As we learned yesterday, Tony Stark has basically hung up his Iron Man suit and has begun letting his remote armored drones do the job, one of which will turn out to be Ultron. But it goes a little bit deeper than that...
The Avengers sequel begins with Stark’s latest plan to fix the world: Ultron will be an all-seeing, all-knowing captain of a planetary police force known as the Iron Legion, a team of robotic beat cops who resemble blue-and-white versions of the Iron Man suit but have no human core—and less soul than a Carpenters album. If it all works out, the superheroes can rest easy.
And because Stark can't leave well enough alone, he takes things one step too far by giving Ultron elements of his own personality, specifically his cynicism but lacking in any ability to sympathize. He becomes what can't be described as a villain per se, but something that wants to bring about world peace, and like all artificial intelligences we've seen in movies, he figures the best way to go about it is to wipe out humans. It's all summed up pretty good in this piece of actual dialogue from the film, so just imagine this in the snarky voice of James Spader....
"I know you're 'good' people, I know you mean well… but you just didn't think it through… There is only one path to peace… your extermination."
All of this is preceded by a party scene that plays out just as prior stories said it would, with the team at Stark's penthouse home celebrating a victory. The only difference is that the festivities are interrupted by Ultron and his Legionnaires...
That’s when all hell breaks loose. The Legionnaires have suddenly activated, and are inexplicably trying to kill the heroes. In the chaos, Ultron—in one of his first, metallic forms—announces his new plan to bring peace to the planet—by eradicating the most destructive thing that walks on it: humans.
In the midst of the assault scene, Downey finds himself suspended 50 feet above the set, riding piggyback on an actor in a motion-capture suit who will be digitally replaced with a hovering, hostile Legionnaire.
With no armor at his disposal, Stark grabs the only weapon handy—a fondue fork—and jams it into the robot soldier’s neck as they bang around the ceiling. “The deadliest fondue fork in all the land!” Whedon jokes. “From Odin’s melted cheese, I shall destroy thee!”
