Tuesday, April 9, 2013

The giant plot hole in the Avengers

There is a giant fracking plot hole in the Avengers, a largely good movie which I recommend.  I mentioned it in passing before, but at the time I was talking about something else.

The movie, for those who don't know, is about assembling a team of superheroes to combat an unprecedented menace.  To spoil the first few minutes (and only that much) what happens is this:

A glowing cube called the tesseract which holds within it the potential for unlimited power is used by Loki to open a portal to Earth through which he passes.  One of the first things Loki does is mind control one of only a handful of people on Earth to have experience with portals, and one of only two people experienced with portals who can actually understand them.  This person and some other people he mind controlled become his servants and the race is on.

So, to recap, antagonist comes to Earth through a portal and kidnaps one of only two people on the planet to understand portals even a little.  Given that information, what would you do if you were concerned with the fate of Earth.

You'd say, "Get me Jane Foster," is what you'd do.  As the only non-brainwashed portal scientist in existence, as one of the few non-brainwashed people to have first hand experience with portals, as someone who is at this very moment studying portals she is the person you want.

She's got to be at the top of your list.  There's no other place for her to be.

The movie is about assembling a team of superheroes so clearly superheroes, which Jane Foster is not, must be recruited.  But that can only reasonably occur after Jane Foster has been recruited, or there has been an attempt to recruit Jane Foster, because at this point in time the only thing the people doing the recruiting know for sure is, "This has something to do with portals," and if it has something to do with portals your options are Erik Selvig and Jane Foster.  Erik was just brainwashed into joining the other side.  Jane is all you've got left and, so far as anyone in or watching the movie knows, Earth's only hope.

Basically, as soon as you learn the premise of the movie you know, "This looks like a job Jane Foster," (said in "This looks like a job for Superman," tones) and have a reasonable expectation that Jane Foster should play a prominent role in the movie because she is basically the only character with a compelling reason to be there.  That's not quite true when one considers Thor who has oodles of compelling reasons, but until Thor arrives the audience didn't know he could make it to Earth.  Even so, perhaps an exception should be made.

Jane Foster is the only person on Earth with a compelling reason to appear in the movie the Avengers given its premise.

Steve Rodgers (Captain America) has a loose connection to the events going on.  Bruce Banner (the Incredible Hulk) has an even looser one that didn't exist until it was introduced by a line mentioned in passing by Erik early in the movie itself.  Everyone else, not so much, none of them have a reason anywhere near as important as Jane does.

The Avengers is the story of portals.  This calls for Jane Foster (and Erik Selvig if he hadn't been brainwashed.)
The Avengers is the story of Loki.  This calls for Jane Foster, Erik Selvig (if he hadn't been brainwashed), and Jane Foster's sidekick (Darcy Lewis.)
The Avengers is the story of the brainwashing of Erik Selvig.  This calls for Jane Foster.

And that, basically, covers it.  The Avengers is not the story of mechanical battle armor (which would call for Tony Stark) it is not the story of something that has a metamorphosis between forms (which would call for Bruce Banner) it is not the story of secret WWII era technology that is very advanced even by today's standards because it goes outside the bounds of currently understood science resurfacing after being lost and subsequently falling into the wrong hands (which would call for Steve Rodgers) it is not a story of spies and intrigue (which would call for Natasha Romanoff (the Black Widow)) it is not the kind of story where a special agent with a unique weapon can get the job done (which would call for Clint Barton (Hawkeye)) it's not a story that actually calls for any of these people.

All that the plot of the Avengers calls for is Jane Foster.  Jane Foster, her sidekick, Thor, and any of his sidekicks if you want to be totally inclusive, but Thor and sidekicks weren't on Earth and if you're getting Jane's sidekick you'd be getting her too.

So basically, everything about the movie screams out, "GET JANE FOSTER ON THE CASE!"

Yes, the all-caps was justified.

Once you have the premise, Loki comes to earth through a portal and brainwashes people including Erik Selvig, Jane Foster is the only earthbound individual with a reason to be called in, and that reason is super fucking strong.

So, where is that giant plot hole mentioned in the title?  You know who isn't in the movie?  Jane Foster.  The only earthbound person in the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe we can honestly say has a reason to be in the movie.  The only earthbound person in the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe we can honestly say ought to be in the movie.  The only earthbound person in the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe we can honestly say should be on SHEILD's list of people to recruit.

Where is Jane Foster?  On an island.

In a short, easy to miss, scene it is explained to Thor that as soon as it was discovered the fate of the universe Earth might well depend on getting Jane on the case (when Erik the only person who could possibly take her place was brainwashed into joining the other side) SHIELD, in its wisdom, got her as far away from the case as possible.

For her own safety, of course.  The life of one woman or the future of France? What would you do if you were in my position? The safety of one woman or the fate of the Earth, which would you consider more important?  And while pondering that realize that she was shoved out of the way through deception.  She didn't get the facts presented to her (Portals are involved, Erik has been brainwashed, Loki did it, the fate of the Earth may well hang in the balance.  We could use your help but it would place you at risk, what's your decision?) she got lied to to trick her into going to an out of the way island for her own safety.  (Never mind that if there isn't an Earth there probably isn't an island either.)

Thor appreciates this because he cares about Jane being safe.  The people of Earth, if they were let in on this, probably wouldn't appreciate it because while they doubtless care that people stay safe as well, they'd probably be a little peeved that the person who, all available evidence says, was most likely to be able to save the planet was shoved out of the picture while they were left in harm's way.

In real life the reason for Jane not appearing is that Whedon didn't want any secondary characters from any of the other movies showing up.  Erik, who was working on the glowy cube, and Loki, who was the antagonist, he was presumably stuck with.  Robert John Downey, Jr. insisted that Pepper Potts be included and managed to convince Whedon, other than that secondary characters do not appear.  Title characters do.  Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, The Incredible Hulk.  Hawkeye, the Black Widow, Coulson, Fury and such aren't really attached to any movies, they just sort of are.  Floating out there in the space between single hero movies.

The trouble here is that real life doesn't change the plot.  The plot is one that calls, first and foremost, for Jane Foster.  Any realistic recruitment starts with her.

