Joss Whedon: So Cancelled His Thread Got a Sequel

[Werthead]

5 hours ago, unJon said:

So does Whedon being canceled mean The Nevers won’t get a second season? Must say I’m enjoying it so far. 

It got a very strong opening ratings, and the critical response has been mostly positive or positive-leaning so far. My guess on that, plus HBO's tendency to give shows a reasonable shot plus their current HBO Max-driven need for tons more content than they'd normally produce, they'll get a second season.

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But I'm concerned that the showrunner, who seems to have had no connection at all to the show until she was installed as showrunner following Whedon's departure, does not have much of a track record...

She's developed three previous TV shows, although they did not proceed to series (one each for FX, the BBC and Channel 4). The only thing I've seen that she worked on was How to Talk to Girls at Parties, which I thought was pretty good. She wrote the script from the Neil Gaiman short story (which is only eighteen pages long, so most of the film had to be created from scratch).

Compared to Whedon's track record, it's not much. I'm surprised they didn't tap either Petrie or Espenson for the showrunner gig, especially as Espenson has had enormous writing experience. My guess is that HBO decided they didn't want any of Whedon's long-term, well-known associates as showrunner either (which seems rather unfair to them if they were unaware of the situation back in the day) or there was some reason why they didn't want to promote her. Espenson has only been showrunner once, on Caprica, which was a bit of a disaster, but that was down to studio shenanigans rather than the show itself. She was an executive producer (but not showrunner) on Once Upon a Time for almost the length of the show, which by itself should have stood her in good stead for a showrunner role here, not to mention working on GoT (even if her script had to be thoroughly rewritten), BSG, Torchwood, Jessica Jones and DS9 as well as the Whedon projects.

Because of the sheer volume of shows that need showrunners, writers are being tapped to produce shows at a much earlier stage in their career than ever would have been the case a dozen years ago, so it's odd that much more established hands here seem to have been left out of consideration.

[Ran]

How To Talk to Girls at Parties is at 50 at Metacritic. Little Ashes at 41. Holy Money is a 5.3 on IMDB. Mary Magdalene is at 48. Reading a sample of the reviews, the general feeling is a lot of paint-by-numbers and mediocre dialog. It feels about as much of a good fit for taking over from Whedon as Whedon was for taking over from Zack Snyder.

I agree that they simply decided they didn't want to risk having any of Whedon's crew being embroiled in what was going on and found someone completely unconnected. If there is a 2nd season, I would not be surprised if Espenson and Petrie aren't a part of it.

[Lord Varys]

I re-watched Age of Ultron now, and I must say that this is definitely the better movie, although there is also a lot of silliness in there, especially revolving around the big bad (if I'm an AI in many bodies why the hell do I not least station a single body far, far away from the city I intend to drop from the sky?!), and also really cringingly bad meta-dialogue (Hawkeye complaining to Scarlet Witch that he is a guy shooting arrows).

Aside from that, the dialogue is mostly pretty good, though.

But Whedon really made the same movie twice. The main group plot in the first one is about the Avengers not working well together ... and we get the same thing in the second movie. Down to the point that the 'big bad' (in quotes for Loki who isn't a big bad) twice utilizes the Hulk against the gang. What an original idea!

But unlike with The Avengers it sort of makes sense that there would be some rifts within the team by the time of the second movie ... although not having a movie where the Avengers are actually a happily avenging team is also kind of silly and completely Whedon's fault.

He also doesn't seem to give any credence to the plots of the other movies - first Loki's attempt to conquer Earth comes completely out of the left field in the first movie (nothing in Thor indicates he even has an interest in Earth), and then we have Tony Stark still play with the very toys he got rid of at the end of Iron Man 3 - which was a pretty interesting and sensible conclusion to his personal story - as well as him apparently still having PTSD or similar issues over the alien invasion ... something that was also successfully resolved in Iron Man 3.

Also, S.H.I.E.L.D. being abolished in Winter Soldier should also have gotten rid of any technical toys that pop up in that movie.

