The Marvel Universe after THOR: THE DARK WORLD…

Saw THOR: THE DARK WORLD yesterday and enjoyed it mucho. A good story, a new/original (as far as my Marvel comics memory can recall) threat, and some great interaction between Thor and Loki. A very cool-looking and interesting movie-realization of the dark elves, particularly Malekith (a clever way to re-create the comic's version's harlequin appearance) and Kurse/Algrim, whom I first met under Simonson's watch. Better, funner writing than the first movie, and some great fun with wormholes. =)

That's as much as I'm gonna jot right now in the way of a "review." What I really want to get to before I forget anything are the epilogues…

Beware. What follows is a SPOILER-ful rambling on the epilogues of the second THOR film…

I was *really* hoping to get a tease of Coulson sucking down some mead and exchanging headbutts with Viking heroes in Valhalla, or haunting the wastes of Niffelheim, perhaps trying to get a message to one of the Asgardian warriors. Alas, no. But then, any Asgardian time of Coulson's should've been spent in the past compared to the timeline of this movie anyway. O well.

EPILOGUE 1.

We see Volstagg and Sif meet The Collector, played by Benicio Del Toro (! =), to deliver to him one of the Infinity Gems. Apparently Odin has decided that it is too dangerous to keep the gems of the Infinity Gauntlet in the same vault as the Tesseract. On the surface, good thinking, as Asgard and Odin's weapons vault have been compromised or nearly so twice within two years.

The Collector is an Elder of the Universe, one of the I-can't-remember-how-many longest lived beings in the cosmos, each of whom in their old age has become unofficial patron alien of some aspect of existence or another. The Collector collects. He prizes endangered and one-of-a-kind items or beings of the cosmos. In the comic book universe he maintains a world of various artificial environments that are homes to samples or the last of thousands of species. In the comic book universe, the Elders for a time were the keepers of the Infinity Gems and the Collector possessed the yellow Reality gem.

In the THOR epilogue, the case that contains the gem glows red from the inside. The red stone was identified in the comics as the Power gem. The Collector accepts the gem and remarks on the wise decision to separate the gems, from each other and the Tesseract, apparently. Once his guests have gone, the Collector says to himself, "One down… Five to go."

The container for the gem is a little confusing to me. If I didn't know about the Infinity Gems and Gauntlet, the case for the gem would appear to be a miniature version of the containment device that once held the Aether (two black stones/boxes, with the red glowing Aether permitted to radiate from a tight space between them). In the movie universe, is the an Infinity Gem meant to be made of Aether? Since we've already seen the Gauntlet in the vault in the first THOR movie, that really doesn't work for me. I'm pretty certain that Sif or Volstagg called it an "Infinity Gem" ("Infinity Stone?"), too, and referred to there being more than one. So, I think the visual, for the un-Marvel-initiated, might be confusing.

It *would* be kind of interesting to have the gems created or materialize over the course of several Marvel movies, tho, but that would require making them separate and distinct from the Infinity Gauntlet that cameo'd in the first THOR. Why bother, right?

And… The Collector knows there are five more. So yeah. Screw the Aether-as-gem notion. Just a not-very-well-thought-out (or maybe too-overthought on my part) visual design coincidence, right?

Kind of a reach, tacking this on to the end of this movie. I mean, there's no real plot connection between what happens in the film and the events of this epilogue. That's kinda disappointing, but maybe I guess it's just practical, and good use of a now-established channel for tipping fans off about activities that happen behind the scenes, y'know?

Bringing the Collector in sets off my GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY alarm. And for me, it also puts some more movie-time/distance between the present and an ultimate confrontation with Thanos and that is a Good Thing as far as I'm concerned. Thanos is one of The Biggest Bads, and throwing the Avengers and Guardians at him will be awesome, but best done after they've gone a few rounds with other bads (Ultron and the Elders).

EPILOGUE 2.

Thor beams in from Asgard to Jane Foster's apartment in London and they immediately smooch it up. Sorry, Sif.

Then, a cut to the abandoned shipping warehouse where the first Nine-Worlds-Conjunction wormholes appeared, shipping containers now stacked normally. A small flock of pigeons zips across the scene, followed by a bounding Asgardian beastie (I thought it came from Loki's homeland, the realm of the frost giants, Jotunheim, but not certain) chasing after them and trying to snap a few up in its jaw.

