I was also laughing at poor flea.

My opinion of the movie is that it seems like a miracle any of these directors get to make anything close to the movie they might wish to make. This movie had to juggle the six Avengers, Nick Fury, Maria Hill, Rhodey, Sam, introduce Wanda and Pietro and Ultron and The Vision, set up more of the Infinity Gem stuff, deal with Hawkeye's family, deal with the Natasha/Bruce romance, refer to Bucky and Jane and Pepper, and, you know, have a plot.

I assume that very little of that is under the control of the director and writer, so the fact that we got an enjoyable and fairly coherent movie (at least, I enjoyed it), seems like gravy.

I'm also very pleased that Wanda turned out to EMPHATICALLY NOT be Yet Another Super-powered Mentally Unstable Waif

That made me SO happy, and I'm not even a Marvel comics reader. (I'm MCU, so everything I know about comics canon(s) I've learned from other people.)

Also, I liked her clothes and jewelry. I want her red shawl thingie.

Just saw the movie. I don't believe Tony will stop being an Avenger. And he certainly seemed to have a lot of suits again. Clint's family is way out of left field. He sure didn't seem too worried about them in the last movie, though fans of the family can think he asked Tasha about them off camera. I think this is pretty much as close as we're going to get to a Hawkeye movie (the Mission Impossible movie trailer we got was amusing).

Bruce and Natasha were not as awkward as I thought they'd be, and I think Bruce will be back. Tony will find him regardless.

Seeing the old helicarrier was lovely. I wonder if Phil will show up now that Joss isn't doing Avengers anymore.

re: Wanda--I didn't know you could have a power walk with one person. Apparently you can, with the right person.

Everything I know about this stuff I have learned from you guys.

I think I've seen all the movies up to this one, and I'd still say this. Because comics, and my lack of knowledge therein.

On second viewing I think it held together better than my first impression. Apparently I took a bathroom break during Fury's critical Win One for the Gipper speech in Clint's farmhouse that really tied things together.

Still think Spader made Ultron too smug and human for his origins. In this case I think a Black Manta-esque voice effect and a few less wisecracks would have helped immensely.

Just saw Ultron. My first impression is that no one does snappy dialogue better than Joss, but I didn't really love it. I would like to see it again not in 3D, because I found the 3D dizzying and distracting. We could only get the assigned stadium style theater in 3D.

The movie was fun, but there were a lot of parts that made me go "meh?", and I think the fight scenes should have been shortened so there could be more plot.

Definitely. Less shit goes boom more plot.

I also thought Clint was going to die the minute they showed him with a happy famiy, because that would be a very Joss thing to do. So, I was pleasantly surprised.

In the scene where everyone is sitting around discussing Ultron after the attack, I had thoughts of I Robot, You Jane.

Also the scene where Scarlet Witch takes out Ultron's heart and crushes it made me think of a similar scene with Buffy and Adam.

I assume that very little of that is under the control of the director and writer

I think the parts I liked least and thought were the worst done specifically the Bruce and Natasha stuff, which could have been done well and just... yeah were entirely under the control of the writer and director in this case, based on the various reports that were coming out while it was being made.

I largely think said writer and director failed to stick the landing and didn't adequately review the canon to which he was adding, thus choosing to ignore, oh, pretty much the last three solo films in terms of character development, and also possibly his own previous effort.

There was a lot of "character development" that felt shoehorned in.

And everyone's got buddies but Tony. Rhodey is someone who's been around forever, but relationships with constant needling never struck me as pleasant.

Though Tasha asking Steve if he was done gazing into Tony's eyes was amusing.

But Tony always seems like he's on the defensive. I was sorry to see The Science Bros break up.

Amen to the more plot, less fight. I wish Joss had fought for that.

Enjoyed Joss' dialogue as always.