#209 – Avengers: Age of Ultron — The Misunderstood Avengers Movie

Welcome back to Marvel Maniac and MCU After Show. This is your host, Eric Cicada, aka Mr. Honest, back with you for a reflection episode. So there's this weird thing that happens with certain MCU movies where time is actually kinder to them than release weekend ever was. Age of Ultron is one of those movies. It's not like it didn't do really well at the box office, but when it came out, the reaction was mixed. Not because it was bad, but because it was heavy. It was doing sequel equal work and future work at the same time. People wanted another Avengers. What they got was the MCU Growing Pains on screen. And now, almost 11 years later, this movie reads completely differently. That opening sequence isn't just cool, it's intentional storytelling. The Avengers at their peak. They are perfect here. They're synchronized, they're confident, they're, they're comfortable. That freeze frame shot of the team charging through the forest, that's the MCU saying, this is the high point. Because everything that follows is about what happens when perfection breeds complacency. They're not reacting anymore, they're preempting. And preemption is where things get dangerous. This is almost an homage to the first Avengers movie, the last time. The original Avengers feels truly, well, effortless. Seeing Tony grab the scepter of Loki really kind of sets in motion the events of the movie and how Tony's going to have a complicated journey through it. Meanwhile, let's talk about the party scene. It deserves more credit than it gets. This is the Avengers being human. I love seeing Thor among them. They drink, they joke, they argue about lifting Mjolnir. And they're relaxed in a way that we almost never get to see them again. That matters, because Ultron interrupts this moment. Not a battle, not a mission, but a celebration. They finally got the staff. And Ultron's entrance is just the tonal pivot of the movie. From that point on, the film never really relaxes again. Maybe at Clint Barton's farm for just a small bit, a little bit of a window. It's also the last time this team exists without fractures. This party moment is just a rare window into something that really we never really get again. The Avengers together, settled, happy, and just messing around like a bunch of friends celebrating getting that scepter. A rare and powerful moment that also doesn't shy away from throwing in a few Easter eggs. Slash, foreshadowing. When we see Captain America attempt to lift Thor's hammer, we see it budge. And that is completely followed up on movies. Later moments like this sketched into the earlier movies, make the bigger movie moments shine like gold. So this movie is basically a case study of Tony Stark's fear, not ego fear. He doesn't build Ultron because he wants power. He builds Ultron because he can't stop imagining the next invasion. Wanda put a spell on him and made him see his worst nightmare. And that's all the Avengers dying but him. And once Tony sees a possible future where he can fix that, he fixates on it. Even says he wants to put a pseudo armor around the world. One of the most famous lines, one of the best lines delivered by Iron Man, Tony Stark. And that's not a metaphor, that is obsession. Pepper is gone in this movie. And when Pepper isn't grounding Tony, he sort of spirals. This is something that Ryan Airy from Screen Crush when we talked a few weeks back, which is probably like a month or so now, because the time goes by so fast. I need the time stone, you know, Tony needs Pepper. He's power. He's. Like I said, he spirals without her. Iron Man 3 showed us PTSD. Age of Ultron shows us over correction. And the scariest part, Tony doesn't feel wrong. He laughs. He rationalizes. He moves forward anyway. This is the first time we see Tony choose certainty over consent. And that choice echoes for the rest of the saga. Ultron is Tony's philosophy, stripped of empathy, order, control, peace at any cost. And that's why Ultron, Vision, the conversation at the end, it just hits so hard. Ultron says humanity is key word doomed. Vision agrees, but still chooses to protect them. There's grace in their mistakes. That's the entire moral argument of the Infinity Saga in one exchange. If you think about it, it's a beautiful moment in this movie, honestly, a highlight of the whole saga. And in hindsight, it feels prophetic. Tony keeps trying to solve the future before it arrives. He's always upgrading his suits to do the thing that beat him. Like, he always corrects issues in his suits. That's why his suits get cooler and cooler. Sometimes that makes him a hero, but sometimes it also makes him something else entirely. This is the movie where Tony stops trusting chance and starts trusting systems. It's a big deal because Tony never is the same after Age of Ultron. The