Aha! That Was My Plan All Along!

July 4, 2012 2:46 PM

How Loki pulled a fast one on The Avengers and the audience ( Spoilers )
posted by The Whelk (122 comments total)

I really liked this take on it, and I hope he's right because it means Thor 2 will maybe not suck. (I will watch Chris Hemsworth thundering in whateverthehell accent that is regardless, but still.)
posted by restless_nomad at 2:49 PM on July 4, 2012 [6 favorites]

Spoilers not just for Avengers, but for Thor, too.
posted by jiawen at 2:57 PM on July 4, 2012

Having a grand vision that unifies a series of meh films doesn't make the films any less meh. Just epic meh.
posted by Saxon Kane at 2:58 PM on July 4, 2012 [14 favorites]

Right, but why can't Loki just go back to Asgard? Thor's remorseful as hell thinking Loki's dead. He'd be on probation, but that's it.
posted by leotrotsky at 3:05 PM on July 4, 2012 [1 favorite]

Ah, the 'why drive when you can get driven' ploy. (video)
posted by the man of twists and turns at 3:05 PM on July 4, 2012 [1 favorite]

Because now he's going back, defeated -- and thus perhaps he could be welcomed home.

Also he returned to reality indebted to the Chitauri, who've been conveniently eliminated.

Yes, I think this is what's going on. Elegant.
posted by effugas at 3:10 PM on July 4, 2012 [1 favorite]

He can't get back to Asgard from the Great Void or whatever he ended up in after he fell off the bridge in Thor. So he uses Thanos to get to Earth (which as mentioned in the article, he does not care about), and then uses Thor to get home.

I don't agree with the article's idea that Loki and Thanos are still working together. I think that Loki is now aware of the Gauntlet's importance and Thanos may or may not be using him to shake it loose from the Vault. But then again, Loki being Lokie, maybe he's aware he's being used and is in turn using and its Whedons all the way down.
posted by robocop is bleeding at 3:12 PM on July 4, 2012 [9 favorites]

The Long Game... supposedly a long-running tradition in comic books, at least until they decide to reboot everything every few years... now being outdone by comic book movies. Maybe all the other multiple sequels and prequels in the movies would be more bearable if they were all based on some "Long Game". Or maybe they are and the writers of Blockbuster IV were never told what the writer of Blockbuster I was planning. Then again, sometimes you never want to understand what the Long Game is really all about - but that mostly applies to prequels. Still, I'd love to see a Long Game explanation for the entire series of James Bond movies (is Goldfinger still alive pulling strings from behind the scenes for 45 years?).
posted by oneswellfoop at 3:14 PM on July 4, 2012 [1 favorite]

1. I wondered why Loki agreed to go back so easily, at the end of the movie.

2. Thor was ready to bring Loki to Asgard after grabbing him from the plane, which was midway through the movie. So, why not go back then? That way the Avengers aren't formed.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 3:19 PM on July 4, 2012 [3 favorites]

So, why not go back then?

But then the Chitauri are still in the picture, and this essay seems to be theorizing that Loki has reason to wipe them out so he doesn't have to worry about them anymore.
posted by restless_nomad at 3:27 PM on July 4, 2012 [1 favorite]

The Long Game... supposedly a long-running tradition in comic books, at least until they decide to reboot everything every few years... now being outdone by comic book movies. Maybe all the other multiple sequels and prequels in the movies would be more bearable if they were all based on some "Long Game". Or maybe they are and the writers of Blockbuster IV were never told what the writer of Blockbuster I was planning.

Reminds me of the complete lack of communication between other Whedon properties, the comics of Buffy Season 8 and Angel After the Fall. SPOILERS AVERT YE EYES. In Season 8, which Whedon managed, a mystery figure turned out to be none other than Angel working on some grand plan. Honestly don't remember the details as I tuned out of the series shortly after this reveal. But they had never mentioned this to the Angel comics people, who were shocked to discover the secret plot their hero had apparently been working on all along... Surprisingly sloppy for Whedon, even if he had little if anything to do with the Angle book.
posted by yellowbinder at 3:30 PM on July 4, 2012 [2 favorites]

If I've learned anything from watching Doctor Who in recent years, it's that all these seemingly well plotted little discrepancies dropped here and there in the scripts across episodes that feel like they'll form a coherent whole sometime later on that'll be incredibly fulfilling and clever will all just be forgotten or were accidents anyway and instead you'll just get a load of plotholes, stupidities and shouting. And maybe some dreadful CGI
posted by dng at 3:36 PM on July 4, 2012 [30 favorites]

You're forgetting the power of love dng, the instant solution to any host of galactic problems.
posted by The Whelk at 3:42 PM on July 4, 2012 [4 favorites]

The power of Love what got the carbon stains out my pans.
posted by TwelveTwo at 3:43 PM on July 4, 2012 [2 favorites]

But then the Chitauri are still in the picture, and this essay seems to be theorizing that Loki has reason to wipe them out so he doesn't have to worry about them anymore.

Why would Loki worry about the Chitauri if they're working for Thanos, who knows the plan and wants Loki back in Asgard?

Hell, Thor was practically begging Loki to come back, appealing to their familial bond. That would have been a great time for Loki to pretend he was giving up the plan and coming back willingly, which would have played to his favor in Asgard.

Instead he goes back bound and gagged, hauled off to trial or prison?
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 3:43 PM on July 4, 2012 [6 favorites]

The power of Love what got the carbon stains out my pans.

Actually, it's the power of Love that got the stains into the sofa in the first place.
posted by kurosawa's pal at 3:47 PM on July 4, 2012 [5 favorites]

Still, I'd love to see a Long Game explanation for the entire series of James Bond movies

'James Bond' is as much of a code as '007,' moved when agents die, retire or become unreliable. Thus the 'new' 'James Bond' has a different look, personality, method, etc.

I heard this from someone else.
posted by the man of twists and turns at 3:48 PM on July 4, 2012 [4 favorites]

I don't buy it. Even if they end up revealing this game plan in Thor 2 or Avengers 2 — which they might — it doesn't actually make any sense giving how The Avengers played out. Think of all of the ways the Avengers came very very close to dying and/or failing at defeating Loki — Thor falling in that cylindrical chamber, Tony Stark's new-suit building dive, all the death-defying stunts in the Chitauri battles, the atom bomb situation, etc. You're telling me that the entire time Loki was counting on them prevailing? I call B.S.
posted by DZack at 3:51 PM on July 4, 2012 [7 favorites]

'James Bond' is as much of a code as '007,' moved when agents die, retire or become unreliable. Thus the 'new' 'James Bond' has a different look, personality, method, etc.

