Avengers: Infinity War

another limit case for shared universes might be something like grant morrison's new x-men, which reinvigorated the line like nothing in decades, but depended on enormous, universe-breaking ideas (there are now millions and millions of mutants, so you can write stories about them as a real minority, different mutant political strains and subcultures, mutant neighborhoods in major cities). practically, that only works if x-men was its own separate universe or if marvel was willing to embrace them and take the whole universe into strange new places. instead they largely ignored them for a short while and then brutally undid them with a magic spell that slashed the mutant population down to a couple hundred, leading to several years where the x-men concept felt more bounded and less interesting/relevant than ever before. they wouldn't even accept his contention that magneto was a psychotic terrorist, not an interesting ideological foil for the x-men, and therefore needing to be finally killed off. post-morrison stories revealed his magneto to not have been carefully infiltrating the x-men for three years under the masked identity of "xorn," but rather to have been a guy named xorn who posed as magneto posing as a guy named xorn. all to preserve what we are used to agreeing are the big interesting themes of x-men ("see, it's dr. king and malcolm x!") and the only themes it can really be about.

the other big restriction on the films, of course, is that they must all be tentpole blockbusters telling three-act stories more or less in the "action" genre. obvious maybe. but as with the star wars spinoffs where we were hyped a "war movie" and got a star wars movie where people wear camo, these things really undermine the idea that oh yeah it's this huge universe, you can tell all different kinds of stories! even in superhero comics, a real arc can be someone contemplating their own mortality or dealing with the death of a loved one. a whole issue can be a baseball game and people debating how far forgiveness extends. not to say these are all super sophisticated stories but in the movies you're just going to get a couple minutes of baseball as fanservice for those who remember the baseball issues, and probably some comic relief.

none of these are going to start with a daring night-time infiltration mission and then surprise you by evolving into a cancer drama or a couple struggling to work out whether they have a future after infidelity, or whether a person's terrible actions change how we think about their art, or how the memories of a lost loved one haunt a present relationship, or whatever. they won't even turn out to be other kinds of crowd-pleasers like rom-coms or disaster movies or buddy cop movies (though they may have flavorings of all these things, waiting for fans to declare that, shocker, i've realized this one IS REALLY A whatever type movie). they bring on "quirky indie directors" and often good ones - but ones known for coherent, talky, forward-moving narrative, and they manage them closely. from some of the blogosphere you'd think they were handing $200 million to alexander sokurov and crossing their fingers for box office gold.

again, i think individual action movies, made because the creators have a story they want to tell, have a little more flexibility here. fury road is about mutual redemption, the quest for liberation or at least a heterotopia for the oppressed, and the sufferers rediscovering their own humanity through caring about others. you can tell the filmmakers wanted to make a film about those things. the marvel movies start to feel like people with a room full of chess pieces of the characters and instructions to figure out something they could be made to do. oh we haven't put the hulk and thor together, who's a villain they could face... grandmaster! what's a comic we haven't adapted... "planet hulk" huh? hey this thing writes itself! (again i thought thor 3 was a total blast with a lot of creativity in it, so don't get me wrong.)

this is all obvious: no one would really WANT the films to be these other things, you can get them elsewhere... but i wish the more fannish reviews out there could recognize these facts, or at least give some sense that they have seen other kinds of movies and aren't just bamboozled by press releases declaring that this one is really dark, this one is really a comedy.

(sorry for the long block posts btw, side effect of subway commutes with interrupted service, might as well just keep typing since it won't go through yet anyhow)

i want to start this but i'm not going to now because i'll be away from ILX shortly and have nothing coherent to say right now

as far as this movie and the MCU is concerned i defer to you OL because you know this stuff and it's mainly fragmentary and hypothetical for me

doc c killing it itt, we need that serialised narrative thread imo

the marvel movies start to feel like people with a room full of chess pieces of the characters and instructions to figure out something they could be made to do.

yeah, for sure, and one of the things i think is most interesting about marvel movies on a meta-level is that they've evolved into this very sleek, very efficient machine for pumping out movies which are always at the very least diverting and that in itself is not actually an insignificant achievement - movies are hard to make! big tentpole action movies fail way more often than they succeed!

Theoretically DC are in a better position because they have a history of generational change, of heroes handing down the mantle to others - and then they'll hand the keys to someone who just wants his childhood heroes back, dammit.

Of course this is a long term problem, and so not really a problem for MCU at all - one of the meta things that I find interesting is just how they'll deal with rebooting a universe - Spiderman and X-Men can do so because they can just drop the series on the ground for five years or so.

agreed on the serial narrative thread, mostly so I can complain about the idea Odysseus wasn't in a bunch of spinoffs and fan fic

canonicity is such a weird idea. these are all made up stories, yet some are "more real" than others. it's a weird concept, something inherent in mass media from the days when it was primarily religious in nature. apocryphal works, fan works, etc., there has always been this struggle to define some kind of objective mythical reality

i went in

Canon fodder: serial fiction and how it works

Dr. Who kind of faces the same problems, when every season involves universe-threatening monsters destroying all of time, yet you know the mains will always survive, somehow.

Sara Kingdom and Katarina can't come to the phone right now

they won't even turn out to be other kinds of crowd-pleasers like rom-coms or disaster movies or buddy cop movies (though they may have flavorings of all these things, waiting for fans to declare that, shocker, i've realized this one IS REALLY A whatever type movie).

Kinda hope at a point that they just start spinning a wheel to figure out their approach to these things. She-Hulk as Méliès silent film. Moon Knight as non-diagetic Malickian meditation. Alpha Flight as '70s porno flick.

