The obvious scene to highlight from last summer’s Avengers: Infinity War is, of course, its haunting and unforgettable ending—the moment when all hope is lost, evaporating like ash in the wind. But hasn’t that downer denouement been talked to death? What’s left to say, really, about the snap heard ’round the universe? These impossibly bleak closing minutes do not count as the only significant scene in Marvel’s most crowded crossover blockbuster. There’s also, for example, the impossibly bleak opening minutes, when the studio announces that all bets are off—that its 10-year franchise plan will culminate with a real body count. In more ways than one, this first scene sets the tone and the stage, preparing audiences for what Infinity War has in store.
Notably, directors Joe and Anthony Russo, working as usual from a script by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, do not kick things off with a big battle scene. Instead, the film commences with the tinny crackle of a mayday broadcast, before cutting immediately to the aftermath of a massacre: the Asgardian fleet in ruins, decimated by the franchise’s long-teased über–villain, Thanos (Josh Brolin). If previous cameos by the mad titan didn’t really make him seem that intimidating, Infinity War promptly rectifies that. In short order, we watch him manhandle a defeated Thor (Chris Hemsworth), clobber the Hulk in a fistfight, skewer gatekeeper Heimdall (Idris Elba), and choke the life out of Loki (Tom Hiddleston). It’s a lot of death and destruction for the first five minutes of an all-ages, all-hands-on-deck superhero bonanza. The stakes are properly raised. The odds are officially stacked against Earth’s mightiest heroes.
Beyond the sheer grimness, what stands out about Infinity War’s (very) cold open is how little exposition it provides. Were this the season finale of a TV series—and increasingly, that’s what the Marvel storytelling style resembles, albeit on a scale even HBO couldn’t afford—it’d probably begin with a very long “Previously on…” (Were it a comic, we’d get a few asterisks, directing curious readers to pertinent back issues.) The Russos, however, just plunge us right into the action, never bothering to explain, for example, what the entire population of Asgard is doing floating through the cosmos—either you saw Thor: Ragnarok or you’re lost in space. Likewise, the whole emotional bent of the scene depends on understanding these relationships; when Loki has a change of heart watching Thanos laser-beam his brother’s face—sadistic glee giving way to distress—it’s a reflection of nearly a decade of onscreen sibling rivalry. Even the trash talk arguably demands footnotes: Hiddleston’s one-time bad cues the Hulk’s big entrance with a callback to the first Avengers.
The refusal to offer anything like a recap is a matter of necessity. Infinity War has so much ground to cover, geographically and narratively speaking, that it just doesn’t have the time to catch anyone up on what they may have missed. That’s been true, in a sense, of every Avengers movie—the previously two (or three, if you count Civil War, which you probably should) assumed an offhand familiarity with the solo movies that fed into them. Here, that principle is simply compounded by the sheer number of predecessors: As the 19th sequential entry in this forever franchise—a cinematic universe expanding as rapidly as the real one—Infinity War really does feel like a new kind of blockbuster, a super sequel that’s all payoff, no setup. Whether that’s a promising direction for Hollywood storytelling to take is a matter of perspective. But there’s little denying that pulling an ensemble cast of characters from other hit movies is a foolproof way to earn the investment of the initiated. Because watching a bunch of superheroes bite the dust—or disappear into it—only really hurts if you’ve spent a few movies and years getting to know them.
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This moment was a surprise. I knew ‘the snap’ was too obvious, but was thinking you’d go for the Battle of Wakanda. I’m glad you didn’t because IMO. One of the weakest major action setpieces in the MCU. Out of all the ways to do a battle running at each other in broad daylight was disappointing.
Except for Thor’s entrance, I don’t think most people would rate the Battle of Wakanda too highly. The Battle on Titan is infinitely more interesting as a climax, both in staging and character work.
Liked the Battle of Titan mainly for crazy Strange stuff, and it involved characters acting appropriate to their powersets.
And Thanos basically just using all their weapons against them.
As much as I will forever love the Lord of the Rings movies, I will always hate them a tiny little bit for convincing the rest of the filmmaking world that watching hundreds/thousands of CGI creations run into each other at speed on an open field is something that needs to be done over and over again. By Age of Ultron, I was already so over watching the Avengers actors swing at air that was later filled with digital aliens by the dozens. You *know* Captain America is not going to be taken out by Random Alien Beastie #637, and so the Battle of Wakanda just becomes an exercise in repetition, by my lights. That’s what made the fights with Thanos so compelling; the inversion of that usual paradigm. Give me five or six heroes taking on one villain much stronger than them any day of the week and twice on Sunday over another scene of folks in capes kicking the asses of another horde of Power Rangers Putties.
Give me five or six heroes taking on one villain much stronger than them any day of the week and twice on Sunday over another scene of folks in capes kicking the asses of another horde of Power Rangers Putties.The finale of the 1990 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles says hello.
The battles in Avengers and AoU are better (especially in the former) for how close in they get to the fighting, turning them basically into one on one stunt fights. While a shot like in AoU of all of them defending that core feels pretty weightless to me (because it does feel like they are mostly punching at air while having their bodies CGI contorted into acrobatic moves), mostly all the fights like on the bridge at the beginning of the Battle of NY felt awesome from just seeing them cut loose and take out multiple guys at once. I felt like they were punching actual stunt guys in motion capture suits, not empty air. There’s a difference.Definitely IW’s Wakanda battle is a nadir, as they don’t even bother with cool choreography and just have everyone punching and tackling each other.
The whole point of the battle of Wakanda was to give Shuri time to get the stone out of Vision. It didn’t need weight, it was basically the Battle at the Black Gates in Return of the King… but less of a positive outcome.
Valkyrie lived, so I’m cool with the whole scene.
Korg wants to know why you hate him.
Korg knows what he did.Seriously, paper is cheap. How the hell do you run out of pamphlets..
Seriously, paper is cheap. How the hell do you run out of pamphlets..
“Little one, it’s a simple calculus. This universe is finite, its resources, finite…”
Many stars for you.
Because paper beats rock?
“Just a little rock, paper, scissors joke for you”
Piss Off Ghost
Their relationship got a little rocky.
Thanks, Sokka.
FUN FACT: If you turn the volume up really, really loud, you can barely hear Idris Elba say as his character dies:“Don’t call me … until there’s a Heimdall movie…”
To which Marvel said “have fun with your Fast & Furious movie”.*waves Forrest Gump style*
To be fair, he does look like he’s having a lot of fun.
And I will watch the F&F film with as much if not less gusto than MCU films.
I love the Fast & Furious franchise, trust me I ain’t dissing those films.
I started watching the first one years ago and was like, “meh”, but I’ve heard they have gotten really crazy fun, so now I want to start at the beginning and watch them all.
As explained in the Ragnorak one, the message was Asgard is a people, not a place. Five minutes after saving the latter, it’s equally destroyed, and we’re moved too fast to mourn.
Between that giving and Thor is eye back and giving Thor another weapon, IW really backtracked on Ragnorak.
That’s the same problem with IM3 & Age of Ultron.IM3: I’m done with Iron ManAoU: Well, looks like I’ve accidentally built an evil Iron Man!Like, what the fuck?
Civil War explains that pretty well. Blew up all my suits for her. But then we needed to clean up Hydra. Then Ultron, Then and then and then. Being Iron Man has essentially replaced his alcoholism from the books.
Wow. I never looked at this way but yeah… Being Iron Man and seeing himself as leader and protector is his addiction.
“I don’t need to he in a suit to protect the world.”
“I’ll build something to protect the world without my being in a suit.”Wildly contradictory, obviously!
True, except that he’s in a suit when he delivers the second line, which kinda undercuts the first. The transition between Iron Man 3 and Age of Ultron is like a defective jigsaw puzzle. You can see where the pieces should fit together, how logically, one should flow into the other to make a bigger picture. But when you bring the pieces together, the tabs and sockets don’t line up. A little more detail work—a few Ultron easter eggs in IM3, a slightly less ambiguous ending to IM3, Stark starts AoU behind a desk, running the Stark drones that inexplicably show up at the beginning of the movie and being a voice in the ear of his fellow Avengers, rather than being out in the field with them—the whole thing would’ve fit together cleanly.By comparison, what happens to the Asgardians between Ragnarok and Infinity War is pretty darn snug. It’s basically a repetition of the Korg joke at the end of Ragnarok “As long as the foundations are still strong, we can rebuild this place. It will become a haven for all peoples and aliens of the universe.” [Asgard explodes.]
Yeah, it’s almost like Tony Stark is a flawed man with aspirations he can’t fulfill and vices he can’t avoid. Huh.
Wasn’t Ultron specifically created by Stark so he wouldn’t have to continue to be Iron Man?
Ultron was supposed to be his answer for how to protect the world without having to do it himself. Unfortunately for Tony, creating Ultron was like making a wish using that cursed monkey paw. He didnt really set a guideline on how to protect the earth so Ultron decided the earth was better off without people.
Endgame is probably heading for a reset button, though I don’t know if that will include resetting the character’s appearance. Though considering Ragnarok pretty much ignores the previous Thor films, I suppose it would be fitting if it got the same treatment.
I wouldn’t call this backtracking, since Asgard is still pretty darn destroyed. It’s more like it retroactively turns Ragnarok into a tragedy.As for Thor getting another weapon, it would be pretty out of character for him not to try and get one, wouldn’t it? Just punching stuff isn’t really his style.
In all fairness, Ragnarok wasn’t really internally consistent. If Asgard isn’t a place, than Surtur wouldn’t have been blown up when he destroyed the place.
FYI, the point of all of that in Ragnarok is the difference between myth and reality, which is also the whole point of Hela as a character (remember the ceiling falling away?) and the justification for the tone of the entire movie. That’s the point: it’s not “internally consistent”, because the myths are not enough to explain what people choose to do, and all the characters are people with hopes and dreams and senses of humor, not just figures of myth. Surtr destroys the Asgard of myth, fulfilling the myth, which, per the movie, isn’t really what matters.
