The Arc of Thor

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As the year comes to a close, it has been announced that Disney had broken a box office record. In 2013 its worldwide box office was over 4 billion dollars. This was achieved almost exclusively by the performance of this year’s two releases from Marvel Studios; Iron Man 3 and Thor: The Dark World.

I’m sure every studio took notice. At this stage Marvel seems unbeatable at the box office and I’m sure that there are some very smart people trying to figure out how to duplicate that success.

There are, of course, several factors that have led to this success. But I want to focus on two that I feel other studios are going to have a hard time copying, and the sad thing is that one of those shouldn’t be a problem.

The one that is problematic to copy is the interwoven nature of the Marvel films. As far as most fans are concerned both movies were part of the same series, and they only had to wait months for them, not years. And next year we get two more. I’m sure studios would love to get something like that going, but only Warner Brothers with the DC franchises have a shot, and they seem determined to shoot themselves in the foot with regards to that.

The other, that should be easy to copy but won’t be, is how Marvel handles character arcs. In short, Marvel does not back track on their character development. Whatever changes a character goes through in one movie are still present at the beginning of the next. It seems simple but it is not that common.

To illustrate this point, I want to focus on Thor as he has one of the most dramatic arcs in the series. Warning, there will be some Dark World spoilers in here.

In the first Thor movie he is brash, headstrong, and hungry for glory. He nearly provokes a war needlessly and is punished by being stripped of his powers and exiled. During this exile he learns humility and, after seeing destruction from a human level, is more tempered in his approach, throughout this process he learns to care for people.

In the Avengers, he is no longer seeking glory and regrets the destruction he can cause, but he is still headstrong as shown in his first meeting with Iron Man and Captain America. Over the course of this film, he learns to not just rush in and be a team player.

At the beginning of Dark World we see Thor no longer rushes in, and even gives his enemies a chance to surrender. When the rest of the warriors are celebrating their victory, he is sitting quietly, no longer concerned with glory. By the end, he embraces his destiny as guardian of the nine realms, and chooses to live on Earth.

At no point does he lose any of the lessons he learned between movies and his character is constantly moving forward.

Let’s compare this to the rebooted Star Trek movies. In the first movie Kirk has to learn to not be bull headed and work with his crew, especially Spock, to save the day. In the end, he is awarded command of the Enterprise.

In the sequel, he starts off making a bull headed move that has him lose his command and he needs to find a way to work with his crew, especially Spock, to save the day, eventually getting his command back. Basically, in the second movie things were reset to how they were in the first movie in an effort to give the audience something familiar.

Of the two, which do you prefer?

For me, the big test of this is going to be when Captain America: The Winter Soldier comes out. This is because it will feature the Black Widow, who is a character that has been moving around the Marvel Cinematic Universe rather than attached to one specific franchise. It will be interesting to see where she is after the events of The Avengers and how that has changed her.

Of course they could just give us a Black Widow centric movie.

Anyway, I look forward to where the Marvel movies are going, and can only hope that other studios learn this lesson.

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. review

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I doubt any series this fall had more anticipation than Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. did. It had the best quality any new show could hope for, a pre-existing fan base. As an official part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe it could bring in the fans of those movies, especially The Avengers as it ties directly in to events from that film.

But tying in to one of the most successful films of all time is no guarantee of success. So how does Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. fare?

Let’s find out.

The best thing that Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.  has going for it is the character of Agent Phil Coulson played by Clark Gregg. Coulson has appeared in four of the Marvel Cinematic Universe movies and been the star of two short features. Two years ago I wrote an article called the Eighth Avenger that was speculation based on the fact that Tom Hiddleston had said Loki was going up against eight heroes, and I was trying to figure out who the eighth hero was. Clearly, after the events of The Avengers he was including Coulson in the count of heroes he faced.

Coulson has a huge fan base. Within days of the release of The Avengers there was a fan campaign to bring back Coulson, who was killed during the course of the film. The series is basically the fans getting what they asked for. Marvel even used the fan created hashtag #Coulsonlives in its ad campaign.

For those who have not tuned into the show, the premise is that S.H.I.E.L.D.  Director Nick Fury has given Coulson the go-ahead to form a proactive unit of hand-picked agents whose job will be to investigate strange happenings around the globe.

Making up the team are a mix of agents who Coulson needs to forge into this unit.

First is Melinda May (played by Ming-Na Wen), an old associate of Coulson’s who is something of a legend in S.H.I.E.L.D., but has to be coaxed back into the field after an as yet unexplained incident.

Next is Grant Ward (played by Brett Dalton), an agent who has been trained for solo work (which makes being part of a team uncomfortable for him).

Leo Fitz (played by Iain Caestecker) and Jemma Simmons (played by Elizabeth Henstridge) are the team’s scientific support, and work so closely together they are normally referred to as Fitz-Simmons.

Finally you have Skye (played by Chloe Bennet), a hacker who works with the anti-S.H.E.I.L.D.  hacktivist group Rising Tide, who is brought on in part to convince her (and through her the Rising Tide) that S.H.I.E.L.D. are the good guys. This, of course, makes her the audience surrogate and the way the other characters can provide exposition.

Behind the scenes, the series is produced by Joss Whedon, with the show run by his brother Jed and sister-in-law Maurissa Tancharoen, with Jeffrey Bell and Jeph Lobe.

On the plus side, the series has the tie-ins with the Marvel movies, as well as a chance to bring in more characters and concepts from the comics. There have already been cameos in the first two episodes by Cobie Smulders and Samuel L. Jackson, reprising their movie roles and Maria Hill and Nick Fury. The third episode also hints at being the origin story of the Marvel villain Graviton.

You also have Coulson himself, who brings his character’s trademark dry humor to the role, as well as providing the show with the ongoing mystery of how Coulson survived being stabbed with the alien staff by Loki. So far, all we know is that the story Coulson himself has been told is false, and that little things about him are off. Fan speculation is rampant about what the real story is.

There are great performances from the entire cast, but this also points out a couple of the shows weaknesses.

One weakness is that we are not getting an even playing field in regards to character development. Most episodes have had a focus on Skye, and thus she has gotten the majority of that development. Fitz and Simmons, on the other hand, have had almost none and I can’t say I know more about them than at episode five than I did from the pilot.

There is also a huge disconnect in the idea that this is a hand-picked elite team. This idea works great with Coulson, May, and Ward. Fitz and Simmons on the other hand are great in the lab, but every time they take them into the field they come off as borderline incompetents.

Overall, the team has the feel of your standard Whedon show: a talented team of misfits who are great in some areas but terrible in others come together and ultimately form a makeshift family unit. Great in most cases, but this is supposed to be an elite government task force.

This is not to say the show is bad; I am enjoying it very much. The problem is that, considering it is an official Marvel show, there are some pretty high expectations that are not being met and this is leaving people feeling disappointed.

However, I think it is fair to point out that only five episodes have aired. Whedon’s last show Dollhouse basically had similar complaints, but suddenly changed gears and really took off with its sixth episode.

So, for right now, I am going to give Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.  a grade of C+. It is a decent effort, but it needs to pick up steam.

At the end of this season I will do another review of the series, and we will see what the final grade is then.