But unlike Loki or the faceless alien thugs in The Avengers Ultron is still a pretty compelling villain, all things considered.

And any AI movie is massively better than a 'space alien invasion' movie simply by default ;-).

 

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

On 4/20/2021 at 4:57 PM, Lord Varys said:

I re-watched Age of Ultron now, and I must say that this is definitely the better movie, although there is also a lot of silliness in there, especially revolving around the big bad (if I'm an AI in many bodies why the hell do I not least station a single body far, far away from the city I intend to drop from the sky?!), and also really cringingly bad meta-dialogue (Hawkeye complaining to Scarlet Witch that he is a guy shooting arrows).

Aside from that, the dialogue is mostly pretty good, though.

But Whedon really made the same movie twice. The main group plot in the first one is about the Avengers not working well together ... and we get the same thing in the second movie. Down to the point that the 'big bad' (in quotes for Loki who isn't a big bad) twice utilizes the Hulk against the gang. What an original idea!

But unlike with The Avengers it sort of makes sense that there would be some rifts within the team by the time of the second movie ... although not having a movie where the Avengers are actually a happily avenging team is also kind of silly and completely Whedon's fault.

He also doesn't seem to give any credence to the plots of the other movies - first Loki's attempt to conquer Earth comes completely out of the left field in the first movie (nothing in Thor indicates he even has an interest in Earth), and then we have Tony Stark still play with the very toys he got rid of at the end of Iron Man 3 - which was a pretty interesting and sensible conclusion to his personal story - as well as him apparently still having PTSD or similar issues over the alien invasion ... something that was also successfully resolved in Iron Man 3.

Also, S.H.I.E.L.D. being abolished in Winter Soldier should also have gotten rid of any technical toys that pop up in that movie.

But unlike Loki or the faceless alien thugs in The Avengers Ultron is still a pretty compelling villain, all things considered.

And any AI movie is massively better than a 'space alien invasion' movie simply by default ;-).

 

I have a certain fondness for that film because of the Harley-Davidson Livewire motorcycle Black Widow rides. Some friends of mine worked on that version of the bike. I was involved in what would become the production version. 

That post credit scene... I remember watching that and thinking Thanos invaded Asgard and he's stealing the Gauntlet from Odin's weapons vault. This would sort of connect with Thor's ominous vision from earlier in the film I guess? Nope. Silly me.

Google "Thanos practice gauntlet". This is a thing apparently. 

edit: Iron Man 3 comes before Age of Ultron. At the end of Iron Man 3 it's strongly implied that Tony retired as Iron Man so he could live a life with Pepper. He blows up his suits, has the arc reactor and shrapnel removed from his chest, dramatically tosses the arc reactor into the sea at the ruins of his former house, gives a monologue, etc. Maybe I imagined that bit because it's never mentioned again. 

[Lord Varys]

1 hour ago, Deadlines? What Deadlines? said:

I have a certain fondness for that film because of the Harley-Davidson Livewire motorcycle Black Widow rides. Some friends of mine worked on that version of the bike. I was involved in what would become the production version. 

That post credit scene... I remember watching that and thinking Thanos invaded Asgard and he's stealing the Gauntlet from Odin's weapons vault. This would sort of connect with Thor's ominous vision from earlier in the film I guess? Nope. Silly me.

Google "Thanos practice gauntlet". This is a thing apparently. 

I didn't realize it that Odin apparently had such a gauntlet but, yeah, chances are that things didn't continue as they were implied by the post-credit scene there.

1 hour ago, Deadlines? What Deadlines? said:

edit: Iron Man 3 comes before Age of Ultron. At the end of Iron Man 3 it's strongly implied that Tony retired as Iron Man so he could live a life with Pepper. He blows up his suits, has the arc reactor and shrapnel removed from his chest, dramatically tosses the arc reactor into the sea at the ruins of his former house, gives a monologue, etc. Maybe I imagined that bit because it's never mentioned again. 

