Avengers: Infinity War (Joe & Anthony Russo, April 27, 2018) Movie • Page 91

I never got that attitude. Everyone is here to discuss something. What's wrong with that?

 

I like reading people's criticisms and film discussion in general. That's why I'm in all these entertainment threads.

 

We all have hobbies and passions, I hate that some are considered ok to talk about the others ostracized. Substitute “NFL players” and the amount of time people talk about sports and I see no difference. Hobbies and passions and interests make people happy.

 

I personally think Suicide Squad did this premise better and it was a major blockbuster so, owned

 

I gotta say I’m at work right now and it’s pretty wild seeing all of these old, like 65+ age, people I work with talking about this movie. It’s just so interesting listening to them speculate on these things because I would never imagine these old hillbilly people would be debating if Doctor Strange could beat up Thor in our break room

 

This movie definitely had it's flaws, but it was a lot more fun than The Last Jedi and Black Panther. I can't say anything about A Quiet Place because I haven't had a chance to see it yet, but I get why this movie would bring people back to the theaters over at least two of these movies. And I am by no means saying that Infinity War is better than any of those movies. I am just saying it was more fun and I like to be happy therefore I will probably go see this again in theaters because of the good, fun, happy time I had watching it.

 

Nerd culture was more fun when it wasn't mainstream.

 

I agree with this statement. Fortunately, one of my favorite "nerd" activities, Magic the Gathering, will probably never be mainstream.

 

TLJ was good but lately I have been more into Marvel than SW which could be due to the many interlinking stories/characters. I also didn’t have a lot of expectations and hype around TLJ while I did for IW.

 

My main problem with nerd culture going "mainstream" is that it's remained, largely, exclusionary toward other genders and people. It still feels very "white boy" centric and even those that grew up being ostracized for liking comic books and nerdy things () didn't learn from those mistakes and how others made them feel.

 

My taste has always been mainstream and basic, checkmate

 

Conversations should be fun, I’m with you on that. My post was more directed at people writing lengthy articles that aren’t meant to be a conversation, but a takedown.

 

Assuming you're talking about the Film Crit Hulk article? Did you not read it? It's fantastic. And there's a lot of conversation on Twitter from the author (and other places). From the actual article:

This is my first piece here for Observer and I’m delighted this is going to be my new regular home. For those unaware, I tend to write long, multi-component essays that frequently go beyond the scope of a movie itself, in order to have larger discussions about storytelling and dramatic function. I do this for many reasons, but really it all comes down to the following: I do not think the job of criticism is to simply tell you what my thoughts are, I think the job of criticism is to help you make sense of your own.

 

Does the Observer, like, not have an editor on staff or what? So many typos and he refers to the movie as "Infinity Wars" throughout the entire thing.

 

Concerning Thor's eye, it is cool that one eye is now yellow like Heimdall's.

Also, so cool how he can summon the bifrost on command now.

 

I'd like to start by explaining myself and my general mindset towards movies and comic books a bit, since you make some assumptions that are off-base.

I don't expect this movie to give me the same artistic experience that, say, Moonlight or Citizen Kane gave me. But I think it's misguided to lower the bar for comic book movies, because I think comic book movies can be brilliant, interesting, fun, emotional, and ideally, a blend of all those things. The Dark Knight, Sam Raimi's first two Spider-Man movies, Black Panther, Iron Man, Wonder Woman, the first Avengers movie, and plenty more superhero/comic movies are some of my personal favorite movies. I grew up reading and loving comic books and looking forward to every chance I got to see them onscreen in movies and TV. I love when they're done really well, like in the movies I listed, I'm disappointed when I feel they're done really messily, as in say, Suicide Squad or the Marc Webb Amazing Spider-Man series. I know comics are messy, but as a medium they're a monthly serial less reliant on self-contained stories and arcs. Movies are a different medium that rely on different conventions. So I don't judge a superhero movie the exact same way I'd judge a comic book run. Basically, when I sit down for a superhero movie, I have the same main hope that I have when I sit down for any other movie, regardless of genre, director, budget, whatever else: I hope this is a good movie. I think that's a fair approach.

