Infinity War Spoiler Thread

[Tom Sawyer]

This thread contains spoilers for Infinity War. If you don't want to see spoilers for Infinity War, it was kind of dumb of you to click on a thread which says it has them.

First off - DAMN!!!!! - I enjoyed this movie. I've been waiting for it ever since the mid credit scene of the first Avengers when I and the rest of the theatre yelled out "Holy shit, that wasn't a cosmic cube, it was the goddamned Space Gem! They're doing the frigging Infinity Gauntlet!!!!! YAY!!!!!!!". It was worth the wait.

First off, the ending was great. I can't recall a decent "bad guy wins" finish to a movie since Empire and they nailed this. Thanos just slapping down everyone coming at him like the insignificant bugs they are and then when Scarlet Witch wins at the last moment and denies him ultimate power by destroying the Mind Gem even though it means killing the man she loves, he just shrugs it off, reverses time and rips it out of Vision's skull, rendering all of her effort completely pointless. Then *snap*, half the population of the universe dies and everyone stands around stunned as the people around them just turn to dust and Thanos wanders off to sit down and watch the sunset, his mission complete. It was very emotional and impactful and the entire audience just sat there in stunned silence until the end credit scene. Strong kudos need to go out to the Marvel Studios marketing teams for this. When they originally announced that Infinity War would be a two-parter, I assumed that Part One would end right here and Part Two would deal with the aftermath. Then they said that they were scrapping that idea and Infinity War would just be one movie and they'd do something else for Avengers 4. Thinking that they'd actually dumped the two-parter plan and would resolve it all in this one made this ending unexpected and it wouldn't have had nearly the impact it would have if it had been assumed that this is where we'd end up before starting the next episode.

Now, that being said, all the deaths were emotional and impactful ... until Black Panther died. That just had me think "Hey, wait a minute. They've already announced his sequel. Ya ... Spider-Man and Doctor Strange also have sequels announced". It took me out of the scene and forced me to realize that all of these deaths are completely meaningless and everybody is coming back to life. I was wowed by the fact that they made the decision to completely scrap the ending of Ragnarok and kill off all the Asgardians they'd gone through all the trouble to save along with murdering the best villain the MCU has - but wait, no they didn't. I was shocked that the Starlord-Gamora storyline was abruptly ended outside of the Guardians movies - but wait, no it wasn't. I get that they wanted to have all the new people gone, so you're left with the original Avengers team to save the day and wrap up the plot and then have the franchise move forward from there, but it did undercut what they were going for by having all these guys die.

Thanos was great and Brolin did an excellent job with him. It took the whole superhero trope of "I'm the only one who can do the things which need to be done in order to save the day" and dialed it up to eleven to make it the bad guy's motivation as well. in a franchise with a lot of disposal gray villains, they made the henchmen the disposable gray villains and gave the main guy a lot of depth and character. The Soul Gem scene where you realized that he loves Gamora and needs to sacrifice her for the sake of the universe as a whole really made me feel bad for the guy and the heartache he had to go through for the greater good. I had to remind myself that he's actually a genocidal murderer who'd just tossed his daughter off a cliff and my sympathy wasn't warranted. I cannot imagine how they could have done Thanos better than this.

It was nice to see them actually use the Reality Gem to do ... something. It was a couple of years after The Dark World when they announced that it had been the Reality Gem in that movie and I was like "Really ... how do you figure that?". It was always the coolest Infinity Gem in the comics and I liked that they finally used it to do some reality warping stuff instead of just shooting off some red tentacles or whatever. Thanos did follow Ronan's example, though, and used the Power Gem's "knock them back ten feet" move as opposed to its more effective "blow up the planet they're on" move, which would have been a bit more effective at times. It would have also been nice to see him use the Soul Gem for anything at all after going through all that trouble to get it.

The fight scenes were great and the character interactions were fun, especially Thor and Starlord. The plotline was pretty choppy with their jumping back and forth between all the different groups, but they made it work. I liked it a lot.

What did the rest of you think?

 

[marc]

Absolutely loved it! Might go again next weekend.