I heard this from someone else.

"This never happened to the other fellow" practically makes it canon.
posted by dng at 3:53 PM on July 4, 2012 [17 favorites]

I like this theory! Thanks for posting. Sadly it'll probably never come to fruition unless they give Whedon complete control over the next 6 movies or so, but it's neat to think about.

That would have been a great time for Loki to pretend he was giving up the plan and coming back willingly, which would have played to his favor in Asgard.

Disagree. If Loki goes back willingly, even a clueless wall of muscles like Thor might think to wonder why Loki came back willingly, or if Loki's got some other angle he's playing. It would definitely occur to some of the other Asgardians to wonder that. He comes back freely but remains totally untrusted. Whereas, *after* having his grand plan defeated and being brought back apparently against his will, most of them will assume, welp, that's it for Loki's plan, he's been brought back as a prisoner and hasn't got anything going on. If Loki really wants folks in Asgard to not be watching his every move like hawks, this is the better way back.
posted by mstokes650 at 3:54 PM on July 4, 2012 [4 favorites]

You're telling me that the entire time Loki was counting on them prevailing? I call B.S.

No, no. It's that whether or not Loki's plan worked, he still won. The Avengers get toasted? He has the tesseract and an army, time to head to Asgard. He gets picked up and shipped off home before the invasion? He's where he wants to be, regardless of what happens on earth. He gets pounded into the ground and then insulted? Still on the train back home.
posted by restless_nomad at 3:55 PM on July 4, 2012 [20 favorites]

You're telling me that the entire time Loki was counting on them prevailing? I call B.S.

I think the theory is if they don't prevail he gets to rule Earth, which I assume is supposed to be a worthwhile thing to do, probably because Jenny Agutter was in the mysterious council that controlled all Earth, and he saw Walkabout once and is still smitten.
posted by dng at 3:57 PM on July 4, 2012 [5 favorites]

I disagree that he doesn't care about Earth at all - I'm inclined to believe the characterization we saw in the movie, where he wants to rule something, anything, and will take the Earth because it's there and because it would deprive Thor of something he likes. But it's definitely a consolation prize against the real goal of regaining Asgard, they've got that right.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 4:06 PM on July 4, 2012 [2 favorites]

The Avengers get toasted? He has the tesseract and an army, time to head to Asgard.
First off, this isn't the theory in the article, which says stuff like "Loki wanted them to defeat the Chitauri. He wanted to lose the battle in New York," which is what I was oh so violently reacting to. So you're theory makes a little more sense... but how, in the situation of his victory, would he get back to Asgard? I thought the whole point was that he couldn't.
posted by DZack at 4:06 PM on July 4, 2012

The Avengers get toasted? He has the tesseract and an army, time to head to Asgard. He gets picked up and shipped off home before the invasion? He's where he wants to be, regardless of what happens on earth.

But don't those two outcomes have different meanings. If Loki's goal is rule Asgard, then the first makes some sense perhaps. But if Thanos is backing him and wants Loki back in Asgard to help steal the Infinity Gauntlet, then why go to war with Asgard, who would either lock it up real tight or use it?

If Loki is shipped home before the invasion, then how does he get to rule Asgard?

And if he Loki can steal the Infinity Gauntlet, then why give it to Thanos? Wouldn't it be a more useful tool to rule Asgard and smack Thor around with?
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 4:15 PM on July 4, 2012

My favorite of these sorts of theories is the one about R2D2 being the real hero of Star Wars.
posted by Ghostride The Whip at 4:22 PM on July 4, 2012 [19 favorites]

And if he Loki can steal the Infinity Gauntlet, then why give it to Thanos? Wouldn't it be a more useful tool to rule Asgard and smack Thor around with?

Exactly. This is why I think Thanos is Okay with Loki getting sent back to Asgard - he knows Loki will get the Gauntlet, which means Thor will kick the stuffing out of him, and Odin is kind of one-note when it comes to problems: BANISH THEM TO EARTH.

Where Thanos's nigh-Skrull agents are waiting.
posted by robocop is bleeding at 4:27 PM on July 4, 2012

The point is not that we know three different detailed plans depending on the outcomes, but the story is written such that we can come up with plausible follow-up stories for all of them and therefore Loki's "Haha, I'm right where I want to be!" in a sequel more or less follows.

(And I think assuming that the villains aren't planning to cheat each other is a bigger reach than anything, really. )
posted by restless_nomad at 4:30 PM on July 4, 2012

Well, it sure is a low key plan.
posted by vidur at 4:42 PM on July 4, 2012 [3 favorites]

Another possibility is that Loki /wants/ the Avengers to be formed, and to have at least one success - because this way, Thor can be drawn back into Earth's problems again and again, leaving Loki in Asgard, without Thor's interference.
posted by corb at 4:43 PM on July 4, 2012 [1 favorite]

Am I allowed to ask a question about the Hulk here? The question is this: does Bruce Banner age? And if he does will he reach a point where he's so old and ill that he has to basically turn into the hulk all the time so he doesn't die, lost in an endless fury at the prospect of his weaker half's mortality?
posted by dng at 4:50 PM on July 4, 2012 [4 favorites]

I think it's such that if Banner never transformed, he could age and die, but when he does and changes back, he resets to his physical prime from the time of the initial gamma accident.
posted by robocop is bleeding at 5:04 PM on July 4, 2012 [4 favorites]

Yeah, the fanfic community has been all over this. Another version I've seen a lot of is that Loki wanted the Chitauri all killed when they tried to invade because they had the gall to try to use him as a tool. (They threaten him with torture if he fails during the movie, and he looks rather ill in the first scene when he appears to steal the Tesseract, which, given the speed at which gods heal, implies that he wasn't well-treated on the other side.) He couldn't just do a bunk because they plausibly might have come after him. If he gets the locals to take care of the problem for him, he gets his revenge and is off the hook. Plus it got him a lift home (or at least closer to home) when making the trip under his own power would have been a chore.

