally disclose himself to BP, who had been on a similar track, and it was a good motto on how revenge is bad.
I love that theme. The distinction between revenge and justice is one of the best in storytelling, and I'm glad they did it well here.

Dammit, Icy, why'd you make me go and DP

Oh you right. Oh my god.
Black Panther was one of my favorite parts of the movie.

I really liked him throughout the movie, but I was really worried he was going to end up being that misguided character who somewhat tragically F's things up way more than they need to be. So by the end, especially when I saw him flying in his ship under Ironman, I was so nervous for what he would end up doing.

When he was talking to Zemos and said something like "Vengeance is consuming everyone. I won't let it consume me." I was all like "AYYYEEE THIS GUY GOT IT FIGURED OUT"
 

Veelk

Banned
Wasn't Ant Man practically drunk though? He was the only one not even mad at Tony.

Nah,
just kidnapped.

I don't feel anyone was really mad at tony except maybe Wanda (who is MY waifu, get back, you bastards!). Clint was only mad after the fact, Cap wasn't mad at all, neither was Falcon, and Winder Soldier just wanted to go back in his ice bottle.

Oh you right. Oh my god.
Black Panther was one of my favorite parts of the movie.

I really liked him throughout the movie, but I was really worried he was going to end up being that misguided character who somewhat tragically F's things up way more than they need to be. So by the end, especially when I saw him flying in his ship under Ironman, I was so nervous for what he would end up doing.

When he was talking to Zemos and said something like "Vengeance is consuming everyone. I won't let it consume me." I was all like "AYYYEEE THIS GUY GOT IT FIGURED OUT"
BP was amazing and I'm so happy he's now part of the marvel universe.

I'm enjoying the Marvel universe EXPONTENTIALLY more now that we have more than a bunch of heroic white guys on there.
 
Bucky knew getting thrown back into an ice box was for the good of everyone. Oddly enough shouldn't Black Widow feel a bit like shit since a lot of this was her fault cause she leaked all that info?
And yes Black Panther was awesome, dude has his head screwed on straight.
 

Veelk

Banned
Bucky knew getting thrown back into an ice box was for the good of everyone. Oddly enough shouldn't Black Widow feel a bit like shit since a lot of this was her fault cause she leaked all that info?
And yes Black Panther was awesome, dude has his head screwed on straight.

Black Widow feeling like shit is her default state of being. She's haunted by her past at all points. But didn't she leak Shield's info? I'm pretty sure that Zemo mentioned having to decrypt something from hydra, which is why no one else made the connection.
 
Black Widow feeling like shit is her default state of being. She's haunted by her past at all points. But didn't she leak Shield's info? I'm pretty sure that Zemo mentioned having to decrypt something from hydra, which is why no one else made the connection.
She leaked a whole bunch of shit at the end of Winter Soldier. It was encrypted, but as Zemo said, he's got experience and is patient, that was all he needed.
 

Veelk

Banned
She leaked a whole bunch of shit at the end of Winter Soldier. It was encrypted, but as Zemo said, he's got experience and is patient, that was all he needed.

I remember that, but I don't remember it being encrypted. I mean, I thought the point was that she laid out all of Hydra's dirty laundry, so why would she put an encryption on it.

But I doubt she feels particularly bad about that. She's not responsible for what people do with the information, especially if she encrypted it to keep it out of hands of common villains like Zemo, but she considered it better for it to be out there than keeping Hydra's secrets hidden. I imagine she stands by that decision, despite everything, and still feels shitty.
 
I remember that, but I don't remember it being encrypted. I mean, I thought the point was that she laid out all of Hydra's dirty laundry, so why would she put an encryption on it.

But I doubt she feels particularly bad about that. She's not responsible for what people do with the information, especially if she encrypted it to keep it out of hands of common villains like Zemo, but she considered it better for it to be out there than keeping Hydra's secrets hidden. I imagine she stands by that decision, despite everything, and still feels shitty.
There's a good chance she left some of the more "innocent" stuff open, but encrypted some of the really dirty shit in there. We don't even know how much stuff Zemo had to unencrypt just to get to what he used for his actual plot.
 
Top Bottom