Watching the Movie tonight - am I going to be disappointed?

[Dandy Forsdyke]

It's an alternate Avengers and has no correlation to the series. It's a reboot.

It's not even that. It's a crummy Hollywood remake.

Conterfeit Avengers.

[Frankymole]

It's an alternate Avengers and has no correlation to the series. It's a reboot.

That's my take on it, anyway. I'd say the same for the radio series, the stage play, the books and the comics.

So is the Emma Peel era a reboot? It doesn't fit established continuity, what with all the remade Cathy Gale scripts...

[Sam]

There wee two instances of swearing - Eddie Izzard says the eff word and Eileen Atkins says something like 'cocky little 'b-st-rd'. I wasn't offended by Atkins' swearing (indeed she is the best thing in it), but it was still inappropriate in my opinion.

That's if you take 'bastard' as swearing - it's in the dictionary in common use with a specific meaning. Obviously it's used in a derogatory fashion when employed, but I've never considered it a swear word - though my parents obviously did.

Equally, I don't find it out of kink with Avengers style.

I would never have thought of it as swearing either. I think the line fits quite nicely with the character and The Avengers as a whole.

[DiVicenzo]

There wee two instances of swearing - Eddie Izzard says the eff word and Eileen Atkins says something like 'cocky little 'b-st-rd'. I wasn't offended by Atkins' swearing (indeed she is the best thing in it), but it was still inappropriate in my opinion.

That's if you take 'bastard' as swearing - it's in the dictionary in common use with a specific meaning. Obviously it's used in a derogatory fashion when employed, but I've never considered it a swear word - though my parents obviously did.

Equally, I don't find it out of kink with Avengers style.

I would never have thought of it as swearing either. I think the line fits quite nicely with the character and The Avengers as a whole.

Well, bastard these days isn't too strong in the UK but it was at one time as was bloody. In Spanish to call someone a bastardo is a bigger insult than calling them many other things! But the way it's delivered by Dame Eileen is super as for that unfunny comic Izzard - he just a ****** anyway

[Alan]

Oh please, Alan. Would it ever be use in an episode of The Avengers? No.

If it were, it wouldn't leap out at me as incongruous, particularly in the videotaped era or The New Avengers.

[Alan]

So is the Emma Peel era a reboot? It doesn't fit established continuity, what with all the remade Cathy Gale scripts...

I must admit, I don't get hung up on continuity. I don't agonise over there being two versions of some stories and try to make them both work within a cohesive narrative framework.

The Avengers has too little episode-to-episode development for me to worry about the overall narrative and its occasional contradictions.

[kim]

Equally, I don't find it out of kink with Avengers style.

I have to agree with Alan. The swearing didn't bother me in the movie. It really didn't seem all that out of place. Had Emma Peel said "F.." or Steed said "Oh S***", it might have bothered me just a little. I hate to think what that says about me as a person. I've a feeling that none of the characters were above the mild expilitive.

My feelings are that Steed would have sworn under his breath, but never in front of a lady. Emma would have thrown off a few "oh sh**", Tara and Purdey would have thrown out the occasional damn or hell, and Gambit was a sailor after all.

Just my two cents worth. [/code]

[Timeless A-Peel]

Equally, I don't find it out of kink with Avengers style.

I have to agree with Alan. The swearing didn't bother me in the movie. It really didn't seem all that out of place. Had Emma Peel said "F.." or Steed said "Oh S***", it might have bothered me just a little. I hate to think what that says about me as a person. I've a feeling that none of the characters were above the mild expilitive.

My feelings are that Steed would have sworn under his breath, but never in front of a lady. Emma would have thrown off a few "oh sh**", Tara and Purdey would have thrown out the occasional damn or hell, and Gambit was a sailor after all.

Just my two cents worth. [/code]

I found the "Oh, f***" line in the movie funny but it did kind of stick out like a sort thumb in my view. Avengerland doesn't do blood, nudity, or swearing, and an appearance by any of the above would be jarring because it's not in keeping with what you've come to expect. The only example I've ever found in the series after watching all the episodes is in Last of the Cybernauts, when Gambit asks Purdey "what the hell" she wants after she's tipped him out of bed, and I remember watching that the first time I found it a little surprising, not because I didn't think Gambit would be the sort to use it (he's a sailor, like Kim said!), but because I never expected him to use it onscreen. That said, some characters it seems more plausible to me than others, depending on how "real" they are. Purdey and Gambit are easier to accept as being foul-mouthed than Emma, who's almost on another plane of existence. It's not so much what's wrong with the characters saying certain things as their being unable to say them within the confines of the censorship regulations of the time. If the same shows were made today, there would definitely be the odd curse. But they weren't, and that gives them a certain mood and expectations. I'm more willing to accept it in writing, actually, than I ever would onscreen.

That probably made no sense at all, but moving on...

[DiVicenzo]

But it was never necesssary in the TV series - in those days we didn't need overt sexual activity even though it got pretty raunchy in 'A Touch of Brimstone'....it was never necessary and it still stands the test of time and is still a very intelligently written and performed series.
Swearing shows a lack of intelligence and vocabulary - I should know I swear like a trooper....let's face it the film got it more or less 100% wrong.

[Dandy Forsdyke]

It's of my opinion that there was no place for even the mildest cuss word in The Avengers - Keel-era or New Avengers included. I think I may have heard 'damn' in a TNA, but I'd have to be really picky to say that was a swear word.

Sex, profanity, blood, drugs, violence were all Avengers 'no-no's. That's why the Professionals was such a surprise to me when I first saw the show as a kid - an Avengers Production that did have all of those anti-Avengers mundane things. I was expecting a Boy's Own version of The New Avengers.