6 Major Writing Problems with Avengers: Age of Ultron – Part 1
By Marcy Kennedy (@MarcyKennedy)
When Avengers first came out, I saw it twice in theaters and brought the DVD as soon as it was available. Very few movies rate highly enough with me to be watched a second time in theater or to be purchased afterward for repeated home viewing.
So I went in to Avengers: Age of Ultron with high expectations…that weren’t met. The trailers looked fantastic, but the movie itself didn’t deliver. The more I’ve thought about it, the sadder it makes me. It makes me sad because of all the missed opportunities. It makes me sad because, given all the money this movie is almost guaranteed to make, some writers out there will use it as an example of how they should be able to do the same–flawed and awful–things in their story. It makes me sad because it sets a precedent for more movies in the future where the special effects and fight scenes are valued over the actual story and character development.
I ended up with enough material for more than a single post on this, so this is going to be a two- to three-part series, but I believe there’s a lot we can learn–as writers–from where this movie went wrong. While I normally like to use only positive examples, things that we should be emulating, I’m making an exception this time because this movie has the potential to send future storytelling in a negative direction. So grab a snack, settle in, and at the end of each post, please let me know what you think.
Mistake #1 – No Character Arcs
I respected Joss Whedon’s writing in The Avengers not only because of his snappy dialogue, but also because he found a way to allow the characters to be unique and to grow, despite the large ensemble cast. As a general guideline, the more characters you have in a story, the more difficult it is to bring each of them to life. One of the ways Whedon did this in The Avengers was through the character arcs.
In The Avengers, Tony Stark wasn’t originally considered for the Avengers Initiative because he doesn’t play well with others. He’s not a team player. Early on in The Avengers, Captain America accuses Stark of not being the type of guy who sacrifices himself for others. He says Stark isn’t the one who’ll lay down on the wire and let others crawl over him. Stark, flippantly, replies he’d just cut the wire.
And then, at the end of the movie, when there is no option to “cut the wire,” Stark has grown enough as a team player that he sacrifices himself to take the nuke into the alien realm and blow them up rather than allowing it to destroy New York and everyone there. Everyone thinks that’s a one-way trip and Stark is going to die. Tony even tries to make one last call to his girlfriend to say goodbye. He’s willing to lay himself down on that wire and make the sacrifice.
Stark isn’t the only one with an arc. In The Avengers, Bruce Banner is the tormented genius who believes he’s a monster and who fears himself as much as other people fear him. He doesn’t believe he has anything of value to offer. He hates himself so much he’s tried to commit suicide. He doesn’t know how to properly harness his anger so, when the movie starts, he’s hiding.
Through the course of the plot, he’s put into situations where he has to face what he is and figure out a way to make peace with the Hulk inside him. He has to accept himself and realize that his anger can be used for good. Because he needs to become part of the world, as the Hulk, to save it. (If you want to see my in-depth look at his character arc, check out my post “It’s Okay to Be Angry.”) The pay-off moment in this arc is where the Hulk smashes Loki into the ground as Loki tries to tell him how worthless he is. He won’t listen to those voices anymore.
In Avengers: Age of Ultron, the groundwork is laid for another growth arc for Tony Stark. He’s going to have to face his narcissism this time…And then it’s never fulfilled. It’s worse than never fulfilled. It’s almost like Stark backslides from where he was in the first movie. So does the Hulk.
In fact, none of the characters have a significant, satisfying arc, and I think that’s in part because of Mistake #2.
Takeaway:
Your main character needs a character arc because great stories are about growth and change. Your character has a problem/character flaw. The story puts them in situations where they must confront and deal with their flaw no matter how much they don’t want to. They’re forced to change. Seriously, that’s all there is to a character arc, and it’s the core of a memorable story. Even in a large or ensemble cast, make sure you give some of the characters a complete and interesting growth arc.
Mistake #2 – Too Many Characters
The Avengers was already an ensemble cast, which can be tricky, but in the first movie, they managed to find the balance. They had six star characters (Tony Stark, Captain America, Bruce Banner, Black Widow, Hawkeye, and Thor), and they found a way to make us care about each of them. They even found a way to make us care about Phil Coulson, a secondary character. (So much so that his character had to be brought back to life to star in Marvel: Agents of Shield.)