I thought it was clever how we already knew Rocket had an extra eye. But it’s disappointing that the eye Rocket stole was green, but Thor’s new eye is brown.
Well the only significance of taking away Thor’s hammer is only to show that he is powerful without it. As for the eye, who really cares? Like Thor looked cool with an eyepatch, but so what?
Not really? He has a fake eye and a different weapon that he had to move Heaven and earth (almost literally) to get.
From Thor’s perspective he’s had a really shitty couple of days. Guy deserves a tea break in Endgame
“Not tea”.
He doesn’t drink tea.
Sorry, I meant 2-pinter of beer break
Thor doesn’t drink tea.
Perhaps a Long Dark Teatime of the Soul? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Long_Dark_Tea-Time_of_the_Soul
Thor does mourn throughout the film. And it’s treated with far more gravity than anything in Ragnarok.
Since we know Valkyrie survived, its possible she fled with many other Asgardians before Thanos messed the place up. It’s not like we actually saw thousands of dead Asgardians.
She got away with half of the Asgardians – as I hear tell – maybe it’s burried in that opening garbled transmission. It just now occurred to me the significance of that foreshadowing.
I may be misremembering, but aren’t we told that Thanos only killed half the Asgardians? I thought that was our introduction to his ‘halving the population is good’ schtick. From there I thought the implication was that Valkyrie was with the surviving half
Yes. You gotta figure they lost a bunch of people to Hela / Surtur. Then half of the survivors on the ship. Then half of those survivors to the snap.
They muddle it a bit, because the idea of Thanos culling people hasn’t been properly introduced yet (I think it’s mentioned in the opening scene, but without context). And, IIRC, when the Guardians show up, they make a point of saying that there are no life signs in the wreckage, and that Thor’s the sole survivor, so it looks to the viewer like all the other Asgardians died, but it’s possible half of them got away before Quill & Co. arrived.
He blows up the ship, so I’m not sure where the other half is, but that is Thanos’ thing.
Plus it’s Thanos, he probably just killed half of them.
I still want to know why the Guardians didn’t find any other Asgardians when they responded to the distress call. We know they’re not ALL dead.
Having Thanos defeat the the Hulk in hand to hand combat was a nice way to quickly signpost that Thanos is not to be trifled with. Although by that rationale he probably should have wiped the floor in his final fight scene vs Tony, Spidey, Quill etc.
True, but character’s powers differing depending on who they fight is kinda a comicbook staple.
Also they did have a co-ordinated attack plan (good job Peter Q) that was working until it didn’t (screw you Peter Q).The fight with Hulk was just a straight up punching contest, which sadly for Bruce was a bit one-sided.
It wasn’t really Star Lord’s plan. That was an ad lib by Chris Pratt.
Yeah, the whole thing with everyone piling on Thanos was keeping him off-balance and not giving him time to think.
And something that bugs me. One thing about the MCU is that some of the heroes don’t have clearly defined powers. It’s most obvious with Thor – how powerful is he without his hammer, away from Asgard etc. Is Thanos actually stronger than the Hulk?
how powerful is he without his hammer“are you the god of hammers?”-Odin
People, adults, are asking about the finer logical points of comic book powers!I mean, THAT is true, ultra-mega-nerdity.I like that!Unfortunately, it’s lacking in the vital quality of self-deprecation, without which you might as well be a Scientologist talking about perceived flaws in.the inner logic of Battlefield Earth.Sorry!
No, but it pulled him off quite a bit.
Isn’t it weird though that that’s the theme of Ragnarok, and then Thor spends the majority of Infinity War trying to build a better hammer?
Doesn’t the Hulk get stronger as he gets angrier? One thing the Hulk isn’t used to though is fear. Hopefully this time around the anger wins out.
Thanos being stronger than the Hulk without the aid of any stones was a dumb and unnecessary decision. The entire scene would’ve been cooler, and actually would’ve made more sense, if he’d indulged in a fair fight and gotten his ass kicked first, then shrugged and used a stone to fix his Hulk problem.Then Baldur’s interference – sending the Hulk to Earth – would’ve *sensibly* upset Thanos, rather than nonsensically upsetting him because the Hulk was clearly already a pathetic nonissue.If you introduce someone that can beat Hulk at his own game, you’ve destroyed all the symbolic and thematic value of Hulk. The fact that Black Widow can calm him down loses its impact. The fact that Bruce can’t kill himself loses its impact. The possibility he might snap and go rogue loses its impact.Meanwhile, it wouldn’t have disrupted the plot of the movie at all, and would’ve made Thanos’s character just a little bit richer. Not a lot, but a bit.
I think that the Hulk would beat Thanos in one of those punching machines that you see in bars…but Thanos combines his raw punching force with Cap-level hand to hand.
That’s what everyone’s forgetting here – Hulk is a brawler. Just go in and bash stuff until they collapse. Normally he’s not going to fight someone on an equal power level so that works out for him. But Thanos actually knows how to fight AND he’s already got the Power Stone (which, IIRC, he acquired off camera between films) which increases physical abilities.
Thanos wins because he doesnt give the Hulk time to get REALLY mad . . .
Well, as we all know, the madder Hulk gets, the stronger he gets. My personal take on it is that Hulk was not anywhere near peak anger when he got whipped by Thanos. It could have been Hulk’s growing reluctance to be the Hulk (he refused to appear after that). I think Thanos would have had a lot tougher time beating him if Hulk had been as mad as when Wanda made him go berzerk in Age of Ultron.
I think that this is also MCU Hulk who hasn’t, it seems, been in fights as much as the comic version so he “doesn’t know his own strength” yet. He was on Sakaar, but it seems like most of the people he fought in Gamemaster’s arena were not anywhere near his level. Hulk has never feared before and, for a creature driven by rage and anger, fear is that one weakness he hasn’t overcome yet. I foresee that being fixed by the end of Endgame.
I also took Cap not being killed by Thanos (or any of them) about as others have said: at this point, Thanos is driven more by accomplishing his goal than killing everyone. He “respects” them and, I think, by that point sorta pities them for fighting against the inevitable.
They really should have prepped Hulk by reading him some political news headlines. “Trump say what? Have him no basic sense of decency? RAAGH!”
Is Thanos actually stronger than the Hulk?Depends on how angry the Hulk is.
That’s every superhero story ever, dude
Thanos with the Gauntlet is more powerful than Hulk if he can strike first. Is he more powerful than an angry Hulk whose rage has had time to build up his strength levels? We’re never given time to find out in the MCU.Is base level Thanos more powerful than base level Hulk? Probably. Is he stronger than a pissed off Hulk? Unlikely.
This was essentially what Ragnarok did, though. It had Thor losing his hammer, a Hulk/Thor fist-fight, “Strongest Avenger” and a ton of lightning.But the power swing thing is a common problem through the MCU. Cap’s power (and the rules of his shield) depend a lot on the context. Tony’s armor is seemingly held together with rubberbands, but it packs a hell of a punch. They’re all very context-sensitive.
Which would be okay if this was a comic. It is not. If you want comics stick to comics but they are not interchangeable.
There was actually a good analysis with Batman. He’s taken on Green Lantern, Superman, and the X-Men, and he’s won because he knows how to fight, not just be the strongest. The Hulk, while spending time on Sakar, is still the strongest, and he only gets stronger the angrier he gets. However, he doesn’t really know how to fight, which is why Thor is able to hold his own against him: Thor is strong, but has trained. Hulk hasn’t faced someone as calculating as Thanos before, so he’s able to best him by getting his weaknesses.Later, Thanos has to deal with: The magic of Dr. Strange, The calming effects of Mantis, the agility of Spider-Man, Drax’s strength, Iron Man’s weapons, and whatever Quill brings to the table. (Angst? Nebula wasn’t doing a whole lot except reminding the most unstable member of the team that the person he cared about was missing) That’s a lot more to deal with that raw strength, which is what Hulk brings to the table.
Quill fills the Cap role in that he comes up with the plan, which as wrightstuff76 said, worked really well until Quill let his emotions get in the way. That, by the way, seems like the major weakness of most of the characters – they are fundamentally “human” (even if they’re not physically homo sapiens) and let their emotions control them. You see it with Scarlet Witch and Vision. If Vision had managed to convince everyone to let him die earlier, there would have been no snap, because I feel like the Time Stone has limits, or else Dr Strange would have just rewound back to some earlier point and stopped Thanos from getting the gauntlet. I assume this human imperfection will also be the reason for their victory in Endgame, because that’s the basic angle of all superhero (and, frankly, any time humans are against an otherworldly threat like aliens or gods or robots or whatever).
Considering this, I don’t understand why Cap’s head isn’t mush at the end when Thanos clocks him. Tony, Spidey, and Quill were doing more hit and run type stuff. They weren’t really hurting Thanos, their containment only worked as long as Mantis was mollifying him, and once Tony really got in close for hand to hand he got his ass kicked. It makes sense to me.
I was watching AoU last night (yeah, it’s not great) and Ultron blasts Cap full in the chest with his ill-defined beams, after which Cap just gets up and fights. It’s the same as Spider-Man, who routinely gets smashed against buildings and should be completely fucking dead (spiders do not, in my experience, have a great deal of resilience when it comes to being smashed). You could argue that Thanos is pulling his punches because he’s not interested in killing the Avengers, just getting past them to achieve his goal, but he sure does murder Loki and Heimdall, so it’s more that Cap has plot armor.