whole events of Civil war pretty much happened because of everything that happened in Sokovia and the dropping of the city. And while they did save the world that day, the world didn't even know what happened. It happened so fast. All they know is Tony Stark created a robot that went out of control and killed a lot of people. And there was a lot of fallout from that. We don't get to see as much of that, if any of that in this movie because, well, there needs to be the celebration feeling of them actually saving the world. That's what the bigger Avengers goal is, to keep the world intact. However, it hits close to home for Tony in Civil War. And if this movie wasn't so powerful and did like, didn't do such a world breaking event, we wouldn't have Zemo, we wouldn't have Tony in his mindset throughout the rest of the saga, especially in Civil War. The overprotective, the, the super in line with the government because he wants to feel like he's giving everything he can as well as helping without taking away. He doesn't want his power off leash. He wants to be centered and grounded. And if the government's involved and the jail cells at the end of that, maybe he can force himself to actually be in line with order and not messing anything up. He doesn't like messing things up. He just wants to save people. So sometimes he'll just do anything in that lane just to save people, just to save people from himself. Because he's seen what he can do recklessly without thinking blindly. And you know what Ultron was, you wouldn't know that he was going to create Ultron the way he did. He didn't mean to create Ultron the way he did, but he did set up Ultron and that happened. And then Ultron happened the way it happened. So I love Tony Stark. He's one of my favorite characters. And seeing them put his main story through the Avengers now and out of his solo movies, it was a little concerning. It was sad when I realized Iron Man 3 was going to be the last Iron man movie. But little did we know Iron man is such a key player throughout all the Avengers, no matter how many characters they introduce, we get the most of Tony and Steve. I'd say not as much Steven Infinity War, but we get a lot of Tony's arc played out through the final Avengers movies from here and going onward, including Civil War, So I love seeing into Tony's mind. I. I love kind of seeing this vague foreshadowing of maybe what happens when there's a fork in the road and how in any of these moments could lead to Tony taking a step towards doom. I don't know how it's going to play out in the film, but it's it's related to his journey throughout the Infinity Saga. In general, he is the Infinity Saga. Let's talk about Hulk slash Natasha and this arc. And it's often misunderstood. It's not a romance. It's a mirror. There are two people who don't believe they deserve peace. Natasha sees herself as broken. I mean, Black Widow. The movie should have totally happened earlier. Let's be honest that that she deserved that flick. And we get to learn her backstory without having any movies through the Infinity Saga and the Avengers movies and her cameos in Iron Man 2 and Captain America the Winter Soldier. That gives us a lot of extra time with her as well as Civil War. But she's never in her main movie, and I like that she gets her own. I think it's really good, but it was a little late. But I'd rather it be late than it not have happened at all. Let's still set up a lot of future events for the Multiverse Saga. I'm saying the word saga a lot today. It feels like we're rushing through the multiverse. Target. We've been here for a long time at this point. So looking back at these movies, especially Age of Ultron right now is kind of a big deal in terms of what the Avengers are, what they're becoming, what they will become. Back to Hulk and Natasha. I ranted a little bit there. Bruce Banner slash. Hulk's fear is validated when he loses control in Johannesburg. It was really the Scarlet Witch that did that. And it delivers that line way later. After all said and done from Hulk to Scarlet Witch. I could choke you out and not even change a shade. Holy moly. That is dark. Bruce Banner hates her for making him do that because that was his worst nightmare. Lived this moment. It's not just spectacle. It's confirmation. Bruce doesn't leave Earth because he's cowardly. The Hulk leaves because he's afraid of becoming a weapon. They do share that fear. The Hulk makes the choice to stay in the ship. The Hulk makes the choice to not power down. That absence matters later. So Hawkeye, his family, and all this consequences foreshadowed. Clint Barton is the emotional anchor of this movie. The farm is not a detour, It's a thesis. It reminds us of what the Avengers are actually fighting for. And it makes his loss in End Game just so devastating. We needed this scene for him and his character. This