Age of Ultron – Douglas Ernst Blog

Joss Whedon unravels as political cancer eats his soul

January 17, 2017 by Douglas Ernst 15 Comments

Hollywood director Joss Whedon has been on a slow-motion political implosion for about six years, but last week it became much more obvious when he wished one of his fellow Americans were raped — by a rhino. Yes, as bizarre as it is for your friendly neighborhood blogger to chronicle this sad turn of events, on some level it is not the surprising. After all, Mr. Whedon also began using coup-like rhetoric after Hillary Clinton lost the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

If you want more details on Mr. Whedon’s embrace of Ultron-level hate, then check out my latest YouTube video and let me know what you think in the comments section below. And, if you like the format, then be sure to subscribe for regular updates.

Robert Downey Jr. ambushed over politics: Reporters want Iron Man to be a liberal activist

April 22, 2015April 22, 2015 by Douglas Ernst 9 Comments

I said in 2013 that one of the reasons conservatives defended Robert Downey Jr. was because liberals attacked the man. Perhaps the best example was the 2011 hit piece from Jeffrey Wells’ Hollywood Elsewhere (now flushed down the Memory Hole), in which an anonymous source said the actor’s values “are pure Republican values.” That came after an interview in The New York Times that drove liberals batty, but before the actor attended a fundraiser for President Obama. Apparently Robert Downey Jr’s ideological blasphemy is still stuck in the media’s craw because he was just ambushed during an interview with British reporter Krishnan Guru-Murthy.

The Huffington Post reported Wednesday on the interview, which ended with Marvel Studio’s Iron Man walking out:

Krishnan Guru-Murthy: I’d really like to ask you about a quote you gave to The New York Times. I don’t want to pry so if you don’t want to talk about it that’s fine, but what you said to The New York Times was — it was about, it was after your incarceration and you said that you can’t go from a $2,000 a night hotel suite to a penitentiary and understand it and come out a liberal. I just wondered what you meant by that.”

Robert Downey Jr.: The funny thing is — and I appreciate your point of view — things you said 5-7 years ago or things you said in an interview that made sense to you at the time — I could pick that apart for two hours and I’d be no closer to the truth than I’d be giving you some half-assed answer right now. I couldn’t even really tell you what a liberal is, so therein lies the answer to your question.

Krishnan Guru-Murthy: The statement sort of stands by itself, doesn’t it? Does that mean that you’re not a liberal? Or that you came out of a prison not being liberal?

Robert Downey Jr.: Are we promoting a movie? To me the thing is that it’s — I’m certainly not going to backpedal on anything I’ve said, but I wouldn’t say I’m a Republican or a liberal or a Democrat. I think when I was talking to the person who was doing the interview that day and that just happened to be my opinion. That’s the nice thing, you can have opinions and they change and flow.”

Robert Downey Jr. is in a horrible position. A guy who has been to prison probably realizes that hard-core criminals will never adopt the peace-love-dope worldview of liberal beat poetry readings and bongo-circles. Perhaps he’s a fiscal conservative who is socially liberal. Maybe he was against the war in Iraq but he understands that leaving radical Islamic head choppers the their own devices is a bad idea.

How does the man define himself politically, especially when he has to work with hard-core liberal activists like Joss Whedon and Mark Ruffalo? The best thing to do to keep the peace on set is probably to just stay silent and stick to playing Tony Stark really well — but that is not good enough for the media.

Robert Downey Jr. will always have to be on guard against a media ambush because he refuses to use his Twitter feed to lecture people on climate change. He doesn’t get into abortion politics. He doesn’t harangue people about minimum wage laws or demonize Republican politicians. This is unacceptable to pundits who want celebrities to push liberal politics on as many people as possible while they’re in the limelight.

The vast majority of Americans do not want Hollywood stars to lecture them on public policy. They appreciate that Robert Downey Jr. keeps his politics close to the vest. They are glad that he walked out on Krishnan Guru-Murthy and wish more actors would follow his example.

The moral of the story is this: The creative team behind “Avengers: Age of Ultron” could learn a thing or two from Robert Downey Jr. If Marvel’s talent wants independent, libertarian, and conservative fans to continue flocking to Marvel Studio movies, then they should knock it off with the political activism.

Joss Whedon, Mark Ruffalo lecture fans on climate change, yet silent on ‘Age of Ultron’ carbon footprint

April 22, 2015April 23, 2015 by Douglas Ernst 21 Comments

“Avengers: Age of Ultron” is said to have a budget of roughly $250 million. The Marvel movie required shooting in 25 locations, including countries like Bangladesh, South Africa, Italy, South Korea and England. With all the cast and crew and sets involved, it had to leave a hefty carbon footprint. And yet, somehow, director Joss Whedon and Mark Ruffalo (aka: The Hulk) thought it would be a good idea to lecture the rest of us on climate change this Earth Day.

