Poll: Which Avengers movie was better?

[murrayb67]

The first one by a slim margin, the extended cut could change that by fleshing things out a bit more so it's less choppy. It's actually a personal bee in my bonnet. If a film needs to be long to tell the story correctly, then make it long. Ben-Hur would be either edited to death or split into two films to double the ticket sales these days.

 

[Xeros]

To be fair, Loki's plan completely fails as well, he takes control of a few people, steals a meteor, he manages to break the avengers down and piss them off and gets an alien army to invade, but all that is repelled by the avengers,

Spoiler

ultron convinces 2 kids to join him, steals Vibranium, Wanda uses her powers to break the avengers...which again pisses them off and has a robot army invade which again is repelled by the avengers xD

It's generally the same, Loki just seemed to do more cause of the invasion.

Spoiler

True, but at least Loki -got- to the invasion part. He had a few wins along the way. Ultron loses his partners, loses his new body, couldn't get into the nuke codes because he never really killed JARVIS, makes insignificant upgrades to his suit and army, picks up a city, loses it and everyone on it, has a little chat with Vision, and then loses.

 

[Darth Rosenberg]

Ew... UK title? Couldn't you just go with The Avengers like everyone actually calls it?

I voted for the first. I think The Winter Soldier, Iron Man 3, Guardians, Cap 1 and Iron Man are all better than Age Of Ultron. It was fun, and obviously better made than most non-Marvel Studios comicbook flicks, but as much as I love Joss, I disagree with his insistence on essentially trying to make a standalone film. Not enough went to changing things up for Civil War, and the new characters were infinitely more interesting than, in particular, Stark and Thor.

I buy all the MCU films (Iron Man 2's the only one I've not got. because it's bloody awful), so AoU will be added to the collection when it comes out. But I think the MCU became too unwieldy for even Joss this time around, and it shows.

Haven't watched the 2nd one as I refuse to spend money on it due to it's man hating director.

Hah! That was--- erm, irony or something, right? One would assume so.

 

[HardkorSB]

You can watch the first one as a stand alone movie.
It's impossible to do so with the second one.
That alone puts the first above the second.

The second one had better action sequences but that's about it.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

First one. Even though Ultron is fuckin' cool, Loki was more fun to watch because of what he's done in Thor. And it was more fun seeing all of them together for the first time, there was no stupid romance tacked in for god knows what reason and it had less annoying "witty" one-liners.
It also felt like a payoff after all of the other movies. Avengers 2 felt more like an introduction to phase 3. Which it is. It's still a ridiculously fun and great movie. Just not as good as the first one.

 

[Stg]

While I did enjoy the second movie, I honestly can't recall too many memorable scenes. Not to mention I was hoping they would have changed the formula of the film (avengers fight, avengers get beat, avengers lose hope, avengers split up, avengers come together and win, avengers disperse, end), but I guess they figured if it worked for the first, it will work again.

 

[Lilani]

The first one was, without a doubt, a better movie. It had a tighter narrative, had much less going on in it, and accomplished exactly what it needed to do. All while still showcasing every member of the Avengers pretty well.

Spoiler: Spoilers

The second one, if I had to describe it with one word, was congested. There was just so much going on - Setting up the exits of multiple avengers, introducing new ones, bringing back SHIELD, setting up the antogonism between Stark and the team for Civil War, a romance subplot they needed to build from the ground up, multiple characters internal issues... its was just too much.

But I don't want to just dump on the Avengers 2. The entire cast performed excellently, and James Spader was, as usual, an absolute delight to watch, even if he was CGI the whole time. And there were definitely much cooler scenes in the second Avengers. And that marble statue at the end was sweet.

I definitely agree with this. Avengers "assembled" their principle cast pretty early on and spent the rest of its time working on their chemistry together, leading to that big triumphant battle at the end where they finally pull themselves together and work as the team they're supposed to be. In Age of Ultron, they didn't stop adding to their cast until practically the finale, which made the big battle at the end feel rushed and overshadowed by the other game-changing events that literally just happened.

I still enjoyed it a lot and I don't at all regret paying for IMAX 3D, but comparing the two the first Avengers is certainly superior. And I think Age of Ultron pulled off what it was trying to pull off as well as it possibly could have, but there was just so much going on at once it simply didn't feel as tight.