I suspect that the AGENTS OF SHIELD will end up being assigned clean-up on this little fella. Might be an opportunity to get more of the Coulson backstory if it is in fact entangled with an afterlife stay in Asgard.

Hrm… Another way to get the AGENTS more tightly woven to movie events would be to have them stumble upon one of the other Gems. Ohhh… The Soul Gem! That might be a final piece to a Coulson puzzle… OR a VISION puzzle! Wack!

How would they end up working a Gem case? An Asgardian delegation to one of the other Elders/Gem trustee might be intercepted or randomly attacked by enemies of Asgard, or perhaps the Centipede guys, or AIM or HYDRA. If they're capable of hacking SHIELD they might get some up-to-date intel that with some ESPer and Extremis help could give them the advantage of surprise in an attack on a couple of Asgardians in Midgard airspace, right? Anyhow, the Asgardians would smite them, but perhaps not without losing their package.

But to whom on Earth would Odin entrust such an object of power?

How about Doctor Strange? =)

Keep on keepin on~

* November 10, 2013. After a second screening, I found that I missed or misunderstood some of the dialogue in the first epilogue. For updated crazy talk based on a better understanding check out this post. The main of the error is that Volstagg (and the Marvel movie universe) take both the Aether and the Tesseract to be Infinity Stones. Note that it does not undo a lot of my more fun speculation here. =)

Son of Coul

Just want to get my meandering thoughts on a Coulson-Asgard connection down in one place before I see THOR 2 sometime this weekend, especially in light of the latest AGENTS OF SHIELD episode. And now… some crazy talk =)

In THE AVENGERS Coulson was speared by Loki, an Asgardian god. He died heroically. In Norse tradition, what happens to a hero when he dies? He is taken to Valhalla! Otherwise, if a Norseman dies an unremarkable death, he might end up in Niflheim (I'm not certain if that's the same as Hel?) he becomes the subject of Hela, Norse goddess of the dead and daughter, somehow, of Loki.

I (want to) believe the Coulson did in fact die from Loki's attack, but because he was killed by an Asgardian, Asgardian death/afterlife protocols rule, and he—or perhaps his soul—is sent to Valhalla or Hel. As Asgardians are not meant to be worshipped as gods anymore by humans, this is something of an unnatural happening, an automatic exploitation of a kind of death loophole, an error that needs to be corrected. And it wouldn't be just Coulson, but any human whose life was taken by Loki (collateral damage in Germany and NYC, along w some SHIELD and Project Pegasus agents).

On Asgard, Odin would be the first to detect this. Actually, he might not need to notice a disturbance in the Asgardian force to know that this has occurred. Remember, Odin's ravens were on Midgard watching everything during THE AVENGERS.

Of course, Hela would no doubt hide/not mention it to any of the other Asgardians, as Coulson would be the first new humans she's welcomed in a long time. On their natural deaths, these humans should be consigned to the afterlives of their belief systems, and not pressed into Hela's service by circumstance beyond their control.

On Earth, Coulson might appear to those he was closest to, as a waking vision *ominous music*, or in dreams. Who that would be that we've already met… Fury? Hill? Pepper? The cellist? May from AGENTS? Or maybe Thor, as the Asgardian with the most quality time w the man.

Perhaps Odin has a way by which these human souls can be returned to Earth, alive (meaning that when they're back on earth, they'd be able to visit their own graves with their actual dead bodies). So, Odin would dispatch Thor to confront Hela and seek their return.

If she is not cooperative, Thor would storm Hel—I'd love to see Cap and Iron Man join him, maybe Loki would be pressed into service as well—and rescue Coulson, along with all of the other humans wrongly killed by Loki in his attacks upon Midgard. Odin should probably wave his hands and close the loophole that allowed for this misfiling of deceased humans, too.

An adjustment to my original thinking, which had Coulson trapped in Hel, providing us with a reason/excuse to have Avengers and SHIELD storm Hela's domain and battle all manner of undead beasties… Now, I think that Odin detects humans in Hel and Thor and the Avengers assume that Coulson must be among them. Once they kick Hel's ass and collect all the human souls there, they find that he's not among them. It's then that Odin talks them thru the rules of the Norse afterlife, specifically, the death of a hero. And then Odin summons a valkyrie (What's Valkyrie's name?) to bring Coulson to them. He offers him the choice of staying or returning to Earth. Coulson explains, "I'm no hero. I'm just a man with a job to do. I'd like to get back to it."

