How to fix Marvel? *confused face*

[DrOswald]

I saw that ''Captain America gets more screen time'' stuff before and it doesn't really matter as much as what he does in that screen time. As far as I can see it, what Iron-Man did is far more significant and overeaching.
Also, that's not an excuse, that's a flaw. Then don't make The Avengers before properly establishing those characters so it becomes a proper team up film with multiple angles instead of one.

If there is a flaw then flaw is not in when or how they made the movie but in making the movie at all. Super Hero team media is always about one member of a team or the relationship between two of the members with the other members as supporting cast. Having a movie that is equally about 5-7 larger than life personalities is a terrible idea that will only result in an unfocused mess.

This is why dedicated superhero team up material is typically episodic. It allows everyone to have their moment in the spotlight without compromising the stories about everyone else. This is also why these movies are episodic - they are already working on Avengers 2.

Frankly, The Avengers does a really good job of making everyone important (with the possible exception of Hawkeye.) While the focus is certainly on the Tony arc each character gets significant presence and every one of them have two or three significant character development moments.

P.S. Also, I only brought up Captain America having more screen time because I thought it was an interesting related fact. I wasn't using it as any sort of argument. If I had I would have been arguing against myself about Iron Man being the focus of the movie.

 

[King Aragorn]

Can't say I agree. Provided they built those characters better then it could have worked. I understand that having all of the team get equal amounts of attention is impossible but Captain America and Thor deserved more. Natasha/Hawk Eye could be secondary characters and Nick Fury, too or Hawk Eye be the background character and Fury the secondary character with Natasha, you get the point. I know it's impossible for all of them to be like Tony but the ones that should have, aren't. It's just because RDJ is going through ''that phase'' right now where everyone is making memes about how cool he s and he's getting quoted left and right, you know, that kind of thing so they compromised the movie in favor of that.

 

[Kittyhawk]

I agree that Agents of Shield is lame, because of reluctance to show heroes and villains on screen having so proper violence at each other. It should have been a cable show from the start, allowing it to have more in it. So long as it stays on network tv it may struggle.

I'm amazed to say it but Heroes, I'd take another season. At least characters died and stuff.

 

[Tono Makt]

Agreed here too. I was quite disappointed at how Thor and Captain America were handled in The Avengers. Neither were characters I had any particular love for before their first movies, but after watching Thor and Captain America: The First Avenger, I actually came to really like the characters in this movie universe. So seeing them so woefully wasted in the Avengers was extremely disappointing.

Did you know that Captain America actually gets more screen time than Iron Man in The Avengers? By about 30 seconds. But it doesn't feel like that because RDJ as Tony is such a powerful presence that you forget about everyone else.

In any case, I think the decision to focus on Iron Man's development was the correct decision. None of the other characters had an arc that could be usefully examined or developed in the confines of a super hero team up story that was also significant enough to thematically base a movie around.

Captain America in particular is an important one - we have only seen half of his origin story. Captain America: The First Avenger was how he got super powers and getting to know Mr Rogers. The second half of his origin story, how he came to be a modern hero, will define the character. And it has to come before anything else significant can be done with the character. Would you really have wanted that all important character arc competing for screen time with Iron Man punching Thor?

Edit: In fact, much of the cut content from The Avengers was stuff about Rogers adapting to the modern world. This was cut for several reasons, but chief among them was that it do anything useful with the character and those ideas would be better saved for later when it would fit thematically.

Screen time isn't the issue - it was how Captain America was handled. How he was written, how he was directed. The tone that was given to him in the movie. The Hulk was better written and better handled than Captain America - and the Hulk was entire CGI and in the movie for what, maybe 10 minutes of actual screen time - if that?

That's why I didn't mention anything about screen time in my complaint. You can do a heck of a lot in a short period of time (see: Hulk), but I don't think Whedon is the kind of writer who can write for a character like Captain America. Which yes, is a bit of a knock on Whedon, but no writer can write for all kinds of characters, in all kinds of situations, so it's more a case of pointing out one area where Whedon is weak, rather than saying he's a weak writer. Cap isn't a whimsical character in any way, nor is he sarcastic, ironic or tongue in cheek. He's earnest, a bit naive and fundamentally Good; that's something you simply don't find in Whedon's normal characters, where everyone is a bit grey, everyone has a dark side and is quick with a sarcastic, ironic or darkly humourous quip. That isn't Cap. (which, again, sounds like a knock but isn't meant to be a knock. I like most of Whedon's characters, I like his writing most of the time. I'm just pointing out a weakness in his writing.) Given that Whedon wasn't the sole writer on the Avengers, it would behoove the writing team next time to bring in people from CA:TFA to write for Cap in the next movie.

Or maybe who writes the next Cap movie - I'm quite looking forward to it. The trailers I've seen so far have been awesome, in my opinion, and give me hope that they've nailed the character that I came to quite admire and respect in CA:TFA.

The focus on Iron Man isn't a big deal to me - it's something I consider a flaw, but it's a minor flaw and one which, with better handling of Thor and Cap, could have been ignored. That's what turns it into a flaw for me - in how well Whedon handled Tony Stark he showed how poorly he handled Thor and Cap because you have to compare the three in the same movie, and Thor/Cap come out well behind. But Tony Stark/Iron Man is the kind of character who Whedon writes best for. He's a Buffy, an Angel, a Captain Mal - three great characters. That's Whedon's element, and he did a great job with Tony Stark.