#aou cw

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We need more characters like Data and less like Ultron essentially.

Oh man, I missed this ask (got a lot of hatemail after I started talking about the avengers again, you know how it is) but yes, exactly.

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I'm also not trying to change your mind, btw. I'm just interested in how our interpretations and thoughts differed. I'm not arguing that it was a poorly done movie, I'm just highlighting what I thought was good, and how I interpreted things.

Oh whoops didn’t get this ask til I answered the last one sorry.

You’re welcome to your interpretation. It’s a very solid one! I don’t mean to insult it. It’s just that I’ve seen this exact story nine million times, with tiny little variations,a nd this one brought nothing new to the table.

But if you don’t have a ridiculous focus on un/friendly AI narratives, I suppose it might not be as exhaustingly overdone. There had been plenty of mainstream films and shows that do it, but probably not as many as I am acting like have done it.

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1)No I agree with you there. Technology is dangerous is a dumb narrative. But I didn't see it as "technology is dangerous" I saw it as "Mankind is dangerous." I /loved/ the opening bit with Ultron and Jarvis. It felt so organic. Jarvis was built for Tony, by Tony. Of course Jarvis want's to follow Tony's ideals. Ultron wasn't built with a respect for humanity right off the bat, so when he saw us at our worst, (the news and internet), he never developed it at all!

Ultron had exactly one goal. Peace in our time. Now. Not a few years down the road. Now. Seeing humanity as it was now, with our wars, and things that stop us from being united together, (race, religion, location.) He decided that humanity was the biggest obstacle to peace. Combine seeing us as the problem, and no inbuilt respect for humanity, it's not shock to me that he went completely off rails from his intended use. To sum it up, the Vision followed the intent, Ultron followed the exact word

But, again, that’s a narrative path that has been beaten into the fucking ground and I’m so fucking tired of seeing it.

AIs that decide humankind is too dangerous to be allowed to exist are nothing new. They are the very heart and blood of modern “technology is dangerous” narratives, and this is just another in a long line of them.

From ultron’s POV, yeah, the lesson is “humanity is dangerous” but from everyone else’s, the other characters, the audience, the writers that made Ultron a wholly unlikeable villain, etc it’s pretty clear that the self modifying AI is the one we’re supposed to find horrifying.

Excessive literalism is generally what is implied by “loosely coded” btw. There are entire schools of philosophy and development based on decided the correct parameters for ensuring the literalistic mind of a computer would not accidentally destroy everything due to a critical misinterpretation.

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I don't think Ultron was supposed to be annoying. He was mostly just "humans are the worst engage protocol kill everyone" all that robotic monotonous stuff. The film gave him a greater personality I think, even if it was bad.

HAHAHA I ACTUALLY MANAGED TO BITE THROUGH MY STUPID STICK THING HONESTLY THIS FILM CAN SUCH NINETY SYPHILITIC DICKS

But that’s good to know, then, that the film did succeed at something

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2) He had a task, based on what he saw in his first moments in life. He saw humans as they were, and drew a conclusion that makes sense, if we don't bring moral reasoning into account. I've always liked robots, and robot/AI reasoning for doing things, and it makes sense from a big picture perspective, with the only real goal being "peace in our time." He was never made to protect individuals, or even humanity as a whole. He was created to bring peace at any cost. At least, that is my thought.

Oh whoops there was a part two.

Anyway, yeah, this part is something that I find personally disgusting.

The cult of “technology is dangerous.” It’s been cropping up more and more often lately, but it’s been on a steady upward trajectory since the nineties.

The thing is, we all already fucking know jesus tits we know. it’s boring and done and has been played out a thousand times. We get it. “Man makes loosely coded AI, destroys reality.” God, give me a fucking break.

It’s bullshit and it needs to stop being the central fucking theme of our fucking times. This massive media campaign of slandering sci-tech as unilaterally villainous contributes to an enormous number of social, cultural problems and it drives be up a fucking wall. Ugh, where’s my stick thing I need to fuckign bite someone

God it’s just so fucking cliche and I get it, cliche things can still contribute to stories, but if you’re not going to at least try to make it novel then what’s the fucking point?

