Marvel Studios has built a franchise around a small band of superheroes by developing individual movies and building a team from those characters. The end result was the Avengers and the superhero genre of movies has not been the same. Lucasfilms has developed a similar franchise through the science fiction genre with the characters and universe of Star Wars. The two movie empires have a number of similar traits and these similarities help drive the ongoing saga of both franchises.
1. Robot Enemies
During the Star Wars prequel trilogy, the main enemy came in the form of robots. There were massive droid armies that threatened the peace of the Republic and created massive devastation. One of the key leaders of these armies was a cyborg named General Grievous. Grievous was a four armed fighting machine that wielded a lightsaber in each hand. The Jedi were hard pressed by Grievous but Obi Wan Kenobi eventually defeated him.
The Avengers will face a new threat in the Age of Ultron. Ultron has been given an armor coated with the ultra-tough substance adamantium. Adamantium is virtually indestructible. Ultron has the ability to learn the weaknesses of a foe and then manipulate those weaknesses to his greatest advantage. He has been equipped with advanced weapon systems to have the ability to assault multiple targets at the same time. The Avengers will be hard pressed to defeat the ultimate fighting machine.
2. Cosmic Bad Guy
Darth Vader is one of the ultimate villains and is one of the most fearsome characters of all time. Darth Vader seems to have a heart of darkness. Since he turned to the dark side of the force, he has been pure evil. As a Jedi, Vader learned much of his ability with the Force but also he learned to fight with the light saber. Vader was a keen fighter with incredible skills with the blade.
Thanos is revealed at the end of the Avengers in a scene mixed in with the credits. Thanos is the leader of the army that invaded the earth and had been in an agreement with Loki for rule over the earth. He will be appearing in the next Avengers movie, the Age of Ultron but to what extent in unknown. Thanos may become the Darth Vader type villain of the Marvel Universe.
3. Battling with Aliens
Star Wars is filled with aliens and ongoing conflicts involving these various races. Among the Jedi are several alien races of unknown origin including Yoda and Kit Fisto. In general, Star Wars is filled with aliens like the Gungans, Genosians and the Wookies. It seems that at every turn there is another alien race involved in the war.
The Avengers movie saw them facing an alien threat that was created by Loki and Thanos. Loki used the Tesseract to open a dimensional gate to allow the armies of Thanos to pour through. The alien threat was eventually stopped but not before the city of New York was put into chaos. The invading aliens were defeated, the portal was closed and the threat was stopped.
4. Non-human Characters
Star Wars is loaded with aliens. Most of the supporting characters come from strange alien worlds. Chewbacca is a Wookie, Yoda is an unknown alien Jedi and Boba Fett is human but a clone. The Star Wars universe is filled with aliens in almost every movie.
The Avengers have members who are not human. There are two that come to mind immediately. The first is Thor who is from the mythical realm of Asgard. Thor comes to earth and is recruited to assist the Avengers battle his brother Loki. The new movie will introduce another new member of the Avengers, who is non-human, the Vision. The Vision is a synthetic android with the ability to change density at will.