Part of how they managed this was each character had a distinct personality, and they had enough room in the movie to give each of them emotional struggles and a bit of their own plotline and backstory. I won’t go through all of the characters, but I’ll show you a couple more (we talked about Stark and Banner above) and hopefully you’ll see what I mean.
Captain America is the straight-laced, honorable one who was struggling with his place in a world that had changed so much since he’d last been in it. He feels the world is evil and his morals are no longer valued. What he discovers is that there will always be evil to fight, and so there’s still a purpose and a place for him.
Thor is the arrogant “god” from another realm who is hurt by his brother’s continued betrayal and who needs to learn that he’s not as superior to humans as he originally thought.
When we move into Avengers: Age of Ultron, they dumped in Falcon, War Machine, Scarlett Witch, Vision, and Quicksilver. In other words, they almost doubled the key cast. And all those additions weren’t necessary. What was the point of all those characters? They didn’t improve the story.
My husband pointed out that “they’re assuming you’ve watched all the other movies.” But I’ve watched all the movies, and that didn’t make it any better just because I knew who Falcon and War Machine were. I can’t help but wonder if it’s more about trying to make you want to watch the other movies, and doing a crap job of it because they don’t seem to understand that a walk-on cameo by a character won’t make anyone interested enough in them that they run out and buy the other movie to find out more about them.
By adding in so many of them, none of them received the development they should have had. And, as I mentioned above, the development of the original characters suffered as well.
I wasn’t as invested in the characters, and the story felt scattered and shallow.
Takeaway:
Too many characters can clutter our stories rather than making them feel populated and real. How many characters do we really need to tell our story? Can we cut a character and give the role they play to someone else? Have we given each of those characters (at least the ones who are supposed to be important) a distinct personality and struggles of their own?
One of the current trends is to write short stories, novellas, or even whole new series about secondary characters in an already popular series. That’s a great idea, but we need to be sure those characters deserve their own stories. Cameo appearances by characters also shouldn’t be added just to “check in” with those characters. If they don’t forward the plot of the current story, they don’t belong in it. (This also ties in to Mistake #4 that I’ll share next post.) This is especially true if we’re bringing in cross-over characters (character who appeared in a separate series and are playing a walk-on role in this one). We can’t assume that all readers will have read the other series as well, and so we need to make sure they can follow each series independently of the others. (Again, more on that later in Mistake #4.)
What do you think? If you think I’m off-base about Avengers: Age of Ultron, I’d love to hear your reasons. If you think I’m right, did you enjoy the movie anyway and will you watch a third one?
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May 14, 2015 @ 13:14:53
Hi Marcy,
The flip side of #1 is too much story arc for a character. I often talk about the Goldilocks Principle in my own posts on writing. I suppose there are novels all about the development of one character, but I don’t read them. A series offers a way to study her/his development in more detail and proceed beyond that mortal sin of 2D characterization.
I don’t know that #2 is such a problem, but movies are different than books. I just finished a new sci-fi book. Like many sci-fi stories, it’s a saga occurring over many centuries, so there are many characters. Unless you’re writing about immortals, it’s hard to avoid that.
I believe all the Marvel movies have a worse flaw: too much action and not enough plot. Good guys against bad guys–black-and-white ho-hum writing even if the blood and gore are in technicolor. But maybe you’ll treat that in subsequent parts? If so, spoiler alert!
Yours in reading and writing,
Steve Moore
May 14, 2015 @ 13:47:38
I’ve never run into a situation where a story has too much character arc, unless what you mean is a book where it’s all about the inside of the character with no external action. That is definitely something to avoid as well. The pendulum can swing too far in either direction. The key is to intertwine the two so that everything that happens in the plot also brings the character a step forward on their arc.
