Tom, Matt Damon was already in a Marvel movie. He played Loki in the beginning of Ragnarok. Plus he got to be Iron Man in The Martian.
This morning I was thinking about the “you weren’t this fat in Parks and Rec” line and I was confused for a sec because there was no way that was in the movie but I could clearly hear it in Drax’ voice. So congrats, Kelly, you are indistinguishable from Dave Bautista. At least in my memory. Feel free to put that in your dating profile.
I’ve been told we also share the same complexion.
Murawski, you mention in the podcast how one movie can ruin another, but you don’t recall the name. Were you by any chance thinking of Duncan Jones’ Mute?
He probably would have been if he’d seen it. Good call, though. Oof.
-Tom
As Tom allowed, no. I have not seen that movie.
I have a shadowy recollection of a movie I brought up in a discussion on the podcast where Tom said, “But Dingus, what about what they did with the sequel?” And I replied with something like, “I’m living in a universe where only the first movie exists.”
Something like that. But I cannot quite get to what movie(s) we were talking about. And it’s driving me a little nuts.’
-xtien
“Well if you consider failure experience.”
What ever you’ve done worked. The episodes appeared in my podcast client today. Thanks!
I didn’t do anything. I see them too, but nothing appears different about the feed. It will probably happen again in the future.
Are you talking about the alternate universe where there are three! made for TV, Midnight Run sequels?
You may be right. Hmm. Or you may just be trying to screw with my 3x3 for next week.
In either case, you’ve guaranteed a situation in which I’ll be asking for more gif support. So the joke’s on you!
-xtien
“I’m Mosely!”
@Mercanis, I’ve heard a rumour that one of the listener picks for Kellywand’s upcoming 3x3 might be of interest to you.
So I’ve heard.
Dingus you stay away from this post until after the podcast.
Christien, I figured out the genius of this movie, particularly with regards to Kiernan:
This movie is going to teach him that deaths in Marvel movies aren’t permanent…so that when deaths happen in the next movie, and they ARE permanent, it will really impact him.
After seeing the movie a second time, this is something that really leapt out at me.
The morality of Thanos is that we have to sacrifice some people for the greater good.
The heroes relentlessly reject that morality, like 5 or 6 times. Even Loki. Even when Star Lord and Wanda try to act this way, it is clear they are violating their consciences. They don’t believe they are doing the right thing. And they fail.
But there is one exception. Doctor Strange also buys into the morality of Thanos. He is convinced that it would be right to sacrifice Tony or Peter to keep the Time Stone away from Thanos.
But then Strange looks at the future and discovers that he was wrong, that the only possible way to prevail is if he also adopts the morality of the heroes and refuses to sacrifice Tony’s life to keep the Stone.
And that’s the real point. When someone claims they have done the math and that science proves that some people need to be sacrificed for the greater good, they are pretending they can see the future. But they cannot do that. They don’t know what they claim to know. Their models are incomplete. They confuse being unaware of their emotions with hard-headed dispassion, un-examined assumptions with objectivity, and rationalization with reason.
Maybe Gamora’s planet is better off today than it was when Thanos invaded, but he had no way of knowing that it is better because he invaded. (Nor that the decline of Titan was because they rejected his “solution.”)
As I read this I saw the time stamp and noticed I was having this discussion with someone in person only at almost the same time you were posting this. You said this all so much better than I did though, so I immediately texted them and shared this. Well said!
I believe you are right. And I believe somebody on the podcast said just about the same thing.
Granted, you said it much better.
Please. Please. Please…keep writing in. Your email was a joy to read. Especially this:
That’s so well put. Thank you, straight.
-xtien
“I should have stayed on the bus.”
I don’t think it’s him adopting the morality of the other heroes, but rather him seeing the one and only timeline in which they won in the end. Assuming there will be any upcoming deaths, you could say Strange chose to sacrifice those lives to ultimately succeed.
I meant that from the movie’s point of view. It’s not that Strange sees himself as switching sides. I’m saying it is striking how the narrative draws a bright line and then even the one hero who seems to see things the way Thanos does moves to the side that the rest of the heroes are on.
I mean that Strange initially thinks it would be right to let Tony die to save the Time Stone because he guesses that the outcome of letting Tony die and keeping the stone will be better than the outcome of saving Tony and letting Thanos get the stone. But that guess is factually wrong. And I think that uncertainty is a big part of the rationale for the difference in moral stances.
And I think Steve Rogers even says something to this effect: That the reason it’s wrong to trade lives is that you are letting someone die when you don’t actually know that letting them die is the only way to win. (Or even that it will lead to winning at all.)
“And if we lose?”
“Then we’ll do that together too.”
That’s why I believe the emotional stakes are still there, even though you know that some of the deaths will be reversed: because the characters are feeling them. Saying “the deaths didn’t mean anything because they’re going to get reversed” would be like saying, “It didn’t mean anything that Obi-Wan died in Star Wars, because I know the actor is still alive.”
In Spider-Man: Homecoming, when Peter is trapped under a building, crying for help, intellectually you know that they’re not going to kill off Spider-Man in the first new Spider-Man movie. But you feel it because he is screaming and crying and sounds like a kid. It’s not emotional because YOU think he’s going to die; it’s emotional because HE thinks he’s going to die.
I think what he means there is “We can’t know we’re going to lose until we do, so we’ll get to that point doing the right thing.”
There’s actually a movie term for a thing that has a great deal of importance to the characters in the movie but very little to the viewers: a Macguffin. So I guess the fate of the dead in the next Avengers movie is probably one of the biggest Macguffins ever pulled off!