I didn't find him batshit crazy, though, just regular crazy.

I felt like his threat to Black Widow tipped him over from regular crazy to batshit. I can't really articulate why *that* was my line that he crossed. (Makes deals with evil aliens to enslave/destroy the Earth = regular crazy. Makes horrible threat to Black Widow = BACK THE FUCK UP MAN.) Maybe the specificity of how he'd have Hawkeye kill her? I don't know.

How did they DO that? CGI? Evans' head on a skinny guy's body? His head looked too big for that skinny short body.

Mostly, no! They shrunk Evans and warped him to make him smaller. They did film everything with a double, but apparently he only was used for scenes with little motion. Somehow Chris managed to be generally distinctive enough that most of their plans for doubling him for any reason went by the wayside, which I'm pretty impressed with.

Here's a CG web site talking about it: [link]

I had no clarity with Loki. He just seemed to be doing stuff to do stuff. His woobification across my dash and everyone not being bored that Hiddleston is still signed on for another appearance takes me somewhat aback. I mean--Hiddleston did a great performance, seems like a cool guy, and is nice and pretty, but what is the deal with the Loki-love? I just don't understand. He was the threat. At first he was the threat that was the hero's brother, and then he was just the threat. I want more from my bad guys. I enjoyed Avengers a great deal, but by the time I left, I'd forgotten what Loki's actual goal was. The Joker seemed more coherent than that.

His woobification across my dash

I don't get the woobification of Loki, either. (Of course, one of the people I know who is all WoobieLoki is also hardcore WoobieMoriarity, so with her, I know it's just her villain weakness.)

what is the deal with the Loki-love?

I can see how the woobification happens there, but considering Loki personally killed Agent Coulson, I don't get it either.

Matt, I think Jensen could easily do a basic New York accent. Especially for a role that's not, you know, on the Sopranos or something.

Damn, I love Thor. It's just big uncomplicated fun.

Exactly! I think part of it for me was that I had zero expectations, knowing nothing about the character or the storyline. It was just delightful. And uncomplicated is totally the right word.

I don't get the woobification of Loki, either.

Me, neither. I felt kind of sorry for him in Thor -- not being told you're adopted, much less from a hated race, is pretty shitty -- but not in a wooobie way.

Of course, one of the people I know who is all WoobieLoki is also hardcore WoobieMoriarity

Well, there is also a lot of that on my dash--maybe the groups overlap a lot? Kind of makes the Karl Urban obsessive there feel nice and fresh, although I have now seen every picture ever taken of him twice at least.

What I don't get about the skinnyization of CE, especially wrt that site last linked, is the affect on background action - people moving in blurs behind him, which you see more of when Evans gets shrunked. I feel like I've entered Bladerunner tech territory, where you can take a picture and look around the angles and corners not shown in the actual shot.

The text explained--everything was shot up to four times:

• Accommodating Chris's shrunked head
• With Chris' Double
• Accommodating everyone else in the scene
• Without Chris or his double

Which I understand barely makes sense. But when they acted with SkinnySteve, he had dots on his chin for where his eyes are supposed to be, and everyone else had dots on the top of their head for Skinny Steve to look up to and make a connection with.

And the coverage you're seeing is from #2 or #4. They just paint that in when they finish warping Steve small.

I enjoyed Captain America, and from a not-American perspective, the treatment of jingoism didn't bother me. (I enjoyed it more than Thor, which of course, if I were to get my own jingoism on, should probably be reversed.)

Loki, to me, was the Master from Doctor Who (especially Anthony Ainley's Master). He had the veneer of urbanity hiding some psychotic anger management issues; wears his ego on his sleeve; he's smart, but not as smart as he thinks; he has zero threat assessment capacity (it was when he caught Hawkeye's exploding arrow and decided to keep it that I decided it was the same character); his goal, of course, is world domination, and there's the whole "if I can't have it, nobody can!" vibe; he likes using other alien races for muscle; at least one of his adversaries seems more interested in forgiving him than stopping him (which doesn't actually make him look more formidable); and, finally, he seems to spend a lot of time having to escape from one prison or another.

(Oh, and there's also the mind control thing. They both like that.)