Avengers: Infinity War/Endgame (Anthony & Joseph Russo, 2018/2019)

[jbeall]

Going to post some questions in spoilers with the hopes someone can shed some light on some issues:

Spoiler

Next, Peter Parker goes back to high school 5 years later, ok fine, but his best friend is there? Shouldn't he have graduated by now?

Spoiler

Presumably, all the people "unsnapped" five years into the future (and this includes Peter Parker, too), haven't aged in that time. So if both Peter and his friend were disintegrated at the end of Infinity War, they both have to finish h.s.
Now, the logistical nightmare of integrating half the population into wherever they were five years ago while everyone else is five years older and traumatized is probably a very interesting story. Or was that the plot of Les Revenants?

[reaky]

You kind of haven't though given that you admit to not seeing these films in context. It's a bit like saying Justified is a terrible show based on seeing one episode from season four and maybe a few from the first season.

I'd say only 7 of them are really required previous viewings (Infinity War, Ant Man 2, Thor Ragnarok, Doctor Strange, The Avengers, The First Avenger, and possibly Captain Marvel but that's one I haven't seen).

You should also have seen Thor: The Dark World (unfortunately) and Captain America: Winter Soldier for this to make complete sense.

[dda1996a]

Really, Ant-Man 2? I'm more fond of the Ant-Man movies than most, but I'd never figure they were so important to the overall story (haven't seen Endgame yet)

[tenia]

You should also have seen Thor: The Dark World (unfortunately) and Captain America: Winter Soldier for this to make complete sense.

Actually, The Winter Soldier was on TV yesterday and I had pretty much 0 memory of it, hence why I kept it out. I also really don't think you need it to make sense of it considering how superficially it's used in Endgame (same for Guardians of the Galaxy 1 & 2).
Equivalent reasoning for Thor 2 :

Spoiler

"Thor gets to see back his mom who died and retrieves an Infinity Gem from a past lover" is explained within Endgame, making me think you can skip it too.

In a way, it's good for Endgame, since it means you actually don't really need to see all past 21 movies to see Endgame, but on the other hand, it means the "everything-is-linked" MCU touch is not much more than a gimmick (what a twist).

Really, Ant-Man 2? I'm more fond of the Ant-Man movies than most, but I'd never figure they were so important to the overall story (haven't seen Endgame yet)

A good chunk of Endgame's plot is based on technology shown in Ant Man 2, and this time, I don't recall it being explained enough in Endgame itself for the viewer to skip it.

But again, I've seen all the MCU movies except Civil War and Captain Marvel, and while I don't have precise memories of most of them, it seemed to me that the way Endgame is written and built makes it so that many past movies are just mentioned as a wink-wink way than anything deeper.

[reaky]

Not a plot point, but having seen the equivalent scene in Winter Soldier leads to the expectation-subversion payoff in Endgame when Cap gets into the elevator - a crowd-pleasing moment like the one on Raiders of the Lost Ark when Indy shoots the swordsman. And it helps to know who Robert Redford is.

[tenia]

It still seemed like a "Nice to know" rather than a "Must have seen". The elevator bit is just some more superficial wink-wink to the fan more than any elaborate use of this past scene, and it seemed clear enough for me that Redford was some bad guy since he was surrounded by scary looking big tough guys (plus : the good guys are stealing from them, so they must be bad). And the movie doesn't make it much deeper than this. Redford is barely a nice cameo / fan-service too, since he doesn't do much anyway.

[reaky]

He does more than Natalie Portman, though, whose appearance consists of her getting out of bed!

[tenia]

That's actually unusued footage from Thor 2 !

But many of the riffs on past characters aren't more than glorified cameos. I suppose hers is probably the more extreme incarnation of this, but there supposedly are almost thirty supers crammed in this plus almost 20 reprised supporting roles (like Rumlow or Thaddeus Ross - I don't even recall seeing the latter) (though some seem to only appear during the epilogue), and it's hard not to imagine the movie managing to unfold with only 20% of that and remain pretty much unchanged.

[reaky]

It’s a highwire act (that they seem to have pulled off): make sense to the casual viewer, while still throwing some bones to the hardcore fans.

Franchises like Dr Who and Star Trek often fall foul of this, letting lore and fanservice accrete until the whole is impenetrable to outsiders. Stephen Moffat’s Who and Sherlock are prime instances.

[tenia]

It’s a highwire act (that they seem to have pulled off): make sense to the casual viewer, while still throwing some bones to the hardcore fans.

