Hero HQ

I really hope Whedon directs it but yeah it will be tough because expectations will be through the roof!!! How do you top Avengers I just don't know. They would have to go bigger but still make sure they let the characters develop or at least not make it just one long action scene. They need to convince Peter Jackson to do it that would be sweet, lol. The other great thing about Whedon is that he is a comic book guy who worte X-Men and knows comics so he gets it plus he writes great dialouge, is funny to everybody but Hawk, lol, and really did an astounding job on the film.

For now I am excited about IM3, they are doing extremis which I am happy about because it is a very cool sci-fi concept I just hope they keep it as brutal as the comic was. Thor 2 should be great because Alan Taylor who is directing has directed the best episodes of Game of Thrones and if you guys are not wathcintg this start watching it because it is by far the best show on TV. Anyway Alan Taylor is a very good director and so Thor 2 should be great. Cap 2 I am excited about because it will be modern day and Joe J. won't be the director. I felt way too many Raiders overtones with Joe J. directing and although I know you guys disagree, I feel he spent way too much time worrying about the look of the movie and not enough time really giving the characters life. Joss did Cap way better than Joe J. did. So hopefully Cap 2 will be a movie I can enjoy much more than the 1st one.

We should also get another X-Men first class movie and since I loved the first one I want to see that. However the next movie I am most excited about seeing is Promotheus, that looks really incredible.

Yes they can make great single hero movies and they have no excuse not to put some money into them and make sure they deliver on the action. With the IM movie they need to up the action ante and give us more of what IM can do while at the same time developling some of the other characters. So an any of these single hero movies they can deliver at a very high level no doubt.

Yeah I thought Hunger Games would do well based on how much I liked the series and how well the books had sold in my store but I was surprised that it pulled more than 300 mill domestic gross, a very, very strong performance. So JL is going to be busy for the next five years making the next movies, lol.

I agree with Martin on Clint although we already had that opinion. A2 needs to give him more of a personality. I have never really followed BW too closely in the comics so while I know a bit about her, I didn't have this strong notion of how the character should be so I wasn't bothered that she isn't a lot like the BW comic version. She kicks ass way better than Jolie, sorry Hawk but Jolie is so skinny amd not healthy skinny more like anorexic skinnty,  that I just don't buy her being able to kick the crap out of a five year old kid let alone a full grown man, so while I enjoyed SALT I really didn't ever buy any of her fight scenes at all. Whereas SJ got into great shape and the way they show her seeing four or five moves ahead is always really awesome to me. Plus she had some great moments in the movie, when she is being chased by the Hulk she is super scared and afterwords when Fury is calling for help she is still shaking, very convincing and well done. I will give it to Jolie for being a much better seductress and or being sexy than SJ but I think SJ is a better actor and much more suited for being a credible action character.

That all being said if you had a strong impression of the comic version of BW than I can see where her not being like that would bother you or Martin.

For me Avengers is easily the best superhero movie ever with nothing else even being close, but then my fav character was not neutered the way yours was Hawk, but I do give you credit for liking it still even though Hawkeye got the short shrift. I am also not saying that there are not other good superhero movies because there are, but Avengers is far and away heads and shoulders above the rest.

See: Mr. And Mrs. Smith (starting at about 5:10)

I’m not saying that Angelina Jolie would have made a better Black Widow but I do know that she can kick butt. 

I think Scarlett did a good job with BW.  I don’t know much about her character from the comics but I can definitely see Hawk’s point about her showing her fear during the Hulk scenes.  She could have come across as quite scared but more in control of that fear (which I think would be a little more difficult to portray on screen).   However I don’t have any big issues with how it was played.  I think it connects with the audience more.  Even if I was some super spy I think I would realize my own mortality and if there was an out of control Hulk running at me I would probably be pretty terrified. 

I loved the fight scenes with BW (I thought her scene in IM2 was pretty sweet, luchador moves and all!).  The interrogation scene where she takes out the guys while still strapped to the chair was great and her scuffle with Clint was pretty good too.

Man I really gotta see this movie again!  I should hopefully be going with my brother next weekend.