And he may not be facing all that much punishment on Asgard. Thor killed how many frost giants and nearly started a war, and he got a week's vacation on Earth and then all was forgiven. You think Odin cares about the human body count? As far as the Aesir are concerned, Loki's primary crime was vandalism in getting the rainbow bridge broken.
posted by Karmakaze at 5:07 PM on July 4, 2012 [4 favorites]

The power of love is a curious thing
Make a one man weep, make another man sing
Change a hawk to a little white dove.

You just think about that in relation to Loki's gambit.
posted by Mezentian at 5:10 PM on July 4, 2012 [1 favorite]

What everyone's said about how this falls apart, plus, of course, the fact that the movie continuity isn't the comics continuity, so the idea that Thanos and the Infinity Gauntlet are much like their Earth-616 (the mainstream Marvel universe) counterparts isn't a given, let alone that Thanos knows about it and is trying to get it. Presumably, the movie Gauntlet is some object of great power, as it's in the Asgardian "trophy room" with other similar objects (and how much sense does it make to keep all that stuff in the same place?), but that doesn't mean that you get to control the entire universe with it, any more than the Tesseract is the equivalent of the Cosmic Cube. Maybe Odin won it in a card game and keeps it around just because it's hella pimpin'.
posted by Halloween Jack at 5:15 PM on July 4, 2012 [1 favorite]

Maybe Odin won it in a card game and keeps it around just because it's hella pimpin'.

It is very shiny, and, if our glimpses have told us anything, the Asgardians like shiny stuff.
posted by GenjiandProust at 5:22 PM on July 4, 2012

Superman is invincible unless exposed to kryptonite. If kryptonite is involved, then we fear for Superman's life. If it is not involved, we are really just worrying whether Superman can catch the bad guy or stop the bad thing from happening. We are not afraid for his life unless kryptonite is involved. If he is shot or gets hit by a car or a building falls on him or a bomb goes off, we know he will still be fine. This is all fine because we are explicitly told these rules.

Spider-man got bit by a spider and got some powers that spiders have. Spiders are not invincible. Try stepping on one sometime. So when I saw that Raimi Spider-man movie, I was a bit surprised to find that he is essentially invincible. Our concern is supposed to be for his safety -- we don't want Spider-man to die. But he gets crushed by buildings, slammed into walls at a million miles per hour, etc. It became clear to me watching the movie that Spider-man is every bit as invincible as Superman. There are no broken bones. There is no real danger to his life. It felt like cheating to me that we were supposed to be concerned that Spider-man might get crippled or killed when the director showed how invincible he is. If your main character can't die (we know the hero isn't going to die, but we need to feel like it is actually possible), then an enormous amount of dramatic tension is lost.

Avengers is the same as Spider-man in that respect. Iron Man is a regular guy in an amazing suit that is bullet-proof, lets him fly, and provides him with great strength. Fine. But when he is slammed into things with the force to turn his brain inside the suit to mush, he is fine. He shouldn't be fine. Iron Man should be vulnerable to that sort of injury, but he is not. The Hulk apparently is completely invincible. Maybe he is supposed to be. When Hulk thrashes Loki the way he did like he was a rag doll, it became clear that Loki cannot be killed. If Loki can't be killed, then Thor can't be killed. We have no dramatic tension if Thor can't be killed. I continued to believe that it was possible to kill Captain America. However, three of the Avengers are apparently every bit as invincible as Superman. I don't think they are supposed to be, and I think it takes away dramatic tension to make them that way.
posted by flarbuse at 5:22 PM on July 4, 2012 [12 favorites]

All comic book characters are invincible if their name is on the cover.
posted by robocop is bleeding at 5:28 PM on July 4, 2012 [9 favorites]

However, three of the Avengers are apparently every bit as invincible as Superman. I don't think they are supposed to be, and I think it takes away dramatic tension to make them that way.

When I saw this at the cinema before it there was some abysmal M&Ms advert where they interviewed some of the film's actors or Joss Whedon or someone, I can't remember now, and they were going on about how unlike Superman these characters are real people who if you cut them they bleed so it adds an extra tension to the film, and then the film starts with Samuel Jackson leaping off an exploding helicopter as it crashed into the Earth, still probably wildly firing his gun, completely unharmed.
posted by dng at 5:29 PM on July 4, 2012

I love theories like these. They're great examples of fans being way smarter than writers.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 5:33 PM on July 4, 2012

Samuel Jackson leaping off an exploding helicopter as it crashed into the Earth, still probably wildly firing his gun, completely unharmed.

Why did Nick Fury, head of the ship, run down to the runway and fire a bazooka at the wrong plane, doesn't he have more important things to do? Couldn't he have called someone to do that?
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 5:34 PM on July 4, 2012

Or maybe (and I'm just spitballing here) it was due to less than perfect writing?
posted by jcreigh at 5:40 PM on July 4, 2012 [1 favorite]

Sacrilege!
posted by dng at 5:43 PM on July 4, 2012

I'm willing to believe it, but only because of my love for Thanos. I hope they make a Thanos movie to cap off the Marvel franchise and the surprise ending is he kills literally everyone.
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 5:44 PM on July 4, 2012 [4 favorites]

Avengers is the same as Spider-man in that respect. Iron Man is a regular guy in an amazing suit that is bullet-proof, lets him fly, and provides him with great strength. Fine. But when he is slammed into things with the force to turn his brain inside the suit to mush, he is fine. He shouldn't be fine. Iron Man should be vulnerable to that sort of injury, but he is not. The Hulk apparently is completely invincible. Maybe he is supposed to be. When Hulk thrashes Loki the way he did like he was a rag doll, it became clear that Loki cannot be killed. If Loki can't be killed, then Thor can't be killed. We have no dramatic tension if Thor can't be killed. I continued to believe that it was possible to kill Captain America. However, three of the Avengers are apparently every bit as invincible as Superman. I don't think they are supposed to be, and I think it takes away dramatic tension to make them that way.

I agree. The three-way Thor/Iron Man/Captain America fight was one of the least interesting bits in the movie.
posted by vidur at 5:46 PM on July 4, 2012 [1 favorite]

The question is this: does Bruce Banner age? And if he does will he reach a point where he's so old and ill that he has to basically turn into the hulk all the time so he doesn't die, lost in an endless fury at the prospect of his weaker half's mortality?

