Avengers: Infinity War

"Wow this allowed for luxury crops!"

Lol Tombot i didnt remember that I posted that

Thanos’ real goal is to make life into a Veblen good

Oh and my wife’s favorite line by miles:

“What am I supposed to say? Jesus?”

I wonder whether thanos's wish as he snapped was "destroy 50% of everyone at random oh but except me, I want to stick around for that sunrise" or whether he really did just go with "50% of everyone, true random" and then he was just lucky to still be around afterwards.

The latter. Even with all the infinity stones, he still can’t see his own plot armor; and it would be completely against his whole ethos to leave himself out of the arbitrary lottery.

All that said, I have to imagine snapping your fingers while wearing a metal gauntlet is HAMFF - I mean, try it with isotoners on, shit’s practically impossible - wait, never mind, my real point is this: he waited to do it until after Thor had basically killed him because he knew he might get the wrong result in the coin toss. Might as well do it when you actually have nothing to lose.

It will be intersting if Thanos forces the heroes to confront the suffering they'll be ushering back into the universe by reversing his magical snap.

Did anybody else shout "ARACHNID!" at Thanos

No

There was still the marvel trademark bit on undercutting the emotion of a scene with a wisecrack that they’re doing too many times and I wish they’d figure out a proper balance for.

Also, not enough Benedict Wong in the film and I wish the women had far more to do.

If they give Captain Marvel full-Kirby/Starlin cosmic-level powers it should improve the balance in the followup. Do you think they’ll figure out a way to bring in Monica Rambeau in the next 12 months?

The only other iteration of Ms. Marvel I'd expect to see anytime soon is Kamala Khan. Still laying money on Captain Marvel 2: Carol & Kamala.

if marvel has any sense at all kamala khan will be making an appearance asap

just annoyed that she’s probably not gonna be hanging out with lockjaw since the inhumans tv show shit the bed

Finally saw it, had happily missed spoilers (and memes) and as I said near the start, that was a whole lotta avengin'.

Saw this, thought it was okay, but definitely not on the level of the best Marvel movies so far (Thor, GotG, Civil War). Here's some scattered thoughts:

WARNING!!! SPOILERS FOR THE ENTIRE MOVIE!!!

* After the movie was over me and my spouse both talked how we felt exhausted by it. I think this was mostly because it was just an unending series of action scenes with few character moments in between. It definitely felt like some of these could've been shortened or cut altogether. For example, as cool as it was to see Peter Dinklage, Thor's little sidequest could've easily been shortened to 5 minutes instead of 20 to give more space for other stuff.

* I've heard some people react to the criticism that this was merely a huge slugfest by saying, "so was The Infinity Gauntlet!" Well yeah, but it's different with comics where we get too see our favourite characters every month, they can afford to do a full-action crossover every now and then. But with the movies, we haven't seen most of these character for a year or two, so it would've been nice to know what's happened to them in between instead of just dropping them on the field of battle.

* The aforementioned shortage of character moments hurt Scarlet Witch and Vision the most. In the comics their romance was developed over a long period of time, with Vision being uncertain whether a human could love an android or whether he's even capable of love. Here all of this happened offscreen, and we get one short, not particularly convincing romantic scene where they're already a couple. This really hurt the intended tragedy of the conclusion, where we're supposed to feel for the couple and the awful choice SW has to make, except that it doesn't really resonate the way the movie wanted to, because the love between the two had never properly been sold to us.

* There are many other similar character beats the movie missed; for example, the meeting between Bruce and Natasha should've been pretty painful due to the events of Age of Ultron, but now all of that was shrugged of in a scene that lasted two seconds. I get it that it's almost impossible to do proper character development with this many characters to juggle, but maybe the film-makers should've just considered a different approach? For example, they could've made only one or two of the heroes the clear protagonists while the others remain supporting players. This approach worked very well in Civil War with Cap and Iron Man, and as result that movie had plenty of room for personal drama on top of the action scenes.

* I did appreciate the fact that they made Thanos the biggest character in the movie, and the only one who got a proper character arc. Adapting a classic antagonist like Thanos is always gonna be hard, especially if you only have one movie to establish him as cool villain as well as multi-faceted character, but I think they succeeded in that as well as possible. I also thought it was a good idea to omit Mistress Death altogether and give Thanos's fingersnap the pure Malthusian motivation that Jim Starlin established (and subsequently forgot) in the Silfer Surfer issue where he brought him back from the dead. What may work in the comics may not work as well in the (relatively) more realistic MCU, so having Thanos be in love with the actual embodiment of Death could've come across as corny. Giving Thanos a personal reason to hate overpopulation (the devastation of his people) was also a nice touch, as that made him almost unrelatable, even if his solution to the problem would be idiotic and unworkable in real life.

There were so many tight closeups of Josh Brolin's stubble I spent most of the second half of the film wondering how he shaved his chin what with the folds in it and all.

Did anybody else shout "ARACHNID!" at Thanos

― fuck the NRA (Neanderthal), Friday, May 4, 2018 9:20 PM (three days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I did say "Spiders aren't insects!"