This is a believable way for things to go down:
"Get me Jane Foster!"
"On it, Sir!" 
Musing to self, "Who else could be helpful?  Steve Rodgers did have some contact with the cube more than 50 years ago, even if it was very limited.  I suppose we could get him. 
"Shortly before everything went kaplouee the cube started putting off very low levels of gamma radiation, but our people haven't been able to make any sense of the data, maybe we need a gamma radiation expert.  So Bruce Banner." 
*pause* 
"Who else?  There must be more than three people who could be useful here.  Well if Foster and Banner come up with something then there's a possibility we'll need to build something.  We could use an inventor who works well under pressure and can make do with limited resources since we might not have time to have all the best stuff shipped in.  So Tony Stark. 
"Stark, Banner, and Rodgers in one room is a powder keg.  We should have one of our agents involved so things can't get too out of hand.  Romanoff has had experience with Stark."
And then you've got the team as it's assembled in the movie, but it only makes sense because we start with the one person most called for and then, with her out of the way, can move on to assembling the B-team who will end up stealing the show for themselves.

This is not a believable way for things to go down:
Fury: A portal between worlds.  Who ever heard of such a thing?

Coulson: Jane Foster.

Fury: With Selvig taken by the other side we don't have anyone who can approach this from a scientific side of things.

Coulson: Well actually Jane Foster has been working on this exact area, with our full support, since the last time one of these things happened.

Fury: Right, the last time, that was Loki too, wasn't it?

Coulson: Yes.

Fury: Who do we have who knows about Loki?

Coulson: Jane Foster.

Fury: Maybe science can help us with this.

Coulson: Well Jane Foster is-

Fury: I like stuff that goes boom. That's what science is for. We should get Tony Stark in on this.

Coulson: Ok, but I really think you should consider a scientist like Jane-

Fury: I like scientists who turn into unstoppable green monsters when they get angry. Get me Bruce Banner.

Coulson: I'll get agent Romanoff right on it, Sir, but I think you should consider bringing in someone with past experience with-

Fury: Past? Blast from the past. You're right! Captain America had contact with the cube, he's got just the past experience we we need.

Coulson: I do so like Captain America.

Fury: You get Stark, I'll get Rodgers.

Coulson: Do you think he'll sign my cards?
Which is what appears to have happened in the movie.  Except I forgot to sneak Jane being sent off to an out of the way island in there, and her name should probably be brought up as, "This is the person we really need," a lot more than I did in the above.

Assembling a team should have the answer to, "Who should we get?" be, "Jane Foster, Jane Foster, Jane Foster, Jane Foster..." until either she's recruited or it becomes repeated so often that it eventually becomes a part of the background noise of the universe to the point that, "I think therefore I am," is considered to be at best a second principle with, "Jane Foster should be called in to work on this," superseding it as an absolutely true and undeniable facet of reality.

Gravity is less self evident than the fact that Jane Foster should have been called.

And yet, she was sent to an island.

And that is the giant plot hole in the Avengers.  The 800 ton Cthulhu in the room that threatens to drive you from this thing called sanity.  They should have called Jane Foster They should have called Jane Foster They should have called Jane foster... Gurl fubhyq unir pnyyrq Wnar Sbfgre -- or is that Wnar Sbfgre fuhtine?
I can never quite remember 'cause I'm not in my right mind
Since I met you
No one corrupts the way you do.
You know it's true

46 comments:

  1. Never seen the movie, but... Is it conceivable that the island Jane Foster is on actually has a secret research lab, and this's being spread as disinformation to help prevent sabotage / keep Loki from attacking that island / making the team look stupid so Loki might underestimate them? I mean, as you've put it, that'd make tremendously more sense...

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    1. The internet cutting out at precisely the wrong moment made my comment disappear. This version will be shorter, sorry.

      Basically, yes that would make more sense, no the movie doesn't really support it.

      She's mentioned all of once, to quickly explain why she's not in the movie, so it doesn't seem like a disinformation campaign. Moreover if the mention were to mislead Loki it would require one to believe that Loki possessed magical senses (there was no mundane way he could have heard it, it was a good guys only place) but not have detect lies be one of them.

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  2. For me I'm afraid it's rather simpler: this is a superhero story, therefore the only important people are superheroes. (More cynically, that's what the audience has paid to see.)

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  3. Thank you so much for doing this justice.
    It gets even stupider when you realize it's not like she had to be on site. She could have just been doing Skype consults or something.

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  4. I can't imagine why Joss wouldn't want her around. She shows up, has flirty dialog with Thor. Then Stark flirts with her, Pepper snarks, Thor gets pissy, Bruce tries to play peacekeeper with disarming jokes, and everyone just snarksnarksnarks. Would mean there was even one more source of dynamic tension for the big Everything Goes (Emotionally) Boom scene.

    I just figured they didn't want to pay for -another- actor.

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    1. Basically what Whedon said is that he didn't want anyone from the individual films except the main characters being pulled in to make up the team.

      There's really no evidence that he thought about Jane Foster individually, though he should have. Instead she seems to have been lumped in with the Rosses (The general and Betty), Tony Stark's sidekick, Tony Stark's driver, Pepper until Downy convinced Joss to include her, the warriors three, Sif, Odin, Frigga, anyone who is still alive from Captain America (they were all adults during WWII, plenty of time to die) and so forth.

      So the reason for her not being there, in real world terms, seems to be the same as the reason for Sif not being there. But from in movie terms she had so much more reason to be there than anyone actually called in by SHIELD (note that they didn't call in Thor, Thor came on his own and ended up teaming up with them, again on his own.)

      Whedon's stated reason for not wanting any of the supporting casts wasn't about the number of people* it was about product differentiation. If you want to see [supporting cast member] you watch a movie in the series they're from, not a team up.

      The Avengers is where you go to see a team of heroes, the individual series (Iron Man, Thor, Captain America, Hulk if it ever returns as a series of movies, Hawkeye and Black Widow don't have series) is where you go if you want to see the hero with the supporting cast.

      Also Joss saw the movie as removing people from their support networks. Captain America already had that done by time, but for the others: the Incredible Hulk doesn't get Betty Ross, Thor doesn't get his allies from Asgard or Earth, Stark doesn't get Rhodey Rhodes or Happy Hogan (and if not for Downey's insistence wouldn't have gotten Pepper Potts)...

      -

      * Though it could have gotten very absurd very fast if everyone had brought their entourage. Thor would have brought at least four gods with him, Jane would have come and possibly brought her sidekick, Stark would have brought two more people than he did, the Hulk's presence would have brought, at least, the Rosses, so we're at, what, 10 more people and I've only brought up three of the people on the team.

      For the most part not bringing in supporting cast from other movies makes sense because numbers, not bringing in Jane Foster doesn't make sense because plot.

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    2. Did Robert Downey Jr. insist on having Pepper in the movie? That's pretty awesome of him. (I love Pepper).