With about 30 main and secondary characters on the heroes side, it is surprising that most of them got a decent amount of screen time, and Thanos given enough time to have actual depth to him. Interesting that Thanos was sacrificing his daughter to accomplish his goals, while Cap and Vision were debating about not sacrificing yourself to possibly save the world.

Seems like there is a lot of agreement that possibly the best 'stand up and cheer' moment was Thor's arrival on Earth.

- - - Updated - - -

 

[Tom Sawyer]

Seems like there is a lot of agreement that possibly the best 'stand up and cheer' moment was Thor's arrival on Earth.

Ya, that was cool. One of my biggest issues with Thor is that they showed him at the beginning of his first movie using the "blow up the army with one shot" move, but then in the Avengers movies, he just ran around hitting individual people in the head with his hammer. Now in this one, he just portals in and blows up everybody with his first move. It was brilliant.

 

[Playball40]

Loved it loved it loved it. I'm not a comic reader so I have nothing to compare the movie to, but the last lines of the characters that vanished were epic. Right down to "MOTHER FUC............"

Thanos's rationale reminded me of a bit of Valentine's from the Kingsmen, but on a larger scale. However, Thanos seemed more egalitarian in his approach. It would have been an interesting twist if Thanos had actually disappeared.

And although I cried at Spiderman's final words - he stole them right from the 10th Doctor. But hey, I cried when the Doctor said them too........ I'm a wuss.

 

[Playball40]

 

[prideandfall]

I cannot imagine how they could have done Thanos better than this.

IMO... i think they could have done it a bit better.
this is a nerd quibble and for the sake of conversation, i'm not detracting from the movie or the film's representation which was great, but i was a little bit bothered by it.

okay so: in the comics thanos grows up as a pacifist, but slowly becomes obsessed with nihilism and death, which eventually leads him to become infatuated with Mistress Death, the literal grim reaper of the marvel comics universe.
he gets all creepy stalker on her for a while (in an 80s rom-com kind of way, constantly murdering people and hatching plots to blow up suns and shit to impress her) and finally to shut him up and get him to go away she gives him an impossible task, telling him that there are currently more beings alive in the universe than have ever died and it's throwing off the balance of life and death.
so he swears to extinguish half the life in the universe for her, to win her affection and such, and that's why he does the whole infinity gauntlet thing.

anyways, in the film, i felt that the way they presented thanos and his motivations was good, it just... lacked a bit of something, an essential element of his backstory to give his desire to do this more oomph.
i was thinking that for me personally a great change would have been during his monologue about the fall of his homeworld, change it to war (instead of resource depletion) and a thing about how millions died, and then he saw Her there... and he doesn't know why he could see her and nobody else could, but he tried to reach her and maybe plead with her to stop all this needless death, and she goes "needless? there is more life in the universe than death, there is imbalance" or something like that.
so, leave the rest of the movie as-is, just make it so he's out to extinguish half the life in the universe peacefully, just a snap and they're all gone, instead of them being subject to war and starvation and such as the universe continues to be unbalanced.

i just personally think that would have put a little more A to B to C logic to why he's so fanatical about what he's doing, and also give an explanation as to why his solution is to remove life instead of say creating infinite resources for everyone.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

I cannot imagine how they could have done Thanos better than this.

IMO... i think they could have done it a bit better.
this is a nerd quibble and for the sake of conversation, i'm not detracting from the movie or the film's representation which was great, but i was a little bit bothered by it.

okay so: in the comics thanos grows up as a pacifist, but slowly becomes obsessed with nihilism and death, which eventually leads him to become infatuated with Mistress Death, the literal grim reaper of the marvel comics universe.
he gets all creepy stalker on her for a while (in an 80s rom-com kind of way, constantly murdering people and hatching plots to blow up suns and shit to impress her) and finally to shut him up and get him to go away she gives him an impossible task, telling him that there are currently more beings alive in the universe than have ever died and it's throwing off the balance of life and death.
so he swears to extinguish has the life in the universe for her, to win her affection and such, and that's why he does the whole infinity gauntlet thing.