I rewatched AoU last night, too! It’s okay. Cap and Thor’s one liners are too much and out of character, Vision is cool but that whole subplot is shoehorned in, Ultron is really not scary, and the pacing is all wonky, but I like it. There’s too many cool moments for me to really dismiss it. It’s never boring. Yeah, I noticed Cap getting blasted full in the chest, too. I could see that by the end of the movie that Thanos has achieved something like grace. The struggle to acquire the stones and losing Gamora has given him a sense of mercy, in sparing Tony and the almost “tender” way (from his perspective) that he talks to Wanda. Like, he could’ve annihilated all the Avengers outright at that point. I guess he’s just so elevated and knows that he will be snapping soon that he doesn’t put much effort into the fight. He sees it as inevitable at that point.
I agree that AoU is OK; I certainly like it more than the first two Thor movies, but it’s in the bottom five for me. There are moments that make me laugh, and the stuff with the Hulk is actually pretty good. It does a good job of setting up some later movies with his psychology (whereas the first Avengers movie mostly makes him under control and glides past the terror of his character, both to himself and others).
I like your idea that Thanos is at peace as he’s approaching the end of his quest and doesn’t bother to kill, and it’s definitely evident in his manner. That really works for me as headcanon, but ultimately the big four are first credited and so weren’t going to die.
Didn’t Thanos give Spidey one hell of a clothes-line during that fight? There’s no way he’d be getting up from that anytime soon.
I guess his Iron Spider armour might have some ability to absorb some of the damage. Nanotech ‘nd shit.
Iron Man took a hell of a lickin’ and kept on tickin’, so that theory is sound.
My way of thinking about it is much like sport ability. They’re all ‘professionals’ but the margins of difference in strengths are small. But, things like having a bad day, home advantage, element of surprise etc all play a part. So in this battle, Hulk was shocked when Thanos fought back, which gave Thanos the upper hand.
I really think Thanos does his best to not get hot headed and kill when not needed. He knew Hulk could take his whole strength. But he respects Spider-Man, Quill, et al for trying to survive. He only kills because of what he sees as a betrayal (Loki), or if his patience has gone thin (when he tries to kill Stark.)
And all the asgardians. Thor loki heimdell are all stronger than iron Man. The average asgardian is stronger than black widow and Hawkeye and probably captain America
“to quickly signpost”
He pretty much does though. Their plan isn’t to beat him physically, it’s to catch him by surprise from multiple angles, put him to sleep, and pull his gauntlet off. As soon as that fails, Thanos destroys all of them pretty quickly.
I’d have gone with Thor’s entrance to Wakanda. That was glorious, though mixed in with the general sameness of the battle I’ll accept that maybe there are better ‘Marvel moments’ in the film.Anyway I’m surprised at how well Russo’s managed to make Infinity War work. There is so much going on and by and large it holds together really well.Granted a complete newbie is likely to be totally lost during some parts of the film (Is that Benicio del Toro? Who’s the red faced guy with the funny accent? Why do the two Sherlocks hate each other?). Yet there’s enough going on (in a good way) for that not to matter.Sit back and enjoy the ride, well until you get to the dark (for Marvel) ending.
Anyway I’m surprised at how well Russo’s managed to make Infinity War work. There is so much going on and by and large it holds together really well.Like I’ve said before:Infinity War worked because Infinity War HAS TO WORK.If Infinity War failed, it could’ve destroyed the legacy of the last 10 years of the MCU.Want a preview of a world where Infinity War failed as a film? Watch The Defenders on Netflix. Never has one team up potential failed so hard it soured me from Netflix MCU forever. Eventhough Daredevil S3 is good, I still refuse to check out future Netflix MCU shows because of how godawful The Defenders was. The failure of The Defenders is literally burned into my mind.The showrunners should’ve just watched Mr. Robot and took some notes from The Dark Army on how to make The Hand an actual threatening villain. Goddam fuck The Defenders so much.
I still haven’t gotten round to watching The Defenders (or Iron Fist for that matter).I will one day….probably.
Iron Fist: S1 is bad. S2 is good.
Defenders: It’s a’ight.
I still refuse to check out future Netflix MCU shows
I’m pretty sure Netflix heard you on that one.
Season 3 of Daredevil, Season 2 of Iron Fist, and both seasons of Punisher (except for the last minute of Season 2) we are entertaining and upswings for the overall Netflix MCU.
I mean…refusing to watch DD S3 because of the Defenders is just cutting off your nose to spite your face, man.
Defenders really wasn’t that bad, man.
Well good thing Disney is ending all of that for Netflix anyway
The Defenders was good until the meh ending. Even then, it was a…fine show.
I have seen Infinity War at least 10 times between the theater and at home, and that scene in particular at least 20 times, and I STILL get goosebumps at “Bring Me THANOS!”
If only he’d gone for the kill instead of the pain…
It’s funny how time travel is expected to play a big role in Endgame, when really all they’d have to do is go back like a day and tell Thor to aim for the head.
I just wish they had used Immigrant Song for that scene, but either way it fucking rocks.
I love Thor’s Wakanda entrance, except his entrances in Ragnarok were much by comparison.
Thor’s entrance was awesome but IMO Cap’s was better.
Yeah, when he walked out of the shadows with the Avengers theme playing, I teared up
I’d have gone for the Thanos vs. Iron Man/Spider-Man/Dr. Strange/Quill/Drax/Mantis fight. Fights like that are ostensibly the reason why this whole superhero genre exists: we want to see big epic super-power fights. But those are really difficult to put together, which is a reason that so many of these movies (not just the MCU but the genre overall) have anticlimactic endings. Either things have to be hidden behind a Lord of the Rings CGI battle (and yes, Infinity War has one of those, but it’s kept separate from this fight) or the hero, villain, or both have to hit a cheat code at the end to raise the stakes/solve an impossible situation.The Titan fight is not just a great fight, it has that wonderful moment that’s straight out of the comic books, when all of our heroes (with one notable exception) are struggling to get the gauntlet off Thanos’s hand. Unlike Zack Snyder’s approach to a scene like that (Snyder basically stops his movies to nudge the audience “Haven’t I reproduced a comic book panel precisely? Look at all those little details! NO, LOOK AT THEM!”) or even Whedon’s splash page shot in Age of Ultron, the clearest view the Russos give us of the struggle has it in the background (with Quill in the foreground, wheels already turning about how he’s going to screw things up).
Thor’s entrance to Wakanda was awesome. The only problem was that the whole Wakanda thing was just another clash of CGI armies on an open battlefield that we’ve seen countless times since Lord of the Rings made that a Hollywood trope almost 20 years ago. We also saw almost that exact same scenario in Black Panther like a month before Infinity War came out.
I’d say the one moment in that whole opener that you didn’t mention that sticks out for me is Thanos crushing the Tesseract WITH HIS FUCKING HAND. It had been the main thrust of two (and eventually three) MCU films, and he turned it to sawdust in seconds. That was a big moment.
I have never seen a better implementation of the Worf Effect than the beginning of this film with Thanos beating the absolute dogshit out of Hulk.
I thought the Worf Effect required repetition.
Ok, so answer me this, was Thanos at risk of turning himself to dust? As one of the universe’s inhabitants, surely yes? Or does the Gauntlet protect him somehow?
I’m guessing not. I’ll use made-up-in-my-head logic and say that the Infinity Stones make the user immune to the negative effects of their powers.Also which infinity stone other than the reality one causes half of the universe’s population to disappear? Seriously what use are power or mind stones for that task?
I think they hall have their respective powers (though not quite sure what the mind stone and soul stone’s powers are), but the snapping power only comes when they are all together. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.Also, it would have been pretty anti-climatic, though funny, if Thanos snapped himself…. “Oh crap I didn’t think about thiiiiiiiissssss……..” *poof*
“Looks like Team Thanos is dusting off agaiiiiiiiiiiiiiiin…”
I think this Thanos would’ve been pretty much okay with dying for his ideals.
So in the Infinity War comic, someone else does get the Infinity Gauntlet and uses it to do something but doesn’t think about the implication to themselves. Thanos points out how stupid they were for not considering this, so at least in-canon he’s intelligent enough to consider such things. His reasoning in the films for why he’s wiping out 1/2 the universe makes a lot more sense (in story) though, so maybe he was including himself in the coin-flip.
“I guess this counts as poetic justiiiiiiiiiiice…”
The Reality Stone needs the Power, Space, and Time stones to cause permanent change on a universal scale; otherwise the changes are only local and temporary (like how Thanos literally dismantled Mantis and Drax, but they put themselves back together when he left).I don’t know how the Mind Stone helps, but then I don’t know how it lets Vision shoot lasers either, so whatever.
I’m going to say the Mind Stone is used to target everyone in the universe, and the Soul Stone is what enables the stones to work in tandem at such a large scale.
There’s actually a chart somewhere that explains how the stones powers complement one another to pull of the snap, but since I don’t feel like looking it up again, I’ll give a go at it:Space Stone: Extends power of other stones to every part of the universeSoul Stone: Identifies every sentient beingMind Stone: Gives Thanos the ability to perceive every living being at onceReality Stone: Transforms half of all those living beings to dustPower Stone: Amplifies Reality Stone so that it can affect trillions of beingsTime Stone: Allows effects of stones to occur simultaneously everywhere
Thank you, that actually makes sense.Jim Starlin could have been a bit more specific, when he created the snap thing in Infinity Gauntlet. Though that comic book and movie versions of the story are exactly aligned.
It’s been a while since I’ve read Infinity Gauntlet, but the context of the snap are very different than in the movie. In the movie, the snap is the culmination of a plan that Thanos has spent years (decades? centuries?) working to accomplish, which is reflected by it happening at the end of the movie. In the comic, the snap happens in the first issue. It’s almost done on a whim, one of several things Thanos does to try and impress Death. Wiping out half the universe is (scarily) something that he does without much thought or regard, which fits with the idea that he’s essentially made himself into a god. For Starlin, the snap itself didn’t work because of any complicated physics of the gems working together: it worked because the gauntlet gave Thanos omnipotence.