      Delete
  5. Yeah, that's a rather large plot hole. TBH I think they could have justified bringing in the others on grounds of 'this seems really serious, I have no idea what we'll need to do to sort it but we'll probably need to fight Loki at the very least so I'd better get all the hardest people I can think of briefed and ready.' [Along with the radiation-related justification for Bruce Banner.]

    After, as you say, they sent someone to get Jane Foster.

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  6. >The safety of one woman or the fate of the Earth, which would you consider more >important?

    ALWAYS SAVE THE GIRL

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    1. It is worth noting that it's not, "Do we save the her or not save her?" it's, "Do we make her marginally more safe, or marginally less safe?" All the while remembering, "If we try to make her marginally more safe that might mean the end of the world in which case far from being more safe she'll be dead."

      And all of the decision making is done without her knowledge or consent.

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  7. Yeah, that's soooo respectful. "You had an excellent opportunity to risk your ass to SAVE THE WORLD, but we decided not to give you that choice, because..." we don't want cooties in our SCIENCE? IDK. And BOOO.

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  8. 1 of 2


    If you have a major plan to take over a planet like Earth, why does it consist of flipping over cars in midtown Manhattan? Why not start by dropping buildings and killing humans? Wouldn't you fan out and invade Japan, Australia, Europe?

    Why does Banner transform so slowly the first time but instantly the second? Why is he suddenly able to discern enemies the second time? Since he can clearly fly in the third reel, why does he just fall to Earth in the second reel?

    Loki's plan, that takes up most of the film on the helicarrier is pointless and has no effect on what he was sent to Earth to do.

    Why don't the aliens have advanced weapons/force? They show up with barely enough to harass midtown Manhattan. At their rate (and force size, since they sent "all their armies") it would have taken over a decade to take the whole planet. Didn't they know humans outgunned them? What if a handful of countries just sent their militaries to NYC?

    If knocking Hawkeye on the head got rid of the brainwashing, why doesn't Stark just hit Dr. Selvig on his head?

    If they brought the helicarrier over the ocean, how did Banner fall on land and how did he then get on a motorcycle and travel all the way to NYC in almost the time it took Iron Man to fly there?

    At the beginning it's stated that Stark found the tesseract, so why does he "discover" the govt has it and is developing weapons? If he was the one that turned it over, he DID IT so they could develop weapons. (His arc reactor was a separate project which means he wasn't planning on the govt using the tesseract for energy development).

    Stark has just proudly started up his arc reactor and then spends the second reel pondering "these aliens need a power source - I wonder where they'll get one?" Hmmm, I wonder.

    Why do the aliens have armor so vulnerable that Black Widow's pistol can penetrate it? Yet why does Iron Man fail to penetrate it?

    If they want the tesseract why don't the aliens just take it immediately, ignore NYC and leave Loki behind? They clearly don't like/trust him anyway.

    Why does the reptilian troop vessel have a mouth? Is it going to eat something?

    There are lots of physics problems with people traveling at high rates of speed in the open air with no effect (still being able to jump in place), but that's true of nearly all action films. But it IS odd that the Stark building itself moves around Manhattan (appearing in both midtown and downtown).

    Why does Hawkeye not attract attacks from the aliens the way the other Avengers do? Clearly he's the least defensible (even Black Widow isn't on an exposed roof corner). How is he able to see what residents are doing inside a building blocks away from his rooftop position?

    Where does Stark put his suit when he's on the helicarrier? Does it have the same valet machine as his skyscraper? Why is his skyscraper valet robot exposed to weather and high-winds rather than being in a foyer?

    Why bother to make the helicarrier invsible? Anyone wanting to find it can (and does).

    Why does Dr. Elvig's brainwashing go away? If it's because Loki drops his spear why didn't it have that effect earlier?

    Why doesn't Thor use lightning against the aliens?

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    1. While I do appreciate your interest, a lot of your questions have very easy answers that can be dealt with just by watching the movie. I understand that not everyone has the opportunity to watch more than once though, so here goes.

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      If you have a major plan to take over a planet like Earth, why does it consist of flipping over cars in midtown Manhattan? Why not start by dropping buildings and killing humans? Wouldn't you fan out and invade Japan, Australia, Europe?

      There's only one tesseract, and since it powered the portal machine that means only one portal. Where the portal was located was decided to piss off Stark. Why they didn't fan out was explained repeatedly: Loki wanted to defeat the Avengers first. He kept the forces where the Avengers were. It's why Captain America specifically said they wanted to keep Loki alive and in charge for the moment.

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      Why does Banner transform so slowly the first time but instantly the second?

      He was fighting it the first time. He was trying for it the second.

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      Why is he suddenly able to discern enemies the second time?

      There's no difference, watch the scene before the Helicarrier gets hit, Fury and Romanov are his enemies in that scene. It's no mistake that he goes after the one nearest him post-transformation and the only other people he attacks are ones who hit him first.

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      Since he can clearly fly in the third reel, why does he just fall to Earth in the second reel?

      He can't fly, he jumps. A lot. But he never flies.

      -

      since they sent "all their armies"

      They didn't. First, the line was, "Send the rest." Second it was followed by Thor using lightning against the aliens at the bottle-neck that was the portal. (Enhanced by the Chrysler building.)

      If you watch that scene you'll note some important things. One is that the aliens' larger ships can only fit through two at a time. The other is that one was destroyed and another turned back. In the scene where Stark crosses over with the missile it is clearly visible that there are more aliens en-route to the portal than all that had previously crossed over to earth put together. These were all in motion, meaning that they did not represent the staging area from which the aliens were coming. We have no way of knowing how many aliens were still waiting to be sent.

      What we do know is that the majority of the army never made it to earth.

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      If knocking Hawkeye on the head got rid of the brainwashing, why doesn't Stark just hit Dr. Selvig on his head?

      Intentionally? Because he was trying to stop the portal machine from opening the portal. Unintentionally? He does. When he tries to blast the machine the force sends him back and knocks down Selvig who hits his head in the process.

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      If they brought the helicarrier over the ocean, how did Banner fall on land and how did he then get on a motorcycle and travel all the way to NYC in almost the time it took Iron Man to fly there?

      Bringing it over the ocean took time, they didn't finish until well after Banner fell. You can actually see the progression of "Over land" "On the Coast" "Over Ocean" if you pay attention.

      Likewise you're wrong to say that it took him the same amount of time to arrive. He was the last to arrive, by a fair amount.

      Delete
    2. At the beginning it's stated that Stark found the tesseract

      You're confusing your Starks. Howard Stark, Tony Stark's father, found the tesseract when he was looking for Captain America.

      so why does he "discover" the govt has it and is developing weapons? If he was the one that turned it over, he DID IT so they could develop weapons. (His arc reactor was a separate project which means he wasn't planning on the govt using the tesseract for energy development).

