https://soundcloud.com/empiremagazine/avengers-age-of-ultron-spoiler-podcast-joss-whedon-and-paul-bettany

To summarize:

• Marvel never planned for Captain America and Black Widow to be romantically involved, but a relationship between her and Hawkeye was planned. Whedon fought against it because he wanted to show that men and women can be great friends without having sex.
• Whedon and the studio had the idea to pair up Banner and the Black Widow after their scene in the hut in “The Avengers”. Whedon also had Banner toy with a cradle in a scene in reference to his inability to have children, which he thought was an interesting concept.
• Whedon teased several times that Hawkeye would die to make Quicksilver’s death more surprising.
• There’s an alternative version of the bedroom scene in which Banner rejects Black Widow, and an alternative version of her bringing out the Hulk that was cut because it was cool, but didn’t fit the narrative.
• Whedon decided to kill one of the Twins because he believed killing a young character would be more striking, and he chose Quicksilver because he didn’t want to kill the only other female superhero in the movie.
• Whedon tried to keep Quicksilver’s death a surprise by announcing Aaron Taylor-Johnson had a three-picture contract and preventing Jeremy Renner from mentioning being in “Civil War”, but that didn’t work out. 
  
• There are deleted scenes with a subplot about Hawkeye building a tool shed that he never finishes because he’s always off with the Avengers.
• There are deleted scenes highliting Quicksilver’s womanizing exploits.
• In the original cut, the pool that Thor and Erik Selvig locate is a way to speak with the Norms. Thor goes into the pool and is possessed by them, allowing Selvig to question them about Thor’s visions, with them responding through Thor, but is was not well-received by test-audiences.
• Originally, Thor would have two visions, with the second one being him conversing with Loki in a burning Asgard.
  
• There’s an alternative ending where Quicksilver survives the barrage of bullets and recovers with Dr. Cho’s medical technology, and later joins the New Avengers aloingside Wanda in a new uniform.
  
• Marvel Studios executives didn’t want to include the team’s visions and Hawkeye’s farm. The latter was once left in when Whedon agreed to cut the cave subplot to the mininal requirement to move the plot along.
• Whedon originally planned for Captain Marvel and Spider-Man to be part of the New Avengers, but agreements couldn’t be made in time, and when both became available, it was too late to reshoot the scene.
• Marvel and Sony discussing integrating “The Amazing Spider-Man” to the MCU by featuring OsCorp Tower on the New York City skyline in “The Avengers”, but agreements couldn’t be reached in time.
• Whedon regrets not having a longer final cut so the movie could breathe a little more, and feels he overstuffed it a bit.
• Whedon wanted the Avengers to go to Sokovia still at odds with each other, and only truly come together in the church, and felt that Vision proving himself by lifting Mjolnir was the best way to explain why they’d let him accompany them.
• The final battle was reworked several times, and entire action sequences and combos were cut and rearranged. 
  
• Whedon regrets reviving Coulson as it devalues his death in “The Avengers”, and wants Quicksilver’s death to be permanent.
• The script called for the Quinjet where Hulk is locked up to reach the stratosphere, where the Hulk could see stars, as Whedon wanted to indicate he’s “leaving the world behind”. Marvel shot it down because it’d just lead people to think of Planet Hulk, and they’re not doing that.
• Whedon added the Thanos stinger because he wanted to have one final scene with him before leaving the franchise.
  

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So after watching it, sleeping on it, and reading a few other opinions, I think I’m about ready to give my first viewing review. Avengers: Age of Ultron is… good. It’s just not as good as the first movie. And on the Internet, where everything is either the worst thing ever or the best thing ever–remember that time Emma Stone and Andrew Garfield photobombed someone taking a selfie with them in it and, in lieu of actual news, every website did a story about THE PERFECT PHOTOBOMB?–that of course means that the Avengers, Marvel, Joss Whedon, and the material of celluloid itself are now lower than Hitler. And they also all hate women. Naturally.

Anyway, I try to be a little more thoughtful than that and grade on a spectrum. I can say, for instance, that Spider-Man 3 is uneven and misguided, while the Amazing Spider-Mans are full-on dreck. There are shades of gray, even if perceiving them means we need to take more than three seconds and a picture of a cat. But let’s delve in then, shall we?

The biggest problem for me, and somewhat emblematic of the movie’s (I can admit it) problems is that the action scenes aren’t as good as the first time around. Remember the scene in The Avengers where the camera flew around Manhattan, showing what all the Avengers were doing, climaxing in a great gag of the Hulk punching Thor for no reason? Here, there are maybe seven sequences like that, where we’re seeing Black Widow on a jeep with Hawkeye while Captain America is on a motorcycle and Iron Man is flying above them and they’re all zapping Germans, and I’m sure it took a great deal more planning and choreography and CGI than the first movie did, it’s much more elaborate and even impressive in a way, and it does capture the big SPLASH PAGE of a good comic book–but it’s also not as exciting when we can’t really follow what’s going on? Everything’s happening so fast, it’s at night or in a darkened building, there are five people to keep track of at once. It’d be cool once in a while to show how crazy things are, but having it be the default mode is just overwhelming and wearying. When the movie calms down or splits the team up and is like “Black Widow is doing THIS to save Iron Man from THIS but she can’t do it without Hawkeye doing THIS and the Hulk has been out of action for a while but it wouldn’t be too much of a cheat if he showed up just in time to do THIS,” you know, the Furious 7 kinda action sequence, then it’s fun. When it’s ‘look how much of a CGI budget we have!’, I’m no elitist, but it’s hard not to check out.

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Tony’s “yay” when he finds that secret door was exactly what I needed in my life.