Yes. Peter David wrote a story that covers this idea called The End. Banner is an old man wandering a post-apocalyptic Earth and just wants to die, but the Hulk won't let him.
posted by Lal at 5:47 PM on July 4, 2012 [4 favorites]

Yes. Peter David wrote a story that covers this idea called The End. Banner is an old man wandering a post-apocalyptic Earth and just wants to die, but the Hulk won't let him.

Excellent. That's frighteningly similar to what I was thinking.
posted by dng at 5:51 PM on July 4, 2012

Man and to think I thought Loki's plan just didn't make any sense at all and the aliens were just a random pointless threat.
posted by silby at 5:58 PM on July 4, 2012 [3 favorites]

The three-way Thor/Iron Man/Captain America

......


Oh sorry I went to a totally different place for a second.
posted by The Whelk at 6:04 PM on July 4, 2012 [36 favorites]

Sadly it'll probably never come to fruition unless they give Whedon complete control over the next 6 movies or so, but it's neat to think about.

It certainly seems as though the multiple directors who worked on the movies leading up to Avengers were all working from the same Bible. Each director seems to get the freedom to set the tone of their own movie while being expected to hit a few key plot points to tie each movie to whatever's coming five years down the road. Call it the Marvel Movie Method. It seems to work very, very well.
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 6:04 PM on July 4, 2012

I dunno. This is cute and clever and all, but I think this guy is trying much too hard.

Villains pull this kind of diatribe all the time: Loki does it, Doom does it. But in the end, they usually do it once they've gotten a new villainous opportunity and a chance to monologue a little. It always comes out sounding exactly like what a cat wants to say when it does something silly, winds up falling on its ass, and then looks back at you as if to say, "I meant to do that. Hmpf," and walks off.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 6:07 PM on July 4, 2012 [1 favorite]

I liked the old Loki. With Sliepnir. A more interesting movie there.
posted by ovvl at 6:08 PM on July 4, 2012

Iron Man is a regular guy in an amazing suit that is bullet-proof, lets him fly, and provides him with great strength. Fine. But when he is slammed into things with the force to turn his brain inside the suit to mush, he is fine. He shouldn't be fine. Iron Man should be vulnerable to that sort of injury, but he is not.

If you look at the evidence in the Iron Man movies, Tony Stark can be hurt if the armor is hurt, so he's not invincible, but the armor has some kind of technology that protects him from the kinds of collisions that would turn his innards to mush -- he survives a fall from the sky in his prototype armor in the first movie.

In this comics, this is usually explained by some combination of Inertial Dampening Technobabble and Vibranium which is a magic metal that can absorb kinetic energy (it's a component of Captain America's shield, which is why Thor, for example, can hit it really hard and it doesn't act like the head of a nail, pounding Steve Rodgers into the ground.)
posted by straight at 6:15 PM on July 4, 2012 [4 favorites]

I'm willing to believe it, but only because of my love for Thanos. I hope they make a Thanos movie to cap off the Marvel franchise and the surprise ending is he kills literally everyone.

He's supposedly the villain in the Guardians of the Galaxy movie coming out in a couple of years, which would make sense.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 6:27 PM on July 4, 2012

Guardians...?

Really? I mean seriously?? Like with Peter Quill and Drax?

*tries to control self*

*can't*

ROCKET RACCOON OR GTFO!!
posted by scaryblackdeath at 6:32 PM on July 4, 2012 [6 favorites]

"Members Feige has mentioned specifically to appear in the film include Star-Lord, Drax the Destroyer, Gamora, Rocket Raccoon and Groot."
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 6:36 PM on July 4, 2012 [4 favorites]

Oh man. I wasn't sure if I should hope for Gamora, too. I love her. That would make me ridiculously happy. I have no actual hope of this movie happening, but it would make me very happy indeed.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 6:40 PM on July 4, 2012

So before I read this, I figured the answer would be "because Loki didn't really want to take over Earth- he wanted to be protected from the Chitauri and Thanos (an unfortunate group of assholes to be rescued from the shrieking void of space by), be around Thor (his favorite person in any universe), and bring the Tessaract home to Asgard (which he can eventually use as a chip in his favor)."

I like my version way better. It's my new head canon.
posted by Snarl Furillo at 7:04 PM on July 4, 2012 [2 favorites]

I think the better trick is that Whedon released two genre deconstructions in the same ~3 month period and effectively got his audience to root for the super-fascist useful idiots but without the po-faced attitude of The Dark Knight.
posted by codacorolla at 7:39 PM on July 4, 2012

But they had never mentioned this to the Angel comics people, who were shocked to discover the secret plot their hero had apparently been working on all along... Surprisingly sloppy for Whedon, even if he had little if anything to do with the Angle book.

Those comics post After the Fall weren't canon and were done by a different company to the Buffy Season 8 ones (and were pretty gobsmackingly shite, no matter what Bill Willingham's opinion of himself is). I doubt Whedon gave it much thought.
posted by Sparx at 7:49 PM on July 4, 2012 [1 favorite]

The power of Love what got the carbon stains out my pans.

I read that as "The power of Love is what got the cabron stains out of my pants". Sort of a let-down on the reread.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 8:08 PM on July 4, 2012 [5 favorites]

Maybe Odin won it in a card game and keeps it around just because it's hella pimpin'.

He must have beaten Dr. Strange too. Note to self: do not play cards with the All-Father.
posted by homunculus at 8:08 PM on July 4, 2012

If I've learned anything from watching Doctor Who in recent years, it's that all these seemingly well plotted little discrepancies dropped here and there in the scripts across episodes that feel like they'll form a coherent whole sometime later on that'll be incredibly fulfilling and clever will all just be forgotten or were accidents anyway and instead you'll just get a load of plotholes, stupidities and shouting. And maybe some dreadful CGI

Huh, it's weird that you misspelled The X-Files as Doctor Who, but I totally agree.
posted by No-sword at 8:15 PM on July 4, 2012 [4 favorites]

Wait, did they retitle 24 when I wasn't looking?
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 8:30 PM on July 4, 2012

I think the Doctor Who effect mentioned upthread is why I have to get all my superhero stuff in movie form, where you can think of it as stand-alone and the effects matter more, rather than in TV form or comic book form, where in the end, the hero is immortal and unkillable and can never really change except for his appearance.

