Infinity War Spoiler Chat
Watched Infinity War last night, and LOVED it!!! Easily the best movie I have ever seen. Red Skull alive made me super happy, because I've been claiming he was alive for years.
#CloneHelmets4Life...VICTORY!!!! 
"I don't like sand. It's coarse and rough and irritating and it gets everywhere." The more you tighten your grip, CG/EA, the more whales will slip through your fingers (and go F2P or quit).
"I don't like sand. It's coarse and rough and irritating and it gets everywhere." The more you tighten your grip, CG/EA, the more whales will slip through your fingers (and go F2P or quit).2
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What movie were you watching? I was very impressed how they were able to connect everyone, AND grow/develop most of the Avengers/Guardians.
It's a 2 part movie, how would you have ended it?
Is it impressive that the movie wasn’t a total cluster****? Yes. Despite all the b-plots and characters, I knew why most things were happening and was never confused. So the movie deserves credit for that.
The problem for me was that because there were so many characters and b-plots, it didn’t feel like anything had really happened. It took 2.5 hours for thor to get a new hammer. It took 2.5 hours for Iron Man and co to fight a guy in a park, fight a guy in a spaceship, then fight a guy on Titan. It took 2.5 hours for Cap and co to fight a guy in Scotland, then fight more guys in Wakanda. None of these were particularly poor threads (well, the vision/witch romance was pretty contrived), but none of them were given the necessary time to fulfill any sort of narrative arc.
And before you say, "with so many characters, it's impossible to have good pacing and a traditional three act structure!" I'd like to point out some simple changes that could have been made to diminish that effect, and they all have to do with Thanos. Clearly, the intention was for Thanos to be the main character; he has the most screentime and he has the closest thing to an "arc". But for most of the movie, we don't really understand him.
For most villains, you want to slowly reveal their layers throughout the film, but for protagonists/main characters, their motivations and mindset has to be clear from the beginning. In IW, Thanos was treated too much like a villain, and not enough like a main character. If the flashback with Gamora had been moved to the very beginning of the film and had better portrayed how Thanos' actions had "saved" the planet, the audience would better understand Thanos' motivations and arc. If this minor change was made in addition to making Thanos more emotive, he could have not only been one of the best superhero characters ever, but more importantly, given the film a solid structure.
Now, about Avengers 4, or IW Part 2, or whatever tf it's going to be called: it is not the second half of the story. It is the story. All Infinity War was is set up, not Part 1. It's the inciting incident, it's a prologue. All that matters is that Thanos got the infinity stones and wiped out most of the characters. That's literally all that matters about Infinity War. Do you think it's a coincidence that the only people left are the blue chick and the original avengers? no, because Marvel knows that you can't make a "movie" with 60 characters. You can only make an "event" or something that exists to service other content.
That wall of text can be rebutted with this
It isn't Part 1. It's Part 19. This should not be looked at as a stand alone film , much the same way that a season finale episode of a television series requires context and is usually the payoff of content that preceded it. It harkens back to serialized films that also influenced Star Wars.
Amazing how almost all of that is shortsighted.
It didn’t take 2.5 hours to do any single one thing. It took 2.5 hours to do all of those things. Yes, it is harder to become emotionally attached to characters in this movie. I’m sure you’ve seen all of the marvel films? That way you know the characters and what they represent and how they connect. This movie was a continuation of relationships set up in other movies. That is one of its flaws.
It is not just setup. All but one of the heroes tried to win the fight this go around and that one wizard wanted to win up until about the 3/4 mark of the movie. Moreover, thanos, according to the motivations set up in this movie, seems content to be done now. This chapter of his life just might be over. It probably isn’t, but we’ll just have to wait and see.
Nothing there that doesn't have merit. I haven't seen it yet, but I already have an issue:
I think you missed my point. You're responding to people who wanted more time spent establishing characters who have existed for a decade. My criticism is for IW's lack of narrative structure and unsatisfying nature. You said it's the season finale, but I consider it to be more like a season premiere. A season finale takes all of the established story threads and concludes them. Infinity War doesn't wrap anything up. It does the opposite. Like a season premiere, it presents the protagonists with a new set of circumstances, establishes a conflict, and therefore creates a narrative thrust without resolving it. The premiere isn't responsible for fulfilling the audience's desire to see more, it simply has to establish a scenario.
Now, this works for a TV show because you don't have to wait too long to see the next step in the story, and the episodes usually aren't advertised as complete stories, but for a 2.5 hour feature film that I spent $10 to see, this is not satisfying. And no, you can't compare IW to any other film with cliffhangers or sequels, because cliffhangers are tagged on to the end of a complete story after the narrative arc has been fulfilled. Same with movies with sequels. Because of all this, I hesitate to even call Infinity War a "movie". As I stated earlier, it's an "event" that only serves to set up additional content.