If Joss Whedon really cared about climate change as his self-congratulatory tweets suggest, then he would renounce the kind of big budget movies (and carbon footprints) Marvel Studios leaves all over the globe. He won’t do that though, because he really, really likes the millions of dollars Marvel puts into his bank account.

Mark Ruffalo is no different.

Yes, we can do something — like not act in a movie with a carbon footprint that 99.9 percent of moviegoers could not duplicate in 10,000 lifetimes.

The weird thing about hastags like #ClimateChangeIsReal is that there is basically no one who denies that climate changes. It’s always changed. In fact, yours truly blogged on climate change after my visit to Virginia Living Museum in Newport News, Virginia in 2013.

Here is what one of the educational notes next to the museum’s riverbank fossils said:

“Since the end of the dinosaur age, eastern Virginia has been covered by ocean water many times. Beneath these seas, layers upon layers of shells, bones and teeth from abundant ocean life accumulated to form fossil-bearing sediments. Coastal river bluffs now display these ancient sediment layers, in particular, a 3.5-to-5 million-year-old fossil-rich band called Yorktown Formation,” (Virginia Living Museum).

It is safe to say that the climate has changed quite a bit over the course of 5 million years — so much so that the great state of Virginia has been underwater multiple times.

The reason why Hollywood actors and directors engage in meaningless Twitter rhetoric like “#ClimateChangeIsReal” is because any time they’re forced to debate substantive questions they look “dumber than weather.”

Here are some real questions for your favorite “Avengers: Age of Ultron” environmental activist stars:

How much does man have an effect on climate in relation to things like that giant ball of exploding gas called the sun?
If man is responsible for significant changes to the earth’s ever-changing climate, what are the proposed political solutions to the problem?
Will the political solutions put forth by Hollywood actors and directors result in losses to freedom and liberty?
Will the political solutions put forth by men like Mark Ruffalo actually have any tangible effect?

Those are questions Messrs. Whedon and Ruffalo aren’t comfortable answering, which is why they opt instead for tweets that result in fawning praise by their Twitter followers.

The next time these guys essentially try to shame you because you like nice long showers or vehicles that don’t run on batteries, ask them how it feels to be a part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe juggernaut and its Galactus-sized carbon footprint. My guess is that that they’ll run away faster than Quicksilver.

‘Avengers: Age of Ultron’ trailer begs the question: How can Joss Whedon not direct ‘Avengers 3’?

October 24, 2014October 24, 2014 by Douglas Ernst 8 Comments

By now the entire world has seen the teaser trailer for Marvel’s Avengers: Age of Ultron. There really is only one word to describe it: awesome. The first movie made over $1.5 billion worldwide. It seems fair to say that $2 billion this time around is a distinct possibility. However, if director Joss Whedon delivers the goods — and all signs point to ‘yes’ — then it begs the question: How can he walk away from a climatic Avengers 3?

Over the past few weeks it’s been rumored that Marvel wants Joe and Anthony Russo to sign on for the 3rd and 4th Avengers movies, but it feels as though everything is building to Avengers 3. Only Marvel knows if that is the case, but I can’t help but feel as though walking away before completing an Avengers trilogy would be a bizarre move on Mr. Whedon’s part.

Directing a movie on as big of a scale as The Avengers must be physically and mentally exhausting. The time away from family and the pressure it puts on the director must be unbearable. However, if Mr. Whedon has set the stage for the superhero movie of all superhero movies to be Avengers 3, then passing on the job would be like the quarterback who leads his team down the field at the end of the big game, only to walk off the field on the opponent’s 20-yard line.

Regardless, for those who were too dazzled by the visuals of the teaser trailer to pay attention to the narration, it appears as though Whedon is going Empire Strikes Back-dark with this installment.

Ultron: “I’m going to show you something beautiful — everyone … screaming for mercy. You want to protect the world, but you don’t want it to change. You’re all puppets tangled in strings. String. But now I’m free. There are no strings on me.”

Then there is this exchange between Tony Stark and Natasha Romanoff:

Tony Stark: “It’s the end. The end of the path I started us on.”

Natasha Romanoff: “Nothing last forever.”

Meanwhile, an eerie rendition of “I’ve Got No Strings” from Disney’s Pinocchio plays in the background. (The merger between Marvel and Disney continues to pay off in interesting ways.)

It’s hard to see how Marvel can continue to keep this momentum going. The Black Widow is right: “Nothing lasts forever.” Eventually, Marvel will create a movie that implodes under its own weight. Eventually, all waves crash against the shore. Regardless, when that happens it will be hard not acknowledge that it was one wild ride.