Yes, that's completely ignored in Age of Ultron.

They clumsily reference Iron Man 3 in The First Avenger: Civil War where Pepper left Tony because he continued to play with his toys. But that's pretty late and we never actually get the plot where scraps his 'I'm done with Iron Man' thing and starts to be an Avenger again. And that's something his story needed. After all, at the beginning of Age of Ultron there is no real danger, they are just hunting down the remnants of Hydra.

Why would he even involve himself in that shit? It isn't as if the gang couldn't do that stuff without him.

And as I said - Tony completely overcomes his trauma in Iron Man 3 and makes his peace with everything. The idea that he suddenly is afraid for everyone again and even planned to create some sort of super protector AI even before Scarlet Witch messed with his head completely scraps the plot of Iron Man 3.

It is actually kind of silly how Tony is pretty much triggered/manipulated by a single personal interaction in so many of those movies. In Civil War it's that woman who blames him for the death of her son. When folks are throwing cities on the planet or space aliens invade then there is collateral damage. People should (and would) just suck it up and accept that.

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

17 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

I didn't realize it that Odin apparently had such a gauntlet but, yeah, chances are that things didn't continue as they were implied by the post-credit scene there.

It was an easter egg in the first Thor film. It wasn't on screen for long but it was definitely there and was written about at the time. Hela dismisses it as "Fake!" in Ragnarok, which begs the question, why does Odin have an obviously fake gauntlet in his weapons vault? What does "fake" even mean if Tony Stark can make one that apparently works as well as a real one?

The post credit scene in Age of Ultron contradicts the fact that Thanos made Peter Dinklage manufacture a gauntlet prior to the events in Infinity War. Hence the "Practice Gauntlet" was born. Thanos spent 20 movies doing his best Travis Bickle impression with his almost-gauntlet.

27 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

Yes, that's completely ignored in Age of Ultron.

They clumsily reference Iron Man 3 in The First Avenger: Civil War where Pepper left Tony because he continued to play with his toys. But that's pretty late and we never actually get the plot where scraps his 'I'm done with Iron Man' thing and starts to be an Avenger again. And that's something his story needed. After all, at the beginning of Age of Ultron there is no real danger, they are just hunting down the remnants of Hydra.

Why would he even involve himself in that shit? It isn't as if the gang couldn't do that stuff without him.

And as I said - Tony completely overcomes his trauma in Iron Man 3 and makes his peace with everything. The idea that he suddenly is afraid for everyone again and even planned to create some sort of super protector AI even before Scarlet Witch messed with his head completely scraps the plot of Iron Man 3.

Yeah, there are a lot of story elements that don't quite mesh together in the Infinity Saga. They may have had some ideas but they didn't really have a plan early on. 

Regarding Tony's Trauma; I could see that he's continuing to have problems with it and it's his process, but it's not really addressed. Or, as you imply, just ignore Iron Man 3. Coincidentally, Iron Man 3 is one of those movies that doesn't really contribute to the Infinity Saga at all. Iron Man 2 wouldn't either except it introduces War Machine. And as much as Iron Man 3 develops Tony as a character, it doesn't quite fit. Like if you had no awareness of what came after, Iron Man 3 almost reads like the final appearance of Iron Man.

If I had to guess, I'd say the tentative plan was to have Iron Man take a break and insert War Machine in his place. If I remember correctly, the AoU and Civil War period was where Kevin Feige was able to get full creative control of the MCU from Ike Perlmutter and the Marvel creative board, who apparently had considerable power in dictating budgets and had creative approval in those films. Supposedly the thing that brought it to a head was Perlmutter's insistence that Civil War include Tony Stark only as a cameo or that he be excluded altogether. RDJ's contract made him really expensive at that point.

Post-Civil War, things got more cohesive from a story telling standpoint. Except for the Black Widow solo film, which was scheduled to come out a year after that character died on-screen.

