The Avengers starts coming together

[trinityvixen]

ETA: Someone found a much better source costume for Thor. Why couldn't they have gone with that? Also, I realize that part of what's been bugging me is that with the facial hair he's got and the long blonde hair, movie-Thor looks a lot like psycho-harpoon-hand-Aquaman. 'S weird!

The concept art is out for film versions of Captain America and Thor. Like the Cap, am suddenly less confident about Thor than I was previously. To be fair, concept art that incorporates the look of a real human being is always going to look a bit weird, and the only reason that the design for the Cap doesn't look as horrible as the art for Thor is because most of his features are covered. (Thor lets it all hang out, baby.)

Still, Thor looks all kinds of ridiculous despite the fact that virtually the same aesthetic dominates these two costumes. This is because of the illogical nature of Thor in the first place, I suspect. Captain America can wear what we're now used to considering comic book-combat chic. Basically, it's fine for him to look like he's got an amalgam of the X-Men uniforms crossed with the Batsuit. He's a soldier, that's what we've decided comic soldiers wear when they're made into live-action people.

But Thor is a goddamned, well, god. If ever there were an excuse for impracticality or theatricality, hey, this is it. Let's get him into some plate mail or quilted outerwear! I know, I know, it doesn't fit into what Marvel has planned for The Avengers movie--but neither does Thor! I mean, you quite literally cannot make him make sense. You can hand-wave away Iron Man as part of Tony Stark's genius, and I think we've proven that the general public is too stupid to know what you can and can't do with DNA, so that covers just about every other Avenger there is (the mutants, the spider-bitten, the Hulk). But not Thor. He's a god, so your attempts to make him real are either irrelevant or stupid. Guess which one I'm leaning towards?

Comments

[gryphonrose.livejournal.com]

Definitely traces of the Ultimates versions in the designs:

http://captain-america.us/articles/images/ultimates/ultimate-captain-america.jpg

and

http://www.immortalthor.net/bio-ultimatethor.html

I'm wondering if they'll use some CGI on Thor--crackling lightning across him at all times, something like that. That would add to the whole "he's a GOD!" aspect.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Supposedly, CGI will be used to create--not enhance, but create--the movie Green Lantern costume. That sounds chance-y to me, but using CGI lightning to distract and smooth the edges of the Thor costume sounds like it could work.

[avram]

Glad to see they're not going with this look for Captain America.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

You'd think the picture was worth a thousand words, but it's the article below that really makes it that much more hilarious.

[gryphonrose.livejournal.com]

Well, if you read GL these days, you know that the symbol on his chest is actually holographically projected in front of him. So that's probably what they're going for. It looks cool in the comics, anyway. :)

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

"It looks cool in the comics" is probably responsible for about 3/4 of the movie adaptation failures, you do realize that.

[gryphonrose.livejournal.com]

Heh heh, yes, true. Hopefully not in this case--or at least we can hope if the effect looks like crap they'll realize that and scrap it.

I would love to see Thor wreathed in lightning, though. Shades of Big Trouble in Little China. :)

[kent-allard-jr.livejournal.com]

I think we've proven that the general public is too stupid to know what you can and can't do with DNA

I don't think the public really believes that, say, you can get superpowers from radioactive spiders. They may not know enough about DNA to know why it's impossible (hell, I don't know enough myself). I assume they're just willing to suspend judgment on that stuff, as I am. Otherwise they'd be setting up Radioactive Animals R-Us stores and selling folks superpowers. (I just the proportional strength of a paramecium, bitches!)

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

I don't think the public really believes that, say, you can get superpowers from radioactive spiders.

The important part of this defense of the general public is that you mention radioactive spiders, not the "genetically-enhanced super spiders" that were used to hand-wave away the spider powers in the movies. Of course the public doesn't believe radioactive spiders will give anybody super powers or create giant atomic monsters. That was the fear of the 1950s/60s when radioactivity was at its least understood. Now that we know better, we scoff at such nonsense...

...while setting up our heroes to be mutants and genetically-enhanced soldiers using different methods that we don't fully understand the repercussions of now. That's all the difference is. I could buy that most people understand that DNA doesn't work the way they say it does in movies, least of all superhero movies. But that doesn't mean that they don't still, sort of, believe that lurking beneath the hyperbole is something almost as transformative. So super-strength, the ability wall-crawl, okay, we're not that dumb. But what about something like Splice, where we can pipette in some human DNA and transform a hybrid animal into one that is sentient and human-looking? Well, that guy did just make self-replicating synthetic life....

Perhaps the public gets it, but the writers don't, that's for sure.