Update: Boston meeting time has been moved up from 7:30 pm to 7:00 pm.
Update 2: The virtual meetup will take place in the Overthinking It Group chatroom on Stickam at http://www.stickam.com/group/overthinkingit. See you tonight at 4pm PT, 7PM ET, and Midnight BST.
Overthinkers, Assemble! The summer’s first big blockbuster is here, and by most accounts, it’s a good one:
That’s right. After two different Hulk actors, one mediocre Thor movie, and countless Samuel L. Jackson post-credit invitations to join a secret club, The Avengers is finally upon us. It’s also rocking an above 90% score on Rotten Tomatoes at the time of this writing, which is almost unheard of for a superhero movie.
It’s also a great occasion for Overthinking, which is why we’re inviting you to engage with us in a variety of ways this weekend:
1) Watch the movie with us in Boston!
On Friday, May 4, at 8:10pm ET at the AMC Loews Harvard Square, we will hold our first Overthinking It Movie Night—a new kind of live event where we invite readers and podcast listeners to watch a movie with us, and then hang out afterward for a group discussion. Overthinking It has a presence in a cities around the world, but our first Movie Night will take place in Greater Boston (technically Cambridge), with Fenzel, Sheely and TFT Podcaster Cognac, plus possible other special guests.
Get your tickets ahead of time (it will most likely sell out soon, sadly we can’t provide tickets) and meet us outside the theater at 7:00 p.m. Eastern (we’ll have a sign or something, I guess). Watch the OTI Twitter (@overthinkingit) and the site for details on the post-movie discussion, which is tentatively slated for the Harvard Square Clover Food Lab at 10:30 p.m. Eastern. If you can make the discussion but not the movie, feel free to stop by.
Or, hold your own Overthinking It movie night in your own town and let us know how it goes—feel free to coordinate in the comments on this thread.
2) Hangout online and talk about the movie with us!
We don’t want to leave out the Overthinkers outside of Greater Boston, so we’re going to inaugurate another event, one that’s been discussed in the forums: A virtual discussion of Avengers with the OTI crew and Overthinkers the world over.
Whenever you see the movie this weekend, you can meet us online at 2012-05-06T23:00:00+00:00. That’s Sunday, May 6, 7pm Eastern, 4pm Pacific in the US; it’s Monday, May 7 12:00am British Summer Time in the UK; and it’s Monday May 6 at 9am in Sydney, Australia.
Watch this space or the OTI Twitter Account for details—we’ve never tried to host an online gathering this big before, and would appreciate some suggestions—we’re probably too big for a Google+ Hangout (though we do have an OTI Page), but most of the group video chatting services we know are…well…a little seedy. If you have a suggestion for a good means to bring us all together, please let us know in the comments. We’ll pick one, update this post, and tweet about it before the online event.
Update: We have a group chat room at Sickam: http://www.stickam.com/group/overthinkingit
3) Read our previous articles on Captain America and Iron Man, and comment on them in this post!
Captain America
- “The First Non-Avenger: Captain America and His Non-Struggles Against the Holocaust and Racism”
- “The Five Ages of Hollywood”
“Fixing Iron Man 2”4) Ignore all of our suggestions and just leave a comment below with your thoughts. Or about something else entirely! I can’t imagine what that would be, but hey, this is your… Open Thread.
Monday, 7am in Hong Kong :( Think you’ll archive this chat?
Just a quick poll, who’s going at midnight?
::raises hand::
I went! It was actually my first midnight showing ever and it was worth it!
1am in continental Europe. Unfortunately I haven’t seen anyplace showing it in English that’s not also in 3D, so it looks like funny glasses and headaches for me.
Really, the Harvard Square theater? Unless they’ve renovated it recently, Boston Common is much nicer, especially if you’re waiting in a line to get in your theater, and Regal Fenway has by far the best popcorn in Boston. Also, 7:30 might be a little late for trying to get a block of seats together.
Of course, the best theater in Boston used to be the old Cheri, even though it was pre-stadium-style. Most memorable theater experience of my life was seeing ‘The Matrix’ there; second best was waiting overnight there to get tix for SW:Ep.1, up until the actual movie. And if I ever meet any of you in person remind me to tell the story of how I almost got caught in a race war there during ‘Romeo Must Die’.
Oh, nobody should expect to be able to buy tickets the day of. Buy your tickets _now_ if you want to join us. The 7:30 meetup is just so that we have a decent chance of getting seats together.
We looked at the AMC Loews Boston Common and Regal Fenway schedules, but they have dead spots in their schedules between 7:20 and 9:00 where only 3D or IMAX showings are starting (for obvious price-related reasons). And we weren’t interested in that (for obvious price-related reasons).
