Change your perspective and think of this as a long 2 part movie. This is not the ending, it is the set up for act two. Now it does suck that the 2nd half doesnt come out for a year but still this is literally not the end of the story.
Yeah, just pretend you hit pause on the dramatic climax of the movie and for some reason waited a year to hit play again.
It’s not a Part 2 in the sense of a cliffhanger ending that picks up immediately where it left off, like a TV show would, or even Lord of the Rings. All the early rumors say Avengers 4 takes place years after Infinity War. The world has been dealing with the loss of half its population for some time.
I predict in the ultimate crossover, Minsc appears in part two, shouting “Go for the eyes, Thor. Go for the eeeeyyyyyeeeesssss!” as Thor hurls Stormbreaker for the head shot.
I mean RotJ undoes most of Empire’s saddest stuff and ESB is still my least favorite of the original trilogy by a wide margin…
Empire ended on a hopeful note. Things are bad for the good guys at the end of the movie, but the last scene is a group shot gazing out of a window at the stars while Lando leaves to find Han. The music is uplifting. Things will get better. There’s hope there.
This movie ends with the villain settling down and smiling at a hard-won victory while some heroes literally turn to dust, as the remainders grieve while lost in misery and confusion. There’s nothing really hopeful for the audience there except the meta-knowledge that the Marvel franchise will continue.
That’s a big difference.
I mean, I get you, and Empire isn’t the best example of this (Logan is), but yeah.
So, to delve more deeply:
Genuinely not knowing that this was going to cliff-hang, I kept expecting the heroes to pull something out of their ass the whole movie. Mind, the gut-punches early on with Loki, Heimdall, the rest of the goddamned Asgardians who barely scraped by a salvation at the end of T:R (the only part of that movie I don’t love, actually, is just how few Asgardians survive), Gamora, and even Vision probably should have clued me in ;-)
I mean, in essence, I don’t really get any joy out of watching the triumph of evil and the failure of good, cuz I live that every day IRL, and waiting a year to see what Deus Ex Machina will bring back everyone who Disney elected to contract out beyond 2019 just isn’t what I consider fun.
Which is unfortunate, because there were lots of parts of this movie I did enjoy–even some of the emotional parts! Watching Thor’s bravado crumble as he really grappled with all he’d lost in his chat with Rocket was really moving, in part because I felt the pain of those losses so keenly (except his mom, because Thor 2 is ass and everything in it doesn’t matter at all).
Posted the new trailer in the Ant-Man and Wasp thread, it doesn’t mention Infinity War at all. No mention if it’s before, after, or during. So the response to the teaser posted yesterday about where was Ant-Man? They’re still not saying. Which I guess makes sense.
@ArmandoPenblade Your post reminds me that people simply know too much about too many things these days. When Empire came out, we had no idea who was contracted to make Return of the Jedi. While we hoped for Han’s return, we absolutely did not know that he would be back or if so, how. We had no comic books to look to and no previous history with the actors that would tell us anything. We definitely didn’t know how much money they required to be there or that Chris Evans just wants to be a director and is tired of this acting thing, etc.
Take the movie for what it was instead of how it fits in the grand scheme of people’s film contracts. IMO, this is a brilliant bit of filmmaking because the villain is the star and he’s way more complex than just a guy who wants to kill people and take over the world. He doesn’t even want power for himself. He wants it to bring peace and prosperity to the universe the way he envisions it being possible. He told you in the film that it works! He’s seen the results! When he wins, he just enjoys a sunrise. His victory doesn’t mean subjugation, only peace.
That’s very unsettling, and it gives viewers something to grapple with that humanity will grapple with one day too. There’s only so many resources to go around. Can you techno your way out of that box? If you can’t, what’s the answer? Thanos is answering the question one way and he succeeds. I’m kind of excited to see how they explore that in the next film if it really is five years in the future.
Sometimes the bad guys win. We all know the world we live in right now. It sucks, but it inspires people to stand up and find a different solution.
I wonder if A4 will specifically address the decisions made about trading lives.
Cap is very vocal about it, insisting that they not sacrifice Vision to destroy the mind stone. But all four stones that the heroes have anything to do with end up involving this moral dilemma.
Gamora eventually gives up the location of the Soul Stone to save Nebula (and StarLord couldn’t kill her earlier on his own to prevent that from happening either).