All this being said, if you look at Infinity War for what it is (an inciting incident or prologue rather than a movie), it's quite effective in how it sets up the next Avengers, and I look forward to seeing what that film has to offer.
Here's a hypothetical situation. You're at a diner and order a hamburger for $10. You take a bite and think "hey, thet's not bad" but before you take another bite, the waiter takes your burger away and replaces it with a pizza. You think "ok, whatever. I still like pizza" and take a bite of that, but it's then replaced with pasta. This cycle continues until you eat $10 worth of food.
Does that sound like a satisfying experience to you? No. And that's how I felt during IW. For the most part, I didn't have a problem with character attachment (I've seen enough Marvel movies), but the movie was nothing but B-plots so there was no three act structure, no resolution, and at the end of the movie my first thought was "that's it?" It didn't feel like anything had happened. Thor got a hammer, some people punched each other, Thanos steamrolled everyone, then it ended.
I'm not sure what your point is, but the "Thanos will return" title card at the end of the film makes it clear that he'll have more to do. Not to mention the Avengers movie slated for next year and the fact that the infinity stones will have to be used to bring back everyone who faded away.
Thanos plays both protagonist and antagonist in this film, and to me, he was by far the most interesting. His initial introduction to the series was as a mostly unknown quantity, a big bad villain bound on destroying the universe, blah blah blah nothing new here... It was only once he arrived and we started seeing him in action and hearing his words, and how he treated the people trying to stop him that we realize he's more than just a typical video game villain.
He isn't a typical villain in that he feels what he is doing is right and even empathizes with his foes (when he tells Stark that he hopes humanity remembers him, he means it), and there is a lot of depth to his character compared to what we've seen. He displays emotion when he is confronted with the sacrifice of the one thing he cherishes, and he displays his conviction to his cause by going through with it. In a lot of ways, he's a sympathetic villain, and there are probably people who would argue that his ideal world isn't a bad one. It could be argued that he only feels like such a great villain because the ones we've had up to this point have been entirely forgettable, but in my opinion this movie should have been called "Thanos: Infinity War".
Still, aside from loads of praise for Thanos, the rest of the movie was typical Marvel fare, but with the stakes finally raised: in this movie, for once, you didn't know who would still be standing at the end and that made it even more exciting than what we're used to. This movie subverted expectations without going so far off the rails that the audience was left more confused about the studio's motivations than the characters.
If anyone has ever read Secret Wars, it was thought of as successful at bringing all Marvel characters together in a big sweeping story. It was also considered gawdawful in it's ending
While I really liked the direction the film took with Thanos, I don't think enough was done to structure the story around him and his goals. Earlier I discussed how information is given to the audience about his background and that I think more should have been divulged earlier. If the first scene of the movie was Gamora's flashback followed with a cut to a close up of Thanos on Thor's ship, we would know immediately whose story this is and who we should be following. If that flashback also conveyed how Thanos' actions ultimately helped Gamora's planet, we would also sympathize with his actions (to the extent you can sympathize with a madman).
Next, just because Thanos is in the most scenes doesn't automatically make him a main character. When you learn about editing, you learn to think "whose scene is this?" The editor is responsible for which character(s) the audience is watching in a particular scene, and whose perspective the scene is coming from. In Infinity War, every time Thanos shares a scene with any of the Avengers, the scene is from the perspective of the Avengers, not Thanos. We're never put in his mindset and we rarely know what's going through his head. We never feel the determination we would feel if he was truly the main character.
Third, I don't think he was emotive enough. This isn't a dig on Josh Brolin or the CGI because I think both are great, but more on the Russo brothers' direction. For someone who's so convinced of his motivations and has such a strong desire to complete his goal, Thanos never seems particularly motivated. He speaks and moves and walks like some generic, conquer-the-universe villain, not someone who believes that their actions will save all civilizations. If I ever got a sense of motivation from him, it was from dialogue, rarely from emotion or actions. Someone like Thanos should be quick, brutal, and emotional, not concerned with his pride or his swagger. I don't want to get too nitpicky with little plot details, but once he gets a few infinity stones, he should be unstoppable. There were many sequences where he did things super slowly when he could easily bat people aside.
I want to make it clear that overall, I really liked Thanos and he certainly ranks high on the list of superhero villains, I just think that more should have been done if he's supposed to be the central thread throughout the film.
I can't disagree with you because I'd have certainly loved more as well!
