Saturday, May 9, 2015

Not Too Fast: We Can Handle Two Quicksilvers

Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Evan Peters both in 2010s Kick Ass
A myriad of movie news websites, blogs. vlogs and billboards sport headlines that offer to explain end-credit scenes, easter eggs, cinematic universe connections and comic references in the ever-present, ever-expanding world of superhero movies. One such  element is the simultaneous roles of Aaron Taylor-Johnson in the new Avengers: Age of Ultron and Evan Peters in X-Men: Days of Future Past as the Marvel speedster Quicksilver. Both actors play different versions of the character in the two very separate movie franchises based on Marvel comics, and many internet sources continue to frame the situation as though it were one that might cause great levels of confusion to the casual movie goer or Marvel movie fan.

I think this disrespects those fans to a certain degree. The two characters are clearly different, with distinct origins in their respective films along with the very distinct styles of special effects to show off their super-speed. The characters are not even dressed in a similar way, set in specific cultures and decades based on the plots of their movies. The only confusion I could potentially see would be for overly-excited fanboys who might hope that the character's doubling performances could indicate a coming crossover between the Disney-owned MCU and Fox's Marvel film series. Heck, the movies hardly even call either character 'Quicksilver,' so please, give movie goers more credit that thinking this one thing could be even a bit confusing.