It’s a fairly long movie, but Friday is also a work day for us, and we all tend to work late from time to time. We really wanted a showing that started around 8:00, so there isn’t a ton of pressure to rush there from work, plus there’s still time for a good conversation afterward (as you know, everything in Boston closes pretty early, especially the T).
So yeah, bottom line, the decision of which showing to attend was thoroughly overthought, and while Harvard Square isn’t the biggest or shiniest or even the cleanest theater, it is nice that it will be a little easier to convene a group there than at the madness on the Boston Common.
Maybe after we get this down a little bit we’ll try the prime time spaces.
Another note – they are already lining up at the AMC Loews Boston Common to see tonight’s midnight showing. Seats there are going to go quickly. Going to Harvard Square gives us a little extra time, but not that much.
Ah, I misinterpreted this the first time around. Yeah, getting there earlier than 7:30 seems wise. We’ll plan on being there at 7:00.
Would this be a bad time/place to say I’ve already seen it twice (in the UK) and it was awesome!
Portland Overthinkers! Go to the midnight show of Avengers at Cinemagic on Hawthorne, where its cheap and janky and definitely not in 3D.
Too late for a post-movie meetup, so just shout your overthoughts while we are watching loud enough for the whole theater to hear. Don’t be stingy, we all appreciate your thoughts.
For the rest of our benefit, is this Portland Oregon or Portland Maine?
Oregon, sorry to dissapoint any Maine overthinkers
So. . . why didn’t I discover OTI back when I actually lived in Boston? *Sigh*
Technical question – I notice in the post you mentioned video chat. Do we need to have webcam hook-ups in order to participate?
I’m hoping that you’ll be able to group chat with us even if you don’t have a webcam. Showing your face, obviously, will require one.
Yes, a rare occasion where I’ve seen the film – any luck on a place to do the chat yet?
I thought the movie was really good, although to formally review it I’ll have to see it again (no complaints here). I’ll be spoiler-free and say that I forgot that I was watching a Joss film until he did what he normally does-that was the one moment when everyone in the theatre collectively gasped in surprise. I understand why he did it, but it doesn’t lessen the ‘knife in the gut’ feeling that happened during that sequence.
Did people catch any ‘Firefly’ references in the movie? I was only able to catch two (maybe three) but that was only after thinking about the moments and feeling that they were a reference if you’d seen the series and the movie.
One thing I liked where all the Hawkeye/Black Widow moments; even without reading the comics you could tell that they had a backstory/professional relationship and knew how the other one worked.
Yeah, I felt a little under-Whedoned/-whelmed, too. Particularly because of the lack of witty banter. I mean, sure, there was some, but I can’t think of many times where it was delivered by someone besides Stark. And yes, gut-wrenching… Of course, right?
I liked the history between Hawkeye and Black Widow, too.
Oddly, I forgot that it was Whedon directed, but found myself thinking “This feels very Whedon-inspired” several times. I guess I just associate him with undercutting action sequences with jokes, and I feel that there were four-or-five times when it looked like it was setting up to a dramatic monologue or scene, only to be undercut by an unexpected, somewhat comedic beat. (The dramatic scene between Thor/Loki being interrupted by Captain America early on, the Hulk/Loki confrontation, and the scene mentioned above)
Just experimenting with customvideochat.com for online chatting, but I think most of the free online services including video tend to be one camera at a time. Not sure what the aim is for – more like an insane podcast? Or is type-chatting more likely to be coherent?
I don’t know what the G+ limmit is – http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/23800/group-video-chat-with-family-and-friends-for-free/ describes Tokbox which takes video chat up to 20 participants. Might need more than that, but where it exists I certainly don’t know.
I loved it, loved every part of it.
So many great lines and subtle references.
can twait to see it, but won t pay a ticket for it, ll wait for the dvd (that I will legally rent though)
But how many times hulkk will have to undergo facial chirurgy?
Group Video Chat for later today:
http://www.stickam.com/group/overthinkingit
Well that was interesting, I certainly had a good time chatting it up…
er, sitting there awkwardly afraid of cutting off one of those hosts.
Until the next time guys.
For those who couldn’t make the live or virtual meet-up, could you post a basic gist of the conversation, some “show-notes” if you will, so that we can all add to the conversation. I’d like it a lot, thanks!
Um, who was the best Hulk, Action vs. Story ratio, A Whedon film with Marvel Characters or a Marvel Film by Whedon?, British pluralisations, the requisite number of previous movies required to ‘get’ The Avengers, IP law – specifically re: Spiderman, X-Men and The Avengers, plus, Fenzel’s video effects, the arrival of insane Father Christmas and super-lag.