anyways, in the film, i felt that the way they presented thanos and his motivations was good, it just... lacked a bit of something, an essential element of his backstory to give his desire to do this more oomph.
i was thinking that for me personally a great change would have been during his monologue about the fall of his homeworld, change it to war (instead of resource depletion) and a thing about how millions died, and then he saw Her there... and he doesn't know why he could see her and nobody else could, but he tried to reach her and maybe plead with her to stop all this needless death, and she goes "needless? there is more life in the universe than death, there is imbalance" or something like that.
so, leave the rest of the movie as-is, just make it so he's out to extinguish half the life in the universe peacefully, just a snap and they're all gone, instead of them being subject to war and starvation and such as the universe continues to be unbalanced.

i just personally think that would have put a little more A to B to C logic to why he's so fanatical about what he's doing, and also give an explanation as to why his solution is to remove life instead of say creating infinite resources for everyone.

I imagine that they toyed around with the whole Mistress Death angle for him and I always figured that the reason they had Hela in Ragnarok was to set her up for the role. It may have been too hard to overcome the creepy stalker thing, though, and they wrote her out of the script. Also, the whole Gamora scene where she's laughing at him because his quest for the Stones fails because there's nobody whom he loves would be undercut if his entire motivation was due to loving someone.

You're right, however, that he could have benefited from a bit more fleshing out of his backstory and motivations beyond his giving a monologue.

 

[prideandfall]

You're right, however, that he could have benefited from a bit more fleshing out of his backstory and motivations beyond his giving a monologue.

i don't know that it's even fleshing out his backstory so much as filling in an obvious hole in the overall logic.
this is getting into super nit-pick territory here because this is really only to fix an issue that is only a problem from an audience perspective and not actually an in-the-narrative problem, but fuck it that's what this thread is for.

it has been pointed out by several others already so it's not like i'm having an original idea here, but... if all 6 stones give you ultimate cosmic power, and if his motivation is to cull life so that there is no longer resource deprivation, why not just create more resources instead? then nobody would oppose you in the first place.
the whole "i have seen a world where the population outgrew the resources and the fallout from that and i'm trying to be the savior of the universe to spare everyone that" thing sounds good in a vacuum, i just wish there had either been something shown that gives a reason why in his mind that's the only viable option and/or the correct option opposed to other options, OR had tweaked his motivation to remove alternatives as being available within his goal.

the specific changes they made to his backstory and motivation kind of directly undercut his actions, though as i said in my first line that's only really the case from the audience perspective, because we want a more fully fleshed out character with logically consistent motivations and actions, whereas in reality sometimes people are just messy and stupid and narrow-minded and getting a source of ultimate power is only a weapon if wielded by someone who only thinks of it as a weapon, instead of thinking of it as an instrument of creation.

 

[Underseer]

There's more potholes than that.

Most of the governments in the rest of the Marvel universe are not democracies. Why not just tell them to reduce their populations by half or he will do it for them? Those monarchies and dictatorships would have no problem bowing to his threat if the option is people dying at random.

But that is nit-picking. Thanos isn't entirely rational, so the plot holes fit.

 

[prideandfall]

There's more potholes than that.

Most of the governments in the rest of the Marvel universe are not democracies. Why not just tell them to reduce their populations by half or he will do it for them? Those monarchies and dictatorships would have no problem bowing to his threat if the option is people dying at random.

But that is nit-picking. Thanos isn't entirely rational, so the plot holes fit.

well his whole thing is extinguishing half of all sentient life in the universe... i doubt you bother going to the trouble of becoming an omnimax entity in order to enter into negotiations with a quadrillion governments for the voluntary killing of half their population.

 

[Underseer]

There's more potholes than that.

Most of the governments in the rest of the Marvel universe are not democracies. Why not just tell them to reduce their populations by half or he will do it for them? Those monarchies and dictatorships would have no problem bowing to his threat if the option is people dying at random.

