Avengers: Age of Ultron is finally here, but we’re actually a bit disappointed. Here’s a list of things that might have helped make this a stronger and deeper film. Spoilers for Avengers: Age of Ultron.

Now that it’s been released Stateside, there’s no doubt that Avengers: Age of Ultron will be a massive hit – probably the highest-grossing movie of the year, if 2012’sThe Avengers can be taken as precedent. Joss Whedon’s final film for the MCU is a flashy, action-packed adventure in which Earth’s Mightiest Heroes come together to save the world again – this time from a threat of their own making. People going to the cinema to have a fun time seeing superheroes blow stuff up will definitely feel like they got their money’s worth.

Related: 13 Avengers: Age of Ultron Easter eggs revealed

However, for some of us, Age of Ultron didn’t quite live up to its potential. Too many one-liners in place of thoughtful dialogue and a plot which seems not only repetitive – protecting the world with weaponized robots, didn’t you learn this lesson already in Iron Man 2, Tony Stark? – but also, at the end of the day, inconsequential. It’s fun, but this movie didn’t feel like a game changer, and as a climactic point in a massive shared universe, it should have. Avengers: Age of Ultron just wasn’t quite as good as it could have been, but here’s five aspects that, had they been included, might have improved the experience for die-hard fans.

*** This article contains major spoilers for Avengers: Age of Ultron. ***

Better tie-ins to the other movies

Avengers: Age of Ultron pretty much picked up where The Avengers left off – a mission to clean up the last little bit of mess left over from the last Avengers movie. But it seemed a bit like Whedon either forgot or chose to ignore the fact that there have been four other Marvel blockbusters since he last helmed a film.

The ensemble Avengers movies do get a wider audience than the solo titles, so they do have to cater to the lowest common denominator, but some of the hand-wave moments in Age of Ultron were way too jarring for fans of the solo films, both continuity and character development wise. This was most noticeable with anything related to Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Nothing about Nick Fury’s ‘death,’ nothing about Natasha’s leaked S.H.I.E.L.D. secrets, and a lot of very contradictory messages regarding Cap himself.

Given the emotional impact of his last movie, it seems highly unlikely that the Steve Rogers we left in the cemetery last year would switch back to full-time Avenging and send the Falcon to chase leads on the Winter Soldier for him. An easy fix for this would have to start the movie showing the team all being called in for duty, giving us a realistic impression of how the Avengers work as an ongoing team while also living their own stories.

Hawkeye – the 616 version

Fans of Hawkeye were excited to hear about the major development that the sharpshooter was hinted to get in Avengers: Age of Ultron, but many of us came out of the film rather surprised at how that turned out. Joss Whedon decided to give Clint Barton his “Ultimates” universe backstory, rather than the main Marvel comics canon universe, or “616,” version of the character, made humongously popular in recent years via Matt Fraction’s award-winning Hawkeye title – a characterization has cemented itself not only in fandom (so many fanfics just got, well, Jossed) but as the direction other Marvel writers are taking with Clint Barton.

This isn’t the first time Whedon has been influenced by Ultimates – it’s the reason his handling of Steve Rogers doesn’t mesh with the Cap solo films, which are based heavily on the 616 Ed Brubaker comic run. But, spoiler alert, the Ultimates Barton family gets killed off by the Black Widow – who later gets killed by Hawkeye in turn.

That’s not something we ever want to see unfold in the MCU, so we’re sort of worried about the reasoning behind choosing to give Clint his canon-fodder family instead of sticking with 616, where Fraction’s run was designed as a jumping-in point for MCU fans. Jeremy Renner did beautiful work with what he was given in Age of Ultron, but we were really hoping for the dog loving, five-day-old T-shirt-wearing manchild who’s incompetent at everything not involving a bow and arrow.

The real Maximoff backstory

Now, this is a bit of a tough one, because Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch are technically mutants. Marvel Studios might have managed to get Spider-Man back from Sony, but they still haven’t got their hands on the M-word – that’s still firmly in the possession of 20th Century Fox and their X-Men universe.

There was a bit of controversy surrounding Quicksilver, in particular, when it turned out that versions of the character would feature in both Avengers: Age of Ultron and X-Men: Days of Future Past. The X-Men Quicksilver, played adorably by Evan Peters, did not have the traditional eastern-European Maximoff background (or a sister) but he was a known mutant and the movie gave a hilarious nod to the fact that Magneto is, in comics canon, the twins’ father.

There are no mutants in the MCU – only ‘enhanced’ beings, a concept that hasn’t been deeply explored – we don’t really know how or why these mutant-like people have powers. However, Age of Ultron could have chosen to include their adoption and their Romani upbringing rather than inventing the new country of Sokovia as their homeland and a set of apparently biological parents. Of course, there’s still time to learn more about the twins – even if Pietro’s death was an utter waste.

Tony and Vision feels

Paul Bettany’s voice has been a comforting presence in the MCU for years, but he finally got to make his on-screen debut in this movie as The Vision, making him the first Marvel actor to play two completely separate characters.

Vision was actually one of the best aspects of Avengers: Age of Ultron – he was charming, fascinating, worthy of Mjolnir and we want to get deeper into his head – a welcome addition.

In the comics, Vision has nothing to do with J.A.R.V.I.S. at all. Although his ‘birth’ was the same – created by Ultron – the entire Ultron storyline was actually the fault of Hank Pym, the original Ant-Man, rather than being Tony Stark’s little disaster. However, in the MCU, we’ll always connect these characters.

J.A.R.V.I.S. is pretty much the best friend Tony built himself, a scenario made deeper after meeting the Stark family butler Edwin Jarvis in Agent Carter. Even though Vision is much more than just J.A.R.V.I.S. in a body, we would have liked to see Tony chucking a bit of a feel over the situation, maybe scooping Vision up in a big ole hug, because it’s the closest he’ll get to actually meeting his AI friend.

A proper post-credits scene

People legitimately thought that Joss Whedon was joking or trolling when he announced to the world that Avengers: Age of Ultron would not include a post-credits scene. Apparently, he felt like he couldn’t top the shawarma scene that capped off The Avengers.

Well, it turns out he wasn’t bluffing.

Ultron included a mid-credits scene – foreshadowing to the Infinity Gauntlet plot that we all knew was coming – but no final stinger throwing back to the film itself, and we feel a little bit ripped off. It’s tradition, dude, you could have just played along! It didn’t have to ‘top’ anything. It could have featured a single character, like Clint ripping apart his dining room as promised, or some tourists rocking up, armed with Sokovia guidebooks and staring at the big hole in the ground. Literally anything would have been better than the big nothing we got.

The lack of a last little moment was especially disappointing after the brilliant post-credits scenes of the MCU’s three most recent movies – Thor returning to London to be with Jane, a rogue Bucky staring at his own image in the Smithsonian, and Guardians of the Galaxy’s little nod to classic Marvel character Howard the Duck.

More ‘Avengers: Age of Ultron’:

For an in-depth discussion of Avengers: Age of Ultron, both spoiler-free and spoiler-filled, listen to our joint Hype and Hero Hype podcast special. You can also read our articles on the missing women of Age of Ultron, and the lack of diversity across the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

If you want to test your Marvel knowledge with some Avengers quizzes, find out how much you remember from the first Avengers movie, or if you can match these Marvel villains to their memorable quotes.

From Hawkeye’s exploding arrows to Captain America’s frisbee skills, see if your favorite Avenger scene made our list of the Avengers’ most awesome moments.

And if you’ve already raced through all of those features, then our “You know you’re an Avengers fan when…” article is made for you.