Death asked Thanos to wipe out half the life in the Universe to correct a “Universal imblance” in an issue of Silver Surfer.Thanos used the Gems (as they’re called in the comics) before to destroy the stars one by one. The Avengers, Spider-Man and the Thing stopped that with major help/the killing blow from Adam Warlock.After his death, Thanos finally found out the true power of the Gems. He figured that he could carry out Death’s wish and become God so he would be Death’s equal. He set about gathering the Gems in a series called “The Thanos Quest”.Thanos actually outsmarted himself. Becoming “God” made him Death’s superior and she couldn’t be with him being that it would be unseemly for someone of her station to be God’s consort. In the first issue of the Infinity Gauntlet, IIRC, Thanos is upset at Death for turning him away, but Mephisto (Marvel’s Devil and bane to many Spider-Man fans) basically told Thanos if you want the hot chick, you gotta do what she asked you to do. And then Thanos was like “oh shit, my bad” and did his snap thing.The only person that knew what Thanos was up to was the Silver Surfer and Thanos had already kicked his ass. The Surfer crashed Dr. Strange’s place (Think Banner in IW) to warn everyone, but Thanos snapped while the Surfer was trying to explain what was happening.So, it wasn’t a whim. He did what Death asked him to do. Everything else he did was to impress Death and stroke his ego. He even made a female version of himself that loved him unconditionally to make Death jealous. That didn’t work.Thanos is one messed up dude.
Well, in the comic Thanos gets the Gauntlet to become a god that is a peer to Death. He doesn’t get it specifically for the snap. Death had just resurrected him to kill half of all life in the universe- the Gauntlet was Thanos’s idea, and she’s not pleased about it as he lied to her about his reasons for getting it and what it was. Perhaps in the comic he didn’t strictly need all six to do the snap. Starlin doesn’t get into it because it doesn’t really matter- he becomes the supreme being in the universe. There are no limits. He’s much more superpowered than we’ve seen him in the movie so far.
Sorry typos ahoy on this one.
Should say “Though the comic book and movie versions of the story aren’t exactly aligned”.
Something like that. In the comics it goes like this…Mind gem: Controls and reads the mind of any being. Power gem: Access to unlimited power. Super strength and total invulnerability. Energy blasts of infinite power. It can also boost the power of all the other gems.Time gem: Control of all time. Basically, time is what you make it if you possess this gem.
Space gem: Control of all space. Basically, one could be anywhere they want to be. Reality gem: Control all of reality. One could rewrite the rules and laws of physics. You can make the impossible happen.Soul gem: Control of any soul. It was the gem Thanos feared. It could draw the soul of any being into itself. These souls would be trapped in a place called “Soul World” (lame name, but whatever)Using all the Gems together makes you the Supreme Being. You can do anything from unlimited Popeye’s Chicken to snapping half of all life away.
Does the Soul Gem get you to the Soul World via the Soul Train?
Thanos and Mistress Death entering the Soul World doing the Soul Train line…
That’s a great explanation.
I’m assuming the Mind Stone enables Thanos to process the burden of trying to conceive of half of every living thing in the universe without frying his brain.
pew pew
Power amplifies, mind focuses
Somebody (not me) did a great breakdown of why he needs all stones. It’s something like:Power to make it happenMind to channel his will through the gauntletSpace to affect everywhereTime to have it happen everywhere simultaneouslyReality to make people crumble into ash (as opposed to turning into blocks, like he did with Drax)And Soul to do it without affecting him (since, ostensibly, that was a risk, since the Soul Stone can capture people, as seen in the captive Red Skull)ETA: I paraphrased the above, don’t remember the exact explanation.
I guess they’re greater than the sum of their parts??
I don’t think it’s so much that any stone in particular has some different role in the snap. My understanding of how the fully stoned-up gauntlet works is that it renders the use omnipotent. Sure, they can use each of the individual stones to do things relative to those (like jump instantaneously through space with the space stone or level a mountain with the power stone or control someone’s thoughts with the mind stone), but with ALL of them, the user can do whatever the hell they want.Which really just leads you to wonder why Thanos doesn’t just wipe out the remaining Avengers when they come after him since he obviously has that power. My assumption: Thanos has his own code, and part of that code includes a fucked up sense of honor. Said honor means he insists on giving them the chance in the fight, no matter how unbalanced that fight may be. This is why when he snapped, he didn’t just decide to include all the heroes he’d been fighting, which he easily could have done to eliminate the possibility they might come after him later. He wanted to randomly wipe out half of sentient life. That’s what he’d always wanted. He was true to that. To target specific individuals would be selfish (from his perspective).
My assumption: Thanos has his own code, and part of that code includes a fucked up sense of honor. Said honor means he insists on giving them the chance in the fight, no matter how unbalanced that fight may be. This is why when he snapped, he didn’t just decide to include all the heroes he’d been fighting,In the Infinity Gauntlet comic, Earth’s (remaining) heroes converge on Thanos post-snap, and Thanos decides that (since eliminating half of all sapient beings didn’t impress Mistress Death) he’ll use the gauntlet to reduce his own powers to the point where Cap/Wolverine et al have a slim chance of beating him. This of course also fails to make her swoon, and the plot moves on, but the point is your explanation is supported by existing comic lore.
Remember the girl who grabbed the Infinity Stone in GotG? She sure as heck wasn’t protected from being vaporized.
The gauntlet was made to hold the Stones without turning you to goo.
The Stones are all part of a set that is greater than the sum of it’s parts, is what I gathered. With the full set, he can accomplish anything. Sadly, this is not true of the full set of GI JOE cups I collected from Burger King.
The Reality Stone allows for temporary manipulation of the surrounding area as the user sees fit, but it’s not permanent. Recall Drax and Mantis reforming their original bodies after Thanos used the Space Stone to exit Knowhere. The Reality Stone makes the change. The Space Stone spreads it across the whole universe.The Power Stone provides the energy for the change.The Time Stone applies the change across the universe instantaneously.The Soul Stone deals with the fallout of the change on the individual consciousnesses affected by it.The Mind Stone controls the manner in which the survives interpret the event of the change.Think about it: The Gauntlet could have chosen any number of ways to remove half of the universe’s population. Simply vanishing them would have been the easiest, by far, but for some reason, people got dusted in a manner that others could witness and interpret clearly as a death. My theory is that the Mind stone scanned the cosmos and determined the method that would best allow the survivors to process what had happened.
I think the Soul Stone had a LOT to do with the lives being taken and I get the feeling Endgame is going to touch on that quite a bit.
It was the Power Stone.Source: https://www.inverse.com/article/47991-avengers-infinity-war-vfx-supervisor-reveals-which-infinity-stone-killed-the-mcu
I know there was never any chance of this happening (Thanos will return was a big clue) but I thought it would have been great if they spent the entirety of Endgame pursuing Thanos only to find out he was dusted in the Snap.
I mean…I’m not sure how Endgame would have happened, but I’d been ok with that. It would have made an excellent end of credit screen. Thanos sitting there and then poof.
Thanos gets to set the terms of what the Gauntlet will do when he uses it (it’s basically a cosmic wish-granting machine) so he could just as easily make himself exempt from the snap.
No shit; what’s of interest for a future story is whether he did or not, and what that means
Don’t think the original comic’s version of this ever implied he was at risk, but the film version has enough of a twisted sense of fairness about it that he might not have taken himself out of the pool.(Doesn’t he look kind of surprised right after the snap?)
Maybe one of the 14million version has him snapping himself away and then someone just picks up the gauntlet and un-snaps
Unsnapping is dangerous if you don’t know what you’re doing…
Watched it last night and I agree with this assessment. It is never explicitly stated one way or another. But it feels like Thanos would have accepted the risk and the outcome if it was ever brought up.
This article is too cool not to share. Scientists talk about what would happen if half of all life on earth really disappeared in an instant:https://earther.gizmodo.com/what-would-really-happen-if-thanos-erased-half-of-all-l-1834107585tldr: Thanos is a bit of an idiot.
Haha. To be honest, think Marvel talked themselves into a corner. What Thanos was really after was to reduce the level of humans who were causing over population – but they can’t say humans because aliens. So then what? Conscious beasts – but what classes as conscious, especially in a universe with strange creatures. Then you have to draw an arbitrary line
Marvel did not put themselves in a corner. Thanos did what he said he wanted to do. Wipe out half of all living beings in the Universe due to over population. Not just humans. Conscious beasts – but what classes as conscious, especially in a universe with strange creatures.Strange creatures don’t count because they’re not human? Creatures from other worlds don’t have conscious because they’re not human?
tldr: Thanos is a bit of an idiot.
That’s why he was picked on as a kid (in comics at least).
I thought he was picked on as a kid because he was ugly?
True
Either the Russos or Markus and McFeely said that Thanos did nothing to protect himself from the snap.
He considers himself “fair” in how he would implement his plan, so he probably was at risk of being snapped.
In addition to the other responses, I think that his goal was to wipe out every population evenly. He’s the last of his kind, I believe, so there’s no “half” to dust.
Try telling that to Groot.
It just dusted his penis, so he couldn’t breed. He really was willing to sacrifice for what he believed.
That’s a good point
My understanding is yes, and he was more that willing to roll the dice knowing that he was in the pool.
Depends on what you want to believe. One could posit that he could have been turned to dust, as he truly wanted to save the universe by randomly killing half the universe, and whether he survives the event is unimportant since he completed his task. Or maybe subconsciously he didn’t want to die and the Gauntlet acted on that.
I’m still certain he deliberately spared Nebula and Tony because of the deals he made with Gamora and Dr. Strange (Thor’s kind of ambiguous since I’m not sure he’d be compelled to honor Loki’s deal to spare him), so he presumably had enough control to make sure he’d be safe.
