I think your criticisms of Star Trek were accurate, btw. All I could come up with to counter those Spock-logical points was that the film somehow captured the nearly indefinable spirit and feeling of Star Trek. Well, earlier in this thread, you said The Avengers movie captured what you felt was the spirit of The Avengers.

Perhaps that's just it. I have no idea what the spirit of The Avengers is. I never read any of the comics, and I hated the Saturday morning TV show as a kid. So I guess I'm just not getting it. Even so, of course I expected the multi-character, giant machine alien invasion major city destruction battle at the end. It's de rigour and it was telegraphed in all the trailers. It's just I was not engaged with anything leading up to that, so I just rolled my eyes for fourteen minutes while the battle unfolded.

I'm sincerely glad if fans of The Avengers got what they were looking forward to from this movie. Really I am. I know I'm not a fan of The Avengers, per se, but I did enjoy 3 of the 4 films leading up to this, so I hoped I'd really dig The Avengers movie. Though I did not, it truly pleases me that true fans apparently did.

See? Now this is why the Internet is great. I found a single poster of every bong girl ever . Many happy memories....

I'm sure I could Google this, but I wonder are the Marvel movies creating a new golden age of comic book sales?

Not as advertised. That would have been a very large poster.

I never thought of Moonie as a partier.

One more (visual) dig at The Avengers / Transformers finale comparison - not to beat a dead horse, but because it's amusing and I just happened upon it.

In less controversial movie news, I finally checked out My Weekend with Marilyn and surprisingly loved it. Great cast, and I'm a sucker for a true story. This one's completely charming.

We want to see the Avengers, but are concerned that we know NOTHING about any back story: we haven't seen any predecessor movies and we don't read comic books. Do we need to do anything to prepare, or does this movie stand okay on it's own (story-wise)?

Not really. But if you see only one predecessor movie I'd suggest Thor as that will explain the villain. For the most part the superheros are what you'd expect and probably already know.

If you see two, I'd put Captain America next as that provides some back story on the object the villain is after.

Dang, I expected to see girls with bongs.....

Ahh. I see. Now I get the earlier replies that had me somewhat puzzled...