Hey Hawk,

As far as acting goes I don't feel there is a significant difference in skill between the two actresses. Yes Jolie won an oscar and I watched that movie and thought she was good, not great and we could have a debate over whether winning an oscar means you are a more skilled actor than others, but since Marisa Tomei and Kim Bassinger have both won oscars it wouldn't be much of an argument, lol. But when you are trying to portray someone as an action hero then physcial conditioning does play a part, that is why lots of these guys and gals get into really good shape before doing those types of roles, Evans, Hemsworth, SJ, Renner and so forth worked hard to make themselves stronger physically to portray their roles. It adds credibility to the fact that they can kick ass and make it seem somewhat believable. You notice that Seymour Phillps Hoffman is never portrayed as an action hero or Meryl Streep, lol. While there is no doubt that Jolie is skinny it is not skinny because she is fit but rather because she practically starves herself to stay so thin you can see that when you do look at her arms and legs as they are painfully thin since she is 5'8 120 pounds which is a good fifteen to twenty pounds underweight for her height.

I have been in martial arts for over 20 years and when I was in my late 20's I fought full contact bouts several times in competition. When I was training for one of my bouts my sensei's wife had a female friend who was a bodybuilder, she was about 5'10 and weighed 160 pounds, all of it muscle. She wanted to train for a the upcoming tournament and she thought it would be great if she could spar with the guys who were training. At the time I was 175 pounds, I worked out every day and could bench press over 300 pounds, so I was fit, strong and had been doing martial arts for about five years. But even though I only outweighed her by only 15 pounds the difference between my upper body strength and her upper body strength was significant. She was a skilled fighter but her punches were very easy to shrug off even if she got in a clean shot, whereas her kicks were just as powerful as any mans. So this was a woman who was in incredible shape and was had a very strong upper body for a woman. So now take Jolie who weighs 120 pounds with stick like arms and you think it is plausible that if she punches a guy in the face or body that he is going to be knocked down or stunned by that punch, no way. Maybe if she is fighting an out of shape, wimpy guy but an in shape, strong guy who is a competent fighter would destroy her becuase he would have a good fifty pounds on her, have the reach advantage in most cases and be significantly stronger than she is. Even if she were a very skilled fighter she would be at a disadvantage and she certainly wouldn't be relying on punches to win a fight rather she would use her legs where the strength differential is much more even between men and women. Which leads me to SJ.

SJ used a combination of Akido, a very effective martial art for in close fighting that allows you to use your opponents strength aganist them with submission holds, tae kwon do and yes a few wrestling moves thrown in their but she used her legs alot which a woman would have to do if she was fighting a fit man. So when you state that Jolie just punches guys and wins fights it adds even more strength to my argument because as I have stated above that is a sure fire way for her to get her ass kicked by a fit male who is a competent fighter.

I am suprised about your comments in regards to SJ's fear when the Hulk is chasing her and afterwards. First of all the movies have established that while BW has faced lots of difficult things in her life she has never faced the Hulk but she is all too aware of his destructive potential since they have video of him. No matter how experienced she is she has never faced anything like this and showing that even heroes get scared humanizes them and makes them more accessible and also makes us connect better to them in a movie so that was a shrewd move by Whedon. Also I can tell you that sometimes after a full contact bout I would have so much adrenaline pumping through me that I would get the shakes it was a combination of exhaustion and fear and is also called battle fatigue. So yeah she would be shaking after having survived the Hulk who would scare the **** out of any rational human being trained or not, because her adrenaline would have gone crazy and if she showed no fear she wouldn't be a human being. So not having her show fear would be a mistake and completely unrealistic and yes I know this a comic book movie but the more you can ground your character in reality the better the audience is able to relate and that is one of the reasons this movie is so successful is because Whedon did a nice job of grounding the movie where he could. What was cool is that when Fury made the call if anyone could help even though she was battling the shakes she pulled herself together and answered the call, which is the sign of a true professional warrior. She mastered her fear and pushed forward. Also when she was running from the Hulk even though she was scared she kept her head and managed to stay ahead of him instead of freezing like most people would have done, that is where her experience for dealing with tough situations comes in. As far as the scene when she first confronts Banner there is no doubt that again she was keyed up in case Banner Hulked out and he was being so mellow and calm and then all of a sudden he slams the table and yells at her again it was a very human reaction to react in the way she did because she was keyed up.

As far as Weaver goes she was awesome but she is a person who rises up to do great things because she has to, not a trained warrior or assassin and you note she doesn't hand to hand the aliens, rather she shoots them or uses huge forklift robotic things to fight them, lol. As far as Bruce Willis goes I do enjoy Die Hard mostly because Alan Rickman is by far the most entertainig thing of that movie as the villain Hans, in fact if I would have been directing Hans would have gotten away. At that point Bruce was not in great shape but after that in his subsequent roles he did hit the gym and bulked up quite a bit.

Well this is fun it has been a while since we argued, lol. I guess we are too busy playing ME3 to argue, lol. Hope you can play tonight, have a good one.