      Once again, Tony Stark and Howard Stark are different people. Tony wasn't exactly active during World War II and definitely wasn't turning things over to the government. As for why his Tony's father Howard didn't tell him all about the classified information he had... guess.

      Stark has just proudly started up his arc reactor and then spends the second reel pondering "these aliens need a power source - I wonder where they'll get one?" Hmmm, I wonder.

      I agree he was slow on that one. In fact when he finally figures it out I was surprised because I thought he'd figured it out a couple paragraphs earlier and was just working up to revealing that he figured it out.

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      Why do the aliens have armor so vulnerable that Black Widow's pistol can penetrate it? Yet why does Iron Man fail to penetrate it?

      Different aliens different armor. That's like asking why it's harder to penetrate the armor of a battleship than a foot soldier.

      -

      If they want the tesseract why don't the aliens just take it immediately, ignore NYC and leave Loki behind? They clearly don't like/trust him anyway.

      The aliens clearly didn't mind letting Loki have a war but, arguably more importantly, Selvig was the only one who knew it was possible to get the tesseract out of the portal machine. Meaning the aliens couldn't just take it.

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      Why does the reptilian troop vessel have a mouth? Is it going to eat something?

      It's clearly a living thing. More than that it's clearly an animal. Animals tend to have mouths.

      -

      There are lots of physics problems with people traveling at high rates of speed in the open air with no effect (still being able to jump in place), but that's true of nearly all action films. But it IS odd that the Stark building itself moves around Manhattan (appearing in both midtown and downtown).

      Geography in the Marvel Universe is actually impossible to a degree that a building appearing in different places is arguably the least of one's worries on that front.

      The world in the Marvel Universe is larger than the real world because all real countries exist in the Marvel Universe and are just as large as they are in the real world but several fictional countries also exist and the oceans aren't any smaller which means that the world has a larger surface area. This introduces all sorts of questions about gravity, orbit, density, plate tectonics, national boundaries, geopolitical realities, travel time, distance, and so forth. And this is before one considers that whenever one sees a map it looks exactly like our world.

      Geography is borked, plain and simple.

      Delete
    3. Why does Hawkeye not attract attacks from the aliens the way the other Avengers do? Clearly he's the least defensible (even Black Widow isn't on an exposed roof corner). How is he able to see what residents are doing inside a building blocks away from his rooftop position?

      Well, for one thing, he's largely above the action, if you pay attention you'll notice that while the alien fliers can attain much greater heights they all have roughly the same preferred cruising altitude.

      Beyond that, teensy tiny plot hole. Compared to some of the others it doesn't even rate.

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      Where does Stark put his suit when he's on the helicarrier? Does it have the same valet machine as his skyscraper?

      Looks like a storage bay. Clearly not.

      -

      Why is his skyscraper valet robot exposed to weather and high-winds rather than being in a foyer?

      Have you ever known Stark to take practicality into account?

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      Why bother to make the helicarrier invsible? Anyone wanting to find it can (and does).

      If they'd known the scepter could be tracked I'm sure they'd have done a lot of things differently. Also one small group on a single aircraft being described as, "anyone," is misleading at best.

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      Why does Dr. Elvig's brainwashing go away?

      Remember that part up above where I mentioned that when Tony tried to blast the machine it caused Selvig to get his head hit? That makes it essentially the same exact reason as Hawkeye.

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      If it's because Loki drops his spear

      It's not.

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      Why doesn't Thor use lightning against the aliens?

      He does. For a mere two examples: he uses it to stop the bulk of the army from coming through the portal and he uses it to take down the large serpentine troop carrier he and the Hulk work together on. That means both of the serpents he killed were killed using lightning.

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  9. 2 of 3
    What about all the other brainwashed dudes? Where did they go at the end? Why doesn't Loki brainwash a few thousand more people instead of wasting time on the helicarrier? Why does Loki spend most of the movie on the helicarrier when the whole second reel is irrelevant to his goals and the plot? If his goal is to open the portal, why mess with the helcarrier at all?

    Stark can't penetrate the shell of the reptilian troop carrier with his weapons, yet moments later he can fly right through it.

    If they have the technology to make Capt. America's shield, why aren't they using that technology to make more stuff?

    If they have high-tech guns, why does the Black Widow only get a tiny pistol? Same for Fury. Why did they build a weapon (Agent Coulson's final gun) and yet NEVER TEST IT.

    When Stark goes through the portal into weightless space, what causes him to fall back through the portal? Why does he pass out? Isn't it proven earlier that his suit protects him?

    Why does the nuke detonate like explosive ordnance (and not a fission reaction?).

    Why are they able to lift Stark's face mask off so easily? Thor doesn't even have to grip the rest of Iron Man.

    At the end, why did Thor wait until everybody was rested and cleaned up before leaving with Loki (clearly long after they had the Shawarma)? Did they have some kind of party first or did they all go home and agree to meet later? Why do they all need to be there and why do they leave from such a public location? Wouldn't that make the "missing Avengers" (according to Fury, the Council, and the television) easy to spot?

    Why did Fury expect the Avengers to solve anything? His only plan was "gather the Avengers" but Jane had the most info and he got rid of her. The Black Widow immediately decides that "cleaning her slate" is her goal, not saving Earth. Banner is useful only to run a program that finds the Tesseract and yet when the program finds it, they ignore this and chose not to go get it, even though this was the stated plan. It then takes Stark, a few scenes to remember that this was the goal, and then, rather than using the program's solution, he finds it JUST BY THINKING ABOUT IT.

    Why did the aliens send only Loki through the initial portal? Why not, say, 5 guys?

    Why didn't the helicarrier show up for the final battle? Banner made it by land ON A MOTORCYCLE.

    When Thor first fights Iron Man, why doesn't Loki go back to his plan instead of just waiting to be recaptured?

    How was the council able to go through a nuclear warhead checklist and load a pilot and a fighter with a nuke ON FURY'S OWN SHIP? In this world are nukes as common and unwatched as sunglasses?

    After the helicarriers computers get shut down by Hawkeye's arrow-virus, how are Fury and crew able to watch events happening in NYC?

    Why are the Avengers able to talk to each other when it counts but can't hear each other at other times when it would be useful? Why aren't they inundated with chatter?

    Why does mind control involve tapping the chest? Why doesn't Loki try tapping Stark's head or just tap him an inch to the side of his nuclear heart?

    when Loki rounds up the Germans, why does he address them in English? Why does he not use this trick later or use his vanishing trick more often?