Ensemble casts or stories with a large cast of character can, sometimes, work, but it’s much more difficult to make the audience care about all those characters and to make them all distinct. For me, a story (either book or movie) where I don’t care about the characters or a story where all the characters feel flat or samey is a big problem. It might not be for everyone. I want both an interesting plot and well-developed characters 🙂
And yes, I’ll be picking on the plot or lack thereof in the next post 🙂
May 14, 2015 @ 14:26:39
I didn’t have a problem with the lack of character arc because I expect this to be a continuing series and we can only see the same arc so many times before it feels rammed. This feels more situational than stand-alone. Now I would like to see one arc tackled per movie – we got a taste of that with the new girl – but I agree there wasn’t quite enough in post analysis.
Then again, I may just be distracted looking at Tony Stark and Thor!
The biggest problem I had was the Hulk. I have not been able to connect with that character from day one of the Avengers because the size/scale of both his mass and ability to move do not compute. I can accept everything else. Just not the Hulk! And that rampage scene went on waaaay too long!
I’m looking forward to reading more of your thoughts.
May 14, 2015 @ 15:36:07
I read a really interesting post talking about how problematic 100% CGI characters can be because it’s difficult to get them right, and they’re usually able to do things that “do not compute” to the human brain. The post itself didn’t mention that Hulk, but it did talk about the villain for the upcoming Avengers: Infinity War movies. He’s the guy they showed very briefly at the end of Avengers: Age of Ultron and he was Gamora’s father in Guardians of the Galaxy.
May 14, 2015 @ 16:38:15
I am glad to find someone else who didn’t like The Age of Ultron. It lacked a heart 🙁
Can’t wait to read the other parts of this series 😀
Thanks Marcy
Kitto
May 14, 2015 @ 17:17:39
You just managed to sum up exactly how I felt–it lacked a heart. That really is the essence of what went wrong.
May 14, 2015 @ 17:53:41
I think the character arc is why I love Skyfall so much. I love Casino Royale, but Skyfall takes the cake for me, mainly because it’s an action-based plot that has a LOT of character development in it. The focus is more on Bond and what happened to him to make him what he was and is. My favorite scene is when M and Bond are looking over the landscape and M says “How did [Bond’s parents] die?” Bond replies: “You know how. You know the whole story.” Something about his tone and facial expression speaks volumes about how his parents’ death STILL hurts him, even years later. Comparing that to AoU, there are so few “humanizing” moments like that. The characters are pretty static. Stark doesn’t repent of his narcissistic attitude, Cap is still Cap, etc. Not that all movies have to have buckets and buckets of development/growth, but still. For an action-based series, AoU can’t hold a candle to Skyfall in terms of character development.
May 14, 2015 @ 18:01:49
That’s an excellent example of how you can have character development in an action movie. It’s possible. The first Avengers movie showed that it was possible too. Even when we’re looking at a series situation, the room for character development is almost infinite. Most of us have many problem and areas where we could improve, and we develop new issues as time goes on and we’re shaped by the events in our lives.
May 19, 2015 @ 06:52:24
Tell me what happened to Black Widow? In the first film Natasha was formidable, resilient, and resourceful. (Remember how she manipulated Loki into giving up his game plan?) Black Widow didn’t seem like the same character Ultron. And what is the deal about her being sterilized??? So unnecessary.
Feb 15, 2017 @ 12:44:02
I wasn’t as bothered by War Machine and Falcon in “Ultron” mainly because they were cameos at the party scene — though why they both couldn’t be fighting bots at the end is beyond me. But trying to pull in enough backstory for the twins AND Vision along with the original six was a LOT. Then Whedon tried to add in Hawkeye’s family (worked), Cap’s “dark side” (which didn’t, really, though it stated the same sentiment we got in “Winter Soldier,” that he really doesn’t know what to do with himself outside of a war), and a ROMANCE on top of that (which wasn’t needed at all). And they wasted a villain. Super cluttered.
All it really brought away was the setup for “Civil War” in that TONY is the one who needs a leash. And quite frankly, what does planet Earth need a team for now that they’ve got Vision? He seems pretty much all-powerful, and that got reinforced in “CW.” So if the suit-heroes and the mind-gemmed android along with MORE characters (Guardians) can’t defeat Thanos, how the hell do they think the infantry (Cap, Hawk, Widow, Falcon, SHIELD) are going to tip the scale?