Saturday Morning Musings (#11): Age of Ultron

Good morning, everyone. I've been wanting to do a post about The Avengers: Age of Ultron where I could go spoiler crazy and discuss everything that stood out to me outside of my review, since that was spoiler-free. So for today's post, I'm dedicating it to that topic. There are definitely a decent number of things that I want to talk about, or rather going into further analysis of it now that the review is out, so let's get into it. (Warning: This post does contain spoilers for Age of Ultron)

Something that really stood out to me in this film was the presentation of the Avenger's dream sequences that five of the six experienced. They allowed us to understand a little bit more about what they were keeping inside and not showing. Steve's involved elements of his PTSD and always feeling as though he was on the battlefield. He was haunted by his past, of being out of place and not within his time period. He was haunted by that last dance he promised Peggy, but ultimately, he was plagued with the feeling of being alone and an outsider since he isn't in his own time period.

Black Widow's also stood out to me. She was haunted by an event that actually happened in her life. Seeing her go through those experiences at the Red Room as she trained to be an assassin allowed you to understand why she is usually so closed off to people. It still continues to impact her in the present day, especially by having to go through sterilization. The experience as a whole is something that's very haunting to her as the things she was trained to do as someone so young were ruthless. She feels as though she doesn't belong because she was trained to kill and to not care about anything more than her mission.

Iron Man's fear revolved around not being able to save his teammates. He's scolded for not doing everything he possibly could to save them, ultimately encouraging him to go through with using the Infinity Stone to create Ultron to serve as another protector, but instead leads to destruction.

Thor's fear is the end of Asgard. He wouldn't be able to stop this end. His fear also included a glimpse of an Infinity Stone, which eventually causes him to revisit this fear where he sees the four stones that have been found already.

We don't know what Hulk's fear was, though we do know that it caused him to destroy anything in his way, as well as try to destroy Iron Man. Hawkeye wasn't attacked by Scarlet Witch in this way, though she did try and he stopped her. The irony about Scarlet Witch causing them to see these fears and haunting visions in their heads is that in the end, what's assumed to be her biggest fear comes true. Her brother is killed, and in turn, she is left without him by her side. Her only family member left was now gone, as well.

There has been a lot of debate about Natasha Romanoff in this movie. Let me start out by saying that I 100% agree with the statement Mark Ruffalo released. I don't really understand people's issue with her storyline in this movie. Her feelings for Bruce didn't diminish her strength in any way. It didn't make her appear weak like some people have felt it did, in my opinion. In the majority of situations, she was the one saving their asses. It's hard for her to do something against an entire army of Ultrons, but she did what she could. The scenes that did make her appear weaker than usual only made her appear stronger in others. She showed her insecurity with her infertility, stating that she felt as though she was a monster, and to some people, insecurities appear as a weakness, but she look for anyone's pity. She's still strong and independent. So what she has a minor love interest in this movie? Steve Rogers had a minor love interest in the first Captain America film. Clint was revealed to have a wife and kids in this film, but you never hear anything about that. I didn't find the relationship to be thrown in people's faces. It just existed, it wasn't made a bigger thing than it needed to be. Like Mark said, there are so few female superheroes that having them appear normal and showing their weaknesses bothers some people. I was not bothered by her character at all during this film. I enjoyed the fact that we were seeing her open up more to someone instead of keeping everything in.

Two funny scenes stood out to me. The first would be the one where Steve calls them out for their language. The fact that this kept up throughout the rest of the movie lets you see their bond as a group. They tease each other, they're friends. They wouldn't let him live that comment down. Each time this popped up throughout the film it got a nice laugh.

I also loved the scene with Thor's hammer. Before Ultron comes into play, you have a very casual and fun scene. You have a group of friends sitting around after having a good night and they're having a good time, questioning why Thor's the only one who can lift the hammer. It was so normal and resembled how they all are in interviews together. This also showed up again after Vision is created and is able to lift it. The look on everyone's face was great. The "elevator's not worthy" joke was also funny. Ultimately, these scenes allowed them to be themselves and normal for a little while to relax and have fun.

Of course, I wish the alternate ending was used instead of Quicksilver's death since I'm still sad he died. I think it would have been nice to learn more about his character, but he did go through the full arc of siding with evil, becoming good, and dying as a hero, an Avenger. I do wish we would have been able to get to know him further.

I think that about sums about everything I want to talk about regarding Age of Ultron. If anything else comes up that I think of, I'll probably mention it in next Saturday's post. I hope you all have a fantastic weekend and happy Mother's day to all the mom's out there.

ICYMI: This week's recaps can be read here