When it comes to the order of the scenes, I didn't mind being led to believe he was just another Big Bad, out to cause trouble for Stark And Friends, and then only later on having my mind changed by finding out "Oh...So, that's what he's on about then..." when more is revealed about him. It's a style choice that works for me, but I can understand how others might not appreciate it.
As for the editing and Whose Scene Is It Anyway? I can't debate you on that topic as you sound like you know more about it than I do, but for me, even seeing a scene from a certain character's perspective doesn't mean I'm not more focused on what they're looking at and taking more about that person/thing from the scene than the person whose perspective I'm sharing. In a way, it makes it more interesting to me, because it puts me in the shoes of an Avenger, and lets me develop my own perspective about this new threat. Maybe this worked better for me than it did for others, but that's the beauty of art.
I think this third point is more a matter of personal opinion, really. I agree that a lot of his emotion was displayed through dialogue, but the man(alien?) did break down and cry during the scene with Gamora, which is something you'll rarely, if ever, see a menacing villain do. I concede that he did move slowly and almost seemed disinterested in the beings before him, but rather than a lack of passion, I took that as more of a "these creatures aren't worth my effort" type of thing, which just made him seem more powerful and more confident. As if he knew nothing could stop him, so he wasn't bothered.
Anyway, I think we mostly agree that the character was enjoyable, and I'm sure you're with me when I say we can simply agree to disagree when it comes to style choices and personal interpretation.
Secondary concern: I've never looked forward to Thanos, because he's always been Marvel's purple Darkseid ripoff. If he has any personality in this movie, that'd be great.
Marvel keeps changing her hair because they know it's the only interesting thing about her. For 6 years she's been nothing more than tagged on sex appeal without a consistent character. Marvel has proven that they're capable of writing decent female characters so it's odd that they can't find a footing for Black Widow.
She has a decent backstory, they just never flesh it out. They should've made a stand alone Black Widow film right after Iron Man 2. Cap 2 kinda needed her to help him navigate the modern world. Just like Wonder Woman, she gets left off a lot of merchandise. I've stated before how weird the merch industry is when it comes to females.
There could be any number of reasons Marvel decided against flushing Widow's story out more--though part of me is surprised that they haven't used her to comment on all the Russia hysteria--though the biggest three, I think, are: Widow's story was deemed too dark and/or morally ambiguous alongside (though I don't know why moral ambiguity would stop them) the rest of the Avengers/Cinematic Universe, or was simply deemed genre inappropriate (spy thriller rather than superhero); Widow's story would either "bloat" the universe to an "unnecessary degree" or was a step backwards in the narrative (giving her her first stand-alone movie, if it were going to happen, if they aren't saving it for something down-the-line, probably should have happened before Winter Soldier); actress refused and/or can't portray the character to the studio's satisfaction (and I think she's the reason behind the hair changes, rather than the studio at large), or the bean-counters that be decided that Black Widow, for whatever reason, wasn't interesting or wouldn't sell (though that hasn't stopped print comics from going completely off the rails with the kind of social activism that turns off long-time comic readers).
Also, the merchandise thing may be less about sexism and more about Widow just not being interesting enough to sell products. If I remember right there was an out-cry about her merchandising following the first movie, and they tried to correct it and include her in a bunch of merchandise, but the people doing the out-crying weren't the people buying the merchandise. So business simply did what business always does, and always will do: made more of what sells. There's other good, strong, interesting characters that sold lots/decent amounts of merchandise; to name two within the same genre: Wonder Woman (sure she gets left off Justice League merch, but she sold a lot of her own), Hayley Quinn (I don't think she was left off anything after Suicide Squad).
Hawkeye isn't on that shirt either; he fades into the background and is uninteresting in a lot of ways. Iron Man, Captain America, Thor and the Hulk are simply the most iconic characters in the Avengers (and even with just the four of them it's already visually busy and a little messy; much more would simply be bad design). Besides, this is a boy's shirt marketed at boys; there's nothing wrong with marketing strong male role models--though I could think of a number of real people who would make better ones--to young boys (yes, even shirts that don't have the S.H.I.E.L.D duo on them). I honestly don't think most boys care all that much about what gender a character is to begin with; if that character is interesting, dynamic, and stands up for something (or just does something cool) boys will like and look up to them.
It's only when we start harping about how women aren't represented enough--rather than just making our own things where women are doing all of those kick-tail things--that boys--and kids/people and general, really--kind of go all "what? you're full of it." Because that kind of thing--talking about how we need more women in this and that, and this thing that we're talking about doing but don't see much evidence of the doing, and how it's so important to the representation of women--just comes off as artificial (and I say that as a woman, before I'm being accused of misogyny on the forums again). I really want to ask activists: if you want to see more of these things, then why aren't you writing, drawing, and making content with those things in them?
