Hey! Save it for the Infinity War 4 spoiler thread!
Tony’s motivation for forcing Cap and others to sign the Sokovia Accords or be arrested, freedom taken away, was due to him thinking he’s just so smart that there should be registration, should be government controls in place. He sees a problem and thinks he has the only (bad…) solution that takes away people’s freedom for some perceived greater good.
Thanos thinks the same way, on a much larger and genocidal scale. Balance comes from his ability to be the smartest guy in the room (like Tony) able to see and do the hard thing. For me anyway, that’s what that scene represents. It wasn’t just a boost to Stark’s ego. It was showing him that taking away freedom/lives can be corrupted into exactly what Thanos is planning to do, and they’re both smart enough to see that side of it, the cold calculus that the less intelligent simply can’t abide.
I thought it was a reference to Age of Ultron, where Tony has a vision of the future and sees everyone dead and Thanos taking over the universe. He said something like, “You’re not the only one who has seen the future.”
That may be part of it too. I didn’t recall Thanos saying that.
He said something like, “We both have the curse of intellect,” or something like that, I think? I was distracted by the moon he was pulling into the planet, which was fantastic.
It was at that exact point I also realised that stopping Thanos from getting the final stone was kind of moot - someone who can break moons apart is still going to be able to kill half the universe, just not simultaneously (which seemed to be his pre-stone plan anyway). So really, Thanos just wanted all the stones because he’s lazy…
I think the exact phrase was “cursed with knowledge”, though I didn’t fully understand what Thanos meant. I just assume he meant that from Loki’s failed attack in the first Avengers, word of Stark (and probably the others) had gotten back to him, but he made it sound like maybe there was a deeper meaning I was missing.
But I love that they had also almost beaten him right there! He was—in theory—entirely beatable with five of the stones, it was just Starlord’s rage that screwed things up, they literally had the gauntlet sliding off of his hand.
Edit: And actually, throughout the movie, Thanos and the black order were not unstoppable or even really out of the Avengers’ league. He was stronger than any of them individually, that much is obvious when he handles Thor and the Hulk in the opening, but whenever several of them truly worked as a team, they were more than a match for Thanos and his team.
Just got back from seeing this. Let me get a couple of things out of way: The action was great; the set piece fights were great; the CGI/Effects were great (Titan/Wakanda/New York/Edinburgh) This movie was infused with a sense of dread like no other super hero movie I have seen. Once Thanos started punching Hulk (great callback line by Loki, btw), you realize this is was a different level of threat. Towards the end, the desperation was palatable (M’Baku’s line about the “end of Wakanda”) and the way everyone fought on elevated the heroism on-screen.
The whole movie is infused and replete with great crossover interactions, and for such a dark movie, it had really great comedic moments. It was so tightly packed, and edited really well. I don’t know how they managed to keep all of those story lines in their lanes and understandable but they did.
The ending was so dark, though, mirroring Thanos’ opening dialogue. The ending was the Anti-Rapture and
the imagery had echos of the Holocaust. Even knowing those characters have upcoming movies, it was part of Dr. Strange’s plan, etc., it still was chilling to watch all of those people turn to ash, for the people who cared about them to watch them turn to ash, to know that Thanos’ plan had come to fruition and trillions had died across the galaxy. Peter Parker’s death was particularly hard to watch. Honestly, I forgot about everything outside of the MCU world on the screen watching this and was completely in the moment. The meta didn’t lessen the blow of anything that was occurring.
I am really surprised, even at this stage, by the bloodthirstiness of the audience, though. Lots of people are immediately caterwauling about “how they will roll all of those deaths back”. If I want to see stories where horrible things can’t be undone, I don’t need movies/tv fictions to tell those tales, and I suspect (although I hope not) there will be permadeath in the MCU before the next movie ends.
The major failing of this movie is what you get when you do any non-stand alone part 1/part 2. I don’t care what Marvel calls it, these aren’t standalone at all. It ends on a cliffhanger and its a year until the story is resolved.