    If the helicarrier can be seriously damaged by one explosive arrow, why ever fly it over land? Why fly it at all (especially when it would be nearly impossible for fighters to return)? Why doesn't the extreme altitude effect anybody later even though they're warned about it earlier?

    Why does Capt. America hold his hand up to his ear when he communicates with other Avengers even though he wears no earpiece?

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    1. What about all the other brainwashed dudes? Where did they go at the end?

      A question well worth asking, but not one that is answered.

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      Why doesn't Loki brainwash a few thousand more people instead of wasting time on the helicarrier?

      "Full tilt diva" is the term used. He knows from those he has brainwashed about Shield, about the carrier, about the aborted Avengers Initiative, about the fact that Fury was never big on the whole "aborted" part.

      He wants to be there irritating them, he wants to defeat them on their home ground. He wants to pit them against each other which he pretty well succeeded at. There's a reason the Hulk went after the Black Widow and it has a lot to do with what Loki had managed to accomplish while there. Likewise the carrier and it's personnel were kept out of the fight in New York because of what his team did there.

      -

      Why does Loki spend most of the movie on the helicarrier when the whole second reel is irrelevant to his goals and the plot?

      The difference between one aircraft piloted by people who don't trust Fury enough to tell him where they're going and everything the carrier could muster is fairly large.

      He can only have one portal and it can only fit his most powerful weapons (the troop carrying serpents) through two at a time. He needs to gain a foothold to secure safe passage for his army through the portal. He doesn't pull that off in the movie as is. Do you think he'd have better luck if the helicarrier were parked next to Manhattan?

      I disagree that the carrier is irrelevant to his goals and the plot. That said, even if it were: full tilt diva.

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      If his goal is to open the portal, why mess with the helcarrier at all?

      His goal isn't to open the portal. That's a means, not an end. His goal is to beat the best there are on the planet that caused his previous downfall (earth) on their home soil in preferably humiliating ways. If you assume his goal was just to open the portal you're not going to understand his motivations at all.

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      Stark can't penetrate the shell of the reptilian troop carrier with his weapons, yet moments later he can fly right through it.

      He flew into its mouth and fired everything at its digestive system.

      The armor he couldn't penetrate was protecting the vulnerable innards from stuff fired from the outside. By flying into its mouth he was able to fire on the vulnerable innards directly.

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      If they have the technology to make Capt. America's shield, why aren't they using that technology to make more stuff?

      They don't have enough of the metal, this was answered in 2011, the movie we're talking about came out in 2012. Do the math. The question you're asking was answered the year before the movie came to theaters.

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      If they have high-tech guns, why does the Black Widow only get a tiny pistol? Same for Fury. Why did they build a weapon (Agent Coulson's final gun) and yet NEVER TEST IT.

      What was the word used to describe the weapons in the opening minutes of the movie when they were first mentioned? Prototypes.

      (Also, it's never stated that they didn't test it, just that Coulson doesn't know what it does.)

      You don't give your troops prototype weapons. Sometimes just giving them new weapons gets them killed. (The first M16s jammed in combat which got a lot of soldiers injured or killed. They were passed the point of prototype, they thought they were combat ready, they were wrong.)

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      When Stark goes through the portal into weightless space,

      Who says it's weightless space? Stark could pass through, why not earth's gravity?

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      Why does he pass out?

      My guess would be a lack of air.

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      Isn't it proven earlier that his suit protects him?

      It is demonstrated earlier that an undamaged suit can protect him from water getting in and in so doing hold enough air for him to quickly go under water.

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    2. Why does the nuke detonate like explosive ordnance (and not a fission reaction?).

      Honestly it's been a while since the last time I saw a nuke detonate in space, so I couldn't tell you what it looked like. Also movies tend to make magic enhanced nuclear detonations look like whatever they find cool.

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      Why are they able to lift Stark's face mask off so easily? Thor doesn't even have to grip the rest of Iron Man.

      Thor is a god, remember. Beyond that, ask a theologian.

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      At the end, why did Thor wait until everybody was rested and cleaned up before leaving with Loki (clearly long after they had the Shawarma)? Did they have some kind of party first or did they all go home and agree to meet later? Why do they all need to be there and why do they leave from such a public location?

      Perhaps Thor likes formal good-byes. Again, ask a theologian.

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      Wouldn't that make the "missing Avengers" (according to Fury, the Council, and the television) easy to spot?

      Not really. You seem to underestimate the number of public locations in the world.

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      Why did Fury expect the Avengers to solve anything?

      This is a very good question. Only Fury knows.

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      His only plan was "gather the Avengers" but Jane had the most info and he got rid of her.

      And that is the giant plot hole. He gets rid of the one person who is likely able to help and instead gathers a team that he won't know they'll need until significantly later.

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      The Black Widow immediately decides that "cleaning her slate" is her goal, not saving Earth.

      Only if you assume her to be honest which given that she was playing Loki and facial expressions with Barton seems unlikely at best.

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    3. Banner is useful only to run a program that finds the Tesseract and yet when the program finds it, they ignore this and chose not to go get it, even though this was the stated plan.

      This is not accurate.

      The sequence of events is this:
      -The program finds the cube.
      -Stark, Captain America, and Thor disagree about how it should be retrieved.
      -Banner, and Banner alone, sees where it is.
      -The helicarrier is attacked. An attack which destroys the lab in which the equipment and computers used to located the tesseract are stored.
      -They start to navigate toward water.
      -Banner, still in Hulk form, falls off. If this matters to you.
      -More action indicating the passage of time.
      -They reach the coast, Thor is dropped.
      -Coulson shoots Loki
      -Stark and Captain America restart the turbine thus saving the helicarrier.
      -This stuff over they have a meeting in which Fury reveals that they do not know the location of the tesseract. It is not stated why, but then again nothing is stated why. It's a status update not a, "This is how we came to be here," meeting. If I had to guess I'd guess that it had something to do with the computers on which the location of the tesseract was determined and stored being blown up.

      At no point does anyone show any signs of forgetting that they wanted to get the tesseract. When it is located Stark, Thor, and Captain America all state that they want to go get it. (Stark wants to get it solo, Thor thinks he should be the one to do it, Captain America says Stark shouldn't get it alone.)

      On this one you're just flat out wrong. Sorry.

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      It then takes Stark, a few scenes to remember that this was the goal,

      No. The scene after he stopped the helicarrier from crashing Fury brings up "the location of the cube" and points out that they don't have it, communications, Dr. Banner, Thor, or anything else that might be helpful.

      Stark leaves the room in which they had the computers to run the program to stop the attack from crashing the ship, the scene immediately after he finishes doing that they're right back to talking about the tesseract.

