I don't think Natasha believed her speech, I think she was just repeating what she'd been told, explaining how she'd been taught to see herself. The sterilization was something done to them because they didn't deserve to have children, and, as a practical matter, it does cut potential ties.

edit: When the city started rising, I'm afraid I said to myself, "They already did that on Avengers, Earth's Mightiest Heroes!" And the whole "I must destroy you to save you" thing is pretty cliché by now.

At least Loki was straightforward megalomania. It's a classic.

Tony never did fix the tractor. Unless that was a plot to get him to see Fury. And since when does Fury care so much about Tony?

There should be something in that bar a la Iron Man 2. Though Clint would not appreciate a repulsor powered tractor.

All things considered, though, I thought it was a good popcorn movie: enough plot, enough action, good characterization; I'd give it 4 out of 5 stars.

On a regular movie scale I could give it a 4, but by both my standards for Joss and for the Marvel movies in general, I can't give it more than a 3.

I mean, what villain

Actually, when you put it that way, it makes more sense. Ultron must have read the comments .

That's what we figured. Too bad they couldn't have sent him to sit with the Dalai Lama for a while. Or maybe he watched too much Buffy, "Hey, Ken, wanna see my impression of Ghandi?"

Now that I've had a little time to process, the other thing I disliked about it was there wasn't NEARLY enough Hulk smashing things, especially in the third act. Overall he probably got more screen time in Ultron, but there was nothing as satisfying as the Hulk taking out the Chitauri leviathan, or going all Tex Avery on Loki.

Did anyone here (lazy, not clicking previous) talk about what was effectively a rape joke coming out of Tony's mouth? Because that's effectively what primae noctis is, and it has bothered me since I was watching the clips that they were releasing. It's one thing to have your bad guy effectively call a female character a whiny cunt, but wow. Ick. And again, ick.

The more I think about it, the less I like the aspects I disliked most. It takes a lot of head wrangling to even get to an interpretation that minimizes the shit that skeeved me the fuck out.

I went into some of the why at length here [link]

Joss's jokes are often very problematic to me. "He's adopted?" always annoyed me.

I went into some of the why at length here

Well parsed! You really do a good job of articulating the nuances of the issue, and offer specific examples (rooted in canon) showing how the filmmakers could have finessed the intended effect (if we give Joss the benefit of the doubt) without the offending connection established between infertility/monstrousness.

Thank you, sir!