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First Avengers: Age of Ultron Footage Reveals Marvel’s Most Fearsome Villain Yet

This week, Yahoo Movies was treated to a special behind-closed-doors look at footage from two of Marvel’s upcoming superhero films. You can read all about ‘Ant-Man’ and why we should stop worrying about the Edgar Wright fiasco right here.

The second film to be previewed was ‘Avengers: Age of Ultron’, the much-anticipated sequel to Joss Whedon’s 2012 team up movie which looks set to be a very different proposition to the first film. Where 2012’s ‘The Avengers’ spent much of its runtime gathering our primary-hued heroes together to take on the witty Loki and his army of faceless aliens in an affable and charming romp, from what little we’ve so far, ‘Age of Ultron’ looks more akin to a horror film.

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Taking cues from ‘Terminator’, ’Night of the Living Dead’ and ‘Frankenstein’, the ‘Age of Ultron’ footage introduces the titular villain in such a menacing manner, we think the sentient robot could soon be challenging Tom Hiddleston’s Loki for the title of greatest Marvel movie villain. The studio has taken a bit of flack of late for their “bland” baddies, but this could all change with Ultron.

The footage begins innocuously enough with the Avengers relaxing in the Avengers Tower (Stark Tower from ‘The Avengers’ has been given a makeover) over a beer. Thor challenges his team-mates to see if any of them can lift Mjolnir, his mighty power-granting hammer, from the table.

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They all try and fail – well, apart from Black Widow who refuses to be drawn into the macho swaggering – before their revelry is interrupted by Ultron, who is voiced by James Spader.

It’s a damaged and limping early version of the robot, in fact, he’s more zombie than robot with half of his body missing, sparks flying from his missing arm’s socket. “You’re all killers. You want to protect the world, but you don’t want change,” he says with a grating metallic voice. “There’s only one path to peace: your extinction.”

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Above: An early incarnation of Ultron as seen at Comic-Con (Credit: Twitter/Avengers

Robot drones (or could they be Iron Man suits?) then burst through the wall and the footage cuts to black.

Ultron’s voice intones, “I have a vision. The whole world, screaming for mercy. Everyone, tangling, strings.” We then get a look at various bits of footage from the rest of the film.

Shots from the South African shoot which shows Iron Man fighting Hulk in his huge “Hulkbuster” suits. Nick Fury in his civvies. A new look Quinjet. A glimpse of Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver using their abilities. Andy Serkis as a bearded man (not a mo-cap character for once!).

It’s all very dark and plays up the “global threat” angle, but what’s most interesting is the use of music. An eerie version of “I’ve got no strings” from the Pinocchio soundtrack plays over the footage with the lyrics: “I’ve got no strings, to hold me down” and “I had strings, but now I’m free”.

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We see Ultron in front of a huge army of drones, before it all ends with a close up of his evolving robotic face, far sleeker than his introduction at the start of the footage, saying, “There are no strings on me.” He’s utterly terrifying.

So what’s with all the puppetry symbolism? In the comics, Ultron is a sentient robot created by Hank Pym AKA Ant-Man. For ‘Avengers 2’, Marvel has switched things up to avoid confusion with their forthcoming ‘Ant-Man’ film, so Tony Stark is now the creator of Ultron.

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Rumour has it he creates Ultron and his army of drones in order to help the Avengers fight world threats, but instead his robot creation becomes self-aware and develops his own, evil personality, hell-bent on destroying humanity and the Avengers.

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It’s the whole Geppetto/Pinocchio dynamic, but instead of a wooden puppet turning into a cheeky little boy, Stark’s robot turns into a deadly evil genius in command of a robot army.

In case you weren’t getting the message about Ultron’s threat, the footage ends with Iron Man standing over the body of Captain America, surrounded by wreckage including his broken shield.

He makes Loki’s mischievous machinations in the first film look like schoolboy pranks and for that reason, we can’t to meet Ultron, even if we’re scared stiff by what he might do to our favorite superhero team.

It’s unlikely that this footage will ever make its way online in any official capacity, but you can expect to see a lot of it in the trailer, which we should see between now and Christmas.

‘Avengers: Age of Ultron’ is coming to cinemas in May, 2015.

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Image credit: Marvel/Entertainment Weekly/Disney