Absolutely, but I would argue that just "making sense" doesn't seem to be what the movie is aiming for, which is why I believe it failed in this regard.
By revisiting past movies, it seems to be aiming for something far more convoluted than simple nods or riffs, but for most of them, that's what it does. The worst probably is the one with Rhodes and Nebula. I expected it to be more intertwined than what Endgame ends up making with them, which is why, while I understand the fan service, I found it disappointed there.

[movielocke]

Going to post some questions in spoilers with the hopes someone can shed some light on some issues:

Spoiler

Ok, here we go. First and foremost, how did Tony Stark get the stones from the glove at the end? Did he use some magnetic/vacuum tech that we were supposed to remember? Everything in the movie led up to that moment and I'm not able to enjoy it cause I'm confused as hell.

Next, Peter Parker goes back to high school 5 years later, ok fine, but his best friend is there? Shouldn't he have graduated by now?

Lastly, soul stone requires a sacrifice from someone you love the most, so for Hawkeye, it's Black Widow and not his wife or children?

Ok, done.

Spoiler

1: Stark is shown putting the stones into an IRON MAN gauntlet he designed, not the gauntlet Thanos was using in the last movie. That means either that he put in some sort of failsafe which would release the stones on his command, or he was able to simply sleight of hand them away instead of super powering them away.

I wonder though, if Stark gets the idea of his trick when he sees Thanos rip out the Power Stone to blast Captain Marvel. The stone's were un removable from Thanos' gauntlet, so this is a new thing.

2: Really? obviously the best friend was one of the vanished, just as Parker was, pretty straightforward.

3. Hawkeye's wife and children are dead/ all vanished. That is why Hawkeye went rogue and spent five years slaughtering organized crime lords around the world. The only person in the universe he really cares about at this point is Black Widow.

@Drucker, I'm sorry, most of the Marvel movies actually do a decent job of being somewhat self contained, the series finale, though, is uniquely excluded from that.

IN terms of what films would best prepare for this, I'd say, Avengers, Ultron, Guardians of the Galaxy, and Infinity War are the minimum four, but if you wanted all the Infinity Stone info, you could add in Thor Dark World, Captain America, and Dr. Strange. If you wanted a bit more comprehension of some of the nuances of the plot and major starring role relationships, you could add in Ant Man and Wasp, Winter Soldier, Civil War, Thor Ragnarok, Guardians v2, and Spiderman Homecoming.

the films with no real relationship to End Game are the three Iron Man films, Incredible Hulk, Ant Man, Captain Marvel, Black Panther and Thor, basically most of the "origin story' films.

I watched about two thirds of them last year, (including about five rewatches) just before Infinity War came out, and it turned be from being someone who casually enjoyed the popcorn of it all, to a big admirer of the opera-scale sweep of the entire thing and the incredibly well designed ways all the pieces are self contained and fit into a larger unit.

"Graphic novels" is a useful piece of rhetoric for those who trying to move beyond the cultural baggage of "comic book", and space opera is a similar term. I sort of think, after what marvel has achieved here that they need a new term for what they're doing is needed-- as 'comic book movie' is unfair--I"d call what they're doing "graphic opera" blending the two terms...

[dda1996a]

As someone with a lot of comic books, these films are definitely "comics". This is exactly how it is in the comics, unlike something like Maus, Watchmen and Arkham Asylum to name those I consider "Graphic Novels".

[tenia]

Spoiler

2: Really? obviously the best friend was one of the vanished, just as Parker was, pretty straightforward.
3. Hawkeye's wife and children are dead/ all vanished. That is why Hawkeye went rogue and spent five years slaughtering organized crime lords around the world. The only person in the universe he really cares about at this point is Black Widow.

Spoiler

2. It's not helping that Peter's friend acts like Tony Stark when finding back Peter, ie as someone who didn't disappear who's finding back someone who did. So it might be straightforward, but isn't, in the context of this quick scene, 100% clear either.

3. I think it's here too an issue of context. The movie VERY quickly gets rid of Black Widow's death. IIRC, Hawkeye doesn't even mourn her at the end (ever ?). There's also the issue that IW (and partly Endgame) seemed to emphasize the Soul Stone needing to sacrifice someone you love, not just deeply care about. Since we've seen Hawkeye going batshit crazy, we could imagine he's still deeply mourning his family, especially his wife. While it makes sense, it seems to me the movie is doing it in a way which isn't consistent enough for it to be clear. Hence this kind of questions. I'd however be more concerned about Romanoff seemingly sacrificing herself, which in the case is a much bigger inconsistency. But I don't recall if Barton let her go or if she is the one releasing her grip.

