I’m sure the fact that Joss Whedon is writing and directing THE AVENGERS movie is high on the minds of everybody in the Comic Vine community. But do you remember that he’s also been hired by Marvel to do rewrites on CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER? Stephen McFeely and Christopher Markus, the duo who’ve adapted every CHRONICLES OF NARNIA movie, wrote the main draft of this one, but Whedon’s been brought in to do some polishing (script doctoring to those of you who’re hip to lingo.)   But what exactly have his contributions consisted of? AVENGERS fan site, Earth’s Mightiest questioned the man recently, and here’s what he said…

"The structure  of the thing was really tight and I loved it, but there were a couple of opportunities to find his voice a little bit — and some of the   other characters — and make the connections so that you understood exactly why he wanted to be who he wanted to be."   

It sounds most likely that it was dialogue punch-up with a few more links drawn between the scenes, something Whedon probably relished. == TEASER ==

As he went on to say….

"It's fun in this case… because, A, they'll actually use the things I wrote, which is rare; and, B, it's a fun puzzle to go in and say, 'Okay, this is what works, this is what needs to be connected, and here are some key moments.' Then the third thing is that it takes place in the '40s, so I got to write '40s dialogue, and that's never not fun!"  

You'll notice that Whedon’s keen to stress his appreciation that his contributions will make it to the movie. That’s probably because he’s actually had a long career of doing this kind of thing, contributing to ensemble script efforts for TOY STORY, ALIEN RESURRECTION, TITAN AE, ATLANTIS: THE LOST EMPIRE and a host of other projects the WGA never awarded him credit for, like SPEED. Actually, the gig most relevant to you Comic Vine maniacs is the first X-MEN, which he did a dialogue pass on, only for only one of his lines to actually make it to the final cut. What was that line?

“Do you know what happens to a toad when it’s struck by lightning?”

KRASH!

“The same thing as everything else.”

Tom Pinchuk’s the writer of HYBRID BASTARDS! & UNIMAGINABLE. Order them on Amazon here & here.

How many of the avengers team will be in this movie? or is it just the big guns?

CAN"T WAIT! huge whedon fan, but got to say, that was the worst line in the x-men movie ha ha

I completely believe in Whedon!  Can't wait to see the Cap film and The Avengers!

Joss Whedon's contribution to Captain America:  
 
BUCKY: So, that's your shield, huh? 
 
CAP: Yup. 
 
BUCKY: Shiney!

I think I am looking forward to Thor just a little bit more then Cap, but boy howdy its not by much. Cap is going to be an awesome movie, I always look forward to see how writers handle the dialogue of yesteryear. A good movie for reference would be Public Enemy, the dialogue was outstanding, you could almost believe Depp lived through the 30s. I am really hoping we get that sense with Chris Evans, its probably going to be one of the harder parts of the movie, besides being commanding.

Lets hope he doesn't screw up

He wrote that line for X-Men? Yikes. Maybe he wasn't such a good choice to make the Avengers.

You guys, that was an orphaned punchline with terrible delivery. If they'd left the actual build-up to the punchline in, and gotten someone who can act, it wouldn't have been so horrendously bad.

" How many of the avengers team will be in this movie? or is it just the big guns? "

That line in X-Men makes me giggle lol 
 
But I'm not surprised, if you watch a lot of Joss Whedon's other shows like Buffy and Angel, he does similar stuff lol

 
The Marvel Studios movies keep looking better.

That line is horrible but  joss didnt wrote it

Not true, Whedon also had another line in the X-Men movie.  It's the part at the end with Cyclops and Wolverine, where Cyclops thinks he's Mystique.
 
Wolverine:  "Hey.  Hey.  It's me."
Cyclops:  "Prove it."
Wolverine:  "You're a dick."
Cyclops:  "Okay."

" @Captain13: Shame. I was rather hoping Namor, Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch would turn up "

First post on these boards. Have lurked and enjoyed the site for some time. I cannot believe this is the topic that got me to post here for the first time. But...I am in stunned disbelief on 2 counts.
 
1) People actually liked Storm's line from X-Men? For some time now that line has been my front runner for worst line EVER. The fact that is was written, acted out, and made it through the editing process is mind boggling to me. But to each there own.
 
2) I am in equally stunned disbelief that Joss Whedon wrote it.

