{"id":2263,"date":"2015-05-11T07:30:58","date_gmt":"2015-05-11T11:30:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/pursuedbytruth\/?p=2263"},"modified":"2015-05-10T14:15:23","modified_gmt":"2015-05-10T18:15:23","slug":"strong-messages-in-avengers-age-of-ultron","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/pursuedbytruth\/2015\/05\/strong-messages-in-avengers-age-of-ultron.html","title":{"rendered":"Strong Messages in Avengers: Age of Ultron"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"avengers\"<\/a>Guest post by\u00a0Hosea Rupprecht, FSP<\/span><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Avengers: Age of Ultron <\/em>throws the viewer into the action right from the get-go alongside Iron Man, Captain America, Black Widow, Hawkeye, the Hulk, and Thor as they liberate Loki\u2019s staff from a Hydra base.<\/p>\n

If you don\u2019t have any previous knowledge of the movies in the Marvel universe, you may experience some befuddlement but it won\u2019t keep you from getting swept up in the story, written and directed by Joss Whedon.<\/p>\n

Avengers: Age of Ultron <\/em>doesn\u2019t deal with alien invasions but with a closer-to-home dilemma: technology gone wild. Tony Stark\/Iron Man (Robert Downey, Jr.), together with Bruce Banner\/Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), work on creating an artificial intelligence that will be a peacekeeping force, Ultron (voiced by James Spader). But it all goes wrong when Ultron\u2019s \u201cintelligence\u201d says that the best way for the planet to be at peace is to eradicate the Avengers and wipe out humanity.<\/p>\n

Amid the action, we are treated to a wonderful dose of humor as the team banters back and forth. Who knew Thor (Chris Hemsworth) was so funny? At a party he goads the others into trying to lift his hammer. My favorite was Iron Man begging the wall to have a secret door. When he finds it he squeaks out a very small \u201cYeah\u201d and continues on.<\/p>\n

At times,\u00a0Age of Ultron <\/em>suffers from having too many main characters to have sufficient character development during the course of the film, but if you\u2019ve seen any of the 10 previous Marvel films, you know these guys (and girls) already. Two new people are thrown into the mix, Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch, the twins Pietro and Wanda Maximoff (Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Elizabeth Olsen). They hate the Avengers and are more than happy to help Ultron wipe out the team.<\/p>\n

From the perspective of Christianity, I found it interesting that Whedon chose to use church as Ultron\u2019s preferred metaphor. When the villain uses an Eastern European town as the base from which to destroy the world, he sets up shop in the church at the middle of town saying, \u201cUpon this rock I will build my church.\u201d The religious language in the mouth of the bad guy is rather disconcerting. Then, the \u201csavior,\u201d an embodiment of J.A.R.V.I.S. (Stark\u2019s own AI), names himself, \u201cI am.\u201d What, exactly, this guy is supposed to be is unclear to me but he\u2019s definitely not my idea of God.<\/p>\n

