Always Ready to Learn: The Avengers

      So, one thing I've come to learn from all the research I've done and researching the creative people whose work I admire, is that you should always be willing to learn. No one's ever perfect, and no one's ever achieved all the knowledge in skill in the universe, the best master, is still a willing student, always ready to learn. So I figured I'd briefly catalog some stuff I've learned from my research or consumption of media, in this specific case: The Avengers.

      Now me and Mr. Joss Whedon don't really agree on much politically.... or probably socially.... definitely not religiously. But of the two major film releases he's made thus far (besides Much Ado About Nothing, which I haven't seen yet) I can re-watch both of them almost endlessly without tiring, and they both can make me giggle like a school girl with glee. Both Serenity and Avengers do such a great job of both telling their own story while also paying off stories started elsewhere. Both also weave multiple character arcs all at once into a coherent narrative and still are the most fun you'll have in awhile. One thing specifically I've noticed about Mr. Whedon and his works (I haven't yet seen the majority of his work in television) is his brilliant subversion of the audiences expectations and his management of tension.
     I've always thought of tension as a bow and arrow. As you build tension, it's like an archer stringing the arrow and pulling back slowly. If you release the tension properly, it's like an archer letting the arrow go and hitting his target. That's satisfying because that's what you're anticipating. If you deflate it too slowly with too little fanfare, it's kinda like the archer dropping the arrow, then slowly easing the string back in place before simply picking the arrow up, meandering over to the target and then sticking it in the bulls eye by hand. Which you weren't really anticipating that and it's also kinda in the exact opposite vein of what you wanted to see achieved.
  What Whedon does so well, is get the audience excited for one thing, and then giving them something not only unexpected, but also a little better and that feels true to what you wanted to see. Take lessons, for example from the Hulk/Loki..... "confrontation" from The Avengers. It ratchets up the tension and then pays it off beautifully.
     We start with Black Widow, on a alien space chariot, being chased by Loki, also on a hover space chariot, and calling to Hawkeye for help. Hawkeye, an archer who has a serious grudge with Loki, aims an arrow and lets it fly right. towards. his. face. EXCEPT OH SNAP Loki catches the arrow without missing a beat. He shoots Hawkeye an amused glance as if to say, "Are you kidding me?" EXCEPT OH EVEN MORE SNAPPIER THE ARROW EXPLODES IN HIS FACE. Loki is knocked clear of his hover-chariot doohickey and tumbles onto the balcony for Stark Tower. As he steadies himself, he finds the Incredible Hulk lunging straight at him, knocking both into the interior of the tower. Loki picks himself up again, but before the Hulk can proceed he lets out a commanding shout of "ENOUGH!" Hulk is stunned for a moment as Loki proceeds to lecture him. "You are all of you beneath me, I am a god! and I will NOT be bullied by-" It's at roughly this point that one of the greatest thirty second intervals in film history occurs. Ya see that? it just keeps getting better.
     In my illustration of an archer, what Whedon does here is like the archer pulling back his string, and then being suddenly launched backwards thirty feet in the air, letting go of the arrow, hitting the target anyway, which triggers a net that catches him, then trampolines him into the drivers seat of an awesome convertible.  It just keeps getting better and it plays off the tension established earlier.Of course, just as the archer tries to start the car only to find out the battery is dead, because that's funny, but you get my point.
     Anyway, I really hope to continue learning and also share some of what I've learned with you guys. And I also am really looking forward to Age of Ultron. Though does it have it's work cut out for it OR WHAT?

I mean, it's got to simultaneously got to give Hawkeye a bigger part, and also not kill him off. Because Hawkeye is awesome and needs to be in more stuff.