marvel cinematic universe - Which films should I see before "The Avengers"?

I haven't seen any of the movies in the universe that includes The Avengers. However, this one is a Joss Whedon film, so of course I'll see it.

But first, should I go watch any other movies in that universe? Like The Hulk and Iron Man?

Answer

Skippable

Iron Man and Iron Man 2 are, IMO, the best movies in the current Marvel film universe. They are also not very important to understand what's going on in The Avengers - if you understand that Tony Stark is a brilliant jerk and has a robot suit, that's about all you need to know. 2 has Black Widow, but she's not really introduced until The Avengers.

The Incredible Hulk is completely missable if you're even slightly familiar with the Hulk character. It's an average action movie, hardly alluded to during The Avengers, and it's not even the same actor between the two.

Nice to See

Captain America's backstory is used often for humor and occasionally for drama. If you don't see it you'll probably miss or barely catch a lot of the jokes in the first half.

Important

Thor is mandatory - The Avengers is almost Thor 2. The main antagonist of The Avengers is the antagonist in Thor. A scientist in Thor is also a character in The Avengers and is given absolutely no introduction or explanation; if you want to understand the character dynamics in any of the scenes with him, you'll have to see Thor.

Comments

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In Harry Potter we are introduced to Kwikspell course in The Chamber of Secrets (and never hear about it again). We see Filch taking courses, presumably by mail. The descriptions of Kwikspell make me think it is for people who are weak in magic (kind of like how Neville was supposed to be when he was younger), but had magic in them nonetheless. However, Ron's comments later in the chapter make it sound like it is mainly for Squibs to learn magic. However, it is strongly implied through out all the books that Squibs are essentially Muggles, and will never be able to do magic. How then is a Kwikspell course supposed to work? Do we have any information to know if it works at all? Is it a scam? An answer from any level of canon is welcome. Answer Kwikspell courses are (probably) useful to some wizards, but not to squibs. The Kwikspell course literature comes with two testimonials. Madam Z. Nettles of Topsham writes: ‘I had no memory for incantations and my potions were a family joke...

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In time Keeps on Slippin' , Farnsworth creates a basketball team which he matures by abusing Chronitons. This leads to time skipping forward by random, but ever increasing amounts. How much time was skipped in this way? Answer Unfortunately, I don't think a good estimate can be made for this, for two reasons: Many of the time skips move forward by an indeterminate amount of time. At one point, the Professor mentions localized regions of space skipping forward much more than others. We then see two young boys on the street below complaining about having to pay social security, only to suddenly become senior citizens and start complaining about wanting their money. Thus, each individual could have experienced a different amount of time skippage.

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When I saw the original Star Wars saga as a kid, the concept of the Dark Side imprinted in me was quite simple. You did a bad thing, so you're a bad person so you go to the Dark Side and keep doing bad things. Now, obviously this doesn't hold true in reality. In my mind it is perfectly reasonable for Luke to kill the Emperor and Vader and then just flee the Death Star and rejoin the Alliance. After all they are at war, those are enemy officers that have captured him and are taunting him by threatening with death of all loved ones and the whole operation was intended to kill the Emperor anyway. The same would hold true for Anakin. He could have killed Mace Windu to save the Chancellor and Padme but that doesn't mean he's going to then go mad and kill all Jedis including children. It doesn't add up from a merely psychological point of view. He had a set of objectives and that made him want to keep the Chancellor alive (quite valid by the way, Mace Windu is quite clums...

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