But that is nit-picking. Thanos isn't entirely rational, so the plot holes fit.

well his whole thing is extinguishing half of all sentient life in the universe... i doubt you bother going to the trouble of becoming an omnimax entity in order to enter into negotiations with a quadrillion governments for the voluntary killing of half their population.

If he just kills half of all life, then the change he caused only lasts until everyone fucks their way back to previous population levels. Negotiate with the governments and they will keep the population at a specified level until the government is replaced or they stop being afraid of you.

Besides, if he can snap his fingers and kill half the universe, then he can snap his fingers and issue a threat to all governments.

 

[Underseer]

Also, killing half of everyone will increase the relative political, economic, and military power of races with faster reproduction rates.

Wouldn't that destabilize interstellar politics universe-wide?

 

[prideandfall]

this is why the comic book motivation makes more sense... or rather, maybe not makes more sense but has less obvious gaps in the logic.

in the comics he loves the physical manifestation of the abstract concept of death - a literal grim reaper (with boobs, somehow) that is hanging out in the universe, and he kills half of all sentient life in the universe as a present to her.
i wish they had come up with some way to incorporate that into the movie, because that is at least insane... and you can be smart and insane, they don't contradict each other.
his backstory and motivation in the movie is more logically inconsistent, IF you don't assume things not present in the narrative (fan theory) to cover up those holes.

 

[Underseer]

this is why the comic book motivation makes more sense... or rather, maybe not makes more sense but has less obvious gaps in the logic.

in the comics he loves the physical manifestation of the abstract concept of death - a literal grim reaper (with boobs, somehow) that is hanging out in the universe, and he kills half of all sentient life in the universe as a present to her.
i wish they had come up with some way to incorporate that into the movie, because that is at least insane... and you can be smart and insane, they don't contradict each other.
his backstory and motivation in the movie is more logically inconsistent, IF you don't assume things not present in the narrative (fan theory) to cover up those holes.

As I said before, I'm OK with the plot holes. Thanos isn't entirely rational. In fact the comic book version is much crazier.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

I liked that they didn't go with the Lady Death angle. The decision to take the whole "lone hero making the tough choices for the greater good" thing to a dark extreme was a much better choice, especially in light of the big speech in Civil War about how if you think you're right, you stand your ground even if the whole world tells you you're wrong. The heroicness of that is entirely dependent on what it is that you're standing your ground for and using that as a motivation holds it up as a mirror to all the heroes who've used the same reasoning in other movies for their own tough stands. The reason he didn't go the route of providing infinite resources to the universe instead is because he's evil. He may view himself as the Randian ideal of a hero (or whomever the equivalent of Ayn Rand was on Titan - I believe her name was Fjorshleight), but he's actually just a genocidal maniac. His choice to use his power to kill a countless number of people instead of helping those people isn't a flaw in his plan, it's a flaw in his personality.

On another note, when Thor beamed in at the end and started god-smashing the alien army, did they play Zeppelin? When I'm remembering the scene in my head, the Immigrant Song is on in the background but I can't recall if they actually used that in the movie or if I'm just adding it in myself because I'm remembering the fight scenes from Ragnarok.

 

[prideandfall]

I liked that they didn't go with the Lady Death angle. The decision to take the whole "lone hero making the tough choices for the greater good" thing to a dark extreme was a much better choice, especially in light of the big speech in Civil War about how if you think you're right, you stand your ground even if the whole world tells you you're wrong. The heroicness of that is entirely dependent on what it is that you're standing your ground for and using that as a motivation holds it up as a mirror to all the heroes who've used the same reasoning in other movies for their own tough stands. The reason he didn't go the route of providing infinite resources to the universe instead is because he's evil. He may view himself as the Randian ideal of a hero (or whomever the equivalent of Ayn Rand was on Titan - I believe her name was Fjorshleight), but he's actually just a genocidal maniac. His choice to use his power to kill a countless number of people instead of helping those people isn't a flaw in his plan, it's a flaw in his personality.

absolutely, and that's what i meant the post before last about assuming things not present in the narrative.
it's very easy to come up with a big host of reasons why movie-thanos makes sense, it's just that none of those are in the movie.

to reiterate that isn't a big deal, i loved the crap out of infinity war, it's just the one thing from the film i think has some meat for critical discussion.