movie plants a seed so that later, when his family does disappear, it doesn't feel abstract, it feels personal. Plus the part with Tony and Steve Having that very serious conversation and just seeing the giant pile of wood that Steve made compared to Tony's. And he says, don't take from my pile. There's just some classic, just Robert Downey Jr. Humor in this one that just makes him so fun and shaded in many different colors. And the comedy, I just can't imagine him keeping that intact. As doomed as Doom, meaning I think his doom, he's gonna have lost someone to take away all the humor, all the life. A very deadpan, angry Tony, similar to the one that comes back from outer space at the beginning of Endgame, who's super skinny, super weary, super upset, and has lost nearly everything. So, yes, Ultron is Tony's mistake, but Sokovia becomes everyone's responsibility. That is a shift from here on out. The Avengers aren't just heroes. They're liabilities in the eyes of the world. The movie doesn't resolve that tension. Like I said, it hands it down to Civil War, which also makes for just such a fantastic movie. So why did it age so well? Age of Ultron isn't messy because it failed. It's messy because it was ambitious. It didn't want to be a victory lap. It wanted to be a warning. Phra Maximoff's death was devastating in retrospect, because we could see the path that Wanda went on without him. Even with having vision, she goes to a dark place when she loses. And. And when she loses vision, it's trauma reignited. This movie gives us the big fight at the end. But the difference between Age of Ultron and the First Avengers is again, we are fighting a problem that the Avengers technically caused in the world's eyes. So everything that happens, all of what Ultron does, all the destruction, devastation, most likely lots of lives taken, plenty of lives taken. We go up to Civil War. Our main antagonist, Zemo, is completely directly affected by this. It's really awesome in how it sets up the real world stakes. The complete and utter destruction that the Avengers are capable of causing. The world wants to put them on a lockdown. They want to give the the blame a name. And it can't just be Ultron, because Ultron didn't come from outer space. Ultron came from the mind of Tony Stark and a little bit of Bruce Banner, and it went bad. And it was hard to see that by the end of this movie. Like I said, I really love the ending. I love the fight. One of my favorite lines is, is that all you got from Thor? And then, like, Ultron obviously brings up this whole army of Extra soldiers. Steve Rogers goes, you had to ask. It ends light hearted, even though the effects of it do carry on. We get to see Thor leave the New Avengers facility. And that very good line of Tony saying that man has no. What is it? That man has no care for? Lawn maintenance or something like that. I, I just, I love that. And they're talking about the hammer and it can't be the elevator. Can't be worthy, but you could set it down in an elevator. There are a lot of rules that we even question. It's kind of reflecting back to us that the characters don't even know the magic of Mjolnir and what Odin did to it to make it so complex. In a sense, it's cool to see later on other characters wield it. And in this movie, Vision showing his purity and his worthiness right out of the crib right after he was made. And let's just talk about Vision for a second. Vision. Such a great addition to this movie and then a great addition to the Avengers. And I love Paul Betany. I love that it's the same exact guy who voices Jarvis. I. I just appreciate so much the character of Vision. That W Division was such a great show. I mean, I mean, imagine if we never got Vision. We wouldn't have gotten W Division. We wouldn't have gotten Wanda's story. And I think another underrated and a little bit hyper criticized movie is Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, which, which is for another day. It's hard to believe we haven't met Dr. Strange at this point because he becomes such a key player in the franchise so quickly. His original first movie carries so much story across, so much time that when he's finally introduced into the bigger picture in Infinity War, we feel like we know him pretty well. It's one of the best origin stories. We'll talk about that again pretty soon too. I want to talk a lot about Dr. Strange. I want to talk a lot about Spider Man. I want to talk more and more about what's coming in Avengers Doomsday without over analyzing and talking about it every single episode. But you can't help but look at some of this foreshadowing and wondering where Tony's path will diverge into him becoming Dr. Doom. Will it even happen like this? Or will he just be a completely different variant? Russo Brothers said it's connected to him snapping the stones. So maybe he