For those who couldn’t make the live or virtual meet-up, could you post a basic gist of the conversation, some “show-notes” as it were, so that we can all add to the conversation. I’d like it a lot, thanks!
Sorry for the double post.
Whoops.
Alas! I entered that chat late, and just as I tried turning on my video feed to really get up in there, my roof started leaking… Next time, next time…
Oh! Something I was going to ask in the chat but didn’t get a chance: Hawkeye, does he usually shoot missiles and ropes and stuff with his arrows, or was that something added for the movie? I ask because I and everybody else kind of agreed that the pan shot in all the trailers of the Avengers in the circle makes him and Black Widow look rather useless- he has his bow, she has her tiny handgun. But then wait a second, his arrows explode… WHAT?
*everybody else I was talking to in the buildup to the release
Without question, Black Widow and Hawkeye are the two physically weakest characters. They’re not going to punch an alien dragon the way Hulk will. But that doesn’t mean they’re useless. I think they sold me on Hawkeye being all kinds of useful, if only because he’s a perfect shot with explosive arrows. But truthfully, Black Widow shouldn’t have spent the last act of the movie in hand to hand combat – she’s good at that, but she just can’t punch as hard as the people with superpowers. I sort of wanted to see her doing more stealth stuff. More strategy and tactics as opposed to just standing in the open trading punches. It’s sort of like Batman in the Justice League – he can fight, but his real strength is outsmarting bad guys who are stronger than him on paper.
In a way, Back Widow almost reminded me of a direct inverse of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
I’ve seen Whedon’s feminism criticized as being un – translate-able into the real world (what kind of role model can Buffy/Willow, et. al. be when their power is tied to magic instead of real world power). Whether you think that’s a valid argument or not, I found it interesting that the lone female member of the Avengers was also the only member recruited who didn’t have some sort of power – and she was depicted as holding her own alongside Hulk, Captain America, Iron Man, and so forth. I almost wondered if it was an intentional answer to the whole “Super-powered heroines can’t be feminist icons” argument that is sometimes made.
In terms of Whedon’s feminism, I thought she was great. Her method is much more calculating and strategic. Not to dismiss her male group members, but her moves come across to me as much more purposeful and deliberate. A well-placed punch in, say, the throat, with her fist (followed by a flip behind them and another in the back of the kneecap or something) can be just as immobilizing as one in the jaw from Thor, but aiming like she does is… well… a different style of fighting that takes a different type of thought process*. Again, I’m not saying the men are just a bunch of unintelligent lugs with no thought or strategy, since clearly they do a lot of stuff demonstrating otherwise. But even when doing hand-to-hand, her agility and precision demonstrate a level of intelligence and hyper-awareness that isn’t as obvious for the men. And that, hopefully, should be transferrable to the real world. If not, then I have no idea what else can be done with her character.
*Actually, in the meta-analysis, much like the way Sherlock Holmes, played by her costar, calculates and predicts every move in his fights.
Haha, actually, I was the lone defender of them before the movie even came out for that very reason, sans-explosions. I mean, a well-aimed shot (bow or gun) could be just what was necessary. Stealth is just as, sometimes more valuable than, brute force in conflict situations.
I was actually kind of disappointed with her use at the end, but I think it was necessary because of her lack of physicality- she spent a good deal of the climax running around and then on the roof, away from the ‘main action,’ so to speak. And it made sense, writing-wise, to put the least physically ‘dangerous’ character in the position requiring the least physical strength. And I think that goes with the type of film Whedon was dealing with.
And actually, that’s also why I’m sure his witty banter was reduced- it’s a Whedon movie, sure, but he’s operating within a paradigm of explosions and hyper-masculinity that exchanges depth for audio-visual stimulation. That ending climax was probably longer than necessary in terms of story and character development (as was the action stuff on the airship), but, he was at least able to insert a few moments of not-violence (in both) that were substantially deeper than, say, a Micheal Bay movie could ever achieve.
To answer your question, yes, Hawkeye traditionally shoots modified arrows — a wider variety in the comics than he does in this movie:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trick_arrows#Hawkeye.27s_trick_arrows
Doh! I should have just used the thing I’m using now (i.e. the Internet). Thanks.
And that makes me wonder more, now, because I had never considered explosive arrows as an option (guess I’m not all that creative), while the people I hang out with are more familiar with Marvel lore and would know about that, and yet they were still just saying stuff like “dinky arrows” when insisting he’d be ineffective. So then my question would be, Were the arrows made more useful in the movie, even if the variety was diminished (since yeah, it’s a 2.5 hour movie, only so many types can fit in that timeframe without seeming too forced)? Adamantium arrows? Awesome, and could indeed be highly useful. I guess I’ll have to give my friends some crap, here…