Skip to main content

Age of Ultron as a Hawkeye Movie

We sometimes say that Tony is the ultimate antagonist of the MCU.
We sometimes say that Avengers: Age of Ultron is a movie more about Hawkeye than any other character.
But it turns out: You could rewrite Age of Ultron in a way that takes out Cap, Thor, Hulk, and Nat and you would have effectively the same movie.

The plot of Avengers: Age of Ultron is pretty simple: When Tony Stark gets manipulated into creating a robot to protect the planet that goes awry, the rest of the Avengers try to stop the robot from destroying the earth.
Cap, Thor, Hulk, and Nat don't actually help Ultron or the Avengers to succeed in their goals.

So let's re-imagine Age of Ultron as a solo Hawkeye movie.
In this version, Hawkeye becomes the main character, and because of their traumatic experiences involving Stark, Wanda and Lame Quicksilver are still villains. Tony is rewritten as an obvious villain, giving us 4 major villains: Tony, Wanda, Lame Quicksilver, and Ultron, (maybe Klaw, also).
Tony destroys the last Hydra base alone. Wanda still influences Tony to create Ultron, and Tony does so without Banner's help (because let's be honest: Tony Stark doesn't need help to create an absolute mess any more than Iron Man needs help to create a robot). Clint spends most of the movie trying to stop Ultron. Tony might come along to help fix the problem he made and see Clint's family along the way, but Tony ultimately doesn't do anything to stop Ultron in the original anyway. Wanda has exactly the same arc as she does in the original, because even in the original, she's convinced by Hawkeye to become a proactive character; even in the original, Lame Quicksilver still dies to protect Hawkeye; and even in the original, Wanda ultimately destroys all of Ultron.


What do you lose?
Quite a few fight scenes that don't actually help the characters defeat Ultron or help Ultron accomplish his plans.
Quite a few hallucinations (from characters other than Tony) that don't help the characters defeat Ultron or help Ultron accomplish his plans.
That really weird and completely useless experience with Thor and Heimdall that Thor: Ragnarok didn't do anything with anyway. The only thing that scene did was show a messy plot for Age of Ultron and show that Taika Waititi had a lot of creative control on Ragarok.
A little bit of comedy.
A lot of arguments that don't add to the plot between characters who don't add to the plot.
And a romantic subplot between Natasha and The Hulk. And while Banner has some important character moments and Natasha and Bruce's relationship is important to the MCU overall, it's not important to Age of Ultron itself.
Besides, if Thor can save all of existence by himself with a hammer (*cough*Thor: The Dark World*cough*), Hawkeye can save one city with a bow.

What do you gain?
Not only is the plot more streamlined this way, but we get to see Hawkeye at his most creative and most interesting.
We get an increased focus on Tony's potential danger (which clarifies Civil War and probably some of his acts in Infinity War).
The fact that Phase 2 ends with Ant-Man wouldn't be quite so anti-climatic after a film like Avengers 2.
And the fans would get the Hawkeye movie they wanted so badly.

Truth be told, you could probably take out Lame Quicksilver also and remove the massive plot hole that a guy with super speed died by bullets. Isn't the point of super speed is that you are faster than a speeding bullet? That's why I call him "Lame Quicksilver".
Wanda can still have her character growth by protecting Hawkeye from any life-threatening danger that Ultron would probably throw at him.

Would you have preferred Age of Ultron not have Cap, Thor, Banner, or Nat in it?

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

I Don't Want The Current X-Men Multiverse To Fit In The MCU

Why don't I want the current X-Men multiverse in the MCU? I don't want the X-Men of the current X-Men multiverse to be fit into the MCU. The MCU has had seamless continuity the whole time (except for that one time). The X-Men multiverse has had such bad continuity that they created an entire movie to fix the continuity, and they STILL managed to throw in more continuity snags. The MCU has had more good films than bad films. The X-Men multiverse has had more bad films than good films. Avengers: Infinity War already has too many characters. X-Men: The Last Stand had too many characters. An Avengers/X-Men crossover is just BEGGING to have no emphasis on any given character. And frankly, I'm ready for the X-Men movies to be done. X-Men: Days of Future Past - The Rogue Cut  was both an excellent movie and an excellent resolution to the series. I'm emotionally resolved enough that I want the series to be done there. Not because the series is bad - but because The Rogue Cu...

Thoughts and Prayers Aren't What You Think

We each occasionally hear people giving other people a hard time for sending thoughts and prayers to the people involved in a tragedy. Sitting around feeling sorry for someone else won't do any good any more than sitting around feeling sorry for yourself. And when someone says that they're sending "thoughts and prayers" when they're really just sitting around feeling sorry for someone, they're not actually sending thoughts and prayers. When they're just going abou t their normal lives and not thinking about or praying for the victims of tragedy, that is obviously not sending thoughts and prayers. But when someone is actually sending thoughts and prayers, that is a wonderful and essential part of helping people overcome both personal and public tragedy. Prophets and Apostles have clarified for decades that true prayer requires acting on our prayers, not just wishing that God would do it all for us (Sources may include David A. Bednar's April 2006 Confer...