Sorry. Double post. As always, Kinja can eat a dick.
No. He wasn’t at risk. Think of the Stones as the “power of God”. He wished for half of all the sentient life (perhaps to Thanos, animals count too) in the universe except him to turn to dust.
I don’t think it does. He looks semi-relieved right after that snap like “i’m still here”. I can’t remember for sure but I think the Russo’s confirm this in their commentary.
I always figured if the writers are smart, that’ll be something someone throws in his face next time around, asking him whether he excluded himself
I hate to read into “looks,” especially those of a CGI creation, but he does give a surprised look post-snap. Kind of like “wow, I wasn’t dusted.”Could have just as easily been a “wow, I did it” look, though.
Re: randomness. It does seem awfully coincidental that all the MCU original Avengers made it.
This was, very briefly, my take on what happened when he did it. He snapped and then “woke up” in what would soon be identified as the inside of the Soul Stone and was talking to dead Gamora— I guessed that he himself was actually dead and in his hubris it never actually occurred to him that HE would be a victim of his own insane edict.Not so much, it turns out.
During the height of the annoying MCU vs. DCEU fanboy wars, one of the DCEU fanboy arguments is that Marvel has weak villains. They always compare Marvel villains with Heath Ledger’s Joker and Shannon Doherty’s Zod as proof that “DC has better villains”. But then Justice League came and gave a villain even worse and forgettable than Nuclear Man from Superman IV, and then Marvel responded with FUCKING THANOS!Like, Thanos is literally the best Superhero villain next to Ledger’s Joker. No doubt. Hell, Thanos has more cultural relevancy in our modern world than Harambe did. Fuck Elon Musk and his lame Harambe rap.Marvel put huge bets on Thanos and won. Like, holy shit.
Shannon Doherty is a way bigger villain that Michael Shannon will ever be.The ‘I hate Brenda’ thing was weirdly very popular.
She burned a lot of bridges in Charmed, too.
I loved her in Charmed, I was bummed when she left.
I would pay big money to see another Justice League where straight up the main villain is just Shannon Doherty.
Brodie agrees:“Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned for Sega.”
DC must be livid that Marvel got to Thanos before they could get to Darkseid. I guess they can take solace that they got to Aquaman before Marvel got to Namor.
It’s an example of how much pop culture has shifted that we now live in a world where DC can be grateful about anything related to Aquaman.
That’s really a fair trade though.Though Namor will come off as an Aquaman rip off when MCU finally get round to putting him on big screen, he’ll still work in a way that I doubt Darkseid would/will when it’s his turn.
I think you hypothetically could make Darkseid meaningful. Marvel made Thanos sympathetic in Infinity War, but Darkseid is entirely unsympathetic and elemental in nature. He’s the living embodiment of fascism. He’s a literal god.
Thanos changed the world in an indescribable way and then promptly fucked off. A world where Darkseid won (and I think that would probably the best way to utilize him as a villain) would be one where the heroes are faced with a global police state.
There would be similarities of course, but I think there’d be enough distinction to make him meaningful. Darkseid would be less Thanos and more the Eye of Sauron – an ambiguous and practically disembodied threat. And whereas Thanos’ Black Order served essentially as disposable henchmen, I think a solid approach to Darkseid would keep him in the background and manifest his threat and his values through the other New Gods.
There will be so many pieces on how Namor actually predates Aquaman. It wont matter to the public, im just imaginging disney’s marketing.
Aquaman’s rousing brand of heroism is very different from IMPERIUS REX, however!
Oh sure, but he’s still a hybrid human/atlantean underwater hero/king of Atlantis. It’s extremely similar superficially.
Yeah, I can’t see Namor making piss and fart jokes either.
They also gave a female hero the spotlight long before Marvel even considered admitting that maybe somebody once mentioned the possibility of thinking about discussing the potential for a movie that at least partially featured a female character that could be considered the lead.
Fucking this.
For as much as it’s been portrayed as one-sided ‘Marvel trumps DC everytime’, I still remember the Marvel fans posting those memes of ‘DC won’t make a WW movie, while here’s Marvel making a movie with a talking raccoon and tree’
There’s things I like in both camps, but seriously, that was kind of a low key ‘Marvel fans played themselves’ moment.
Especially when you remember Captain Marvel got pushed back to make room for a new Spider-Man.
Only after all their repeated failed attempts at testosteroning their way through their biggest male heroes first, though. Half-credit.
If Marvel didnt have a rights issue with Namor, they would have done it. They cant make a straight Namor movie, his rights are tied up like Hulk’s.
I maintain that with Jason Momoa playing Aquaman, Alexander Skarsgaard needs to play Namor.
Yeah but Namor is freeking Namor and Aquaman is a fucking joke, thanks to Jason Momoa who seems like the coolest guy it made it look good but the movie is a 80s superhero movie.
I still stand by the fact that Thanos’ motivation in the comics works a lot better than his motivation. In the former, the whole wiping out half of all life in the Universe was a means to an end, that being getting Death-senpai to notice him.If anything, it’s a lot more disturbing that he’s doing this because he thinks he’s entitled to a woman’s affection. He’s basically an Incel on God Mode.
And Eva Green was rumored to play Death in Infinity War.
It seemed like the could have had the Death that Thanos was infatuated with just be Hela. I’d love to have seen Cate Blanchett in IW.
I’d wipe out at least a third of the universe for a shot at Blanchett.
Er mah gerd. That would have been everything.
OMFG no wonder they killed Hela. Could you imagine an MCU baddie Eye-Off between Eva Green & Cate Blanchett? Actual real-life moviegoers would evaporate into dust even before Thanos got to Snap.
Silver Surfer #35, which was part of the build-up to Infinity Gauntlet, features Thanos talking about the problem of overpopulation in the universe. It looks like the writers of IW took his rationale for the movie from there. Even in Infinity Gauntlet, while Thanos is doing it for the love of Death, “her” logic is somewhat in line with movie Thanos’s reasoning, although not out of altruism. In the comic, Death is just pissed that there are more people alive at that moment than have ever died, so she tasks Thanos with correcting that.
Also one of my favorite lines from Hellraiser IV: Bloodlines. Pinhead, looking over Earth, poses to Merchant “Did you know there are more humans alive, at this very moment, than in all its pitiful history? The Garden of Eden, a garden of flesh.”
It probably would’ve taken longer to get to Infinity War because that’s a whole other backstory we’d need to know. It’s a lot easier to just throw in a few lines about overpopulation and limited resources.It might have worked if they hadn’t, supposedly, killed off Hela in Ragnarok but still, extra time would need have been spent setting her up to be love interest to Thanos.
yeah…they could have used GotG2 for that. But o well.
Even though he drew the first few issues of Infinity Gauntlet, Perez’s Thanos always seems a bit off to me. Starlin or Lim are the definitive for me.
I’m actually happy they avoided the whole personification of Death thing. The MCU take works better for me because he thinks of himself as a savoir willing to make the hard calls for the betterment of the universe (no matter how whackadoo his methodology is). Comic book Thanos generally begins and ends at wanting to bone gender-bent Skeletor.
I respectfully disagree. I find it a lot more disturbing that Comic!Thanos is just petty manchild who is so mad that a woman won’t date him that he’s willing to tear the universe asunder in the vain hope of getting her attention.
I would have preferred that cap 3 was a cap movie, then avengers 3 was civil war, you can have hulk and thor still off doing ragnorok. Then you could have had another round of build up and infinity war would be starting now. This would have allowed time for gotg 3 (in my perfect version), and warlock. This sets up Magus potentially. Though i think the gauntlet and stones are done after this. We needed a bit more Thanos to lead up to this. But then in my perfect MCU…Thor 1 and 2 are better. IM 3 is relevant (easily the movie than can just be removed without changing anything else). BUt hey i take them for what they are.
Does he at any point tell Death that she’s not even that hot, and he was just trying to be nice to her?
Yep, he even creates a Rule 63 version of himself to get her jealous.
Dude has issues.
Naw, malthusian bullshit that’s genuinely close to being “legitimised” by politicians once climate change really hits is way more disturbing than some guy trying to show off to get laid.
Even before Thanos you had Killmonger, Klaue, Vulture, Hela, Zemo, and the pre-face-turned Bucky and Nebula…
I seriously need to know what part of your brain just died and made you type Shannon Doherty instead of Michael Shannon. Or what part of my brain died a few years ago and convinced me that I was looking at Michael Shannon and not Shannon Doherty. Either/or.Seriously, though, you meant Terence Stamp, though, right? Of course you did.
I’m assuming you’re talking about the character Terrence Stamp plays in The Limey, because he was beyond badass in that role. I’m still pissed that my gf from over a decade ago stole my DVD of that.
Nope.
Kirino Sucks = Mohd Taufiq Terrorist (or whatever the fuck his name is).I think that pretty much clears it up, no?
No.
Well, let me put it this way: back in the pre-Kinja days, Mohd Taufiq Terrorist once posted a link to a bestiality site in the comments section of the AV Club. His brain works funny is what I’m saying…
There was some talk of someone mixing up Octavia Spencer and Taraji P. Henson the other day. Might have been the same person.
See, DC followed up Ledger’s Joker with Jared Leto, so I feel like maybe they don’t have the best grasp on things.
Counter:Thanos is not a villain he is a foil. Much like Ghost in AM&tW was a foil and not a villain.He is not really after or against our “heros” he is just a being with a plan he wants to enact. He really has no beef or issue with those on Earth.Marvel does have weak villains, they are rarely fleshed out and near always written to make the hero’s look as good as possible. Which opens them up to being weak, structurally.Thanos really is not all that intimidating, threatening or interesting, we have seen so little of him. They really needed to do a Thanos movie between Ragnarok and IW to flesh him and his ideas out. All of his big destruction came off screen: destruction of Zandar, other worlds, and the Asgard ship (which is the one big flaw with IW, a ship with three of the strongest characters in the MCU, and two of them are gods, and one having just seen in the movie before be a being of near unlimited power, that Thanos even with a stone or two should have been defeated/just squeak out a win and drive him harder to find the rest of the stones.)