      He doesn't forget.

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      and then, rather than using the program's solution,

      Which we were just told was lost in the attack. How do you think he would use it? Time travel?

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      he finds it JUST BY THINKING ABOUT IT.

      Yes. And as you yourself pointed out, he arguably should have done it sooner.

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    4. Why did the aliens send only Loki through the initial portal? Why not, say, 5 guys?

      The initial unstable portal that we have no idea how many people could travel through it and seemed to put a god somewhat out of sorts by being used? No idea. And, yes, that is sarcasm.

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      Why didn't the helicarrier show up for the final battle?

      Being "dead in the air up here" might have something to do it.

      Banner made it by land ON A MOTORCYCLE.

      If this is an Eddie Izzard reference I give you full credit, but there's a couple things:
      1 Banner knew where the final battle was going to take place, those on the helicarrier didn't.
      2 The motorcycle was in full working order, the helicarrier not so much.

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      When Thor first fights Iron Man, why doesn't Loki go back to his plan instead of just waiting to be recaptured?

      His plan was to be captured. There was no other plan to go back to. He may not have crashed it, but he removed the helicarrier from the battle. His forces were only able to locate it because they tracked his scepter, which only got on it because he was captured.

      He sowed enough dissent in the ranks that when Stark, Captain America, the Black Widdow, and Hawkeye all know where to go not one of them gives that information to Fury.

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      How was the council able to go through a nuclear warhead checklist and load a pilot and a fighter with a nuke ON FURY'S OWN SHIP? In this world are nukes as common and unwatched as sunglasses?

      All of phase 2, which included nuclear weapons, was evacuated at the beginning of the movie. It ended up on the carrier. That means that the carrier had more nukes than any vessel should reasonably have.

      Additionally the communications are damaged and while they are restored enough to talk to the council that doesn't mean they're restored enough for people on the bridge to monitor all channels but that's not the thing you're missing.

      They ordered two planes out. Which means that even if Fury had picked up on the presumably encrypted messages to the planes authorizing a nuclear launch he wouldn't necessarily realize that the messages were to two planes instead of one.

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      After the helicarriers computers get shut down by Hawkeye's arrow-virus, how are Fury and crew able to watch events happening in NYC?

      There's a thing known as repairs.

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    5. Why are the Avengers able to talk to each other when it counts but can't hear each other at other times when it would be useful? Why aren't they inundated with chatter?

      How do you know that they aren't?

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      Why does mind control involve tapping the chest? Why doesn't Loki try tapping Stark's head or just tap him an inch to the side of his nuclear heart?

      Why does it involve a scepter/spear?

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      when Loki rounds up the Germans, why does he address them in English?

      Technically he addresses them in Asguardian which is a universal language that everyone hears as their own and is rendered in the movies as English. Yes, this is problematic (Star Trek and Doctor Who have the same problem) because language involves a fair amount of idiom, reference, layered meanings, and so forth. But you didn't ask about the Universal Translator of the gods so I'm not going to go there.

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      Why does he not use this trick later or use his vanishing trick more often?

      He doesn't have a vanishing trick. It's the same trick: illusion.

      Watch again and something you'll notice is that in the scenes with Thor and Coulson only the real Loki has the scepter. The one walking out of the cage is an illusion as is the one who says, "Are you ever not going to fall for that?" who, if you pay attention, you'll notice never touches anything. He only acts like he's going to press a button.

      If someone were watching from all angles (impossible, I know) they'd see three Lokis, then two, then, after he stabs Coulson, only one.

      That's the exact same trick he used on the Germans to make them think they were surrounded.

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      If the helicarrier can be seriously damaged by one explosive arrow, why ever fly it over land? Why fly it at all (especially when it would be nearly impossible for fighters to return)?

      One exploding arrow aimed by the world's greatest archer while he was enhanced by magic after spending time with people doing incredibly advanced science.

      I'll offer two possible explanations but I'm sure you can think of at least six more.
      1 The arrow had to land in precisely that spot to do that kind of damage which is statistically impossible. Thus they were not counting on a magic enhanced Hawkeye trying to kill them.
      2 The explosive was enhanced by means given to those who enhanced it by the tesseract.

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      Why doesn't the extreme altitude effect anybody later even though they're warned about it earlier?

      Or you could turn it around, why are they warned about it even though it won't effect them. Another teeny-tiny plot hole that pales in comparison to some of the others.

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      Why does Capt. America hold his hand up to his ear when he communicates with other Avengers even though he wears no earpiece?

      Does he? On both counts. When is he holding his hand to his ear? When are you looking into his ear to see that there is no earpiece in there?

      Not saying you're wrong, I've honestly never paid that much attention.

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  10. 3 of 3 (oops, longer than expected)

    Why does Loki patiently wait for Stark to take off his Iron Man suit?

    If the aliens are trying to capture Earth for Loki, why do they not start killing New Yorkers? (New Yorker's would be immediately taunting the aliens if they weren't killing).

    Why doesn't the council ask the Avengers to lure the aliens over to New Jersey or somewhere before launching a nuke? If Stark wouldn't have intercepted the nuke, and it had another 20-30 seconds of flight left, wouldn't that have put it in Westchester county?

    What happened to Iron Man's extra suits? Is Don Cheadle no longer alive?

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    1. Why does Loki patiently wait for Stark to take off his Iron Man suit?

      Tony Stark out of the suit is easier to deal with than Tony Stark in the suit for one thing, but as clearly indicated in the film Loki was looking forward to talking with Stark. Also, since the scepter has to make contact with the person, he presumably thought that he could only brainwash Tony if he were out of his suit.

      -

      If the aliens are trying to capture Earth for Loki, why do they not start killing New Yorkers? (New Yorker's would be immediately taunting the aliens if they weren't killing).

      There's really no reason to assume that New Yorkers are not dying. The aliens in the bank had herded the civilians in so they could kill a large group with a single bomb. The serpentine troop carrier that the Hulk takes on second was headed straight for a building full of people mouth open until the Hulk redirected it, there was a lot of shooting going on.

      Loki was concentrating on the Avengers, which takes a lot of pressure off of the civilians but there were definitely efforts to kill civilians and just because the movie doesn't show civilians dying on screen doesn't mean that the avengers stopped every single attempt to kill them.

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      Why doesn't the council ask the Avengers to lure the aliens over to New Jersey or somewhere before launching a nuke?

      The council is not in contact with the Avengers, and neither is Fury. Also the portal is apparently immobile and given the stupidity of the entire nuke plan I don't think the council was doing much in the way of thinking.