And so, Thor and company and the rescued humans return to Midgard. The humans' memory of their time in Asgard quickly fades, perhaps as a result of Odin's magicks, perhaps in obedience to Asgardian law or the self-preservation of human sanity. Y'know, the usual convenient reasons. Coulson remembers his time as "magical" and is hypnotically or psychically made to believe that it was spent in Tahiti. To shore that up with actual memory, perhaps part of his recuperation time was actually spent there.

I think that the first season of AGENTS OF SHIELD is going to revisit Coulson's post-death time in Asgard. Maybe someone/something hitched a ride back with him—maybe something bad, the Red Skull, maybe something good, Captain Marvel? Perhaps he unwittingly did something that ties him to Asgard, a la Persephone and the pomegranate seeds, requiring him to return so many days each year. Or maybe it was part of the spell or bargain that had to be struck to allow him to return to Midgard as a human, putting him in service of Odin, or Karnilla, or even Hela herself.

Anyhow, they'll encounter some Asgard-related threat that will bring Coulson's after-life misadventure in "Tahiti" to the forefront.

What does Coulson know? He knows that he's different. He's had a medical workup done to see if he's physiologically different. However, nothing seems inconsistent with his expectations. But what would those expectations be? Proper diagnostics for an enhanced LMD (based on Phineas Horton's Human Torch android tech), or the healthy test results of a human being? 

What does everyone else think? May, Fury, and the SHIELD doc all seem to believe that Coulson is somehow not-Coulson. Little jokey remarks from Coulson himself seem to worry May that he may be aware that he's not fully human. The thing is (and the great thing for writing it is) that we don't know if Coulson is consciously teasing his colleagues (and us) or not.

The Coulson-in-Valhalla/Hel scenario can allow for him to return to Earth in his body, cuz hey! Asgardian superscience! However, I'd really really like for that to have been impossible, and that his soul could only return to Earth in a vessel of some sort. I'm thinking an LMD modified with Coulson's DNA for the organic bits. How much would Coulson love taking up residence in the original Human Torch's body, right? =)

Oh, wait. Okay.

Coulson is speared on the helicarrier. He dies.

Fury has his body taken to a secret lab on the carrier where his brain/memories/engrams/whatnot are recorded and saved and saved.

SHIELD docs then use his DNA to create an LMD clone of Coulson at the age of his death (reproducing all of his scars along the way). They then program the LMD's brain with Coulson's recording, adding the magical Tahiti placeholder after his spearing and death.

This is who's running the Agents of SHIELD team. A copy of Coulson. Which is kind of amazing, considering how human, humanely, and compassionately he's been behaving. It is NOT Coulson.

However, a trip to Asgard might allow for this LMD to become the *complete* Coulson, by superscientifically adding the fallen Coulson's ghost to the machinery.

And this artificial LMD body could be capable of harnessing tech and powers and abilities that a normal human body could not, like, let's say, producing and storing energy from solar radiation, the control of the density of its molecules, which would allow for flight, enhanced strength, and intangibility. Doubt it? Hey, did you see this week's ep of AGENTS? Hel-LO! The Chitauri virus does exactly that! Sure in a HUMAN body it ends up killing the host, but how about an LMD and/or the Torch's body? They're giving us the pieces to this puzzle. Coulson would then be The Vision.

Or, wait. No.

Coulson does make it back from Asgard/Valhalla/Hel, in an Odin Force-restored human body. LMD Coulson becomes The Vision. LMD Coulson joins the Avengers roster and human Coulson takes his place as leader of the Agents.

Kinda weird for the Agents, I know, but I like that we get to have both Coulson and Vision at the end of this. Which probably means it's too good to be true/happen.

*sigh*

I hope you enjoyed my crazy talk. =)

If you're interested, check out some earlier, related crazy talk…

Post-AVENGERS crazy talk

Post-AVENGERS crazy talk 2

Setting up for the next AVENGERS…

Keep on keepin on~

ESCAPE FROM TOMORROW

ESCAPE FROM TOMORROW. (October 15, 2013 @Somerville Theatre).