I didn’t realize Surtur was on the Asgardian ship!Ragnarok ends with Thor destroying Asgard (the place) because he realizes he *can’t* beat Hela.It’s Thanos and the full Black Order against, essentially, Thor, Loki, Hulk, Valkyrie and Heimdall, and Valkyrie presumably evacuated as many civilians as she could.Thanos beat the shit out of Hulk hand-to-hand, implying that he could have very much done the same to Thor and Heimdall.
And we see Thor take on Hulk while not even trying in Ragnarok, we also see his new upper limit in abilities. Heimdall, it has been telegraphed throughout the other movies is at least or near Thors equal in power.Thor>>>>>>Hulk The only reason that fight on the ship should have gone down as it did is that they were on a ship, constrained by the fighting arena. But in a throw down fight, that leaves people so badly beaten they should have been punched through the hull of the ship a few times sucking everyone out into space.
…huh? Thor lands two solid hits on the Hulk before getting decimated, and Heimdall’s done nothing to show he’s in Thor’s weight-class – he barely factors in the first two films (beyond getting his ass kicked effortlessly by Loki) before getting an upgraded role in Ragnarok due to being Idris Elba.And, of course, Thanos has two infinity stones at that point.
Come on, dude, you know Thor got cheated out of his victory by Grandmaster’s control disc. Hulk literally only won because his opponent dropped prone due to outside influence.
Well good. Thor is a powerful ass character. Looking at the Avengers…Thor is more powerful than the rest…except now Capt. Marvel. He is asguadian and a powerful one. Strength wise he can go blow to blow with the Hulk. Hulk has the upper limit being non existent, but the problem is that if you make Hulk and Thor as powerful as they are supposed to be, while keeping the pseudo realism…falcon, widow, hawkeye, have absolutely no place there. …well she is a spy with guns….on the otherhand this guy is capable of lifting hundreds of tons, flight, and can summon and direct lightning.
Was that REALLY Hulk?
Yeah…i keep waiting for a marvel villain to truly break the mold. Vulture falls in the more foil than villain. Killmonger maybe.
Thanos is still a poor man’s Darkseid. Granted we will never see that. Shame as someone who was reading comics since 1979, I really wished we could have Darkseid in a great motion picture since he is a way deeper villain. Well we will always have Justice league and Justice League Unlimited animated series.The movie Thanos is better than the comic Thanos who only did it to get Death to love him.
I’m satisfied with what Bruce Timm and company did with Darkseid, beginning with Superman: TAS up to and ending with Justice League Unlimited.
Can’t beat the arc of Darkseid killing Turpin in front of him to turning Supes against the world and making everyone scared of him. That Speech Supes gives about living in a world of Cardboard at the end of JLU is something I wish more people get to hear and feel. That was the best usage of Superman out side of a comic book ever.
I got very weepy with the Turpin thing…since one the show, they drew him as Jack Kirby, who of course created the original Terrible Turpin (who looked nothing like Kirby) and the whole thing was a big Kirby tribute/eulogy.
To this day, I cannot understand how DC fucks up the films when the animated shows got EVERYTHING right, and they could just use them as a template.
Same here, if they followed the damn DCAU they would be doing great! They have some amazing stories. Yeah Turpin dying and then them saying all Hail to the King, RIP Jack Kirby was so great.I think I was 22,23,24 years old when it came out and I cried when I saw Supes break the Tank and then again when he was at the tombstone.
TIMM>snyder x1000
Disney have used some of the greatest animated movies of all time as templates but the magic disn’t transfer to the resulting live action adaptations.
And really, if they can’t cast Michael Ironside again, don’t bother trying.
Comic Thanos was wayyy weirder because of all the trippy ‘70’s cosmic shit that surrounded his early run.
I like movie Thanos pretty much equally (I think Brolin fucking killed it) but wish they had gone with some of the Jim Starlin cosmic weirdness.
Part of it was the characters around him…Adam Warlock, Magus, Pip, etc. are absent in the film version and strip the context…I mean, we havent had even ONE character with a white afro!
Ha! Magus! I really wanted Warlock to be a part of this and if not him Silver Surfer.
I understand the lack of the Surfer due to rights issues, but it’s a travesty to tease Adam Warlock in the GotG credits and then do nothing with him or any of the other weirdos he associates with, especially given his peculiar relationship with Thanos.
Yeah, I feel like Captain Marvel has taken Surfer’s place in the movies but Warlock is still missing and should totally be in these movies since they gave us the Warlock teaser.
They can make it up to us with a Dreadstar movie.
Dreadstar exceded even MY seventies weirdness tolerance…
I like Thanos more than Darkseid, even though Thanos is the rip-off. In the comics, Thanos did way more than Darkseid. Thanos got his hands dirty while Darkseid just sent his goons to do things while he was just standing around.Yeah, I know that Johns and Morrison had Darkseid more involved in the action in current comics. But Johns’ Darkseid was a brute and Morrison’s Darkseid got beat by Superman singing a tune into a wish machine.
Darkseid was the one who helped beat the Anti-Monitor in the 1st truly great cross over event in comics history, Crisis on Infinite Earths. He was better used in the Animated universe and to that end I liked him better than Thanos. And this is coming from someone who ran in between classes around 25 blocks in NYC to go buy each issue of Gauntlet back in 1991.
I agree that Darkseid was used best in the Animated Universe.Where were you in NYC 1991? I knew at least one LCS in every borough except SI back then. Hell, I picked up IG number one in a LCS in the Bronx at White Plains Road near the Pelham Parkway 2 line train station. (It closed down years ago)
I went to school at John Jay College and had to run to Forbidden Planet on the east side. I had a period off so I would make the jog and read Gauntlet as soon as it came out because I loved the story so much and it go be back into comics. I quit in late 88 early 89.
Kinja is really fucking with me today.
I think there was a LCS or hobby store at the uws around the 70s. I don’t remember if Midtown Comics at Times Sq was open yet.Edit: Midtown opened in 97.
I prefer Thanos to Darkseid simply because the whole “anti-life equation” concept is gibberish. Complete freaking gibberish.
Yeah. I don’t know what Kirby meant for the anti-life equation, but Morrison made it basically super mind control. Thanos just wants to kill shit.Thanos is fucking crazy.
Like, Thanos is literally the best Superhero villain next to Ledger’s Joker.Saying Thanos is the best Superhero villain next to Ledger’s Joker is like saying that someone is the best President next to George W. Bush. That’s a bar that’s almost subterranean.
…..in what world is ledger’s joker, that low on any villain ranking? W. is either the second or third worst president since ww2 (Trump being far and away the worst, carter….gets dinged but a lot of that was the economy, nixon….pre scandal is fine enough, personal policy differences aside).
“Harambe”? You’re too old for this shit
Shannon Doherty isn’t in any DC movie.
I mean, Thanos’ plan doesn’t make any sense, but sure 😛
It was also nice that Thanos beat up Hulk not by using the power stone or other space magic, but by being an equally hulky big meatbag, but one who actually knows how to fight. There’s something ridiculous about beholding an all-CGI throwdown between a CGI brawler and a CGI actually-knows-how-to-fight-er, but that’s the kind of ridiculous I signed up for.
“Let him have his fun” was a nice comment to that point.
Granted it’s kind of a minor character inconsistency on Thanos where he’s very clearly enjoying beating up Hulk yet for the rest of the movie he’s played as a tragic figure.
I thought he was just happy to have a 1:1 fist fight that was a little challenging.
I think that wasn’t a sick enjoyment, but more of a genuine “oh this is fun”, like finally a big strong guy that wants to throw down. No laser beams or weapons, just a good old fashioned knuckle dusting. Obviously Thanos had more actual fighting skill beyond “smash”. I also didn’t see Thanos as a tragic figure, but I enjoy him because he’s one of those “villains” that believes what he is doing is the right thing. Personally, I can’t argue with his reasoning. I AM sort of wondering how he got past the whole axe-buried-in-his-chest thing. At the end when he was enjoying his ‘sunrise on a grateful universe’ his chest and suit didn’t appear marred at all. Maybe he borrowed some of Stark’s spray-a-mortal wound nano tech. 😀
My personal take on Thanos is that, deep down, he’s a sadistic sociopath and narcissist who’s convinced himself that he has more noble goals. He treats the violence and killing and genocide as necessities, and has convinced himself that he’s making a great personal sacrifice for the greater good of the universe. But deep, deep down he enjoys it (“let him have his fun”), and his mission gives him an excuse to indulge the darkest parts of his personality and feel good about doing so. To draw a bigger MCU connection, he’s kind of like Daredevil on Netflix. Matt Murdock is this tortured soul who makes the sacrifice of going out at night as Daredevil and wrecking his body and personal life to fight crime, but he and his closest friends also know that there’s a part of Murdock that finds catharsis and even pleasure in violence, and his morality/sense of purpose merely channels that violence to accomplish something good. Thanks has convinced himself that he’s doing good, and there’s no one around powerful enough to make him question that.
I like your take on the Hulk-Thanos fight.Thanos did not need nano tech. I assume he just healed himself as a byproduct of the snap…………
This.I don’t know if it was necessarily the byproduct of the snap, but Thanos still has the gauntlet. I’m sure with one of or any combination of those stones could repair and/or reverse the damage to his armor and himself.
Time stone. Some more eagle-eyed viewers than myself have already spotted that his wound starts glowing green when he warps away after the snap.
