Avengers: Infinity War (Joe & Anthony Russo, April 27, 2018) Movie • Page 67

Our show just finished. Fuck.

 

I wouldn’t be surprised if any death that wasn’t caused by the stones was permanent, in this movie and the next one. Only things I could see happening are either Thanos using the Gauntlet to bring her back somehow, or, as someone said above, she is brought back when the Soul stone is destroyed.

 

And those deaths SHOULD be permanent. To reverse it is just cheap bullshit. BUT if they were to reverse one of those, I wouldn't be TOTALLY upset if it were Gamora

 

Yeah I think that’s the only one that has even a chance of being reversed. I don’t think anyone else is coming back that wasn’t erased by the snap. Including whoever dies in the next one.

 

At first I thought it would be really weird to have movies between A3 and A4 but now that we know AMATW is set before it and Captain Marvel is in the ‘90s it makes sense.

 

The snap deaths not being permanent doesn't really bother me. Maybe I'm slightly used to it because I've spent most of my life reading comics where death is literally never permanent, but I care much more about seeing something that strikes an emotional chord with me, and watching Spider-Man plead for his life absolutely did. Would it probably carry MORE weight if I didn't know they were bringing him back in Avengers 4? Yeah, probably. Doesn't mean it didn't impact me here, though.

 

What makes death in fiction resonant is when it’s for something. About something. It’s happened in MCU movies (Killmonger, Agent Coulsen, Yondu, even Gamora in IW). What emotional character core is present in the finger snap “deaths”? Tom Holland performed the fuck out of the scene but Peter’s death isn’t for anything, it isn’t coming out of anything tied to Peter’s motives or outlook or morals. Same with T’Challa. These “deaths” mean nothing on multiple levels, beyond just knowing they aren’t permanent.

 

He needed a business card to get to Dr. Strange’s crib.

 

Hey, don't diss... though it was Edinburgh so not even the good city in Glasgow.

 

It doesn’t have anything to do with the motives or outlook or morals of the characters that were erased because it was random by design. That was the whole point of Thanos’ mission, that it would be random and fair and give everyone the same chance, rich or poor.

What it does do, though, is it completes Thanos’ arc and also emotionally affects the characters that are left. Tony now has to try and fight Thanos in A4 with the image of his surrogate son pleading for his life as he disintegrates in Tony’s arms. And gives them more personal motivation and stakes to not only stop Thanos but figure out a way to reverse what he did. It raises the stakes because now they can’t just take the gauntlet and destroy the stones, they have to steal it and use it first.

 

He read the script

 

“Hey what’s that in the sand? Is that the script?”

 

I giggled as I imagined Rocket asking that to Thor

 

Thanos' mission is weaksauce

 

My head canon now is that Deadpool read the script and told him.

 

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

I need a cigarette after that one. Whew.

The 'deaths' from the Snap were necessary. The power of the Infinity Gauntlet had been threatened the whole film. Without the Snap, Thanos hasn't done anything that hasn't been done before. It also established tangable stakes for failure. Sure, half of the universe's people may just be trapped in the Soul Stone or something, but the power of Thanos had to be shown. It makes the victory sweeter. If the Avengers simply found themselves in a tight spot near defeat, that would be incredibly mundane and hacky.

The Snap was also a super important part of the Infinity War comics. It would be a cop out to not include it.

 

I've grown sort of weary towards the untold death we just accept at face value in these mainstream blockbusters nowadays. How many people die in this movie? What is the body count, even including non-superheroes? Jurassic World, Logan, the Force Awakens, we watch genocide after genocide, sometimes multiple in the same movie, and so rarely are the movies good at acknowledging their violence. At best we get surface level platitudes (Logan has a scene where the girl asks Logan about all the killing he does), at worst they're needlessly, grotesquely, and gleefully over the top (Jurassic World's infamous misogynistic, brutal slaughter of that one nameless female character), but most of the time they're just passed over and never adequately dealt with (the Force Awakens blowing up multiple planets, the Asgardian genocide/non superhero fingersnap deaths in Infinity War). I'm not even coming from a moral, preachy place of "Think of what this is doing to the kids!", but just, narratively, big mainstream blockbusters have devalued life to the point where it, most of the time, barely registers as consequential.