After a while, it just gets hard to care about any character like that. But for 90 minutes, it can be fun to watch them swoop around and blow shit up.
posted by emjaybee at 8:33 PM on July 4, 2012 [1 favorite]

Damn you, Whelk. I came in here to post a Xanatos Gambit link and you had already scooped me (although with a misspelling) in the tags.
posted by 256 at 9:48 PM on July 4, 2012

Why would you possibly think the superheroes were invincible in The Avengers?

I was on the edge of my seat expecting someone to die at any moment because it was directed by Joss Whedon. That fact alone means a death will probably be a sudden "fuck you" surprise (See: Serenity).
posted by amuseDetachment at 9:50 PM on July 4, 2012 [7 favorites]

Iron Man is a regular guy in an amazing suit that is bullet-proof, lets him fly, and provides him with great strength. Fine. But when he is slammed into things with the force to turn his brain inside the suit to mush, he is fine. He shouldn't be fine.

Do keep in mind here that we're talking about a guy who has a fusion reactor plugged into a socket in his chest that's big enough to put your fist in if you don't have really big hands; it's what keeps his heart going. The next time you go shopping for suspension of disbelief, go for the economy size.
posted by Halloween Jack at 10:17 PM on July 4, 2012 [5 favorites]

Do keep in mind here that we're talking about a guy who has a fusion reactor plugged into a socket in his chest that's big enough to put your fist in if you don't have really big hands; it's what keeps his heart going. The next time you go shopping for suspension of disbelief, go for the economy size.

That always seemed odd to me. Like, doesn't not having a sternum cause some breathing problems - what are his ribs connected to? What about the bronchus and the base of his trachea - have they been diverted or moved or something? And how does the reactor 'keep his heart going'? It was an electro-magnet in the first few minutes of the first film 'to prevent shrapnel from reaching his heart'. You need a nuclear equivalent reactor to power a magnet? And how does War Machine power his suit if he doesn't have a chest reactor? And...

...ah, screw it. Blow some shit up, Tony! Then crack wise and drink a whole bunch of scotch! Strippers optional (but desirable).
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 11:17 PM on July 4, 2012 [5 favorites]

He must have beaten Dr. Strange too. Note to self: do not play cards with the All-Father

I read this as Dr. Strangelove, like three times in a row, which actually sounds even cooler.
posted by Chekhovian at 11:48 PM on July 4, 2012

Ooooooooh. I would pay money to see that comic.
posted by JHarris at 1:03 AM on July 5, 2012 [1 favorite]

When I saw this at the cinema before it there was some abysmal M&Ms advert where they interviewed some of the film's actors or Joss Whedon or someone

My SO managed to avoid all trailers for The Avengers, and then they played that bloody M&Ms/Avengers trailer thing (full of the kind of semi-spoiler action clips that most trailers have nowadays) right before the The Avengers movie. A trailer for the film I'm already about to watch, great. I complained to the cinema but they said there's nothing they could do as the sponsors said they had to play it.
posted by EndsOfInvention at 1:49 AM on July 5, 2012

Just chipping in to say that I might hate those M&M clips more than anything else in the world.
posted by ominous_paws at 2:21 AM on July 5, 2012

I cleverly avoided that trailer by arriving ten minutes late.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 2:25 AM on July 5, 2012

I'm pretty much picturing Whedon reading this and going "Yeah, what he said."

My favorite explanation of how to write serial fiction tha I've ever read was from Neal Gaiman, who said (paraphrasing) that writing a novel is like juggling, you throw a few balls in the air, keep them moving in an entertaining way, and hopefully catch all of them at the end, and that writing serial fiction is like throwing dozens of balls in the air, catching as many as you can, and hoping the audience doesn't notice all the ones you missed.

So like, maybe everything is carefully planned out, and maybe Whedon thoughtfully threw way more balls in the air than he needed for the first movie, so that he can catch a few later on in an impressive way.
posted by empath at 6:26 AM on July 5, 2012 [3 favorites]

Spider-man got bit by a spider and got some powers that spiders have. Spiders are not invincible. Try stepping on one sometime. So when I saw that Raimi Spider-man movie, I was a bit surprised to find that he is essentially invincible. Our concern is supposed to be for his safety -- we don't want Spider-man to die. But he gets crushed by buildings, slammed into walls at a million miles per hour, etc. It became clear to me watching the movie that Spider-man is every bit as invincible as Superman. There are no broken bones. There is no real danger to his life. It felt like cheating to me that we were supposed to be concerned that Spider-man might get crippled or killed when the director showed how invincible he is. If your main character can't die (we know the hero isn't going to die, but we need to feel like it is actually possible), then an enormous amount of dramatic tension is lost.

This is why I hate the overuse of computer graphics today and sometimes wish it were 100x as expensive to compose a scene out of polygons as it is, if only to dissuade directors from using it as a crutch. It's incredibly hard to make CGI spiderman look like he's being hurt. But the whole point of seeing Spider-man get crushed by a tow-truck is that it makes the audience cringe.

It's pure directorial laziness that ruins films modern action films. Watch the original Die-Hard sometime. So much glass! So much blood! Bruce Willis comes within inches of his life so many times! And even if it's not super-realistic, it's hard not to react to real splattering red liquid coming out of a dirty, shirtless man who is desperately crawling through a ventilation shaft. He's vulnerable and clearly struggling in a way that a super hero never will. Sure, we know it's not real, but we can suspect our disbelief. I never felt like Dr. Octopus' little claw things were real in any way, so they didn't scare me, they were just boring. Even Gollum was boring to me in a way that Yoda in Empire was not. Even with the bestest computer evar, computer generated graphics set off all the bullshit detectors in the human brain.
posted by deathpanels at 6:55 AM on July 5, 2012 [3 favorites]

*suspect = suspend.
posted by deathpanels at 6:56 AM on July 5, 2012

More directors are using practical effects these days cause its getting cheaper then constructing the whole damn thing in CG - the most recent spiderman uses way less then CG then the Rami ones.
posted by The Whelk at 7:09 AM on July 5, 2012

Seems more like a very, very slow one.
posted by clockzero at 7:30 AM on July 5, 2012

"Spider-man got bit by a spider and got some powers that spiders have. Spiders are not invincible. Try stepping on one sometime. So when I saw that Raimi Spider-man movie, I was a bit surprised to find that he is essentially invincible. Our concern is supposed to be for his safety -- we don't want Spider-man to die. But he gets crushed by buildings, slammed into walls at a million miles per hour, etc. It became clear to me watching the movie that Spider-man is every bit as invincible as Superman. There are no broken bones. There is no real danger to his life. It felt like cheating to me that we were supposed to be concerned that Spider-man might get crippled or killed when the director showed how invincible he is. If your main character can't die (we know the hero isn't going to die, but we need to feel like it is actually possible), then an enormous amount of dramatic tension is lost."