Dr. Strange eventually gives up the time stone to save Stark.
Loki gives up the space stone to save Thor.
On the surface, it certainly looks like sacrificing a life would’ve been the right call in every one of those situations. Of course without perfect knowledge of the future, none of that is certain (and Dr. Strange might know what he’s doing), but I wonder if this will be further explored, or if what we saw in Infinity War is about as deep as they’ll go on that.
I think they’ll continue to explore it. I didn’t even think about those parallels between trading lives for the stones that you posted just now until you said it out loud. I’m sure that they’re well aware of what they’re planting seeds on with all that. I mean, one thing I’ve loved about all the Marvel films is that there is often these sorts of things under the surface of “summer action blockbuster” that blinds a lot of people to the deeper stuff.
All of that just makes this movie the villain’s arc even more than I originally considered. This interview I dug up talks about a lot of this stuff… I know I’ve read the Russos talking about how this is a Thanos movie. It was in more than this interview, but this is a good one…
https://www.telegraphindia.com/entertainment/avengers-the-makers-story-222110
Is the movie really a Thanos movie?
JR: Without question. We always try to bring in topical themes into these films because they function on such a wide scale that we really want the audience to feel a sense of immediacy in their own lives about what they’re watching. Every villain is a hero in his own story and believes that what they’re doing is right. They’re just in conflict with the rest of the world. Thanos happens to believe that what he is doing is right, and he behaves nobly towards that goal. But he will not stop until he achieves the goal because he believes that there is weakness that stands between him and the completion of the goal.
We thought it was fascinating to tell a story from the point of view of a villain. So when you watch the film, you’ll see that the film is told from Thanos’ perspective. That offers a unique insight into our heroes, but it also offers a unique insight into villains and how they think.
AR: It was a very organic choice in this film because we’re dealing with several different groups of characters, some of which have no knowledge of the existence of the other. Thanos is the one thing that unifies them all in this movie. So, orientating our story and telling it from his point of view had a lot of practicality to it as well.
Correction: Quill struggles with the choice to kill Gamorra. It’s really really hard. But he does make that choice. Thanos just doesn’t let it happen.
Would be nice if we could keep rumours and set fotos of Part 4 out of this thread… There are some people who still appreciate going into the next movie without any infos about its content.
Great call on that.
Here’s another really good article on what the Russos were up to with this film. I especially like the part quoted for you film buffs…
According to the Russos, Winter Soldier was partially inspired by Alan Pakula’s 1974 political thriller The Parallax View and Captain America: Civil War by David Fincher’s Se7en. Their North Stars for Infinity War were John Herzfeld’s 1994 ensemble drama 2 Days in the Valley and Steven Soderbergh’s 1998 American crime comedy Out of Sight.
I’m confused. I thought this was based on the comics - so how it turns out should be largely known, yet no one is divulging this. Are comic book readers just being respectful & not spoiling the 2nd movie or does no one really know how this is going to end?
I disagree, Thanos had to taunt him into it. Absent that, I don’t think he would’ve done it.
As noted in one of those articles I posted, they use the comics as a guide but they’re telling their own story. One of the Russos says they’re deeply indebted to Jim Starlin for all that he created and the stories he told, but the MCU is not the Comics Universe so how things ultimately turn out is really not known.
I’m a reader, and while it’s been a long time since I read these comics, I know for sure that these films subvert them in some ways while staying true in others. They definitely keep the characters in character from the books for the most part (which is why Thanos is so damn well-formed as a villain) but the events that unfold are driven by the film writers.
Not to mention that the outcome has as much to do with the actors and their contracts as it does the original comic book story.
ah, thanks for the explanation. I didn’t realize. Ok, makes sense now.
I think this is part of it, but there are ways to wiggle out of those things or pay the right price to make it happen. The Red Skull is a perfect case in point. I mean, when you’re making this much money from just the theatrical releases, there is a lot of money that you have to spend making the film in the first place.
You really have to give Feige and the people at the top at Disney a lot of credit. Not only are they paying a lot of money to get these films made, they’re picking the right people to make them almost 100% of the time. Even the films people don’t like as much have been competently made movies with decent character arcs that have built up these characters and gotten us to today.