 

It was something along the lines of” when you said you were going to bring Wakanda to the world...” “like maybe our own Starbucks or something.”

The awkward-ness being the recent racist scandal at Starbucks

 

I mean, I've talked about it enough, but just... What is he gaining out of it? What semblance is there of Thanos in this movie that ever feels like someone who cares about the greater good? Where is his growth from someone who either truly did care, but got consumed by his vision and the power he accumulated, or the guy who never cared and just always wanted power all along, even if he made a genuine connection with Gamora along the way? That's why all these characters and people "dying" because of his final achievement of his ultimate goal doesn't resonate: because we honestly have no clue what it means to him. We have no narrative release of the ending of a journey for him because we never saw the beginning of that journey, we never saw the relatable, or if not relatable, at least identifiable psyche of someone who built himself to this climax.

The truth is they introduced Thanos in the Avengers and had him pop up every now and then over the next 6 years and painted him as such a one-dimensional, all powerful, completely villainous character because they didn't really care about how he was dramatized in his actual story. That's why there's such a disconnect between his motives and the dramatization of them, between his one emotional connection and his larger mission. For all the talk of this being such a magnificent achievement in storytelling, for a production this long in the making and involving that many moving parts, it's remarkable how little setup they really did for Thanos.

 

I don’t know what to tell you. I’m not going to change your mind. I thought he was incredibly well-developed and had a clear motivation and philosophy that was easy to grasp as it was told over the course of the film. I didn’t need an entire movie about Thanos’ origins to understand who he is, what he wants, and why he wants it. The way they managed to humanize him and make him more than just an evil power-hungry villain was surprising to me and I enjoyed it a lot.

It seemed like he didn’t even WANT the power, ultimately, he just felt that he was the only one who had the will to do what he felt was necessary. He basically goes into exile at the end of the movie! If he was a one-dimensional power-hungry villain he would’ve been trying to take over the galaxy or something. But he’s so much more complex than that, clearly. That’s the proof he actually cares about the greater good.

But hey, you don’t see it that way. It didn’t work for you. That’s fine. I’m sorry you didn’t enjoy the movie.

 

I think what made it work in Infinity War is the consistent reminder of the personal stake that the characters have in saving the world, as well as the relationships that have been established in prior films. The film, as much as it is a jumbled bunch of awesome comic book shit, has a reocurring theme of loss and grief. All of the characters have lost so much or have so much to lose. No Avenger wants to lose anyone. Star Lord struggles with the idea of having to kill Gamora and the pain of her death. Wanda is in great pain as she breaks the Mind Gem and what seems like the peace of death when she dissolves. Even Thanos deals with the emotional weight of death and loss.

The violence and death is less senseless because the movie doesn't shy away from how it has traumatized its characters. There are tangeble consequences. We see the impact as Bucky dissolves in front of Cap and T'Challa disolves in front of Okoye. We see people dissolve in the streets. It isn't treated like glib entertainment. There is lots of entertainment of course, but the pain is real to the characters and that is what matters.

What I would like in the next movie is a scene where Thanos visits a planet that he has 'saved' and witnesses the pain and fear that the survivors live through in their lives. Perhaps he uses the Time Stone to revisit the fall of Titan and sees that he was wrong as to why it fell.

 

I also have trouble viewing this as a traditional movie because if I did, I can honestly say it doesn't work. But, as a trade collection in motion that just screams COMIC BOOKS as loudly as possible for almost three hours, I enjoy it very much.

 

Are you from Scotland? Because I feel like only us Scots would get the poster in the late scene .''We'll deep fry your kebabs"