 

[WhiteFangofWhoa]

First one. It did something no other live-action movie before it had done.

I may be a bit too harsh on the second because it didn't match up to what I expected it to do, which was address the complaints about Loki being a weak and ineffective villain by making Ultron the MCU equivalent of the Joker- a nightmarishy dangerous enemy with an insanely twisted perspective who wins at least partly in the end, particularly since he has perhaps won more often than any other Avengers villain in the comics. Even in defeat he always survives on a server somewhere ready to go again, stronger and more malicious than ever. Of course then all of Phase 3 would have to take this into account, and same for Agents of SHIELD. Thus is the curse of such an intimately connected continuity that plagued so many comic books. I guess Thanos will be the one who finally forces them to get completely serious.

Tony Stark's popularity had to have had a hand in the change of Ultron's character to basically an evil version of him (a 'Tony Dark' if you will. I'm sorry). That or they decided that a more robotic cadence and personality couldn't be nearly as menacing. I realize that Marvel's villains tend to be more straightforwardly evil but I do wish Ultron's point about the Avengers being unable to truly help the world because of their attachments and morals was further illustrated before things got rolling. Still good, and I love that Paul Bettany will be staying on as the Vision, but lacks the punch and novelty of the original.

 

[Don Incognito]

The correct answer is Captain America 2: The Winter Soldier.

But of the two films that have "Avengers" in the title, it's the first one.

Also, this:

Haven't watched the 2nd one as I refuse to spend money on it due to it's man hating director.

Wow.

 

[Areloch]

It's a tie. Each has strengths over the other, but both are great fun and almost make me giddy sometimes with how entertaining they are.

On a more interesting note, does it bother anyone else that Tony Stark has, through 5 movies, basically invented the future singlehandedly? There are technological geniuses, there are nigh-Mary-Sue technological wizards, there are just plain overpowered engineers who can make anything they want, and then there is Tony Stark.

He creates an apparently physically impossible technology by himself, in a cave, under guard, out of scrap metal. He improves on this technology so quickly that the one suit becomes dozens of automatic robots that can execute complex maneuvers on their own. He makes a suit-delivery system that can rearm him anywhere, anytime, preparing him for anything. He literally creates life in Ultron, and before you say that he had help doing that with an infinity stone, he had already made a nearly-sapient computer program in JARVIS. Tony Stark can solve every single problem on earth by building a robot to fix it. It's just a little game-breaking, and takes me out of the story sometimes.

Well, just for the sake of discussion and counterpoints:

Technically, it wasn't really scrap metal. It was a small warehouse of Stark's own very modern weapons. So he'd know what's in them and what they could do. The only limitation on the arc reactor was miniaturization, not that it was impossible, just that they hadn't cracked it until then.

As for the robots flying, off the top of my head, I'd have put systems in place that track various points on my body as I'm flying the suit, which I'm willing to bet Tony did since the suits are shown to have small controller flaps and the like to help maneuvering in response to his body's movements. Recording that data and building a physical model based off how Tony flies would be easy.

The delivery system is just an upscaled version of the individual component delivery system that showed up since Iron Man 3.

And JARVIS is nowhere near sapience. That was Tony's point. "JARVIS is impressive, but nothing compared to what's inside the staff". All they really did was take an existing intelligence and build a wrapper that could interface to humanity's computer systems.

And as mentioned in the thread, Tony's entire problem is he thinks he has to solve it all by himself, which is constantly creating other problems. Tony's entire arc in the MCU has basically been him trying to learn how to let other people help him.

On topic now, I think I preferred Ultron, but just by a hair. The action was better, and Ultron was a better villian than Loki in my opinion. As far as evil plans go, Ultron's was pretty solid and, smartly, he activated it with no discernible switch off before dealing with the heroes at all. Loki did a LOT of posturing and it persistently bit him in the butt.

 

[Guffe]

As much as I love James Spader, and seeing him do his shtick as a robot was a joy to watch, he's just not a good villain.

Obviously, you haven't watched the Black List.

Do so. Now.