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      If Stark wouldn't have intercepted the nuke, and it had another 20-30 seconds of flight left, wouldn't that have put it in Westchester county?

      This gets us back to geography in the Marvel Universe. It does not make sense which means you can't reasonably use it to calculate things.

      What happens is this:
      -Stark catches the missile
      -Stark adds his thrust to the missile thus speeding it up and buying him extra seconds of flight time after it reaches what was intended to be its final destination but, because geography does not make sense (and because slow motion is used in some of the subsequent shots) we cannot reasonably say if the post destination flight time gained by speeding up the missile was equivalent to the flight time after it went through the portal
      -Stark said to save the rest for the turn

      That portion, between when he caught the missile and when he said to save the rest for the turn made the missile get to its destination sooner, but whether or not it was enough sooner to account for the flight time on the other side of the portal is impossible to determine.

      And there is another possibility it might not have been timed at all. If Stark hadn't intercepted it the missile would have impacted with the Stark building. When it does detonate it appears to do so on impact.

      Delete
    2. What happened to Iron Man's extra suits?

      At the beginning of the movie he's using the Mark 6 and in the end the Mark 7. One was taken by Don Cheadle when he replaced Terrence Howard. That leaves four suits. I don't know if the one he made in the desert counts as Mark 1 or zero. The point being, there aren't actually that many extra suits at this point.

      And, of course, Stark has his suits bio-metrically locked so only approved individuals can use them. That's why Rhodey was able to take one, he was an approved individual. Meaning that the three or four extra suits that exist at this point in time are probably not of any use.

      That does bring us to your next question though:

      Is Don Cheadle no longer alive?

      That doesn't really matter. (From a cinematic perspective. In reality he is still alive.) The character has already been played by two different people in the space of two movies. He could be played by a third actor in this one.

      And you're right to ask since he is, at this point, the only person we know of who can use one of the suits other than Iron Man.

      From a real world perspective the reason he doesn't show up is the same reason for the giant plot hole: Whedon didn't want supporting characters. He wanted to keep those as something special to the individual hero's movies and have this be a thing where they were without their usual circle of friends/support network.

      So, like Jane Foster, Rhodey doesn't appear because Whedon didn't want him.

      From an in-universe perspective one might, if they were so inclined, argue that this is when his suit was being upgraded pre-Iron Man 3, and thus he was not able to join the fight.

      Delete
  11. Having just watched this again there is nothing about the dialogue that suggests that she doesn't know about the project and that she isn't somehow working on it.

    I also don't see what knowledge she has that would be particularly useful with the plot going the way it was, closing a portal was never the objective. The objective was getting the item back in the first place and preventing a portal from ever being opened (if that is in fact what Loki was doing, that was not known for a while).

    The Tesserect is an energy source that has a great number of uses, your expectation that Jane should be there does not equal a plot hole, a plot hole must be something that cannot be simply explained. In reality she was clearly working for them and continuing research about portals, of which they had full access but they also didn't want her to be endangered needlessly since she could be a target and there is really no pressing reason for her to be present.

    It would also minimise their interaction in the upcoming Thor movie for no reason other than because some people felt her absence was weird in some way, which it really is not.

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    1. Having just watched this again there is nothing about the dialogue that suggests that she doesn't know about the project and that she isn't somehow working on it.

      Watch it again. The part where Coulson talks to Thor about what Foster has and has not been told and why she is in the place that she is.

      If you still believe that there is nothing that suggests it after listening to Coulson say it, rather explicitly and in no uncertain terms, then you and I have very different understandings of the English language.

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  12. So, what you're saying is you really like Jane Foster.

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    1. Cute, but no. How much I do or do not like Jane Foster is irrelevant.

      What I am saying is that if there's a movie where the only thing you know is that the problem has something to do with X and the bad guy stole (brainwashed) one of the only two people well versed in X if you send away rather than recruit the one remaining person well versed in X that's a plot hole of immense proportions.

      It's like having a story set in April, 1921 New York where at the start the only thing you know is that the problem somehow relates to General Relativity and the bad guy's first move was to kidnap and brainwash Sir Arthur Eddington. It basically goes without saying that you'd call on Albert Einstein, not send him away without ever letting on that there is a Relativity-related threat to the world at large.

      If you don't do that, if you don't at least try to recruit the one remaining person on earth not on the evil side who understands what you're dealing with (in spite of canonically establishing that you could have) then that's a serious problem to the believably of your narrative.

      Think of it like Signs, which was not a good movie for any number of reasons and abounded with plot holes. What if, on learning that water was toxic to the aliens, everyone decided to make sure that there was never any water anywhere near the aliens rather than to use water against the aliens? That would overshadow everything else wrong with the movie.

      Jane Foster could have been the most despicable unlikable character in the history of film and that would not have changed the fact that it is glaringly immensely wrong that supposedly smart practical people sent her away to do unrelated things rather than brought her on-board because she was, at the time, the only person they knew of who could help.

      It was only when Thor showed up and gave exposition, well after Foster was sent away and people who had to start learning about these things from scratch were brought in instead, that it was learned there was an army and thus a potential need for superheroes.

      The movie established that the most useful thing they could do at the beginning was to get X working for them, instead they sent X away. That's a problem. Jane Foster happens to be that X but if that X had been some device (say an arc reactor or something) instead of a character it would still be a problem.

      It's a problem on the level of plot hole because for it to make any sense beyond "Every smart person on earth who is in the know is simultaneously holding the same idiot ball" is if the characters had read the script, knew where things were going to end up before they had any way to do that, and thus were able to ignore all previously established world building --everything that had ever been learned about how the universe worked-- and just deal with the problem by getting a handful of people to beat on the problem in the end.

      (It could be made into not-a-plot-hole if they actually did have a way of seeing the future, but that would have introduced its own problems to the plot.)

      Delete
    2. She may have been helpful with disarming the reactor at the end, Jane would be of no use to the movie. She may have knowledge on how the tesseract works, but if they do not have the tesseract to defend themselves from Loki and the army, then the knowledge is useless. It is like saying that Joe Blacksmith will be able to help make a shield after the enemy has stolen our metal and Jane Blacksmith. Joe can tell us how to smith, he can explain the different properties of metal, but he is not going to be helping us much until we have TAKEN BACK the metal to forge with... Our army (Avengers) must take back what is needed, but until then, the remaining knowledge of smithing (portals/tesseract) must be kept safe for later use.

      Delete
    3. You're confusing Jane Foster and Tony Stark. Tony Stark is the blacksmith. Jane doesn't build things; she studies them. That's how she was able to work out the exact place the portal would come through in Thor (the movie, which happens to set up the events of The Avengers) without access to the tesseract.

