Now that Disney has released an official plot synopsis for the long awaited Avengers sequel true fans can begin to compile their wish list for the film. Here are the Dos and Don’ts I think they will need to follow to make it a successful sequel.
The Dos:
DO make our villain powerful and formidable.
In “The Avengers” the Chitauri arrived in great number, but the one-on-one battle they did with any of Earth’s mightiest heroes was a bit feeble. It makes a good fight scene montage to see aliens taking a good beating, but this time I think suspense would be built better with a little more struggle to take down Ultron.
DO keep the film edgy and realistic.
I believe that “Winter Soldier” has set a precedent for the following Marvel films to parallel the cultural struggles that we face in the real world. The film showed a world where large government organization had become corrupt from the inside only to collapse. The first “Iron Man” also succeeded along these lines with its focus on Middle East conflict. “Avengers: Age of Ultron” has the opportunity to follow the trend with the dangers of our over-reliance on technology.
DO let the world burn.
I am not an advocate for replicating the first “Avengers,” however, film trilogies have been at their best when the second line up in the series have allowed the walls to crash down around the protagonists. Example 1: “Star Wars The Empire Strikes Back” left us with our heroes divided, one frozen in carbonite, and one confused and missing a hand, making it the best in the series and the pillar holding up the two other films. Example 2: “The Dark Knight” left our hero injured and fleeing from the police and again was arguably the best in the trilogy. If Whedon takes the risk to end “Age of Ultron” even darker and in an even more dire situation than our other recent Marvel films, then this could shape up to be the best comic film yet.
Head to Page 2 for the Don’ts
The Don’ts
DO NOT follow the same arc as “The Avengers.”
Too many times in Hollywood we see a successful film spiral into sequels that fall flat simply because they try to play it safe and copy the recipe that has already proven tasty. Having seen Marvel taking risks with their films in the recent past I am confident that we will have plenty of salsa and jalapenos in our Avengers omelet to spice it up.
DO NOT make this an origin story.
If we wanted more origin stories we would go dust off our comic collection. We have been promised Ultron, Quicksilver, Scarlet Witch, and The Vision. This is a lot of new characters to introduce in a single film. If we spend our first hour on back stories my attention will begin to fade. “The Avengers” worked so well because we knew all of the main players at the onset and could spend film time on real conflict and not on more overdone comic origin story.