Red Reddington is Ultron?!?!?!!
Holy fucking Christ I didn't know that!!
I really love Spader in The Blacklist

On Topic:
I don't know which one I'd say is better.

They both have their goods and bads, but the one thing the first one, had which I belive is one reason many think the second one isn't as good, is that it was the first time a shared universe of heroes came together in full blown awesomeness on the silverscreen. So people have too high hopes for the second one, expecting to be blown away a second time. This is just how my friends have reacted.

But as I said, I liked both, but can't decide which one is the better...

 

[Evonisia]

Snip.

This expectation seems to be the main reason I prefer the second over the first. I personally don't get what the major hype was over all the super heroes being in the same film at the same time. Maybe it's because I tend to not have a series mentality when it comes to films. Since the spectacle is completely lost on me (I just see cool scenes, not the context behind them), I am not underwhelmed by the second offering.

Credit to both films though: I typically just cannot be arsed with the supporting cast of most of the heroes in their own films. I think I only like Thor's supporting cast (Human-side), and the supporting cast of Captain America: The First Avenger, most of whom are dead by the time of The Avengers anyway. It's refreshing to see characters I like (and also Tony Stark) act as the majority of the cast.

 

[Shoggoth2588]

Tough choice...I would have liked to see more Ultron but I really liked all of the character moments in the second movie. What the second one lacked though was a definitive scene wherein Ultron had his ass handed to him (unless you count the intimidation scene as he's locking Black Widow in her cell). It wasn't as memetic as Hulk smashing Loki...Sure, Hulk did a Team Rocket on Ultron but it just wasn't the same. I also missed the Assembled scene in the second movie. You know that one ultra-iconic scene from the first movie when Hell is breaking loose in NYC and everyone is assembled, ready to take it on? I don't recall anything like that in the sequel. Other than that, I think I like the second one a bit more.

Spoiler

What's really got me excited was the Team 2 teaser before the credits rolled. Well, maybe they're going to replace the founders but still, I loved that last scene and I'm hoping the third Avengers movie will have room for Spider-Man to make a return as an Avenger.

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

The first one was better for me because it had that "First" moment of seeing The Avengers come together for the first time. I did like the second one, but Ultron could have used more screen time.

 

[Cold Shiny]

In my opinion, an opinion that doesn't matter, the films are too different to even compare, they are two different beasts.

 

[JohnnyDelRay]

I actually prefer the story of the first one, because in Age of Ultron, my favourite Avenger (Iron Man) is basically such a moron, he could very well be the villain. I mean, the whole premise of the movie occurs *because* of him, and his crazy vision for world defence/peace whatever.

But all in all, I found Ultron much more entertaining action-wise, so I'll still vote for that one. It fulfills the aspects that a movie of it's nature should (well for me at least).

 

[flying_whimsy]

Haven't watched the 2nd one as I refuse to spend money on it due to it's man hating director.

I almost skipped the movie for the same reason, but I decided I wasn't going to let his bigotry ruin my ability to enjoy something so many other people worked on and deserve recognition for. Still, it was a pretty tough 'almost'.

The correct answer is Captain America 2: The Winter Soldier.

I agree with you there: I actually felt AoU was weak in comparison to Winter Soldier or even Ironman 3.

OT: I can't actually pick between the two avengers films: I feel like the first one got just about everything right, but the things that the second one got right it totally knocked out of the park (mostly making up for the parts where it fell flat).

I've never seen a character so convincingly insane as Ultron (although I actually wish Bryan Cranston had done the voice instead); he was both sympathetic and terrifying at the same time. It would have helped if the parts where he was being a triumphant badass didn't all happen off screen. I almost feel like he was wasted on this movie.

 

[Smooth Operator]

With Loki in the mix the first one certainly takes the crown, but overall it's about the same. The effects and action are immense and overarching stories aren't bad either.
Where they both suck dick is with the plot and baddies. The bad guys couldn't wipe their own damn ass if the heroes didn't show up, so the whole "fall and rise of heroes" rigmarole just looks silly when your opposition is about as threatening as an angry band of school children. Hulk was probably the most effective bad guy the two movies had... and he isn't even a bad guy.

Obviously this is comic book way of doing things and producers probably felt compelled to stick with it, but there are many leaps to make before these things make a really good movie.