Is there a point? It’s not entertaining, it’s boring and bland and has been done to nine levels of death and it contributes to the whole “we don’t need to trust science, nature will protect us” bullshit that encourages antivaxxers and global warming deniers and the guy who keeps coming into my fuckign work to complain for hours about how the government is going to track us all with blood borne microchips every wednesday and I just need it to not.

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1)Your points make a lot of sense, but I'm curious about one thing. I'm not understanding the Ultron hate? In my opinion of the film (not as good as it could have been, most definitely,) I thought he was one of the redeeming qualities. I liked scripture quoting, weirdly human Ultron. He was just a young as the Vision, mentally, and I felt like he was going through iterations of mental development, just really fast. He's what you get when you have a genius child, without any moral development.

Oh I can definitely see why people would like Ultron!!

I just don’t. Like I really don’t. I find him to be as erratic and annoying as the rest of the film. The problem is, much like Pietro, Ultron was supposed to be erratic and annoying. He was supposed to grind our gears. That’s very plainly obvious even to someone, like me, who has no background in the comics.

(Wait, was Ultron annoying and erratic in the comics? I have no idea. Someone let me know)

The problem is, in a film where everything else is already annoying and errativ, he’s not jarring, and unnatural, and forcing you to think about things differently.

He’s just exactly the same as everything else and it’s all exhausting and painful and he’s just another exhausting, painful thing to be exhausted by.

The character of Ultron, in another film, in a different context, would be great! I hope the fandom does some stuff!

But in this context, this film, he’s just another blasé piece of a blasé pie full of whiplashing moods and lacking the ability to communicate in anything but oneliners.

And yeah, that whiplashing and massive cycling and rapid spinning, that’s right for Ultron. BUt because everyone and everything else is doing it too, it rings as being phoned in and sloppy like the rest, rather than one of the few things that were correct.

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I'd be interested in hearing your personal reasons for disliking AoU. I quite enjoyed it, all things considered. Wasn't too fond of the Maximoff's backstory/omission of religion/ethnicity, but I felt that the Bruce and Natasha thing was blown way out of proportion here on tumblr? Thoughts? What else went wrong, in your opinion?

I genuinely don’t think it’s possible to overblow the entire Brucenat travesty, tbh. And I don’t mean this as a shipper, but rather as some concerned by the social messages it sends, including the abuse narrative, the nerds winning women as prizes narrative, etc. Also, it was poorly written and trash.

In addition, AOU was fond of completely ignoring its predecessors established character arcs, and had a grand old time spitting on the audience for having expectations with it’s cutesy lines making fun of “itself” but mostly making fun of us for expecting things.

In addition, not every fucking line in a movie needs to be a clever joke, and the tendency to use jokes where they were wildly inappropriate tonally was exhausting.

Also, it was inconsistent, poorly paced, badly shot, had questionable use of effects for the first third to half, loosely written at best, and just.

It should NOT be up to the fandom to explain why Pietro and Wanda speak english to eachother in private. ESPECIALLY NOT WHEN THE SOKOVIANS NOT SPEAKING ENGLISH WAS A CRITICAL TONAL CUE FOR THE OPENING ACTION LIKE JESUS FUCKING CHRIST EVEN IF YOU DON’T WANT TO PAY ATTENTION TO THE PAST FILMS, AOU, PAY ATTENTION TO YOUR OWN DAMN SELF GOD

Anyway you can see my “liveblog” of it here (which is far more detailed), and other posts on the topic in the AOU CW tag and my opinions have not changed significantly, except to grow even more displeased by the Brucenat storyline and to also realize belatedly that Sam and Rhodey, even if they were in fact present, were still narratively fucked over.

Anyway it has like two redeeming features probably, but in the face of ninety unredeeming ones I’m just really disappointed.

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You know the Avengers could have done the shitty Natasha and Bruce thing *or* they could have done Ace Bruce and Aro Natasha instead. Just a thought.

I will do Ace Bruce and Aro Nat, at least.

Why make Bruce’s inability to get it on safely a tragic flaw when he could just be very chill about it and also talk more science nonsense?

He’s so much less gratingly, eye gougingly awful when he’s talking science nonsense.