Despite the unfortunate use of religious language,\u00a0Avengers: Age of Ultron<\/em>\u00a0carries strong messages in the area of teamwork and family life. The whole reason things go wrong is that Stark and Banner didn\u2019t trust the team, deciding to work outside the team and its collective wisdom. Only when each member of the team does their part, do really good things happen.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Sr.<\/a>Hosea Rupprecht, FSP, is a member of the Daughters of St. Paul, a religious community dedicated to evangelization with media. She holds a Masters of Theological Studies from the University of St. Michael\u2019s College and an MA in Media Literacy from Webster University. Sr. Hosea is a speaker for the Pauline Center for Media Studies based in New York, author of How to Watch Movies With Kids: A Values-Based Strategy, and co-host of the Catholic TV movie review show, Searchlight. For the past 15 years, she has facilitated various film dialogues for both children and adults, as well as given presentations on integrating culture, faith and media.<\/address>\n
\u00a0<\/address>\n
This post originally appeared on Sr. Hosea\u2019s blog Catholic Media Musings<\/a>. If you would like to read more pieces on media and faith, check it out and subscribe!<\/address>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Avengers: Age of Ultron is chock-full of action, humor and good messages. There is one unfortunate choice in the writing, but other than that this movie delivers lots of entertainment and fun.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2265,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66,352,437],"tags":[438,442,441,443,439,440,1084,444,445],"class_list":["post-2263","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","category-family","category-movie-reviews","tag-avengers-age-of-ultron","tag-black-widow","tag-captain-america","tag-hawkeye","tag-hosea-rupprecht-fsp","tag-iron-man","tag-movie-reviews","tag-the-hulk","tag-thor"],"yoast_head":"\nStrong Messages in Avengers: Age of Ultron<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Avengers: Age of Ultron is chock-full of action, humor and good messages. There is one unfortunate choice in the writing, but other than that this movie delivers lots of entertainment and fun.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/pursuedbytruth\/2015\/05\/strong-messages-in-avengers-age-of-ultron.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Strong Messages in Avengers: Age of Ultron\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Avengers: Age of Ultron is chock-full of action, humor and good messages. There is one unfortunate choice in the writing, but other than that this movie delivers lots of entertainment and fun.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/pursuedbytruth\/2015\/05\/strong-messages-in-avengers-age-of-ultron.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Pursued by Truth\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2015-05-11T11:30:58+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2015-05-10T18:15:23+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/485\/2015\/05\/age-of-ultron-fb.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"624\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"298\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Guest Contributor\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Guest Contributor\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/pursuedbytruth\/2015\/05\/strong-messages-in-avengers-age-of-ultron.html\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/pursuedbytruth\/2015\/05\/strong-messages-in-avengers-age-of-ultron.html\",\"name\":\"Strong Messages in Avengers: Age of Ultron\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/pursuedbytruth\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2015-05-11T11:30:58+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2015-05-10T18:15:23+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/pursuedbytruth\/#\/schema\/person\/2869b699bf0e57982cb1f212243705f2\"},\"description\":\"Avengers: Age of Ultron is chock-full of action, humor and good messages. There is one unfortunate choice in the writing, but other than that this movie delivers lots of entertainment and fun.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/pursuedbytruth\/2015\/05\/strong-messages-in-avengers-age-of-ultron.html#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/pursuedbytruth\/2015\/05\/strong-messages-in-avengers-age-of-ultron.html\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/pursuedbytruth\/2015\/05\/strong-messages-in-avengers-age-of-ultron.html#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/pursuedbytruth\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Strong Messages in Avengers: Age of Ultron\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/pursuedbytruth\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/pursuedbytruth\/\",\"name\":\"Pursued by Truth\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/pursuedbytruth\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/pursuedbytruth\/#\/schema\/person\/2869b699bf0e57982cb1f212243705f2\",\"name\":\"Guest Contributor\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/pursuedbytruth\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/5010a3cc274cdb37811bf24de46dc280?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/5010a3cc274cdb37811bf24de46dc280?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Guest Contributor\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/pursuedbytruth\/author\/admin\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Strong Messages in Avengers: Age of Ultron","description":"Avengers: Age of Ultron is chock-full of action, humor and good messages. There is one unfortunate choice in the writing, but other than that this movie delivers lots of entertainment and fun.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/pursuedbytruth\/2015\/05\/strong-messages-in-avengers-age-of-ultron.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Strong Messages in Avengers: Age of Ultron","og_description":"Avengers: Age of Ultron is chock-full of action, humor and good messages. There is one unfortunate choice in the writing, but other than that this movie delivers lots of entertainment and fun.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/pursuedbytruth\/2015\/05\/strong-messages-in-avengers-age-of-ultron.html","og_site_name":"Pursued by Truth","article_published_time":"2015-05-11T11:30:58+00:00","article_modified_time":"2015-05-10T18:15:23+00:00","og_image":[{"width":624,"height":298,"url":"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/485\/2015\/05\/age-of-ultron-fb.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Guest Contributor","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Guest Contributor","Est. reading time":"3 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/pursuedbytruth\/2015\/05\/strong-messages-in-avengers-age-of-ultron.html","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/pursuedbytruth\/2015\/05\/strong-messages-in-avengers-age-of-ultron.html","name":"Strong Messages in Avengers: Age of Ultron","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/pursuedbytruth\/#website"},"datePublished":"2015-05-11T11:30:58+00:00","dateModified":"2015-05-10T18:15:23+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/pursuedbytruth\/#\/schema\/person\/2869b699bf0e57982cb1f212243705f2"},"description":"Avengers: Age of Ultron is chock-full of action, humor and good messages. There is one unfortunate choice in the writing, but other than that this movie delivers lots of entertainment and fun.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/pursuedbytruth\/2015\/05\/strong-messages-in-avengers-age-of-ultron.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/pursuedbytruth\/2015\/05\/strong-messages-in-avengers-age-of-ultron.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/pursuedbytruth\/2015\/05\/strong-messages-in-avengers-age-of-ultron.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/pursuedbytruth"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Strong Messages in Avengers: Age of Ultron"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/pursuedbytruth\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/pursuedbytruth\/","name":"Pursued by Truth","description":"","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/pursuedbytruth\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/pursuedbytruth\/#\/schema\/person\/2869b699bf0e57982cb1f212243705f2","name":"Guest Contributor","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/pursuedbytruth\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/5010a3cc274cdb37811bf24de46dc280?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/5010a3cc274cdb37811bf24de46dc280?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Guest Contributor"},"url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/pursuedbytruth\/author\/admin"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/pursuedbytruth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2263","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/pursuedbytruth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/pursuedbytruth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/pursuedbytruth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/pursuedbytruth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2263"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/pursuedbytruth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2263\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/pursuedbytruth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2265"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/pursuedbytruth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2263"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/pursuedbytruth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2263"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/pursuedbytruth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2263"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}