I think that undercuts the message of Thor: Ragnorok, a very good movie about how your home, your heritage, don't need to be tied to a place, as long as your people are surviving continuing to grow, that's what matters. Sometimes the structures and institutions we respect out of "tradition" are flawed and not worth holding onto, so we can make way for a better future. Infinity War immediately wipes out most, if not all, of the Asgardians, and I think genocide as fuel for one character is a tricky balance to pull off. I think movies and their messages should last and matter beyond just being fuel for the big spectacle crossover event, and Infinity War is not a continuation of the same themes and growth for Thor, it's genocide as fodder for revenge, which is an overplayed trope in fantasy/sci-fi/comic book movies and is not given adequate weight or reflection. Thor withstanding the energy of a dying star is a cool setpiece in theory, but the star doesn't symbolize anything for him, it doesn't mean anything, really, it's basically a reset button that the writers are pushing to get him a hammer again, even though the whole last movie was about how Asgard and Thor are so much more than the hammer.

I think that Peter's presence in the movie is a serious undercut to how Tony Stark is supposedly someone who has grown to realize how much his actions and ambitions have negatively affected those around him, and for him to let Peter, a high school kid, stick with them to fight the most powerful threat the universe has ever seen, flies in the face of the lessons Stark has supposedly learned over and over and over again in the course of these movies, especially, as the Film Crit Hulk piece points out, Doctor Strange could have teleported him back to safety at any point. The writers didn't do that because they wanted Spider-Man to be a part of the big fight, not taking into consideration the deeper implications of what that means to Peter Parker and Tony Stark as characters who have lived through experiences and developed psyches that don't fit the story Infinity War is trying to tell. Yeah they give it a throwaway line, but it's not enough. It's telling, not showing.

I don't know what you mean by telling me I expected a 15 hour movie to please me. I knew this would be a two and a half hour movie that isn't telling the full narrative going in. When I say something is the "core" of the movie, I'm not saying that no other characters are a part of it, I'm saying those three characters are the main "core", the characters that all the action and plot revolves around. I don't think it's wrong to say that Thanos, Vision, and Wanda are the emotional core of this movie, except I guess I forgot to include Gamora, who I'd say is also part of the core. Star-Lord and Thor certainly go trough some things, but the plot doesn't move through them the way it moves through the other characters mentioned. I still maintain that Star-Lord should not have pulled the trigger on Gamora. Star-Lord may have been an asshole at the beginning of GotG, but the whole point of those movies is that he's grown and made a bond with other people and I think he'd be more the Captain Kirk "I don't believe in no-win scenarios" type in that situation, rather than someone who would kill someone he loves, no matter how much the plot justifies it.

I know all this, because Thanos says all this. But nowhere does the movie show me any of this. Why does Thanos love Gamora? Why is Gamora so conflicted about her feelings about Thanos? You can say it's because she knew him all her life and he was a father figure, and that she was the one person in the universe he showed any affection for, but that doesn't tell me why they feel those things, why he considered her worth raising (and don't point to the scene where she asks him a question and he takes her aside to show her the knife, that doesn't tell me anything about why they're making those decisions). It's a lack of dramatization, which means it's not a fully told story. It's not about the development of a psyche that I can tap into and understand, it's just telling me "the villain is doing this because of this and this character feels this way" without doing the heavy lifting of showing me a complex and nuanced character dynamic. You can't just expect people to fill in the blanks and care automatically because you tell them to. Imagine if Black Panther didn't have the scene of Killmonger on the Ancestral Plane, or if Spider-Man 2 didn't have the scenes of Otto Octavius being a regular, friendly, family man who takes a shine to Peter, or if the Last Jedi didn't show us the flashback to Luke almost killing Kylo Ren. Those are moments that dramatize how the villain got from point A to point B, and it makes their actions so much more meaningful because we understand them, we weren't just given some dry monologue where they spell everything out for us.