45 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

 

[felice]

1 hour ago, Lord Varys said:

And as I said - Tony completely overcomes his trauma in Iron Man 3 and makes his peace with everything.

His mental state is significantly better by the end of Iron Man 3, but it would be extremely unrealistic* to get over PTSD completely that quickly. But even if he did, he's not going to stop being a tech genius, and I can't imagine him coming up with an idea on how to make a better suit and not wanting to build it. And being Iron Man is fun - the flying, super strength, etc must be a powerful temptation. Then the events of Winter Solider show that Shield can't be trusted to protect humanity, which is more motivation for Stark to get back in the game.

* Yeah, I know superhero movies are full of extremely unrealistic elements

[RumHam]

The end of Iron Man 3 always bothered me because it's so wasteful. Doesn't each of those suits have an arc reactor made of rare elements that could power a city? 

I've wondered if they shot scenes for Age of Ultron clarifying that Ultron was part of Thanos's plan somehow. "Fine, I'll do it myself" just doesn't make sense in the context of the movie. 

A few of the early post-credit scenes don't really make sense. They had to retcon the Incredible Hulk one with a one shot suggesting they sent Tony to recruit the Abomination "To fight [the avengers] is to court death" is just a stupid joke about comics Thanos that doesn't make sense. 

Edit: I can buy that Tony had a change of heart thought. Like all the other Avengers were suiting up and he felt left out. It could have been covered better though, or they could have set IM3 after Ultron. 

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

35 minutes ago, RumHam said:

The end of Iron Man 3 always bothered me because it's so wasteful. Doesn't each of those suits have an arc reactor made of rare elements that could power a city? 

Justin Hammer would be down there the next day dragging the river for parts. Also, Does Hammer just disappear after IM2? He should be in jail shouldn't he?

37 minutes ago, RumHam said:

A few of the early post-credit scenes don't really make sense. They had to retcon the Incredible Hulk one with a one shot suggesting they sent Tony to recruit the Abomination "To fight [the avengers] is to court death" is just a stupid joke about comics Thanos that doesn't make sense. 

I'm sure there was an interview with Joss Whedon where he said they didn't have much of a plan for Thanos at that point. The one-liner was an oblique reference to Lady Death that doesn't bother me so much. Death makes Thanos horny.

Everything I'm seeing says they also retconned The Incredible Hulk to come after IM2. It's been a while so I don't know what that makes it better. The whole thing actually works fine if you leave it out of the timeline and introduce Banner in The Avengers as-is and Ross in Civil War as-is. "Wrecking Harlem" is an oblique reference that isn't relevant to later events. It could be his "Budapest". Betty Ross and the Leader are never seen or heard from again.

 The biggest problem with The Incredible Hulk post credit scene isn't recruiting Abomination (which seems far fetched); it's why is Tony Stark recruiting for the Avengers initiative at all? Between the events of IM2 and Avengers, it seems plain that he doesn't have any direct involvement with the Avengers initiative until Coulson shows up with the "homework" at the beginning of Avengers.

[RumHam]

21 minutes ago, Deadlines? What Deadlines? said:

Justin Hammer would be down there the next day dragging the river for parts. Also, Does Hammer just disappear after IM2? He should be in jail shouldn't he?

He appears in the All Hail The King oneshot in jail when Trevor is taken by the Mandarin's people. I hope he shows up in Armor Wars or as a shitty Iron Man replacement in Thunderbolts. 

23 minutes ago, Deadlines? What Deadlines? said:

The biggest problem with The Incredible Hulk post credit scene isn't recruiting Abomination (which seems far fetched); it's why is Tony Stark recruiting for the Avengers initiative at all? Between the events of IM2 and Avengers, it seems plain that he doesn't have any direct involvement with the Avengers initiative until Coulson shows up with the "homework" at the beginning of Avengers.

The idea of the retcon is that the Hydra element of Shield wanted Abomination on the team, but Fury and Coulson saw that as a bad idea (or was it Coulson and Sitwell? who later turned out to be hydra?) so they sent Stark knowing he would annoy Ross and ross would refuse to let Abomination participate. 