Edit: I hadn't meant to post that yet. Grr.
I actually think there has been progress in female representation in popular media. Looking at the big movie franchises, we have all the new Star Wars films, Wonder Woman (and the inevitable sequels), The Wasp (yeah, it’s only halfway, but shes the first female character to be in the title of a Marvel film), Captain Marvel, and all the supporting characters in Black Panther (sure, they aren’t leads, but they’re positively portrayed and there’s a bunch of them).
Then in TV we have loads more female led content like Handmaidens Tale, Marvelous Mrs Maisel, The Good Place, The Good Fight, Scandel, Killing Eve, and probably tons more I haven’t heard of.
I’m not saying “we’re all good now,” but I think progress is being made and that all the hubbub you’re criticizing is in fact making a difference.
I’d like to humbly acknowledge that I am a man so perhaps my perspective isn’t quite as thorough as yours. This is just what I’ve seen in recent years.
I think there has been progress in female representation in popular media. Looking at the big movie franchises, we have all the new Star Wars films, Wonder Woman (and the inevitable sequels), The Wasp (yeah, it’s only halfway, but shes the first female character to be in the title of a Marvel film), Captain Marvel, and all the supporting characters in Black Panther (sure, they aren’t leads, but they’re positively portrayed and there’s a bunch of them).
Then in TV we have loads more female led content like Handmaidens Tale, Marvelous Mrs Maisel, The Good Place, The Good Fight, Scandel, Killing Eve, and probably tons more I haven’t heard of.
I’m not saying “we’re all good now,” but I think progress is being made and that all the hubbub you’re criticizing is in fact making a difference.
I’d like to humbly acknowledge that I am a man so perhaps my perspective isn’t quite as thorough as yours. This is just what I’ve seen in recent years.
I honestly think it's fantastic we're getting a larger variety of characters, and because of that, a larger variety of stories. We live in an exciting time when it's cheaper than ever--opening the market to competition from all corners, and to content creators from all walks of life--to produce and make movies, television, among other things; we get to hear, and watch, and experience more stories than ever (and storytelling is a long-held tradition by virtually every culture on the planet). By all means, if you have the ability and drive, make things: great, weird, off-putting, thought-provoking, obvious, wholesome, whimsical, ordinary, whatever things.
You may be right, all that hubbub may be making a difference, but it may also just be a way for Hollywood to pat itself on the back for doing the "right thing." They could have done it--and excuse my French here--without all the virtue signalling, and I think it might have meant more. I think it detracts from the heart of the message--equal opportunity is something we should celebrate, and more female representation and storytelling is a good thing--when virtually every actress given a pulpit or screen time talks about how they're doing this for little girls everywhere, or more female representation, or how meaningful and rare it is to portray such a character (and you've just listed off ten reasons why it isn't all that rare). It's like I'm being sold an agenda, when all I'm really interested in is what it was like to portray that character, or what things happened off-screen about the latest thing that's got me excited.
I think it would speak more loudly to let the work speak for itself, and to live as an example. Every girl that has grown up in the last thirty years--perhaps more--has heard "you can do anything, be anything you want; follow your heart's desire" every day of her life. I don't think we need more of that; talk only amounts to so much.
In addition, it detracts from a character when, going in, you decide that they're going to fill a certain niche. Why not let that character develop organically, and decide on the physical details--height, weight, skin color, gender, etc--as it makes sense to do so? Perhaps, not even until casting; imagine open castings for roles like a--just pulling a random name out of a hat here--Major Wilson, and the actor or actress that wins the role is just the one who had the casting director sit up and take notice and say "that's Major Wilson, alright!" When you go in, wanting to fill a certain niche, the character can easily become nothing but a series of stereotypes and caricatures crammed into one "person;" do your art, and your storytelling, and your character right by letting them become a person to you. You'll reach more people that way.
Anyways, I've derailed the conversation in this thread enough: what was your favorite scene in Infinity War?
For the most part, I can't really say that there's a single scene that I really, completely liked on its own. If I found an individual scene particularly interesting or entertaining, there was always something else about it that bugged me. The humor scenes often dragged on too long for me, the scenes shared between Thanos and The Avengers were never from Thanos' point of view, and the action rarely felt grounded or real (I think there were about a dozen bystanders shown in the entire movie and half of them were in the post credits scene).
I did like that an effort was made to let the audience think that Vision could survive. And the visual effects were pretty good (except for when Thanos physically interacted with someone).
(these are personal gripes, not something I expect other people to agree with)