 

[Underseer]

I liked that they didn't go with the Lady Death angle. The decision to take the whole "lone hero making the tough choices for the greater good" thing to a dark extreme was a much better choice, especially in light of the big speech in Civil War about how if you think you're right, you stand your ground even if the whole world tells you you're wrong. The heroicness of that is entirely dependent on what it is that you're standing your ground for and using that as a motivation holds it up as a mirror to all the heroes who've used the same reasoning in other movies for their own tough stands. The reason he didn't go the route of providing infinite resources to the universe instead is because he's evil. He may view himself as the Randian ideal of a hero (or whomever the equivalent of Ayn Rand was on Titan - I believe her name was Fjorshleight), but he's actually just a genocidal maniac. His choice to use his power to kill a countless number of people instead of helping those people isn't a flaw in his plan, it's a flaw in his personality.

absolutely, and that's what i meant the post before last about assuming things not present in the narrative.
it's very easy to come up with a big host of reasons why movie-thanos makes sense, it's just that none of those are in the movie.

to reiterate that isn't a big deal, i loved the crap out of infinity war, it's just the one thing from the film i think has some meat for critical discussion.

Well, if we're talking about movies based on Marvel comics, the biggest disappointment adaptation-wise was FOX's adaptation of God Loves, Man Kills because they completely removed the central theme (religion is often used to justify racism) and instead made it about "government dun somethin' bad!" like half of all American action movies. The original comic book was brave for pointing out the role religion can play in horrible things like the Holocaust, or American slavery, or centuries of American racism, etc.

The second worst adaptation is FOX's version of the Dark Phoenix saga. X3 was an objectively worse movie than X2, but at least they didn't completely remove the theme and thus undermine the very point of telling the story in the first place.

 

[Underseer]

The Puppetmaster isn't a programmer, he's a program!

Wait. I just spoiled the wrong movie entirely, didn't I?

 

[Ford]

Just got back from seeing it. I've never read any of the comics so I'm an "outsider," but I do have a soft spot in my heart for movies where everyone dies at the end. It's why I thought Terminator 3 wasn't so bad, and part of the reason I liked Rogue One.

That said, even as an outsider I know a lot of these "deaths" aren't permanent. In fact I'd hazard a guess that everyone killed by Thanos activating his super wrist watch 'o death is going to come back. Loki? Gamora? Vision? Not so much.

I'll give the studio credit for the whisper marketing campaign. "An Avenger is going to die...which one?" was a great idea, and as I watched the movie I worked out scenarios for some. I figured Natasha would lose her battle with...um...that one Thanos assistant lady...and that would lead to Bruce finally being able to "Hulk out," but nope. Or they'd finally kill Hawkeye but he wasn't even in the movie. Point is, it kept you guessing.

Exception being Gamora...I mean, who didn't see that coming? Not just the whole "Thanos really loves her" part, but also the "Quill is going to lose his shit" part.

I also liked how they had Peter Parker hold on for a long time against the turning into leaves thing. Like his spidey-powers were special, enabling him to live - if only for a few seconds - longer than anyone else on the losing side.


And let's talk about Dr. Strange's last words...

 

[Tom Sawyer]

That said, even as an outsider I know a lot of these "deaths" aren't permanent. In fact I'd hazard a guess that everyone killed by Thanos activating his super wrist watch 'o death is going to come back. Loki? Gamora? Vision? Not so much.

I don't know about that. The director has already said that Gamora is going to be the focus of Guardians 3 and after all the complaints of their movies focusing on white males, I can't see them having one of their first black female major characters (Valkyrie) dying offscreen and never being mentioned again, so I'm guessing the Asgardians get reset to where they were at the end of Ragnarok. Also, with all the stuff about Vision's brain being linked to the Mind Stone, I imagine he's going to be playing the Adam Warlock role in the next one and grabbing the Infinity Gauntlet from within.

The deaths not being permanent doesn't make them less impactful within the context of the film itself, but everyone is coming back.