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

15 hours ago, RumHam said:

 

The idea of the retcon is that the Hydra element of Shield wanted Abomination on the team, but Fury and Coulson saw that as a bad idea (or was it Coulson and Sitwell? who later turned out to be hydra?) so they sent Stark knowing he would annoy Ross and ross would refuse to let Abomination participate. 

So after Iron Man 2, when Fury tells Stark they want his tech but they don't want him <cough>warmachine<cough>, he has playboy-billionaire-philanthropist running errands for him? Wouldn't Tony rather be driving his new Audi? Doesn't he have like, a million lawsuits to settle after the Stark Expo attack? And since when does one branch of the government task a civilian to trade messages with another part of the government?

Still better than "practice gauntlet" I suppose.

To steer this conversation back to Whedon, just how much un-credited writing work has he done with the MCU? My understanding is that his imprint is on every one of those films. 

[sifth]

4 hours ago, Deadlines? What Deadlines? said:

To steer this conversation back to Whedon, just how much un-credited writing work has he done with the MCU? My understanding is that his imprint is on every one of those films. 

Well I know James Gunn has gone on record saying, Thanos was suppose to play a much larger role in GotG, until he had a chat with Whedon, who convinced him it was better if Thanos only appeared in small parts of the film.

[Ran]

@Deadlines? What Deadlines?

He did uncredited rewrite work on Captain America: The First Avenger and Thor: The Dark World, and according to IMDB he did the same on Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Guardiaans of the Galaxy. He played a key consulting role in "Phase 2" planning, and besides the Thanos thing with Gunn he's apparently the one who told Gunn to make it "weirder". Plus of course the two Avengers films.

 

[Lord Varys]

On 4/23/2021 at 8:50 AM, felice said:

His mental state is significantly better by the end of Iron Man 3, but it would be extremely unrealistic* to get over PTSD completely that quickly. But even if he did, he's not going to stop being a tech genius, and I can't imagine him coming up with an idea on how to make a better suit and not wanting to build it. And being Iron Man is fun - the flying, super strength, etc must be a powerful temptation. Then the events of Winter Solider show that Shield can't be trusted to protect humanity, which is more motivation for Stark to get back in the game.

* Yeah, I know superhero movies are full of extremely unrealistic elements

Of course it is not *really* possible, I was talking about movie symbolism and stuff. Tony gets over the problems he has in Iron Man 3. His PTSD as well as his obsession with mechanical toys. He grows up, basically.

That is the entire point of that movie ... and if you want to reset things, drag him back into the game, you have to do that properly. You have to give him a reason to do it. There would have been potential for a fake conflict there - the Avengers needing Tony, but him only coming back when the situation is really dire, etc. Instead the movie is basically treated as it never happened until Civil War where the events are briefly mentioned.

I mean, I get it why they cannot show how all of them get into the game in every Avengers movie for time reasons and stuff. But both how/why Thor joins the gang in the first movie and why Tony comes back after what the respective earlier movies about those characters established is a given. It borders on Han Solo being alive and carbonite-free at the beginning of ROTJ, with the problem having resolved itself between movies.

[DMC]

On 4/23/2021 at 12:37 AM, Lord Varys said:

After all, at the beginning of Age of Ultron there is no real danger, they are just hunting down the remnants of Hydra.

They are hunting down Loki's scepter, which is the mind stone - and obviously Strucker was creating superweapons and two superhumans due to having it in his possession.  Impossible to deny Stark's resolution in Iron Man 3 is essentially ignored in Age of Ultron, but that does seem to be a legit reason to come out of retirement.  And to be fair it is touched on that that is a big deal at the beginning of the film.  That's why Thor sticks around for the party and revels.