I would not be surprised to hear that there was more shot between the Vision and the Scarlet Witch, but that since it was acted between Paul Bettany and Elizabeth Olsen, the directors reckoned that the cutting room floor was the best place for it.

There were so many tight closeups of Josh Brolin's stubble I spent most of the second half of the film wondering how he shaved his chin what with the folds in it and all.

did we really need three instances of "u must save ur loved one for the greater good" tho

One minor bummer was the offscreen destruction of Xandar, which is such a central element to Annihilation (which I'd been hoping to see as a movie of its own at some point). Maybe it's just a setup for someone to gain sole access to the Nova Force somehow, but it feels more like a whole range of possible stories just got shut down. Guess we'll see what gets repaired in the next film.

err, sacrifice, not save, obv

Given how divergent the film and TV sides of the MCU have become, I was frankly shocked that last week's Agents of SHIELD made direct reference to the forces of Thanos invading earth (concurrent with a second and unrelated alien invasion on the show). So either half the team is going to disappear soon or they're gonna find some kind of loophole to escape that fate or Loeb is officially a grade-a turkey (the safe money is always on the latter, I find).

(Spoilers for the two people who watch AoS and aren't caught up or who even care a little bit any which way: the MCU's Graviton analogue has learned of Thanos's arrival and intends to crush him into pulp. I'm assuming he will encounter some obstacles toward achieving that goal.)

Yes, one per planet, to make it extra crappy feeling when they all turn out to be utterly futile.

xp to Daniel.

James Gunn was asked on Twitter what Groot's last line before disappearing in Infinity War was.

SPOILER...
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“Dad”

— James Gunn (@JamesGunn) May 6, 2018

oof :(

i am dad

Yes, one per planet, to make it extra crappy feeling when they all turn out to be utterly futile.

We know they're futile going in, surely?

I don't know why it only just occurred to me this morning, but I'm assuming all of the dissolved people in the universe are inside the Soul Gem now.

most likely

jim starlin is a boss

“Space Rabbit Is Space Tree’s Dad” sounds like some James Kochalka material

Am reading "Infinity Gauntlet" atm - am on issue #3 - and quite frankly I keep thinking "This writing's pretty shit!".

xp it's ok to feel your feels, tombot

Also lol comix xp

quite frankly I keep thinking "This writing's pretty shit!".

can't believe a 1990s Marvel crossover written by Jim Starlin etc etc

I think this was okay, but boring, and the cross-cutting belabored a couple of already-tired stories. Not a moment of surprise in it (and I’d managed to stay spoiler-free). Also all of the women were basically waiting on men.

Am reading "Infinity Gauntlet" atm - am on issue #3 - and quite frankly I keep thinking "This writing's pretty shit!".

it's great if you love stories where superheroes spend like three issues in a row hurling themselves one by one at thanos while he stands, largely unconcerned, under some roman columns in outer space iirc

expected 6.5 got an 8 thats a result

Didn't you hate Black Panther? Cannot get a read on what passes muster in the MCU for u and Shakey.

i thought it was bad yeah.

i mean its a different movie different movies can be bad or good within a 30 movie connected arc i dunno what to say rly

The only aspect in which I could see Infinity War competing with Black Panther is visually, and even there I think BP's aesthetic was fresher, pretty as the Cube-ing of sundry heroes was in IW.

Apart from that you've got a film that's basically entirely set-up, and a buncha deaths that only carry emotional weight if a) you've gotten affection towards the characters due to previous MCU films and b) you manage to make yourself forget that all of these characters will be back in the next one. And terrible banter.

having spoiled a 30-year-old issue of thor for darragh on another thread, i might as well pick up the question here: cap's gonna pick up thor's hammer and beat the shit out of thanos with it at some point in the second part (possibly giving up his life in the process) isn't he? they've got to pay off the hammer-lifting scene in age of ultron eventually and it would be a hell of a moment

Mjolnir is toast (see Ragnarok). They have yet to establish, though, whether mere mortals can wield Stormbreaker.

I guess I would like to see Steve Rogers chucking the shattered fragments of an uru hammer at Thanos, though.

good point

thor's right eye was toast at the end of ragnarok tho and they got around that pretty easily so i remain unconvinced that mjolnir won't show up again with time gem shenanigans or something

The hammer-lifting scene paid off inside of Age of Ultron, though.

well thats the thing, none of it has any emotional heft because there's no real version of events once the gems and time magic etc are involved so those scenes and appeals to emotion are.....eh.... optional. for me, the rest of the package should flow, look good, zing, satisfy. this did.

xps to daniel yeah look, black panther, for me,........didnt. not much point appealing to someone about why that is or isnt now is there? perhaps unwise of me to even go so far as to say most of the affection for it is....idealistic projection. the movie falls apart if you arent cheerleading it. i can cheerlead a movie with the best of em but thats not a pretence of objective excellence now is it.

oh yeah, i'd forgotten about that

mods pls delete my posts from today itt so i look like less of a dumbass, it's v embarrassing