[Luke M]

Thanks for the answers. I don't feel any better about them except #3 which I get but don't agree. For me personally, I love my dog who died over a year ago as much as I did when he was alive. So that just rang false for me.

[tenia]

The main issue is that Hawkeye and Black Widow have never been properly developped. Over the whole MCU so far, we might see Hawkeye's family maybe 10 minutes top, and his romance with Black Widow isn't much more developped either, so Endgame's toying with them ends up, to me, being quite a lose-lose situation anyway.

[Never Cursed]

This THR article talks about the money that the Marvel house cast is making for their work - apparently, Downey Jr. made 75 million dollars off of Infinity War alone thanks to his exclusive backend deal, easily dwarfing the paychecks of all the other stars, including Hemsworth/Evans (15 to 20 million) and Johansson (20 million). That isn't new for Downey Jr. either, since per Wikipedia he made around the same amount from Iron Man 3 back in 2013.

EDIT: Downey Jr. also made more money from the most recent Captain America film than Evans (who plays Captain America and starred in the film) did.

Spoiler

Also, the article makes it clear that Johansson still has another movie in her contract, which means that she's coming back to do the Black Widow prequel.

[Mr Sheldrake]

NY Times critics have a lively discusion of what the staggering popularity might signify. Spoiler alert.https://nyti.ms/2J34hRz

[captveg]

The main issue is that Hawkeye and Black Widow have never been properly developped. Over the whole MCU so far, we might see Hawkeye's family maybe 10 minutes top, and his romance with Black Widow isn't much more developped either, so Endgame's toying with them ends up, to me, being quite a lose-lose situation anyway.

I never got romance vibes from Black Widow and Hawkeye whatsoever; I always saw their bond as more of a siblings-type affection.

[tenia]

NY Times critics have a lively discusion of what the staggering popularity might signify. Spoiler alert.https://nyti.ms/2J34hRz

I'm still surprised by how "radical" Black Panther is perceived.

On a very different note, I DO want to see Chris Hemsworth doing something else than Thor, especially something comic. I strongly believe he's an under-valued comic gem, and was a show-stealer in the Ghostbusters reboot, and I'm thinking him and Channing Tatum (another rather action-oriented actor that does wonder in the comic department) should definitely go full throttle in this direction.

[Monterey Jack]

I never got romance vibes from Black Widow and Hawkeye whatsoever; I always saw their bond as more of a siblings-type affection.

In the first Avengers in 2012, Loki is teasing Black Widow about how much she cares for Hawkeye, and she flat-out says their relationship isn't romantic/sexual, but that she "owes him a debt". I never got the idea that it extended much beyond that (pun intended).

[criterionoop]

I haven't gone through the entire thread to see if this opinion has been addressed, but:

Spoiler

Since the movie had multiple scenes where they criticized the depiction of time travel in film, and even had The Ancient One explain what taking the Infinity stones from their timeline would alter their present reality, wouldn't Captain American staying in the past have altered the timeline and thrown the world into an alternate reality?

[movielocke]

I haven't gone through the entire thread to see if this opinion has been addressed, but:

Spoiler

Since the movie had multiple scenes where they criticized the depiction of time travel in film, and even had The Ancient One explain what taking the Infinity stones from their timeline would alter their present reality, wouldn't Captain American staying in the past have altered the timeline and thrown the world into an alternate reality?

Spoiler

since we presume cap returned the stones he would have encountered the ancient one. If she let him proceed (she’d have known what he’d want to do) then it indicates that cap always already did go back to his own time.

Meaning he always had will have done what he’d already was will is going to do.

But she’d also presumably know that they were already in a radically altered timeline one where thanos no longer exists for a period of twelve years (2012 thanos jumps forward in time to 2024ish and everyone dies in that timeline, (unless stark simply snapped them back to the instant after they jumped forward in time ), so what the hell, it’s already been screwed up so might as well let him do his thing.

But it’s just the simplest explanation. Cap was always going to do it and therefore Cap had will have always already done it.

[Never Cursed]

Alex Ross Perry wants Endgame to win Best Picture

[bearcuborg]

I agree, and I had that same feeling last week, despite not seeing the movie! What Marvel Studios/Disney accomplished is astounding and a monumental achievement. The work from the cast, directors, FX team, and writers has touched the fans in a way I’ve never seen.

[movielocke]

At the very least Kevin feige deserves an honorary Oscar at some point in the next twenty years for creating and shepherding all this gargantuan 22 film achievement. Nothing like it ever before in film history and nothing likely to ever replicate it.