Really? Where did you read it? I was assuming the final product was fairly similar story-wise to Wright's version. I'm very interested to hear that so much was changed.

I enjoyed Winter Soldier a lot more than Ultron. It's 70s political thriller thing was more window dressing than content, but it was a well-told, taut superhero movie with some wicked action scenes.

I think Ultron started with a good, possibly great, idea of what it wanted to be, and then that idea was twisted around easter eggs, whereas IM2 built its plot out of Easter Eggs.

I'm definitely gonna rewatch it and Winter Soldier (which I liked, but didn't love) before I see Civil War, so I'll let you know to what extent I find it obnoxious.

Iron Man 2's ideas and themes

Yeah, I agree with that analysis. I can't help but feel it has more going on behind its feature long trailer for Civil War than IM2 does. I came out of it actually thinking about some of it's ideas and themes, whereas I came out of IM2 thinking about something else.

I really want to re-watch Ultron because it's such a confused film that I can't really sort out what I thought of it. It feels like there's two films in there, a middling super-hero punchfest, and a meditation on legacy and children and AI? What a thing.

Yeah, I'm not really hoping for anything innovative from the movie (although if any franchise movie should be delivering innovation, it's Dr Strange. I'm also very into Benedict Strange's cape. It is dope.

If IM3 is the end of a trilogy, it's a trilogy comprising IM1, Avengers and IM3.

I think the Inception-like bits of the trailer are still pretty great looking. They're clearly using similar imagery for a different purpose, plus there's some more trippy stuff which I'm hoping there's a lot more of. It's certainly some of the most interesting imagery we've seen in the MCU so far.

:( So sad. Ant-Man ended up being very bland, but you could see how Edgar's light touch could have made it absolutely great.

You're a Marvel skeptic?! And you've been living among us secretly all this time, without us suspecting a thing? How did you manage to keep it so quiet?!

It looks from the trailer like they're playing it pretty straight though.

God that was well done. Side-stepped the whole issue, and made it a commentary on how the media plays stereotypes. Incredible.
That movie is so good.

Bing translation: "The British do not have to mention that wrote Hamlet. How dare they?"

I feel like Marvel had a zero-sum game on their hands as soon as they decided to make a Dr Strange origin movie. Cast The Ancient One as Asian, and you run afoul of his pretty horrifically racist origins, cast him as white, you're participating in erasure, cast another race, you run the risk of running into another…

"Ain't Too Proud to Beg" is one of my favorite songs of all time. I also had high hopes for Smokey/Temptations, but aside from a couple of highs (The Way You Do The Things You Do), it's a snoozer.

jonx! I would both love and hate to see Bernie dropping in for a guest verse. El-P's production did wonders for Zach De La Roch's flow, hopefully it would do the same for The Bern.

There is a Donald Trump reference, and also a line which names multiple Peanuts characters, if either of those things tempt you.

As much as I love both Smokey and The Temptations, The Temptations Sing Smokey is not a great intro to either of them. For Smokey, try Going To A Go-Go, which is widely acknowledged to be his best. I find The Temptations to be much better on individual singles than albums, so I recommend Anthology, which collects a…