This was another Marvel movie that my fellow academics and I were not too thrilled about. Thinking back to this film, I remember it having a few select scenes that were intriguing and interesting but was, holistically, rather flat. Again, this film suffers from a strong opening and middle and then falters in the third act. After Iron Man fights the Hulk with the Hulk Buster armor, the movie gets a bit long in the teeth. However, I remember the film for being surprisingly poignant during one of the final scenes.
Paul Bettany, who served as the voice of Jarvis in Iron Man’s armor for the entire series of Marvel Cinematic Universe movies to this point, becomes the Vision. The origin of the character is, of course, convoluted, but it involves Ultron (James Spader) taking over Jarvis’ programming and incorporating the Mind Stone from the Infinity Stones. Regardless, Vision becomes a new member of the Avengers and helps them take down Ultron in an overly busy final action sequence complete with a floating city. However, Vision is a uniquely pensive character that, despite his technological origin, is uniquely thoughtful.
After the Avengers destroy all of Ultron’s multiple robots, the final robot confronts Vision in a forest. The scene involves only the final Ultron robot and Vision having a conversation about life and death. Vision states, “Humans are odd. They think order and chaos are somehow opposites and try to control what won’t be. But there is grace in their failings. I think you missed that.” Ultron responds, “They’re doomed.” Vision simply states, “Yes, but a thing isn’t beautiful because it lasts. It’s a privilege to be among them.” There is a bit more to this conversation, but the theme of this resonates with me.
In particular, the concept of something being beautiful even though it doesn’t last makes an impact on me. The older I get, the more I realize this is true. All of the wonderful parts of life are special because they’re temporary; the value is in having been a part of a rare and substantial experience. At points, I need to remind myself of this because it is easy to dwell on what could have been and not what something was. Going back to my baseball passion, the legendary voice of the Dodgers, Vin Scully, once said, “Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.” The Vision in Age of Ultron reminds me to smile about what happened.
Paul Bettany, who served as the voice of Jarvis in Iron Man’s armor for the entire series of Marvel Cinematic Universe movies to this point, becomes the Vision. The origin of the character is, of course, convoluted, but it involves Ultron (James Spader) taking over Jarvis’ programming and incorporating the Mind Stone from the Infinity Stones. Regardless, Vision becomes a new member of the Avengers and helps them take down Ultron in an overly busy final action sequence complete with a floating city. However, Vision is a uniquely pensive character that, despite his technological origin, is uniquely thoughtful.
After the Avengers destroy all of Ultron’s multiple robots, the final robot confronts Vision in a forest. The scene involves only the final Ultron robot and Vision having a conversation about life and death. Vision states, “Humans are odd. They think order and chaos are somehow opposites and try to control what won’t be. But there is grace in their failings. I think you missed that.” Ultron responds, “They’re doomed.” Vision simply states, “Yes, but a thing isn’t beautiful because it lasts. It’s a privilege to be among them.” There is a bit more to this conversation, but the theme of this resonates with me.
In particular, the concept of something being beautiful even though it doesn’t last makes an impact on me. The older I get, the more I realize this is true. All of the wonderful parts of life are special because they’re temporary; the value is in having been a part of a rare and substantial experience. At points, I need to remind myself of this because it is easy to dwell on what could have been and not what something was. Going back to my baseball passion, the legendary voice of the Dodgers, Vin Scully, once said, “Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.” The Vision in Age of Ultron reminds me to smile about what happened.
Alex, I agree with you and Gian and Sandy about this movie having its flaws and not being the best although it has some strong points. The scene you describe above is probably my favorite scene in the whole movie. You've watched a movie full of action and destruction assuming the good guys won, and then you have this moment that is calm and quiet yet tense and speaks volumes about humanity. Ultimately, you are left questioning what does it mean to be the "good guys," and I like how that is explored in Captain America Civil War.
ReplyDeleteC.J., I love your comment about that final quiet scene. It's great, as Alex points out. Too often, we get so much noise at the end of superhero films. Noisy action fights that we have seen hundreds of times before. This quiet scene gives us so much more to reflect on. I wish the MCU writers would remember this as they do more films.
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