A remarkable feat of filmmaking! It combines guerilla-style-shot footage on location in Disneyworld with some simple strategic effects work and an intrepid cast to tell the story of an average American family's fried crack-up of a misadventure in the happiest place on earth (tm). I'm pretty sure you can tell if you'll enjoy it by whether or not you like the trailer.

Spoilery brain dump follows…

The conceit that allows for the twisted weirdness of the film is a combination of the father's won't-quit libido (he insists on following a couple of French-speaking teen waifs around the park) and a CDC alert about the spread of something called the cat flu. Apparently, the father has it, and the things he sees and experiences are tainted by the fever and delirium it brings on.

I was hoping for an overarching conspiracy/master plan to connect everything, but while there are hints of more, the explanation of the weirdness experienced by the family really does seem to start and stop with the flu.

For a while I thought an "Owl Creek" scenario, with cat flu being the cause of demise might fit, but it doesn't quite account for everything. For instance, one of the extra tail endings involves an alternate version of Dad showing up at the hotel with a different family just as his body is being driven away. A nice tease of… something.

Altho, I suppose Dad could actually be Owl-Creeking seeing his own body taken away… Maybe it does cover everything. Hrm…

There's some weirdness with the father's behavior in regards to his relation to and responsibilities involving the kids. At first it seems like he might be a stepfather or mother's boyfriend, and during a flu trip (during "It's A Small World" I think), he sees/hears his wife tell him, "You're not his father, you know." But over the balance of the film, he seems to own the legit fatherhood role, if pretty irresponsibly.

Dad. He begins his last full day at Disney out on the balcony of his hotel room, talking to his boss on the phone. Just before (?) the boss informs Dad that he's been let go, he tells him that he absolutely has to try the "Soarin'!" ride. After the phone call, the Boy wakes up and locks his father out on the balcony then goes back to sleep next to his mom on the bed. Dad then calls Mom from the balcony, who wakes up and answers, "Where are you?"

Also while he's out there, he notices a van pulling up to the front of the hotel and some kind of jumpsuited technician or operator get out and look up in his direction. He sees the same thing the next day.

Hrm… I'm confused now about how many days pass in the course of the movie. I thought it was one full day, but maybe it's two.

On the monorail ride over to the park, the Dad notices the French-speaking waifs in their car. They seem to take a shine to the Boy, but one of them might be making eyes at him as well. In any case, he takes every opportunity throughout the day to follow them around the park, which isn't difficult, as they consistently cross paths even when it seems he's lost them. In a hotel gift shop, his wife even notices that he's looking at a "Learn Just Enough French" book, and at the hotel pool, he shamelessly swims over to the girls while ignoring his son (who's just fine).

Late in the day, after cleaning up his bloody sock in a public restroom (he cuts his foot on broken glass in the hotel room), one of the waifs actually approaches him and invites him to join her and her friends. She says something about only wanting to help him, or save him, I think, but tempted as Dad is, he rejects her offer. Her farewell response is a face-spraying spit-take, flashed back to later when Dad apparently connects it to his cat flu symptoms. Kinda thin. And weird, considering it's an intentional spit-take and delivered long after he starts suffering hallucinations. Maybe she was trying to immunize him?

Note that at the fireworks show that night, the waifs are holding hands with the two boys they meet at the pool. The combination of pose and shot had me thinking "ritual" somehow.

At one point in the day Mom asks Dad, "Did you have another blackout?" as if he's had blackouts before. In this case, when Mom asks, Dad has *not* actually had one. However, later, after he meets the Witch, he seems to lose time between talking with her on the bench and then having her pendant slap him in the face while having sex.

I like this actor. He reminds me of a mix of Ken Marino and Harrison Ford. Together with the kid who plays his son in this, I'd dig seeing them in another/other creepy movie scenarios.