SASQUATCH GENDER SWAP GOES HERE

lol I meant to put “JOKE” in the middle of that but it works fine as the storyboard panel nobody was sure how to draw

The only review you need:

https://youtu.be/tH2w6Oxx0kQ

so so so many plot holes and conveniences but if you grew up reading comic books the special effects and fight scenes are totally worth it

here is my question: why does billionaire tech giant tony stark have a flip phone?

from the sound of things, this seems pretty cool. focuses mostly on galactic space monster? cool. fight scenes are just costumes superheros throwing colorful orbs of light at each other? im down for that.

i dont need every flick to move me on an emotional or intellectual level. usually Marvel has been pretty good at knowing what they are doing and being fine with that (DC in contrast is flailingly silly while screaming "Take us seriously!!!")

I'd guess Tony Stark thinks that flip phones are cool? Though if the first movie is set in 2008, maybe Stark hates that fucker Jobs and everything he brought in?

he's been a playboy CEO for twenty years and iron man for ten, guy is into his IDGAF old dude swag phase.

between that and nick fury's old school 'captain marvel paging' blackberry something seems a little tricky with the timeline(s)

A'ight, if the spoilers are starting in earnest I am outta here.

me too, i'll be back in eight hours or so once i've seen it

these aren't spoilers. micro-minor details that give zero away, promise

Really enjoyed the film and looking forward to the 2nd part.

There is one post credits scene, thought there was a habit of there being like 3 interspersed with titles.
Saw it in 3D which i haven't done in a while.
Think I might go and see it again.

But way out of step with the comics. Did this tie in with a comic arc that is 27 years old or something?

It was fun seeing lots of the team ups but possibly the darkest Marvel movie there's been.

Great that there was a real sense of all the previous MCU movies coming together to this point. (Although not really sure what was going on with Banner/Hulk but imagine that will be resolved in part 2).

Assuming Captain Marvel and the second Ant Man movie won't advance the plot any further so glad the next one's out in 12 months time.

xp yeah but the Marvel Cinematic Universe is different enough that only the broad strokes are the same

Capt. Marvel is set in the 90s, I believe Ant Man 2 will be set before IW

this movie was great btw, man i love this shit i cannot lie

There was a line somewhere about how Ant Man and the Wasp will be the movie most tied into Infinity War, but that might just be an attempt to drum up enthusiasm.

I believe Ant Man 2 will be set before IW

I wondered about this. I'm curious to what extent they're going to import the more audience-antagonizing elements of DC & Marvel's narrative/revenue-generation strategies. It's already amusing seeing explainers about the prerequisites for a massive tentpole movie--are they going to embrace confusing/multiple timelines or giant continuity resets?

very seldom do I see a scene, think “ah yes, perfect ending” and it actually ends up being the last

this movie breaks that trend

Yeah, end scene was great.

It was noticeable that Ant Man wasn't in this movie so assume his will be maybe standalone with some Infinity War stuff in the last 15 minutes or so.

Flip phone stood out to me too, but I figured there was some in universe reason for it I was forgetting

Loved this but it broke my heart

Steve Rogers didnt have a 555 number

It's already amusing seeing explainers about the prerequisites for a massive tentpole movie...

― rob, Friday, April 27, 2018

sure, but the explainers exist not because they're needed but because a massive tentpole release offers the opportunity to coattail-ride for cheap clicks

steve only accepts calls from specific burners

Really did not expect one of the six stones to be Dirk Diggler's cockring

this was fun - did as good a job as it could have in moving a hell of a lot of pieces around the board and there are some awesome moments - but def felt like half a movie

no idea where they go from here tho which is great - feels like the next one will be the more satisfying story

one massive problem with thanos’ motivation: if he wants to kill half the universe only to save limited resources, why not er just use the reality stone to make more resources?

half a movie my ass, my fave protagonist went through a lot of trials and great sacrifice to succeed despite everyone being against him

I support them just rolling with this as the new status quo

did as good a job as it could have in moving a hell of a lot of pieces around the board and there are some awesome moments - but def felt like half a movie

this is funny/sad to read since they made a big deal out of not calling this and the fourth one "Infinity War Pt. I and II"

already seeing the "this movie promotes the overpopulation myth" take which honestly seems fair

eh fuck off with that because, as the baiting the ridiculous stoned guy conversations went with some friends, humans could grow much much larger! we use our planet’s resources inefficiently, could harness the power of the sun in a dyson sphere, make things better and continue growing

thanos doesn’t believe these things at a galactic scale, and that’s a different thing and I support his non-discriminatory quest

it’s like asking how many people he could provide for by dispersing his army and deciding not to have war machines. huge galaxy, no real impact

flip phone was the burner cap posts tony at the end of civil war

tbc I do not support "the world is overpopulated" rhetoric at all

Couldn't see this last night as it was totally sold out near me.

world is overpopulated, QED

Ain't lookin' at a word y'all have posted until after I see this in a few hours. One last prediction: movie ends with the 'SNAP!' from the comics and a whole lotta people die in one fell swoop. And those who die in this one will be resurrected in part 4, which means anyone who survives this movie is fair game for a legitimate death in the next.

Back in a bit to see how wrong I was!

i think the thing i appreciated most about this is how well it captured the vibe of that rarest of comic-book events: a giant crossover story that makes sense and is fun to read

also, having suffered through justice league a while back, it’s remarkable how well josh brolin’s performance is captured in an all-cg character when poor ciaran hinds ended up as such a videogame-cutscene level steppenwolf

still not sure what I think about a certain character appearing during Thanos’s side trip to pick up a stone. unexpected but kind of intriguing

tied up a nice loose end, i thought, although his accent seemed less hilariously ott than it did in his first appearance

speaking of paying things off, i loved that rocket’s well-established fetish for stealing prosthetics got a practical resolution in this one