This is obviously the correct interpretation and the only one supported by the movie. “It was the only way”
Strange’s actions have zero to do with the morality of other characters and nothing he does, or thinks, is similar to Thanos’s actions or motivations.
It’s also called out in the movie (I forget by which character) that Cap’s “we don’t trade lives” stance is bullshit- he’s absolutely fine with trading one life for others, as long as that life is his.
No, that’s not what a Macguffin is. A Macguffin is a plot device that motivates the story, while itself being pretty much unseen or unexplained. If a character is worried about his own death while the audience is not, that doesn’t make that death a Macguffin. And in this case, the character deaths are a known quantity that is driven directly by the plot.
Something else that was brought up on the podcast: the question of whether current pop-culture references would make the movie less relatable in the future. Well here are two references from a couple of 1975 Marvel comics. I’ll leave it up to the reader to decide if the references still work.
Except that he didn’t. He didn’t kill himself. He risked his life to scuttle the bomber…and survived.
I think that’s a stretch. He absolutely thought he was going to die in that sequence. He did it anyway.
He surely also didn’t expect to survive when he jumped onto that grenade earlier in the movie - prior his treatment with the serum. After all, it was what got him into the program.
“Here, you see, the MacGuffin has been boiled down to its purest expression: nothing at all!”
I wouldn’t say Cap’s insistence that we don’t trade lives is bullshit, just that it’s not fully articulated because yes, obviously he’s willing to sacrifice himself. That he survives (both the grenade being a fake and miraculously the crash of the plane) isn’t the justification for his stance, what his position is lacking is the clarification that it must be someone choosing to sacrifice themself, and that it must be a last resort.
Vision was willing to sacrifice himself, but Cap was arguing that shouldn’t be Plan A.
There’s still room to disagree with Cap’s view on this—determining when, exactly, is the moment to go to the last resort option will always be a subjective thing so it’s still a sort of mushy, imprecise approach, not a simple black and white moral decision—but I don’t think he’s calling for anything inconsistent with his own actions. He’s just not very good at explaining his way of looking at it.
In Avengers 2 Tony ask Cap how they’re going to stand against Thanos, and Cap says “Together.” But the Avengers are never together in this movie. They had a chance, if Tony just made the call in the beginning instead of hesitating.
Thanos is beatable in the beginning. He had the Power stone and was able to use that to beat down Hulk, but Hulk clearly joined the fight late and I presume Thanos with his minions were too much for Thor alone. We see later that Cap and Widow are on par with the Children of Thanos. If the Avengers were together, they could have won that fight.
Tony and Quill almost win on Titan, but they lack leadership and Quill’s emotions get the better of them. Maybe if Cap had been there, he could have kept Quill in check, or even realized Quill could be a liability once he saw Gamora wasn’t with Thanos. That fight was winnable too, if the Avengers had been together.
And once again in Wakanda, the Avengers almost win. Thor just misses with his kill shot. If they Avengers had been together, that fight was winnable, because Hawkeye doesn’t miss.
Thanos was beatable on Titan (as far as I’m concerned) if Strange had just used a portal to cut off Thanos’ gloved hand or head.
Good points. I do think it’s very much in line with Cap’s character for his unspoken philosophy to be Nobody Should Have To Sacrifice Themselves (Except Me).
My main issue with the “We don’t trade lives” tag is that they then immediately march to Wakanda and effectively ask hundreds/thousands of Wakandans to trade their lives to give Shuri the time she needs to potentially remove the Mind Stone from Vision without killing him so that Wanda can destroy it without killing vision.
AKA, let’s sacrifice all these people to the “space dogs” so that we have a 50/50 shot of saving Vision! (that fails anyway!)
Like. . . I dunno. That seems a lot like trading lives to me. . .
That’s a larger philosophical issue though, not something I’d attribute to the writing in this film being good or bad. There is a difference between asking someone to give up their life and asking for someone to risk their life (in fighting to defend a life). Whether that difference is meaningful or not or how those match up in light of the results isn’t what this story is exploring; that’s more of a question on the nature of war.
Pretty sure that no one knew they’d be facing space dogs at that point either. They were working to save the Earth. They were trying to save humanity and half the universe. Sure, one life for many is acceptable, but you still fight to save that life if you can.
Coulson deals with this on SHIELD weekly for example, trying to keep his team alive.
The space dogs thing is part and parcel of the PG-13-ization of modern movies. I was complaining about this on another podcast, I can’t remember which one, where the Big Bad just had a bunch of creatures who looked like they were made of carbonite or coal or something and they can be dispatched with impunity without affecting the rating.
At my kid’s soccer game yesterday I was called over to talk about Halo with one of the moms. She was unfamiliar with it, but her kid wants to be able to play it with my kid. So I kind of walked her through the difference between sci-fi violence and Call of Duty violence and it made me think of this.
I honestly think this is more about letting the heroes do bloody mayhem on cartoon creatures instead of humans, just for ratings purposes.
Which is why, I think, Black Panther is a superior movie, even though I loved this.
-xtien
“Get this man a shield.”
Yeah, I hear you. I think this all started with The Lord of the Rings and Helm’s Deep. That sort of spectacle hadn’t really been seen before. The key to any of these fights is putting the heroes in actual peril while also building in great set pieces. I’ve only seen the movie once, but I’m fine with Space Dogs if they make the conflict itself entertaining and different from what’s been done before. This was pretty good.
I think I’ve also had enough Call of Duty violence in my lifetime so Space Dogs are fine with me.
It was interesting to me that the people asking about this were moms. And when I explained how Halo works, with sci-fi violence against weird space creatures, but also with some PvP stuff going on, they were nodding. But the moment I said, “But I’m not into Kiernan playing Call of Duty.” They were all like, “Oh no. No way!”
There is a clear line of demarcation for them that even people who don’t play games get.
It’s weird. It’s fine to show my kid Edge of Tomorrow because most of the violence is visited upon wacky space tendril creatures. But Saving Private Ryan? Forget it.
-xtien
[Addendum: We screened a movie at my kid’s mom’s university called Screenagers recently. It’s a documentary by a psychologist about how kids use screens and screen time. There was one segment in particular that was disturbing, about violent games. The mom was all, “Absolutely not.” For her son. The dad was all, “Fine with me.” So the kid got to play them. Such a weird dynamic.]
It’s that whole killing monsters thing. Bub was always a fan of this book during the GamerDad years IIRC.
When you take that into killing real people, and especially the horrible ways they kill real people in a CoD game or Saving Private Ryan, you’re not really talking monsters anymore. You’re talking about something else, something more adult.
Many people who don’t have children do not understand this IMO. People who do have children totally understand this.
Don’t see what’s so weird about it, Doom is fine to play, but the same moves on realistic human characters, and I wouldn’t feel cool with it.