Just a note: Ant-Man is in those shots of the Battle of New York, those gloves they are wearing are Pym-tech, and Ant-Man’s is built into his suit. Also, crates labeled B.A.R.F. were seen on set. From the MCU wiki:
The B.A.R.F. relies on an implant installed on a pair of glasses that connects with the user’s hippocampus, allowing it to find a certain traumatic memory and alter it before projecting that memory onto an external infrastructure.
Through the altered projection, the user is able to successfully re-experience and hopefully work through overcoming traumatic experiences.
B.A.R.F. was the thing Stark used to relive his memory of his parents at the MIT presentation in Civil War, right?
“Magic! Magic again! Magic with a kick!”
Yes. They’ve said that was an important scene too, and not because of what Tony was reliving.
Exactly.
That’s not bloodthirst at all, though, that’s just asking the movie makers to honor their word. If death has no consequence, if it can just be rolled back like it never happened, then it doesn’t mean anything. There are no stakes. Saying you want don’t want these characters to be brought back isn’t saying ‘oh good, they’re dead’, it’s saying ‘their death should mean something.’
in part I think he was trying to have others do it for him. Avengers 1 had him trying to use Loki to get it done.
More Avengers 4 guessing here. Partially based now on the info from those leaked production photos being discussed, so spoilerizing that part:
I suggested earlier that the plan in A4 could be to go multiverse-hopping looking for the stones to power another infinity gauntlet to bring back to our universe and fix what Thanos did.
It’s been teased before that Pym particles and Ant-Man are the keys to the multiverse, so it sure seems logical that’s what’s going on. Specific to the scene being discussed in New York, I bet those are our Avengers crashing the Battle of New York in another reality with the intent to take the gem from Loki’s staff when they’re finished.
I know the Dr. Strange stuff in Infinity War could strongly be hinting at time manipulation being the key to fixing things, but I’m still leaning toward alternate universes being the answer, not time travel. I think the time gem was just important in letting Dr. Strange set things on that course.
And that’s at least partially due to my hope that somehow, somewhere, we still get basically a “what-if montage”, glimpses of different realities where they can provide a whole bunch of fan service without actually turning it into multi-year commitments. Like, as much as I love both Bucky as Cap and Falcon as Cap, even if their contracts are a lot longer than Chris Evans’ contract, I sort of can’t imagine either of those two wanting to stick around long enough to do those arcs justice. But if we’ve got realities to hop through, we could just have some quick scenes in a world where Bucky is leading the Avengers, or even—dare I dream—Luke Cage is leading the New Avengers? The multiverse angle lets you throw in the fan service they’ve made clear is impossible otherwise, it’s the only way I think we’ll ever see anyone from the television side of the universe on the big screen. Daisy could be running S.H.I.E.L.D.! Hawkeye could be married to Mockingbird! Time travel doesn’t open up those possibilities the way the multiverse does.
But that’s all still a long shot, I know. Just dreaming out loud.
Also, I don’t think Captain Marvel will be the lynchpin of AV4. I think the stinger in Infinity War was just in the vein of all stingers past, it’s a quick nod to what’s coming next. I expect Captain Marvel will be in AV4, certainly, but I don’t think the whole thing will come down to her involvement.
We saw the first showing on opening night, and everyone was ready to cheer when the Marvel Studios logo came up. Then when it didn’t have that traditional music, the entire theater just went, “Uhhhh…” and stayed silent.
Something I didn’t realize totally when watching but was pointed on a review. Its the “OG Avengers” that are left basically. So is the fix going to be them having to sacrifice themselves some way to get the rest back.
From the very first appearance of Thanos in the comics, Captain Marvel was one of his main opponents. I’d be surprised if she wasn’t a significant part of the next Avengers movie.
I like your thoughts here and they make a lot of sense. Gonna be a long year of waiting!