[Lord Varys]

16 minutes ago, DMC said:

They are hunting down Loki's scepter, which is the mind stone - and obviously Strucker was creating superweapons and two superhumans due to having it in his possession.  Impossible to deny Stark's resolution in Iron Man 3 is essentially ignored in Age of Ultron, but that does seem to be a legit reason to come out of retirement.  And to be fair it is touched on that that is a big deal at the beginning of the film.  That's why Thor sticks around for the party and revels.

They don't really know that the mind stone is in the scepter when they start to look for it, though. And Thor was on Earth last time we saw him in the second Thor movie, so that's fine.

I think the problem there clearly is that Whedon (or whoever made that decision) wanted to go with a scenario where Tony created Ultron because he was afraid, etc. But if you go with a franchise you continuity should come before the story you might want to tell. A way to do it could have been that Ultron goes bad because Tony refused to help whoever was developing because he was out. But the movie had to make Ultron into Tony's Frankenstein monster.

That said - I still think Age of Ultron is the better movie when compared to The Avengers, especially if you ignore the continuity issues. Ultron has real motivations and an interesting personality ... whereas the space aliens are pretty much faceless and Loki's motivation to do what he does in The Avengers also are not very convincing.

[DMC]

4 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

They don't really know that the mind stone is in the scepter when they start to look for it, though.

Well no, but it's well established they know that Loki's scepter is incredibly powerful, and thus capturing it is a big deal, is my point.  The importance of regaining the scepter is emphasized throughout the first act of Age of Ultron, including part of why Thor chokes out Stark after Ultron steals it again.

[Lord Varys]

1 minute ago, DMC said:

Well no, but it's well established they know that Loki's scepter is incredibly powerful, and thus capturing it is a big deal, is my point.  The importance of regaining the scepter is emphasized throughout the first act of Age of Ultron, including part of why Thor chokes out Stark after Ultron steals it again.

Yes, they want the thing back and it is important. I did not question that.

But if you go back to the beginning of the movie you get the feeling the Avengers have been a team for quite some time - all the friendly bantering and stuff going on implies this - and that doesn't fit with a Tony who just came back for this one scepter recovery mission thingy.

This is pretty much also Whedon's fault, I think, because his two Avengers movies are more about the problems the Avengers have than them actually working together. It is kind like the Star Wars prequels failed to portray Anakin and Obi-Wan as buddies with the exception of five minutes at the beginning of ROTS. The first Avengers movie should have been how they got together because they wanted to do this, because they felt this was necessary and the right thing to do. It should have shown how they became friends. Instead they have more than just a rocky start. And then they deliberately split up at the end of the first movie.

It is much more convincing if friendships first are proper friendships - and we know why they are friends because we saw them becoming and being friends on screen and this isn't just implied or told - and then something happens that tears them apart.

[DMC]

32 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

But if you go back to the beginning of the movie you get the feeling the Avengers have been a team for quite some time - all the friendly bantering and stuff going on implies this - and that doesn't fit with a Tony who just came back for this one scepter recovery mission thingy.

Agreed, that is definitely the impression.  All I was saying is the way it's depicted at the beginning of Ultron I think it would be plausible that Tony could sell it to Pepper as a sufficient reason to come out of retirement - even considering the events of Iron Man 3.  Accordingly, I don't really blame the movie for skirting on that aspect considering the obvious time constraints/pacing/whatnot.

[Lord Varys]

29 minutes ago, DMC said:

Agreed, that is definitely the impression.  All I was saying is the way it's depicted at the beginning of Ultron I think it would be plausible that Tony could sell it to Pepper as a sufficient reason to come out of retirement - even considering the events of Iron Man 3.  Accordingly, I don't really blame the movie for skirting on that aspect considering the obvious time constraints/pacing/whatnot.

As I said, I think Age of Ultron is better than The Avengers. And I actually like the bantering and the fact that they really seem to be a fun gang together up to the point the Ultron crisis starts. That's good to see.

But I also think you really should not create the kind of continuity issues we get there. The earlier movies set certain things up, and things have to flow naturally from there.