Just finished watching Avengers : Age of Ultron. It’s pretty good.

Had some real dramatic heft to it, which is good. A lot of modern superhero movies don’t move me, and if a movie doesn’t move me, the best it can hope for is to amuse or entertain me. And that means there is no chance of the movie being anything better than “okay” in my books.

But apart from all the bang clang boom business^[1], there were some very good performances and a script that made me feel for the heroes, and the villain as well.

Ah, the villain. Ultron. That’s my one and only major beef with the movie. Its version of Ultron was far, far too human. Comic Ultron is the ultimate inhuman adversary, brilliant and completely ruthless, not to mention nigh-indestructible due to being made of an adamantium/vibranium allow. All that made him absolutely terrifying. He’s like the Terminator crossed with Mister Freeze to the power of Brainiac. Like the Terminator, Ultron has no doubt, no hesitation, no pain, no weakness.

And every time you defeat him, he comes back stronger.

But movie Ultron, with the voice of James Spader, was just some guy, ya know? Some Hollywood guy who does stunts or owns a gym or is someone’s personal trainer. His motives are unclear and he is never given a real personality. He wants to slam a meteor into the world to force humanity to evolve (totally not how it works), or just to kill everybody, or maybe he just hates Tony Stark, but maybe he is Tony Stark in a sense. It’s all poorly defined.

And the Ultron of the comics is one of the top villains on planet Earth. And also, because of how perfectly scary he is, one of the coolest. The movie version didn’t frighten me at all.

He should have had a voice that sent chills up your spine because of how cold and devoid of emotion it was. It should have been the voice of a sociopathic serial killer, not some Southern Californian douche.

Ultron deserved better. He didn’t even get the Age promised him in the title.

Other than that, though, everyone was cool. Hawkeye was given a secret wife and kids, which is out of character, but his actual personality is an asshole^[2] , so I will let it slide. They did a good job with Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch. They don’t look like they do in the comics, but they got their personalities and relationship right, and that’s more important.

The only way to get a superhero movie in which everyone looks like they do in the comic would be to make it fully animated, and while I am all for that, it’s probably not going to happen.

The CGI for the Hulk made him look a lot more like Mark Ruffalo than in the first flick. Black Widow is, well, Scarlett Johanson, a incredibly beautiful woman with enough talent that you can plausibly claim to have cast her on that basis. Captain America is done perfectly, except for maybe being a little too flippant. Robert Downey Junior continues to be a very good Tony Stark. Not exactly like the comic one, but close enough. They are both egotistical, highly driven, incredibly intelligent, inclined to take matters into their own hands, and somewhat obnoxious.

The comic version is just a little slicker and suaver about it.

My favorite, though, was The Vision. He was always a favorite of mine in the comics, and they got him right in the movie. Specifically, they got how The Vision, being an artificially intelligent robot but also a good guy, is incredibly noble and pure and good. You can totally see what the Scarlet Witch sees in him. He loves humanity in its totality and treasures our frailty and flaws as what makes us human.

How can you not love that? He’s the perfect humanist.

Still no sign of my new computer. Grr. Wannit. In order to contain my anxiety and neurosis, I sent them an email asking if there was any problem, even though they have one more day (Monday, sigh) on their projected lead time for assembling and testing my new PC.

I just had to do it. I was going nuts. The anticipation is driving me crazy. It’s like being a kid on Xmas Eve, except you don’t know when Santa will arrive.

“I guess he’s not coming tonight, Little Timmy. Maybe tomorrow night. Maybe not. ”

I’ve always been prone to over-excitement. I have mentioned before how when I was a kid, I would get so excited about something I was anticipating that I would get nauseous. I eventually learned not to let it get that bad, but I am still like that at heart.

And that would be fine if it wasn’t for the uncertainty. If I knew it would be ready on such and such a date, I would calm right down and wait. I am very good at waiting when the end point is known.

But when it isn’t, I have to constantly fight my anxieties and nervous temperament in order to maintain any semblance of emotional balance.

Maybe I should lay off the Diet Coke until it arrives.

Nah. I don’t want to end up sleepy and headachey. Damn you, caffeine addiction!

I feel stupid for having forgotten to stop and pick up my psych meds on the way home from school today. I am going to have to go get them filled at Shopper’s tomorrow.

Luckily, tomorrow night is the first meeting of the revive (by moi) FRED, so I will be out and about anyhow.

Feels weird to be unmedicated. Luckily, I usually have one day’s grace period before it starts having a noticeable effect, and I have only missed one day.

Well, that’s it from me tonight folks. Wish me luck on the computer thang.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.