Disagree. Thanos sees himself as a tragic figure, which comes through and the movie highlights very well, but every single moment where he waxes poetic about the difficulty of his burden has some moment where he’s being petty and cruel. He acts all noble and self-sacrificing when he kills Gamora, but he tortures and demeans Nebula. He speechifies at Thor, then he takes clear pleasure in giving the Hulk a spanking.He’s absolutely always a malignant narcissist. It’s what makes him such a good villain.
“Fun isn’t something one considers when balancing the universe. But this… does put a smile on my face.”
He does a lot of stuff that isn’t really consistent with being “tragic.”
I knew it was coming. Called it when I saw the first Avengers. I’m just glad that Hulk got some shots in.
I was really impressed with the amount of dramatic weight given to the villains from the get-go, even the minion Ebony Maw (who has a lot of presence, the point where it was almost a shame he was killed), which is frequently an issue in MCU films. Loki’s death has such finality that I was actually thinking they might leave the opening deaths alone in the eventual resolution, though the subsequent Disney+ news would indicate otherwise.
At the moment Disney is running with “they’re prequel series” right now (at least Loki’s one is).Whether many people believe them or not is another matter.
The Russos have said that an early draft had a flashback vignette for each member of the Children of Thanos showing how they got recruited. The only one that survived was Gamora’s.
Wow, I somehow never made the connection that Nebula and Gamora are part of the same “Children of Thanos” group as Ebony Maw et al. Since the others didn’t show up until Infinity War and are shown working together then, I’d mentally cordoned them off as a separate Thanos hit squad. Now I kind of want a flashback of all six of the “Children” working together to wreck some planet or something.
Prob for the best as far as streamlining is concerned. Wouldn’t object to a super-bloated extended edition with all of them though.
They probably realized it wasn’t really necessary. I suspect that the vignettes would actually be telling us more about Thanos than the featured Children member (sort of how Gamora’s did), but they found a better way to do that in story.
I thought Ebony Maw was an excellent bad guy. something of the sneering 80s villains about him.
I like the scene of him torturing Strange. It gave the impression that he’s a guy who likes to hurt people, and he saw joining up with Thanos as a good opportunity to indulge in that.
I really liked Ebony Maw. I was sorry to see him go although it provided a good call back for Spidey to pull the Alien move.
Imagine how many people could have been saved if Hulk wasn’t waiting for Loki to say, “We have a Hulk.”
when did they make a Wonder Man movie?
Now I just want a scene where Loki pulls a Channukah cookie out of Thanos’ armour.
I assumed the Asgardians were killed by ship-based bombardment, so there was no real aid that Hulk could provide. It was only when Thanos and the rest of the boarding party arrive that he can get in the fight.
For a fun adventure in mood whiplash, watch the MCU films in chronological story order, which places Infinity War right after Ragnarok.Thor at the end of Ragnarok: Asgard is a people, and now we will voyage through the stars to our new home of Earth! Let’s go, fam!
Thor, five minutes later: OH GOD EVERYONE IS EITHER DEAD OR ON FIRE.
Thor in the mid credit scene of Ragnarok:“What fresh hell is this?”Thor in the opening scene of Infinity War:“Oh.”
Yeah, you only have to wait until the second credits scene for the tone of Ragnarok to to an abrupt about-face.
Thor Ragnarok = AliensInfinity War = Alien 3 (but you know … good)
I’m almost there!
I thought they confirmed that half the Asguardians escaped.
Point of order: Ant-Man & The Wasp should go right before Infinity War in a chronological rewatch. We don’t know how long they were traveling between the end of Thor and the start of IW, it could have been minutes or weeks.
Is Ragnarok concurrent with Ant-Man & The Wasp? I know they both end at the same point in time so you could probably swap them, though I’d prefer to watch in the order you laid out.
Ragnarok ends as Infinity War begins. Ant-Man & the Wasp is concurrent with Infinity War.
Duh. Thank you. Please ignore the stupidity of my previous post.
Showed my girlfriend Infinity War a couple months ago, which led to us going back and watching (most of) the previous movies since she really dug it. By the time we got to Ragnarok, Infinity War had kind of faded a bit for her, so right after we finished Thor I queued up the beginning of Infinity War. It was a gut-punch, needless to say.
yeah… that scene kinda ended with an all out genocide of all asgardians save thor, right??
No. Thor states later that Thanos wiped out half of the remaining Asgardians (as he does), who presumably get halved again after the snapped.
“its haunting and unforgettable ending”I think you mean “obviously temporary and kind of weightless ending.”
For me the most resonant scene of the film was the sacrifice of Gamora. I think it did a lot to build some sympathy for Thanos while also showing people just how committed he is to the cause of wiping out half of the universe. Also its the only scene in this movie that made me actually cry. The panic on Gamora’s face during those last few moments is so heart wrenching.
I don’t know why this article got me thinking about this but here’s something I hadn’t thought of: when Thanos snaps and wipes out half of everything, does that include the planets he’s already conquered and killed half the inhabitants? Like Gamora’s planet: is their population the half that was left when year invaded, or is it now 1/4 of the original population?
I’ve thought about this too, and I have to assume he’s killing off half of the people who already survived his initial attack. Which does lend credence to the “mad man” argument.
Thats what I thought too. Especially the “Mad Titan” part.
The previously conquered people after the snap hits: “Oh COME ON, man!”
“We are half of a half of a half! We’re an EIGHTH, man!”
Furthermore, populations rebuild themselves pretty quickly. Our population was about half what it is today 45 years ago. That means that in 40-50 years, Earth would be right back where it is today. Is Thanos just going to keep wiping out half the sentient life in the universe every 50 years for the rest of his life? Does he have a long term plan?
Not to take his side: But I think the idea is almost like pushing the reset button on the last 50 years. Like society would basically completely collapse during the first year post-snap. I think the hope is that humanity will start over and not make the same mistakes and be as greedy.
Clearly, he’s not familiar with human history.
Thats not the worst part of his plan.They always said its half of ALL LIFE in the universe. That includes trees, plants, animals, bacteria, etc. (This is even confirmed by the director)So what’s the point??? What is he trying to save? His motivations had more “logic” in the comics….The worst part is going to be the bathroom apocalypse in earth with 50% of all of our gut flora disseminated…
Okay, that makes his plan even dumber. Because it doesn’t create plenty for remaining beings when you kill off half the food supply, too.
I mean, there are Trillions of beings in the MCU Universe. It’s possible that, if it’s just an arbitrary halving, some planets weren’t even touched at all.
The answer is yes. TPTB answered a question during the IW press tours that confirmed the Asgardians were halved. This was in addition to the halving that happened minutes before IW started. So going into Endgame there are 1/4th as many Asgardians as there were at the end of Ragnarok.
Ah! Thanks!
He did kill half of what was left of Asgard which had already been pretty trimmed during Ragnarok.
I’m pretty sure somebody from on high confirmed that it did hit the already-conquered people. There are not a lot of Asgardians left, boy howdy.
Gotcha! Thanks!
This is a great callout scene and something that might get lost if you don’t watch Ragnarok and IW in close proximity to each other. Plus, as others have said, it’s a jarring, crushing jumpcut to the post-credits scene in Ragnarok to this: they’re already lost. In the opening five minutes you completely undo everything that happens in Ragnarok. Normally I hate when sequels undo their predecessors (hello, Alien3), but this was powerful and effectively done. The 2017 crop of MCU movies: Homecoming, Ragnarok, and GOTG2 are fairly light, fun, and funny rides. I wonder if they deliberately frontloaded those three because of what was to come.
You know, I never reacted much to that ending. I mean, I get they were trying hard to pull heart strings but I kinda sat there and said “Come on – Spiderman will be back by next year along with everyone else”. I reacted to it more as a clever plot twist (or, honestly, not so clever since it took 2 hours to get to where the comic started in it’s first few pages) and a hook to see how it would be undone – not with any actual emotion.Now, Gamora’s death… that one actually hit me a lot harder in that movie.
I think what got me most about the final scene is how quiet it is. I don’t think there’s any music and all you hear is the wind in the trees.
“Oh god!”
It reminded me of big comic books where the last pages are nothing but splash panels and a cliffhanger. It was AWESOME
To me, the fact that we know it will be undone later doesn’t matter; the character’s witnessing it don’t know that, and I’m empathizing with them.
Exactly. Besides, the suspense isn’t whether they’ll pull it off; it’s how they’ll pull it off.
People who never read actual comics: “OMG they DIED! We’ll never see them, ever again!”
Actual comic fans: “Meh…”
The comic literally started with that. I mean, I kinda sat there waiting for the finger snap the entire movie and knew it was coming as soon as the last gem was collected. It’s not even like the comic was that obscure or anything.
I gotta go with the re-emergence of Red Skull as protector of the Soul Stone on Vormir. There aren’t a lot of movie moments these days that legitimately make me gasp, but holy shit, did that one ever. I’ve been wanting Red Skull to come back since Winter Soldier (the rumor at the time was that Robert Redford’s character was RS under a mask), but I did not at all see that coming. It would’ve been nice to get Hugo Weaving back, but Ross Marquand did such an amazing job with the voice and mo-cap that I’m not even mad at all.
Wait, That wasn’t Weaving?
That’s impressive.
It was not. Weaving said a long time ago he wasn’t interested in doing any sequels, so they got Ross Marquand (you might know him from The Walking Dead) instead. He’s a pretty amazing impressionist, if you’re not familiar.And while I’m not the biggest fan of beards, dude’s got a pretty rad beard.
I knew he wasn’t coming back, that is why I was completely shocked to see Red Skull show up. It was a nice surprise. He did a good job since I thought it was Weaving.
You could almost say he did a great job of taking the original performance and *threading* it into his own.
