It takes me some time to organize my thoughts on a monster.
Just one observation is rarely enough to be able to talk at length about any critter. Repeated viewings and notes are needed in order to confirm the data collected.
Or maybe that’s just an excuse to re-watch good movies over and over again. Because I sure as hell will give a bad one maybe one other viewing before going to the keyboard.
And Joss Whedon’s Billion Dollar Baby, The Avengers is a great movie to watch and re-watch.
It’s no Jaws, of course, but it’s still damn good. The monsters in the movie, the Chitauri, take their name from one classic Marvel alien . . . from an alternate universe, but really are their own thing. So much so, that the Chitauri of the movie were introduced to the mainstream Marvel Comics. I guess it really is hard to ignore a billion dollars.
Mostly, the Chitauri are faceless goons to be stomped, and the Leviathan’s their weapons of terror.
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| The Chitauri |
This may seem like I’m dismissing them as casual thrown away baddies, but Joss is a lot smarter than that. Sure, they ARE casual throw away villains designed primarily to have a big action scene towards the end, but that’s part of the point.
In one of the many comics Joss Whedon has written, Tales of the Vampire “Stacy”, he goes into detail regarding what it is to be a minion of an all-consuming evil force. Before the title character becomes a minion of evil (a vampire, natch), she considered such being as a “. . . horrible, mindless wave of evil.” After she is turned, her opinion changes.
“They weren’t mindless – they understood perfectly. The feeling of unity. Purpose. Evil.”
Unity within a military function is one of the main goals of any fighting force. Though the Chitauri do not display any sort of hive mind thinking, it remains there on a cultural level at keast, given their attachment to the Leviathans.
The Leviathans, however, are a bit more.
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| The Leviathan |
Where the Chitauri human-like in their fear representations, the Leviathans are more lizard-brained in their symbolism. They are predators and serpents, two things humans instinctively fear. They reduce us back to small, scurrying things that live in the trees, fleeing from the coiled beasts hidden among the branches. They are not just there to kill you. They are going to eat you as a normal part of their day.
Biology
Both the Chitauri and Leviathans are cyborgs beings.
How much of them is flesh and how much of them is machine is up for debate, but it must be quite a lot due to one specific factor: that both drop dead when their mother ship explodes. Joss Whedon himself admitted this was basically done as a cop out, to keep the tone light (something Man of Steel needed if Superman was to really be about bringing hope in a way other than on paper), and even decried The Phantom Menace for doing the same thing. But there is a mechanical reason for this to occur, and it all has to do with power.
Despite being basically mooks, the Chitauri demonstrate generally superhuman ability.
Climbing on walls, leaping about like grasshoppers, and most importantly, powering their weapons (as the Avengers pick up and drop Chitauri weapons repeatedly throughout the film – the couple in Item 47 must have found a work around for that, which is not entirely without use in such a weapon). This sort of thing requires a lot of energy to pull off, and putting a power source inside the cyborg creates a vulnerability.
Worse, given that we see Chitauri technology explode violently every so often, it’s likely that if they were damaged enough they’d explode too. Now, that may seem like something cool (and very Power Rangers), imagine how it could cause a chain reaction in a group of them. Or how it could cripple a starship vicariously.
So, how do deal with the power needs?
Micro-wave energy transfer. The engine isn’t inside the Chitauri or the Leviathans, but inside the mothership. When that is destroyed, their power source is cut off and they all shut down hard.
The Chitauri are somewhat humanoid in form, but have digigrade feet (they walk on their toes), giving them a better stride and jump, but otherwise have minimal remarkable physical features. Their faces have been covered primarily with mechanical devises, providing protection of sensitive organs. Their teeth indicate an omnivorous diet.
The Leviathans, however, are pure carnivores.
Given the fins and undulating motions, it is likely that these animals were either adapted from or based on primarily aquatic animal. Reinforced to survive in air and given lighter-than-air/anti-gravity/McGuffin-to-Float functions to glide through the air as easily as they would in water. Well, it’s either that or we’re dealing with an organism that evolved a gas giant to swim in the dense atmospheres of planets like Jupiter or Saturn.
Like the aerofauna of Arthur Conan Doyle’s “The Horror of the Heights.” However, getting something resembling a vertebrate from such an ecosystem is even more unbelievable than superheroes, so I prefer the aquatic adaptation. That, and the name Leviathan brings that to mind. But, I digress. Whether either still need to eat is up in the air given the external power source theory, but it is still possible (food fuels the body in a lot of different ways).
The Leviathans appear to act as troop transports for the Chutari. If there are any heavy weapons on the beasts, they are not in evidence. Their most powerful weapons appear to be their large bulk, sharp teeth and bladed flight fins. No guns to speak of, nor any crazy energy blasts of their own.
Just imagine how much trouble the Avengers would have been in if it spat blue flame?