      Without even knowing the tesseract existed.

      Jane isn't the person who can build weapons, or in your example shields, with which to fight the enemy. Jane is the person who can track where the enemy went, predict where they are likely to go (note that the non-portal scientists only understood why, or even that, the enemy needed portal stuff AFTER the enemy had already gotten it) and so forth.

      Also, your comment indicates that you don't know who Jane Foster even is. Maybe you should look that up before trying to make an argument about what she can and cannot do.

      -

      If you really want to make a smith related analogy Jane is a metallurgist. She can tell you what the enemy needs to acquire in order to use the metal they stole (thus allowing the Avengers to get to Stuttgart before Loki and preventing the other side from ever building their portal device for but one example), what they can do with it, the best ways to oppose it, and that sort of stuff. But the smith analogy breaks down because metallurgists don't know how to track metal related things. Jane does know how to track portal related things, of which the tesseract is an example.

      Remember how much time was spent with Stark and Banner trying to track the tesseract? That's one of the many, many things Jane would be uniquely qualified to work on.

      Whether or not that would work is an open question (the tesseract was dormant the last time we saw Jane on screen tracking such things, it is active during The Avengers) but no one in the movie has any reason to think that it wouldn't work and as tracking schemes go it seems more likely than what they did try. (Though I don't fault them for trying it. Every resource at your disposal, after all.)

      Delete
  13. I think it's widely known that I have conflicted feels about Whedon, but this is definitely one of the reasons why the whole MOST FEMINIST GUY IN HOLLYWOOD ETC. stuff makes my eyes twitch. Because while I get the impulse to not have secondary characters, he *must* realize (because he's not stupid) that such a decision will, by virtue of the fact that male characters almost always get top billing, slice out all the "secondary characters" who could also be described as "female protagonists".

    And a decision like that is NOT MADE IN A VOID. It's not a gender-neutral decision to slice out "non-top billing protagonists" because ours is not a gender-neutral world where they flip a coin to see if Steve Rodgers is really Sherry Rodgers. (How cool would that have been, by the way? A woman who wanted to be on the front lines, but they wouldn't let her, so she signed up for an experimental super-serum program...)

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    1. It is cool. All of the fanfictions. But it would be wicked cool on the big screen, too.

      Delete
    2. Apparently I got logged out just as I tried to post and my comment was lost forever, but that's ok because it was very short, I remember it, and without adding in the thinking behind it it could be taken the wrong way:

      Random Guy: But you're a woman!
      *Sherry Rodgers, thinking to herself: Do I want to explain a sensible division of labor in an egalitarian society and why we should strive for that again, or do I just...*
      Sherry Rodgers: I have superpowers.
      *Random Guy is left in speechless shock*

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    3. I think it would also tie in with the fact that in at least some of the CA products (here thinking of a game intro I saw relatively recently) they like the rank-and-file to be skeptical that he's all he's touted to be. Also-also, the frankly BIZARRE decision to hold him back for the first half of the movie to be a literal poster boy.

      How much more sense would those things make if CA was a woman and thus people were thinking (a) better for PR than actual fighting and (b) surely not badass despite all the hype because prejudices.

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    4. I don't have anything more to add, but I wanted to thank you (both) for commenting.

      Delete
    5. I'm only sorry I don't more often. :) I forget you don't read my mind and don't know I'm reading if I don't comment. :)

      Delete
  14. I don't know if anybody has mentioned this, but the reason that Jane Foster was written out of "The Avengers" and put safe on an island somewhere was that Natalie Portman was both heavily pregnant and taking a break from acting while "The Avengers" was being filmed. This explains why they couldn't feature her character.

    On the other hand, the writers could have done a much better job at explaining why she wasn't there beyond "We put her somewhere safe because she's important to Thor and Loki might try to hurt her". They definitely should've thought of a better reason for Jane to be absent, and should have explained it a heck of a lot better.

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    1. Having thought about it a bit more, I have a horrible feeling that my previous comment is missing the point and might be derailing to boot. I apologise for that and would like to recant what I wrote. Thank you.

      Delete
    2. Portman's pregnancy has been mentioned, though not in this thread, and does overlap with some of the principle photography of the film, and certainly if she wanted to take the next *counts* three to four months off to be with her newborn instead of working no one can fault her for that. (She was away from acting for more time than that, but it's only three or four months, I'm not totally sure which, that would be necessary to keep her from working on The Avengers.)

      The thing is: that's not the reason Whedon gave. At all. Whedon was very clear on why people like Foster weren't in it and it had nothing to do with availability.

      Whether or not Foster could be featured, which has to do with Portman's availability, only would have mattered if the people making the film wanted to feature her. Whether the actor is available only comes up if they're trying to get the character in the film, and there's no indication they were. (And there are indications they weren't.)

      And, as you said, even if the reason the character wasn't there was totally about Portman's availability that doesn't fix the in-universe problem that Foster's absence and the explanation thereof creates.

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    3. Apparently I took a long time to compose a response because your second comment was not there when I started my response to your first.

      If you would like I can remove your comment and responses to it and will do that for you if you ask.

      That said, while I think there was missing of the point, it is not my personal opinion that it needs to be removed (or be recanted of for that matter.)

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    4. I'm fine with the comment staying if you don't think it needs to be removed. And once again, I'm sorry for missing the point re. whether a character can be featured versus whether the creators want to feature them. Thank you for your reply, as well – it very clearly explained where I grasped the wrong end of the stick. Thank you.

      Delete
  15. This is a really good point clearly explained. I'm embarrassed to admit that the whole "we put the scientist best qualified to deal with this crisis on an island so she would be safe from the crisis she is uniquely qualified to solve" thing went right past me when I was watching it. I've only seen a few of the Marvel movies as of now and my experience is that they tend to be . . . enjoyable but frustrating, for the most part. Full of characters I love, but not so thoughtful about how to use them.

    However, if they ever make Personal Assistant of Steel: The Pepper Potts Story I will be in the front row on opening night, commemorative coffee mug in hand.

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    1. Yes Me Too.
      Personal Assistant of Steel: The Pepper Potts Story
      Definitely a SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY situation.

      Delete
  16. During the final fight scene, I kept picturing how pissed off Jane Foster would have been when she watched the news that evening.

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    1. We were watching earlier this week and I was thinking the EXACT SAME THING, courtesy of this post.

      I think there's even a throw-away line in the new Thor previews, like "I saw you on TV with the Avengers." ARGH.

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  17. I agree. Big mistake by not putting Jane in the Avengers. Whedon can be such a bone head.

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