Spider-man is not invulnerable, just tough. There's a difference. He has muscles which are strong enough to let him lift roughly (according to the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe) 10 tons. His bones are strong enough to support muscles that strong without snapping when he flexes. That makes him tough enough to survive being slammed into a brick wall at 60 miles an hour* with only bruises instead of broken bones and internal injuries. He's not bullet-proof or laser-proof or Hulk-proof. You could probably consider him to be about 100 times stronger and tougher than a normal human high-school football player. If someone like Doctor Octopus gets a good hold of him, he can eventually be beaten unconscious. Someone like the Hulk could kill him with one or two punches if they connected.

*(60 mph = my offhand estimate of how fast he was being slammed into walls in the Raimi fight scenes. In contrast, Superman really could go through a wall at 1,000,000 mph without a scratch. Superman's level of toughness = easily 100,000 x Spider-man's level of toughness.)

With regards to the Avengers: Iron Man's armor protects him from just about anything as long as it's intact and powered up. (force shields/ inertial dampers/ technobabble of your choice) If the suit takes enough damage, he's in trouble. In a sufficiently prolonged fight with either Thor or the Hulk, his suit will eventually fail. Thor and the Hulk themselves are (like the Tick) nigh-invulnerable. They can eventually be beaten down by godly/Supermanly levels of force, but the story drama for those two frequently revolves around something other than the worry of them losing a fair fight.

The Avengers as a team are generally powerful enough that the drama comes either from a) internal soap operas or b) physical threats from truly overwhelming opponents - alien armadas, time-traveling conquerors, super-intelligent self-replicating robots, consortiums of the toughest supervillians, cosmic entities out to destroy the universe, and the like.


/end nerd-rant>
posted by tdismukes at 7:40 AM on July 5, 2012 [6 favorites]

Actually I found nearly impossible to suspend disbelief that despite their 'amazing' level of physical prowess, in the NYC battle, neither the Black Widow nor Hawkeye sustained nearly enough damage, particularly because neither of them is wearing any kind of super-suit/armor. That being said, I accept the fact that Stark's Iron Man suit, per the movie canon so far, keeps getting better and better at protecting him from superhuman-level catastrophic damage.

(I also had trouble believing that Thor's hammer couldn't smash Cap's shield, no matter what us earthlings made it out of).
posted by bitterkitten at 7:49 AM on July 5, 2012

I love the expertise in this thread, and I claim to have NONE of it.

But, could it just be that Loki is, you know, the lord of chaos? I mean, chaos doesn't need reasons. It just is for its own sake. Pretty much anything that's happened in the movies to this point I'm willing to give a pass to in future movies because it's the lord of chaos at the helm of it all. It doesn't need to make sense, in the end (although it would be awzomcakes if it does.)
posted by absquatulate at 7:52 AM on July 5, 2012 [1 favorite]

But he specifically not the lord of chaos, he is the lord of lies , which means you can't take a damned thing he says at face value.
posted by The Whelk at 7:57 AM on July 5, 2012 [1 favorite]

Typically the conflict in a superhero movie is a race against time to save other people, the hero is rarely the one that is in physical danger.
posted by empath at 8:26 AM on July 5, 2012 [1 favorite]

Which is why Avengers wasn't much of a superhero film, it was about some bros, their bro-trouble, and inevitable bro-union. And there was a chick, but she didn't figure much into the bros not chillin' and later totally being chill. Yeah, I guess there were some other dudes, breaking things, invading, explosions, whatever, the important thing was that everyone learned a valuable lesson about friendship.
posted by TwelveTwo at 8:41 AM on July 5, 2012

bitterkitten: "Actually I found nearly impossible to suspend disbelief that despite their 'amazing' level of physical prowess, in the NYC battle, neither the Black Widow nor Hawkeye sustained nearly enough damage, particularly because neither of them is wearing any kind of super-suit/armor. That being said, I accept the fact that Stark's Iron Man suit, per the movie canon so far, keeps getting better and better at protecting him from superhuman-level catastrophic damage.

(I also had trouble believing that Thor's hammer couldn't smash Cap's shield, no matter what us earthlings made it out of)."

Given the fact that the shield is made out of vibranium which has the ability to absorb kinetic energy directed at it, and to store that energy within it's molecular bonds allowing it to become tougher the more energy it stores, I suspect it could survive a Thor smashing - for a while. No one knows the top end of the energy it can store.

Of course, we should probably ignore that as it would mean Cap could never bounce his shield off anything...

Cap: "I know, I will throw my shield at them after bouncing it off a corner!"

[throwing noise]

[shield hits wall and falls to the ground]

Cap: "Oh. Yeah."
posted by Samizdata at 8:44 AM on July 5, 2012 [3 favorites]

The state of physics in the Marvel Universe is one of the main reasons so many scientists just go "Pffft. Fuckit." and put on tights to go punch people in the face.
posted by robocop is bleeding at 8:50 AM on July 5, 2012 [12 favorites]

...The Hulk apparently is completely invincible. Maybe he is supposed to be. ...

posted by flarbuse at 5:22 PM on July 4 [9 favorites +] [!]

In the past I've wondered about this as well. I read in a thread on reddit about this - evidently the Hulk, despite being a little unsophisticated, is one of the strongest characters in the Marvel universe (see the Marvel strength scale).

If you try to rationalize it out, I guess it sort of makes sense. The Hulk is created by a source of cosmically powerful radiation, so why wouldn't the resulting hero be cosmically strong?
posted by ben242 at 9:46 AM on July 5, 2012

The three-way Thor/Iron Man/Captain America fight was one of the least interesting bits in the movie.

I disagree, if only for the exceptionally pleasing surprised look on Tony Stark's face when Thor blasts him with lightning and it supercharges his suit so he can blast the fuck out of Thor. That was fun.
posted by maryr at 9:50 AM on July 5, 2012 [1 favorite]

Of course, we should probably ignore that as it would mean Cap could never bounce his shield off anything...