Thor would have been affected emotionally no matter who he was paired with, it's not like Rocket and Groot were necessary for him to open up about struggling with the fact that most of his race and his brother and best friend were all just killed. Doctor Strange, Iron Man, Gamora, Peter Parker, anyone in the immediate vicinity at that moment would have resulted in functionally the same conversation. Sure, since it's Rocket, we get a different surface texture to it, since Rocket is a caustic, dry, sarcastic character, so him having that conversation with Thor looks different than if, say, T'Challa were to, as T'Challa is an empathetic, regal character who would have expressed sympathy and warmth. But I wouldn't say this specific grouping of characters brought out unique sides to their characters. Similarly, Rocket doesn't need for it to be Thor next to him for us to see Rocket take Peter's lessons about leadership seriously. Just by having Rocket lead a team we'd get that out of his "arc", whether it was Peter Parker or Don Cheadle he was helping out in that moment.

I don't think they did pull it off. You got something out of the movie and I'm not taking it away from you at all. I'm glad you enjoyed it. I don't think the movie is complete absolute horseshit that fails on every single level. I think it's fun and, strictly mechanically, I think it really is remarkable how clearly they told this story that juggled so much of these parts. The characters and performances are charming when they're given time to breathe. The action is mostly fun and engrossing. I have issues that hamper my ability to enjoy the movie as a whole, though, and I feel like I explained myself pretty thoroughly, as you point out I wrote "wordy" paragraphs, so for you to say I'm trying to prove my point with 0 substance is... a little dissonant. You don't have to agree with anything I'm saying. Refute me, ignore me, debate me, engage however you like. All I'll do talking about Infinity War is the same thing I do whenever I discuss movies: talk about how I felt about it. What worked for me, what didn't. I'll always provide my reasoning. Anyone can take or leave it. But when I see a movie, again, I go back to that primary hope I mentioned above: I hope for it to be good. I didn't feel this one was. I don't think it said anything meaningful, I don't think it resonated thematically about anything, I think the characterization of Thanos relied far too heavily on expositional dialogue than actual dramataziation, which, you know, is what storytelling is built on. I think it was efficient and entertaining spectacle, but flawed and messy storytelling that betrays a lot of how I wish MCU movies could function: with lasting consequences and resonant themes that grow and mature from installment to installment. So I'm dissatisfied. You were satisfied. I'm sincerely glad.

I'm sorry you felt what I thought was a funny anecdote negated every other word I wrote. Since you used quotation marks, I'd like to correct you on what I said. I didn't say "my film school friends make fun of me cause of the movies I do like", I said, "My film school friends make fun of me for liking most movies we see", as in, I generally like or at least get something out of just about everything I watch. They make fun of me for not being "critical" enough, which I thought would be amusing to share in a thread where people are accusing me of taking things too seriously or being too critical. I just genuinely like most movies I see.

 

NERD!

 

Random thoughts

Why couldn't Doctor Strange invoke the same method he did with is Time Stone at the end of his solo movie during the fight on Titan? Do the other Infinity Stones make Thanos immune to that somehow, or is that scenario factored into the millions of possibilities that Strange knows will fail?

Also, I thought for sure that Banner was gonna turn into the Hulk and bust out of the Hulkbuster. The suit was getting trashed and the situation was pretty dire, so I thought it was gonna happen.

I'm not a huge fan of Cap's new arm-attached shields. The action revolving around him throwing his shield around is way more fun, even though that thing did not obey the laws of physics, as Peter pointed out ha.

 

until the gatewatch movie comes out of course!

 

I've felt they painted themselves into a corner with the ending of that movie for a while because it does beg this question. He and Captain Marvel are soooooo powerful.

 

Ya as soon as he did that, I thought to myself "Well, they could just do this all the time right?" It's a problem with the Infinity Stones in general too. Thanos says he needs to wipe out half the population to prevent societies from descending into chaos and whatnot, but I feel like there's a myriad of other options if his mission is really to create peace and balance.

I don't know much about Captain Marvel, but I've heard people say she's insanely OP. It'll be interesting to see if/how they balance her out with everyone else.

 

If it's like what they've done so far ... they'll power her up and down as needed for the story or whatever movie she's in. Heh.

 

In that vein, while I actually like the imagery of the scene, Cap being able to grab Thanos' attack when Thanos can pull moons from the sky and Cap is superpowered by a serum developed in the 1940s is silly. It's the kind of silliness I don't mind if the surrounding film works, but the limits and strengths of these character's powers is so loosey goosey.

 

Also thought, why not just open up a portal and close it off when Thanos is like halfway through it. Seems pretty easy.