Even as Red Skull got vanished by the Tesseract in ‘First Avenger’, I thought to myself, “That looks more involved than just a death scene”, and I’d been hoping he would return some day. But it had been so many movies that I’d started to forget about it, and then when he appeared in IW it was not just a huge surprise, but an amazing payoff. It may be my favourite part of a movie I liked a whole lot.
Oh, I was sure he’d turn up in a Thor movie after we started learning more about the tesseract and whatnot. I can’t imagine his return being paid off better than it was in Infinity War. It knocked me right on my ass.I’ve heard there are a few other callbacks and payoffs like that in Endgame, as well. Two days, ten hours and counting. 🙂
As a comic nerd since 1979 I loved this so much but I will say as someone who read the original story in College in 1991, I know how this ends. This movie had the feels moments but next movie may just be the blah happy ending that we don’t need.Some people need to stay dead, hopefully Loki (who we all love) and someone else.
I’d go with Thor appearing on the battlefield of Wakanda. That was one of the greatest moments in the MCU’s history. My theater burst into applause as the Avengers theme soared. Just an incredible scene!
My choice would be that one (for total awesomeness) or Thor’s conversation with Rocket (for emotional power). Thor is the highlight of the movie for me.
It’s impossible to overstate how good Hemsworth was in Infinity War. He just absolutely nailed whatever was asked of him, whether it be humor, anguish, or just plain being a badass. It was so great to see Thor truly front and center in an Avengers movie!
Though it should have been Immigrant Song, tbh
‘Thor’s 1 & 2, ‘Avengers’ 1 & 2: Thor is a guy with lightning powers.‘Thor Ragnarok’, ‘Infinity War’: Thor is the God of Thunder.
Infinity War really does feel like a new kind of blockbuster, a super sequel that’s all payoff, no setupI… what??
It’s hard to remember a time before AVC was desperately churning out “wasn’t it cool when” MCU essays, and at such a frantic pace you’d think that it was the purpose of the site. It’s legitimately sad!
You mean, like 18 days ago?
Id use my usual ‘ Mr President is that you’ line but I legitimately know trump can’t spell legitimately.
There are lots of things in the world today that make me sad. A pop culture website celebrating one of the most audacious film projects in pop culture history isn’t one of them.
Sorry, but the concept of the Norse gods fighting space men who happen to be wearing medieval armor is just plain dumb.
There’s always one…
A MikeD comment of no worth – we all take a shot!
Hmm, yes, I do recall that.
I would have gone with the end scene of Thanos chilling out at home on that deserted planet. THAT’s what made the movie for me. It’s when you realize that they flipped the script, and what you just saw was Thanos’ story, not the heroes’.
The music for that scene is incredible. A perfect mixture of victory, rest and melancholy with just enough off-ness in the tone. (I cannot explain music very well)
I love the in that moment music too! It’s quiet and somber, yet there is a little “bounce” to it with the plucked cello strings. It evokes a few things: Thanos’ headspace in that moment, a literal lack of noise that comes from half of life erased, and just the slightest sense that all is not lost.
The scene works to completely up the stakes compared to the first Avengers movie. Thanos snuffs out Loki, the main villain of the first Avengers. He defeats the Hulk, the hero who originally beat the crap out of Loki in hand to hand combat without even using the power of the infinity gauntlet. And finally, he takes the McGuffin of the first film, the Tesseract, and crushes it in his bare hand. It establishes that he’s not some guy with a magic glove, he’s a serious villain all on his own who has no issue killing main characters who oppose him.
It also sucks narratively because it completely undoes the ending of Thor 3.Yes, it’s a little vague and there’s wiggle room to say that some Asgardians did survive, but it’s as callous, cruel and clumsy as the beinning of “Alien 3″, utterly ruining the small triumph of the survivors that came immediately before.
He only killed half of them. That’s what he does so there is no need for wiggle room. Some did survive. And Valkyrie was one of them.
I think this is a good moment to pick from Infinity War as it really does set up what we’re up against because here is the last of the people of Asgard, who have ALREADY been decimated by Hela and just barely escaped its destruction and Thanos comes in and says “I know you all just kinda halved your population by yourselves, but I have a point to make.”
As brutal as the opening of Infinity War was, I’m guessing the opening of Endgame is going to hurt worse.
It will start with a montage of every puppy and kitten worldwide who died in the Snap.
That, or a scene where Hawkeye loses his entire family.
That’s been true, in a sense, of every Avengersmovie—the previously two (or three, if you count Civil War, which you probably should) I see people make this insistence about Civil War based purely on the fact it has a large portion of the Avengers cast, but for me that doesn’t change that it’s a story firmly centered around Steve and Tony. It’s their personal conflict, everyone else is either a supporting character or window dressing.
The one thing left to say about “The Snap” is that Thanos didn’t really snap his fingers. The snap sound actually comes from the finger hitting the fleshy part at the base of your thumb. Thanos didn’t accomplish that…..and couldn’t with the glove on.I agree that this means nothing to the narrative. He didn’t have to snap his fingers to accomplish his goal, it just refers back to something Gamora said as a bit of hyperbole. But it’s that last thing to be said about “The Snap”
You really do dig the minutiae of things, doncha?
i bet people will find more things to say about it. just you wait.
I’d argue the first 10 minutes are MUCH more sad than the ending. Maybe I’ve just been into comics for too long, but the snap at the end made me feel nothing. It’s comics and they were “dusted” in a fantastical/CGI way rather than actually dying on screen (if we’d seen them all collapse and stop breathing, it would have been MUCH more depressing … which was probably the right call). Although I’m not heartless, I was sad when Spidey was dusted. They sold that moment at least.But that beginning, following right after Ragnarok … seeing all those dead Asgardians who had just barely survived Hela, Heimdall get stabbed, Loki die while we’re looking into his eyes and Thor is screaming in the background—that’s bleak. The Gamora scene was heartbreaking too. The dusting was done well and all, but I didn’t really feel any sadness. My immediate thought was being interested in “How are they going to bring them all back?”
disney shilling at full force
“There’s also, for example, the impossibly bleak opening minutes, when the studio announces that all bets are off—that its 10-year franchise plan will culminate with a real body count.”No it won’t. I recall being kind of awestruck at the dark direction they’d gone in the end of Infinity War, then i Immediately remembered that this storyline involves time travel and using it to shift reality, and realized it was all completely meaningless.
To quote Luke Skywalker in his stunning statement on the crushing mundanity of modern corporate focus group tested franchise focused screenwriting:
The finger snap is something comic fans are familiar with for literally decades. It blew our minds that Marvel wiped out everyone out like that. Sure, it was all undone. But, such a massive crisis was never heard of before. We all expected it frankly, because we’ve known about it since the 80s.
My favorite bit about the beginning is just how brutal – for the standards of the MCU – is the way Loki checks out. No gentle stabbing or vaporization or whatever, just literally had the light choked out of him.
It is grotesque. Most gruesome scene in MCU?
Most gruesome scene in MCU? Just me personally, I thought the scene where Darren Cross shoots the guy with the shrink gun in the bathroom and he turns into a blob of goo which Cross wipes up and flushes was pretty gruesome.
It’s a fittingly disturbing end for Loki. He’s been a wily trickster all this time, and now you see something he literally can’t wriggle out of.
Endgame arrived today in Oz. The question is: should I brave the school holiday nuisances and go see it?
If you can withstand screaming kids and blowhard comic fans giving unwanted commentary, by all means do it.
More importantly, you’ll be ahead of spoilers if you’re steeped in social media or are acquainted with loudmouths in your life.
I’m having dinner with my parents at 7.00, and there’s a screening where I am at 9.30. If we’re done by then and all the tickets aren’t sold out, my girlfriend and I will probably see it. It’ll be nice to not have to worry about spoilers or reviews colouring expectations.
Hope it works out. Think I might save it till next Thursday. Really the only reason to see it asap for me is to chat about it here.
My only problem with the beginning was Thanos killing off half the Asgardians after they had just been through a similar slaughter by Hela. Wouldn’t it have better served his character for Thanos to recognize Thor’s people were already near-extinct, and then spare them while killing Loki and Heimdall?
This is a pretty solid choice for the Moment. We’ve not seen much of Thanos up until this point, and what we have has been a little underwhelming, so this scene needs to do a lot of lifting to set him up as a threat. It does that, but it also sets up some of his limitations: Thanos has a very rigid way of thinking. When he says, “If you consider failure experience”, and Loki counters, “I consider experience experience”, Loki’s right. He’s made mistakes, but he can learn from that, But Thanos just sees in black and white – you succeed or you fail. I wonder if that way of seeing things will come back to bite him in ‘Endgame’.
Something interesting about this scene I didn’t notice originally:Thanos killed 50% of the main characters in this scene. Perfectly balanced. As it should be.
What’s brutal is Adam Warlock is no where to be seen. He is synonymous with the gauntlet and story. Also the villain of the piece is a jumped up Raz al Gul, not thanos.
I wonder, were the planets, where Thanos already culled the population manually (like Gamora’s people) exempt from the snapening? What about the Asgardians? I found the beginning of Infinity War kinda unclear. Did Thanos kill all of them or just half? And didn’t at least half of them already die in Ragnarok?
Just finished reading the Thor Ragnarok review… and it struck me…
Odin: Asgaurd isn’t a place… It’s a people.
Literally as the credits roll Thanos is intercepting the ship containing all the Survivors of Ragnarok… and the 1st scene of Infinity war shows he’s killed all of them with the exception of Loki, Thor, and Heimdall [and spoiler alert… they’re all dead, with the exception of Thor, within the 1st 10 minutes of the film].
hey man ( A.A.Dowd ) , is infinity war ( PG -13 ) ending so brutal 🙂 ? please go and watch the zack snyders’ 300 film / spartus tv show 2011 . after that, you will know the meaning of brutal. you are a disney slave . keep it up you mad idots. i don’t know why people are reading this foolish articales.