Cap's shield is actually a mixture of Vibranium and an unreproducible alloy that is said to be much like Adamantium (Adamantium was created in an attempt to reproduce it). It's possible the not-Adamantium is concentrated around the edges, allowing it to bounce and to hurt people (it's often been used as a cutting edge by people stronger than Captain America) while the Vibranium is arranged to absorb impacts on the surface of the shield.

(Although you sometimes see Captain America bashing enemies with the surface of his shield as well. I can't think of an explanation for that.)
posted by straight at 9:51 AM on July 5, 2012

In the past I've wondered about this as well. I read in a thread on reddit about this - evidently the Hulk, despite being a little unsophisticated, is one of the strongest characters in the Marvel universe (see the Marvel strength scale

If you ever want to hear an epic argument, ask a bunch of comic book nerds who would win in a fight between superman and the hulk.
posted by empath at 9:59 AM on July 5, 2012

The interesting thing I remember reading about the Hulk, when Peter David was writing him, was that he isn't indestructible, but that he had a massively charged healing factor. Literally, his body healed so quickly that he looked invulnerable. Always thought that was kinda neat.

Actually I found nearly impossible to suspend disbelief that despite their 'amazing' level of physical prowess, in the NYC battle, neither the Black Widow nor Hawkeye sustained nearly enough damage, particularly because neither of them is wearing any kind of super-suit/armor.

They are just that bad ass.

There were little hints that Thor and Cap and Black Widow were getting beat up and growing tired. But considering the city block sized flying monsters from another dimension that were sailing through the air, BW and Hawkeye not getting too scratched up was ok, suspense of disbelief wise.

The Chitauri just dropping dead once their base was destroyed was the biggest "Oh come on" moment.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 10:15 AM on July 5, 2012 [2 favorites]

The Chitauri just dropping dead once their base was destroyed was the biggest "Oh come on" moment.

That is because you missed the director, just off frame, tapping his watch.
posted by TwelveTwo at 10:21 AM on July 5, 2012 [3 favorites]

The Chitauri just dropping dead once their base was destroyed was the biggest "Oh come on" moment.

In a deleted scene it was clarified that Jeff Goldblum had used the USB port on his Macbook to interface with the nuclear missile's guidance computer shortly before it was launched.
posted by cortex at 10:25 AM on July 5, 2012 [6 favorites]

Note to self: do not play cards with the All-Father.

He does have his own card.
posted by zamboni at 10:33 AM on July 5, 2012

Typically the conflict in a superhero movie is a race against time to save other people, the hero is rarely the one that is in physical danger.

I disagree. Granted, the superhero is always in less physical danger than the innocent civilians he's protecting. Partly what gives him his "super" status is that he can be a martyr, to suffer for innocents, to take a beating and push through where a normal man would give in. Part of that is being immune to banal death. We wouldn't believe for a minute that one of the robbers is going to plug Spiderman with a pistol and kill him, for example. But a story without a conflict is boring (at least to western eyes) so that's why superhero stories always have a) super villains to wrestle with, to match the hero's immunities, and b) an "achilles heel" to make the superhero vulnerable in a very specific way – e.g., kryptonite. The most interesting superhero type characters therefore are the ones that can oscillate between various states of vulnerability, here strong and triumphant, there afraid and suffering. For the writer this comes down to making careful decisions about a superhero's powers and limitations thereof. Make them too strong, they win every time, and no one cares; make them too weak, and they're no longer "super".
posted by deathpanels at 11:22 AM on July 5, 2012

But that was the interesting thing about the way Whedon wrote The Avengers - it was about the emotional vulnerability of the heroes, and the relationships between them. It's not a movie about everyone's superpowers - those were almost irrelevant. (Which was why, I think, Black Widow didn't seem as overshadowed as she might have, because she was just as emotionally engaged as everyone else.)
posted by restless_nomad at 11:31 AM on July 5, 2012 [1 favorite]

Maybe you and me baby could go somewhere quiet...
posted by homunculus at 12:11 PM on July 5, 2012

In a deleted scene it was clarified that Jeff Goldblum had used the USB port on his Macbook to interface with the nuclear missile's guidance computer shortly before it was launched.

Except that they're continuing the franchise by replacing Jeff Goldblum's character with Jeremy Renner, and it was a USB arrow instead of a Macbook.
posted by straight at 12:27 PM on July 5, 2012

Metafilter: it was about some bros, their bro-trouble, and inevitable bro-union. And there was a chick.
posted by sparklemotion at 12:38 PM on July 5, 2012

If you ever want to hear an epic argument, ask a bunch of comic book nerds who would win in a fight between superman and the hulk.

The answer to that, as with all such questions is "it depends on whose name is on the cover of the book."
posted by Karmakaze at 1:41 PM on July 5, 2012 [1 favorite]

Indeed. Lest we forget, Hitman (X-ray vision, limited telepathy, pistols) once beat Lobo (Superman-level strength and durability) using the "my comic" rule.

(Lobo also lost to Wolverine (unbreakable bones, claws, limited healing factor) despite having the ability to regenerate his entire body from a pool of blood, due to the "phone-in vote" rule. The guy's a jobber.)
posted by running order squabble fest at 2:49 PM on July 5, 2012

Lobo will always and only be the character in those nutso Simon Bisley books, where he was a horrible foul-mouthed psychopath monster and the protagonist and it was just terrible wonderful fun. My best friend got me, in middle school I think, a four issue miniseries, the one where he dies in the first issue, goes up to Heaven, and becomes through a series of deaths and reincarnations such a massive pest to God et al that he gets permanently blacklisted from mortality. And it was amazing and wonderful and my parents found it and I totally got in trouble for that and had to sheepishly return them to my friend.

So Lobo in any normal comic book is kind of an automatic humongous letdown. Lobo responding to mild annoyance by another character by doing anything other than ripping their spine out and picking his teeth with their bloody coccyx feels as much like a betrayal of character as would Batman robbing a 7-11 at gunpoint.
posted by cortex at 3:41 PM on July 5, 2012 [2 favorites]

Why does 'Chitauri' sound like an exotic spice?
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 4:07 PM on July 5, 2012

Why does 'Chitauri' sound like an exotic spice?