Whether he wrote it or not, that line was quite possibly the worst I've ever had the misfortune of hearing, doubly so that it came from Halle Berry, who somehow won an Academy Award for Monster's Ball.  Anyhoo, I think that bringing in Joss Whedon could be a mistake, as the possibility of "dialogue creep" looms.
 
Don't believe me ?  Read this line again:
 
 "The structure  of the thing was really tight and I loved it, but there were a couple of opportunities to find his voice a little bit — and some of the   other characters — and make the connections so that you understood exactly why he wanted to be who he wanted to be."

Once again, I have learned something. A line so bad it made me wince in a movie I otherwise enjoyed was written by someone whose work I dislike. 
Again, the idea of Whedon directing the Avengers is one that fills me with  apprehension (yes, I have that little going on in my life that a movie occupies such a prominent place in my thoughts). Ah, you never know, maybe him and Kevin Smith will murder each in a knife fight before they start shooting the Avengers. Yes, I know Kevin Smith is not involved with the Avengers in anyway but this would sort of be a killing two gits with one stone.
It could happen you know. 
And seriously, does anybody have a fecking clue what he is on about with that "structure of the thing" crap?

awesome team working on captain america
 
and i never knew the guy who played toad also played darth maul

That line was atrocious!  That line made me throw my hands up and say, "I give up on this $#@% movie." 
 
I'm not going to hold one colossally bad line of dialogue against him, because I typically like Whedon's stuff, but I sure as hell wouldn't want credit for that line if I was him.

“Do you know what happens to a toad when it’s struck by lightning?” 
“The same thing as everything else.”

Whedon wrote that? Well at least I know it's the most memorable Storm line in the movies

I think the reason that people even LIKE that Storm line was because that was her only real line in the movie. I mean can you think of any of the actual X-Men speaking in the movie besides Wolverine, Prof. X, Iceman, and Rogue? 
 
Storm said the lightning bit, Cyclops said "Stay away from my girl", and I think Jean had a long dialog in the beginning... Or was that X2?

Oh great, so the one line that he wrote that made it into X-Men was the worst line of the entire movie?! 
*facepalm*

"Not true, Whedon also had another line in the X-Men movie.  It's the part at the end with Cyclops and Wolverine, where Cyclops thinks he's Mystique.   Wolverine:  "Hey.  Hey.  It's me."Cyclops:  "Prove it." Wolverine:  "You're a dick." Cyclops:  "Okay." "

He wrote that line? It wasn't his best job.

Right now I'm crying. Not for joy.

Shame about that line but if it's one thing that Joss does well, it's character development and fantastic witty lines. And he's writing 40's era dialogue! Oh it's going to be brilliant!

Once again, that line wasn't Joss' fault. But people apparently don't read other comments before posting their own. The line was messed up, partly because the script had been edited so heavily that all that was left of the joke was the punchline. Also because of Berry's awful delivery. See what Whedon says himself:

 Everybody remembers that as the worst line ever written, but the thing about that is, it was supposed to be delivered as completely offhand. [Adopts casual, bored tone.] "You know what happens when a toad gets hit by lightning?" Then, after he gets electrocuted, "Ahhh, pretty much the same thing that happens to anything else." But Halle Berry said it like she was Desdemona. [Strident, ringing voice.] "The same thing that happens to everything eeelse!" That's the thing that makes you go crazy. At least "You're a dick" got delivered right. The worst thing about these things is that, when the actors say it wrong, it makes the writer look stupid. People assume that the line... I listened to half the dialogue in Alien 4, and I'm like, "That's idiotic," because of the way it was said. And nobody knows that. Nobody ever gets that. They say, "That was a stupid script," which is the worst pain in the world. I have a great long boring story about that, but I can tell you the very short version. In Alien 4, the director changed something so that it didn't make any sense. He wanted someone to go and get a gun and get killed by the alien, so I wrote that in and tried to make it work, but he directed it in a way that it made no sense whatsoever. And I was sitting there in the editing room, trying to come up with looplines to explain what's going on, to make the scene make sense, and I asked the director, "Can you just explain to me why he's doing this? Why is he going for this gun?" And the editor, who was French, turned to me and said, with a little leer on his face, [adopts gravelly, smarmy, French-accented voice] "Because eet's een the screept." And I actually went and dented the bathroom stall with my puddly little fist. I have never been angrier. But it's the classic, "When something goes wrong, you assume the writer's a dork." And that's painful.