actually builds a mechanism in an end game that helps hold the stones and keep him alive. Maybe he counts on snapping instead of doing does it in the moment. The thing is, his suit was totally built to take the stones. He was ready for a situation like that. So maybe one bit further. Maybe Dr. Strange tells him how it happens and Tony improves on it so he doesn't die. Maybe in that universe, Doctor Strange doesn't think it's a good thing for Tony to die. Keeping him alive maybe saves the world in another way down the road. In his eyes. I don't know. Very curious. I know this is an Age of Waltron episode, but like I said, it's a bridge to everything else. I use the word bridge quite a bit, but it really is. This is a tent pole movie and it was super hyper criticized when it came out. It wasn't a failure at the box office, but the fans, they definitely had a lot to say. I'm on Reddit and I'm not criticizing Reddit, but Reddit gets real and people wanted it to be a little more centered and centric to this, the main Ultron story, and not have to like set up the Infinity Stones. But I think it's very smart of them to put the Infinity Stones in this movie. I mean, if you're just a casual fan watching all the Avengers movie to movie to movie, it needs to make sense. Also, Guardians of the Galaxy is introduced in this phase completely in my watch, actually. I went right from Captain America to Age of Ultron and then I might watch Ant man, then Guardians. I'm doing a complete rewatch of the MCU and that's why I'm kind of like going back to certain moments and just like seeing, oh wow, this is kind of different in this light. It's a lot of fun. You should do it too. You got plenty of time until Doomsday. Might be a good time to just start watching one or two movies weekly. Watch the Multiverse saga again, maybe through a different light. As much as people hated on it, I think there's a lot more good there. Similar to Ultron now and foreshadowing and setup to the future movies. It took a longer time, it's much more ambitious. But I truly believe the Russo brothers are about to introduce the best Avengers movie we've ever seen this year. And yes, we can finally say this year it's been a really fun time talking to you about Age of Ultron today. Before we wrap up, just a quick note from me to you first. Thank you. Thank you for being here. Thank you for listening and for sticking with Marvel Maniac as it continues to grow and evolve. We're turning five years old in a couple days. And this show exists because you keep showing up. If you're a long time listener, you may notice I'm loosening up the Patreon schedule a little bit when needed. Not stepping away, just making sure the content stays good and not rushed. Patreon isn't going anywhere. It's still the best way to support the show directly if you're able, and I'm incredibly grateful for everyone who does and everyone who has ever supported that Patreon. There's also a tip jar a little bit easier and it's available if you ever want to toss support in the show's way. No pressure, just appreciation in the about section. Looking ahead, I'm also laying the groundwork for a future Discord, a real community space, a place to talk Marvel Harry Potter movies, games, theories, and just hang out without the noise. More on that soon. Finally, if you want to hang out live, I'm over on Twitch as Mr. Honest, Mr. Hon3st Mr. Honest3 for the E streaming three days a week at minimum. Right now I'm playing Marvel Spider man by Insomniac and it's such a blast. One of my favorite games of all time. It's chill, it's fun, we could talk about the game, the mcu, random pop culture, and honestly, it's just a good place to exist for a couple hours. I'm loving it and it'll be an honor to come. Don't hesitate. Join us. If that sounds like your vibe, come swing by. I'd love to have you there. And that's my reflection on An Age of Ultron. Not too cramped, but also a clean 20 minutes. I didn't even realize how far I'd gotten and how long this has been because it's just so much to say about the movie. I could probably do another episode on it it and I may do that when we get super close to Doomsday. There may be a lot of retroactive looking back at Avengers and stuff like that, similar to what we're doing right now. And that is a lot of fun to me and I hope the fun comes through to you and I hope you're enjoying it again. Thank you. You make the show what it is. You're the reason I keep turning up and it's not going anywhere. I can't wait until next week. We have another great episode planned for you and we will see you then. And until next time, Avengers disassemble I should have cut out the disassemble part similar to the end of Age of Ultron, where we get a hint and capture says Avengers, and then he doesn't say assemble. I love it. All right, I'm done. I'll see you next week when we'll reassemble.