I don't know. Maybe it is, to you. Are you Galactus?
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 5:42 PM on July 5, 2012 [3 favorites]

Not that I want to shill for a T-shirt company but this Steranko-inspired Coulson T-shirt is a thing of beauty.
posted by Mezentian at 6:23 PM on July 5, 2012 [1 favorite]

it was about the emotional vulnerability of the heroes, and the relationships between them.

This is what sold me on the final fight -- there was a moment where it's just overwhelming, what the Avengers are facing: the streets and buildings crawling with hostile aliens, the panic, the screaming -- and I was thinking "they have got to be so tired." And that was all over the performances at that point: the sense of "how much more can I take, can't let the team down." It was a surprisingly human moment in the middle of all the flash-bang-pow.
posted by EvaDestruction at 2:52 PM on July 9, 2012 [1 favorite]

hawkeye or black widow should have died in the final battle, if only to be brought back to life in the next movie. it would have been a good reminder that even characters we've watched the whole movie are still vulnerable, and it would have given in the just-right tinge of darkness. no one really cared that much about agent .. what's his name? coleson?
posted by cupcake1337 at 9:30 PM on July 9, 2012

no one really cared that much about agent .. what's his name? coleson?

Clearly you do not read very much fanfic.
posted by restless_nomad at 9:35 PM on July 9, 2012 [1 favorite]

Poor clint.
posted by The Whelk at 9:38 PM on July 9, 2012

Clearly you do not read very much fanfic.

I don't, and I don't really read many comics, either. I'm get my superhero culture in a weird mash of blockbusters (and spottily, so I haven't seen all the films relevant to The Avengers), conversations with friends, and feminist critiques that lead me down internet rabbit holes. So I get where cupcake1337 is coming from, in that Agent Coulson's death wasn't a big loss for me. I think the story did a reasonably good job of making him a likeable character and showing that he had some history with the team, but from an outsider perspective, it wasn't a punch-in-the-gut loss.

I think it was a good call not to kill off someone from the team, though. I thought the movie did a pretty solid job of making the characters vulnerable in the final fight -- I really did feel, for a second (before cynical brain kicked in), like there was a question whether Iron Man would pull through, which is kind of a neat trick for a superhero movie.
posted by EvaDestruction at 12:59 PM on July 10, 2012

Coulson wasn't a big sell in Avengers itself, which creates a weird fractured reading on the whole thing.

Because he's this goofy, likeable recurring bit character from this whole crop of films. Just a couple little moments in each, starting with Iron Man, but the continuity across all those (and how comic book is that?) adds up to this established (and audience-relatable) secondary character who nobody wishes ill on.

Maybe something comparable here to another Whedon film-as-franchise-sequel moment: Wash in Serenity. Though that was a stronger moment in general with Wash a primary character, the impact of that scene had to have been far less significant for folks just seeing the film without having watched Firefly's run first.
posted by cortex at 1:26 PM on July 10, 2012 [1 favorite]

I like that comparison, cortex, because I would imagine that someone coming to Serenity without the Firefly background might've had a similar reaction to Wash's death as mine to Agent Coulson's -- in that I didn't have the full investment in the character, but that it was evident (not just assumed) that the other characters had some history with him and had grounds for feeling his death as a loss. I appreciated that The Avengers script made at least a strong nod in the direction of people who were coming to the movie without a lot of grounding in the Marvel universe, but didn't either entirely rely on the audience having a lot of that background or shoehorn it all in in an attempt to get people like me up to speed, which would've bored the more knowledgeable viewers and made Coulson's death way more anvilicious.
posted by EvaDestruction at 1:51 PM on July 10, 2012

Coulson's death more or less happened off screen. Sure, he looked pretty bad, but we only have Fury's word that he actually died. I'm pretty sure he'd lie about it to motivate the Avengers. He faked the trading cards, and probably faked Coulson's death. I half expected him to turn up to the shwarma place in a wheelchair.
posted by zamboni at 2:01 PM on July 10, 2012

In addition to Wash being a more major character, relatively, is that his death was in the middle of the battle, whereas Cole-someone(?)'s death was after everything had died down. they had at least some down time to grieve. in Serenity, they had a moment, but the reevers were on their way. you get a feeling of "who's next?" which means more is at stake which means we care more.
posted by cupcake1337 at 8:03 PM on July 10, 2012

IIRC, Coulson's death was the bad guy getting away. It wasn't after the battle. Hulk and Thor are still missing at that point and Black Widow's off attending to unconscious, maybe evil? Hawkeye. The only Avengers who really get a moment to "reflect" on Coulson's death are Iron Man and Captain America.

Actually, I'd argue that Tony and Steve are the only ones who get to reflect on PhilAgent's death - everyone else is really still in fight/flight mode at that point. They're the only ones without their costumes still on. And they're the team leaders - I mean, Cap is really the leader, but only when Stark sucks it up and defers to him is there a proper team.

Now that I think about it, does Bruce even know Coulson's dead when he arrives in NYC? And how did Thor get back to the team, I totally can't remember. Hm.
posted by maryr at 11:03 PM on July 10, 2012

Mistress Death will bring Coulson back to serve as Thanos's minion. Fury will be no match for Dark Coulson, and he will pay for his treachery.
posted by homunculus at 11:26 PM on July 10, 2012 [1 favorite]

maryr: "Now that I think about it, does Bruce even know Coulson's dead when he arrives in NYC? And how did Thor get back to the team, I totally can't remember. Hm."

No, Bruce didn't know. I suppose his arc didn't need the extra motivation.

Thor flew to New York under his own power, presumably because he saw the portal opening from a distance and he flies at the speed of plot.
posted by Karmakaze at 6:21 AM on July 11, 2012 [1 favorite]

Scarlett Johansson: $20 Million For The Avengers 2
posted by homunculus at 1:41 PM on July 11, 2012

RDJ pulled an Alec Guinness for the first Iron man movie and ended up getting paid way more then anyone else for the Avengers, so I suppose many phone calls were made to many agents.
posted by The Whelk at 1:46 PM on July 11, 2012

Dwayne Johnson Confirms He Could Play Lobo On Screen
posted by homunculus at 12:10 PM on July 17, 2012

Area Man Confirms He Could Totally Play Lobo, Offers To Demonstrate His Lobo Scowl
posted by straight at 12:41 PM on July 17, 2012