RJ Dalton said:
Might I remind you that Stephany Meyer was also a celebrated and well-loved writer in her sphere as well? Popularity is nothing more than an accident of circumstance.
Comparing Whedon to Meyer is an apples to oranges situation. Meyer has a small fanbase that like her works but it is generally criticised heavily by critics. Whedon, on the other hand, has consistently received acclaim and been recognised for his work by all sorts of organisations. When you?re talking about a guy who has won awards such as an Emmy, Eisner, Nebula and been nominated for an Oscar for screenwriting, you need a stronger argument than popularity.
RJ Dalton said:
And Joss Whedon is a shit writer. He has no sense of characterization. He only knows how to write two types of characters - smug, sarcastic bad-asses and bimbos
You do realise that ridiculous over generalised comments such as that suggest you have no sense of characterisation, not Whedon? After all, when you limit every character to two archetypes you?re using such broad strokes that you?re ignoring all characteristics and nuances that actually compose characterisation. Either that or you?re just demonstrably wrong and haven?t thought your argument through at all.
Let?s apply your theory to the Avengers, shall we? Well, there are no bimbos for a start, given the definition google offers is that of an ?attractive but empty headed young woman?. In terms of the main characters: The only characters who act smug are Tony and in one scene Natasha and both of them show completely different characteristics. It seems that you think two characters sharing a characteristic equals bad writing, which is nonsensical. Bruce, Alfred and Lucius are all sarcastic at points; they must be the same character, what a hack those Nolans are!
RJ Dalton said:
- and his "wit" is nothing more than pandering to nerds who used to use sarcastic quips to feel superior to bullies.
So, other than the ad hominem towards his fans, do you want to explain why his wit is poorly written?
RJ Dalton said:
In the end, his characters all sounds the same because they all make the same kinds of statements; there's not a single line one of them might say that you can't imagine them all saying, because they're all sarcastic, smug dipshits who can't resist making a "clever" remark when there's an opportunity.
That is an appallingly thought out complaint on a number of levels. Firstly, lines of dialogue exist within the context of scenes which means depending on the scenario some lines could be delivered by any number of characters. This obviously makes the concept of looking at individual lines in a vacuum suspect at best. Furthermore, writing different characters is not about making every individual line immediately attributable to a specific character because that doesn?t represent reality at all. When discussing the science of the Tesseract, a few characters could ask ?does Loki need any particular kind of power source?? because multiple characters fall under the umbrella of non scientists who are trying to work out Loki?s plan.
When it comes to general lines, there are plenty that would only make sense coming from specific characters: ?Love is for children, no pain will prise his need from him, no hard feelings Point Break, there?s only one god ma?am and I?m pretty sure he doesn?t dress like that, I?m not like you, I?m exposed like a nerve? etc etc. That comment doesn?t hold up to even the smallest bit of scrutiny.
RJ Dalton said:
Think about how Captain America was portrayed in his first movie. He was a polite, friendly, sometimes awkward, but an extremely motivated young man who got lucky and happened to be picked for the super-soldier project because he had the right personality that the doctor was looking for.
Now tell me, what about that kind of character strikes you as responding to Tony Stark saying "Oh, somebody here speaks English" with "Oh, so that's what that was," in a smug voice, because hurr hurr, he are so clevurr! Or cock-fighting with another character with lines like "Big man in a suit! Take that away and what are you?" as if he were a high school bully trying to talk down the smart kid in class?
When it comes to character writing, Joss Whedon has no talent.
Edit: My apologies to Lieju. I accidentally clicked the quote button to the wrong person's post and then didn't realize it was still there when I posted.
You?ve misremembered both the line and delivery. It?s ?is that what just happened??you added the ?oh, so that?s what? section to make it sound snarky when the delivery was obviously that of hopeless inquiry. That also makes sense because Cap is new to the time period and constantly surrounded by things which are beyond him and he feels irrelevant and out of place. You also seem to have deliberately misread the context of the ?big man? line as Cap was specifically calling out Stark for acting like an arrogant bully which is directly in line with his solo film characterisation. That?s not hugely surprising though because, as has been noted, Whedon did a re-write of that film.