Avengers fans are tearing up over this old Siri trick

Unique responses from Apple’s iPhone assistant to being called JARVIS is drawing emotional reactions from fans

Trending in China

Karen Chiu

Published: 8:20pm, 29 Apr, 2019

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This article originally appeared on ABACUS

There are some funny tricks you can play with Siri to get a few giggles. Just try telling Apple’s voice assistant “I’m your father” like Darth Vader. Or ask what the Christopher Nolan thriller Inception is all about.

But some of the voice assistant’s lighthearted film references are now tugging the heartstrings of Marvel fans after Avengers: Endgame.

(There are spoilers ahead, so don’t go past the picture if you don’t want to know what happens in Endgame!)

If you say “Hello, J.A.R.V.I.S.” to Siri, the assistant will respond to you as if it were Tony Stark’s AI assistant -- and as if you were Iron Man himself:

“Hold on, Sir. Let me tell Ms. Potts you’ll be late for dinner. Again.”

“I’m afraid I can’t help you make a flying suit, Sir.”

“Mr. Stark? Is that you?”

The old trick resurfaced recently with the popularity of the new Avengers film, and it was trending on Chinese social platform Weibo Monday with the hashtag #AvengersEasterEggInSiri. The feature is breaking the hearts of many Iron Man fans still reeling from Tony’s heroic death in the epic finale of a story first teased at the end of the first Avengers film back in 2012.

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“Waah, got me bawling within a second 😭,” reads one comment that’s gathered more than 900 likes.

“Why don’t you just stab me,” another fan wrote.

(All that might sound dramatic, but it’s nothing compared to the person who got hauled off to a hospital after crying uncontrollably at the movie’s midnight premiere last week.)

It seems like voice assistants from other phone brands have also joined the party. Huawei users posted screenshots of their conversations with their phone AI.

One response reads, “Iron Man? Are you back? Love you more than three thousand.” That’s, of course, a reference to the tear-jerking moment featuring Tony’s young daughter Morgan in Endgame.

Some examples of how Huawei’s voice assistant responds to “Hello, Jarvis”. (Picture: 微澜Regina/Jayli-li via Weibo)

Vivo and Xiaomi users are also reporting similar surprises on their smartphones. One owner of a Vivo phone says she got, “Tony? I love you three thousand times, too.”

Avengers: Endgame has shattered multiple box office records in China, having collected an estimated US$330 million just five days after release, according to China Box Office. It’s a remarkable achievement in a country that has notably shunned some other Hollywood blockbusters, including fellow Disney film Star Wars: The Last Jedi.

The unprecedented fervor in China prompted one court to use the occasion to educate its citizens. It displayed the faces of local debtors before a premier screening of Endgame, warning them to pay up or otherwise face steep fines and police detention.

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