The Boy. The Siemens scientist guy berates Dad for not following directions. Apparently his boss w the accent, who fired him over the phone that morning, was supposed to tell him to take the boy to a certain ride (Soarin'?), and the scientist guy had to work to manipulate things—shutting down the Buzz Lightyear ride—so that would work out. But it seems like it didn't, because Mom took the Boy and Dad took the Girl to Soarin'. The Siemens scientist's focus on the Boy seems like a Good Direction storywise.It's the Boy who locks him out on the balcony in the morning. It's the Boy's eyes that go completely black during Dad's first weirdout. It's the Boy who closes the bathroom door on his cat-flu-ridden Dad in the hotel room the next early morning. It's the Boy whom the Disney henchman focuses on when they arrive to remove Dad's cat-transmogrified body. I would have liked to have seen the Boy as some kind of chosen one. Maybe a reincarnation of W? Maybe the second generation result of an experiment performed on Dad when he visited Epcot as a child?

Cat Flu. Would have liked to have had this to be revealed as a product of the Siemens secret lab. Or Disney. Something that is released on the theme park's patrons to turn them into new theme park workers or attractions. Maybe it was a failed such thing, a prototype Tigger Flu? Dad was coughing hairballs into the toilet (but we never saw him lick his arms or anything : P) and when the Disney henchmen check his body in the morning, he has cat's eyes.

The Mom. By the end of the film, she seems to be succumbing to the flu as well. When she spots the Parisian girl passing by, the girl's face morphs into something demonic.

The Girl. She starts the movie afraid of witches but learns that they're not real. Then she gets abducted by the sex-princess-witch, but comes to no harm. Dad finds her pretending to be Sleeping Beauty, apparently happily engaged in a make-believe game w the Witch. She skins her knee when the Rascal's bully of a son knocks her down. Dad takes her to a Disney first aid station where a hot Disney nurse cleans and bandaids the Girl's knee while Dad does some unsubtle ogling. It's here where we learn that anyone might be a host for a new brand of flu. We see a CDC poster warning of "Cat Flu" on the wall behind her. When Dad and the Girl leave the infirmary, the nurse breaks down and cries, apparently broken up over their imminent doom.

Sex-Princess-Witch. A married woman who befriends Dad while they watch their kids playing in some little safe zone of the park. She wonders aloud at when/under what conditions it's okay and becomes not okay for a person to embrace a total stranger. This in light of seeing kids hugging make-believe princesses at the park. She claims that Japanese businessmen pay top dollar to see these princesses after hours. She then takes it back as a joke.

Later, she reveals that she used to be one of these princesses.

Yeah, see, there's a lot going on here. A lot of potentially great and fun stuff. Unfortunately (for me), they're all given equal weight and discredit in the end by the death of Dad by cat flu. I kinda wish that this had been three or four shorts in a possibly interconnected anthology about a family that meets its end at Disneyworld, with causes ranging from simple human nature to flu-induced delirium to social/bio-engineering conspiracy.

Still, it's a pretty awesome trip. If you're at all intrigued by the idea of this film or its making, you should see it. =)

Keep on keepin on~

P.S. As a lovely bonus, we got the most perfect trailer before the screening =)

P.P.S. Did any screening of this film actually bring the lights up for the Intermission? Didn't happen in mine, and I didn't register it as a demarcation point between a first, slightly fried part of the film, and a second, totally gonzo wackjob part of the film.

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Keep on keepin on~

THE WORLD'S END: the end is nigh (in Boston, at least)

UPDATE! October 3, 2013. THE WORLD'S END *CONTINUES* at the Capitol Theatre in Arlington!

Greetings, Programs!

"Urgent" "news"—It looks like this is the last week that THE WORLD'S END plays on the big screen in Bostonia. It's currently playing at the Somerville Theatre in Davis Square and the Regal Fenway in Boston.

Fenway's got it at 6:40pm thru Thursday and 9:55pm thru Wednesday…

The Somerville is playing it at 4:45pm and 9:40pm thru Thursday…

I'm game for any of those showtimes (tonight's included), with a preference for the Davis Square location (alas, it's no longer playing in the main room). Anyone wanna join me for one night, five friends, twelve pubs, sixty pints, aka BARMAGEDDON? Let me know!

And, hey! Y'know what, forget me (difficult, I know) and just go see it! =)

And for those of you beyond the Boston movie zone, look up your local options and get out there and see THE WORLD'S END in a theater before it's gone!

Keep on keepin on~

P.S. If you can't remember why you should see it—my (no spoiler) pitch.

P.P.S. Also, check out IN A WORLD… It started a week or two later, so you've got more time, but no lollygagging!

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