Avengers: Infinity War (massive spoilers!)

[Shannon]

Since it looks like I'm the first to see it . . .


HUGE SPOILERS - YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED AGAIN






Well, everything has been leading up to this. It's basically an all-out assault to get the infinity stones by Thanos right from the start with everyone else trying to stop him. It probably wouldn't have the sense of urgency that it does if we hadn't had the stones built up and explained to us over the preceding movies. It also wouldn't have the same sense of loss when characters buy it. There is still room for character development in amongst all the carnage though. I was actually surprised to see how many threads they managed to draw together. This is a busy movie.

Peter Quill is putting on weight, and he and Gamora are definitely an item now. Groot is an obnoxious teenager. Drax has yet to master the art of invisibility (hilarious). Gamora's history is fully fleshed out and we see how much she and Nebula care for each other, along with their complicated relationship with Thanos. Vision and Wanda are also in a serious relationship. Shuri is apparently as smart as Tony and Bruce put together. Hulk appears to be scared of coming out after Thanos thoroughly kicked his ass (and it didn't look like he was using the power stone to do it). Bruce and Natasha's reunion was awkward, but not really explored at all. Tony wants kids with Pepper. Tony and Peter are developing their father/son dynamic further. Thor has suffered tremendous losses but once he's gone on a quest to Nidavellir and forged Stormbreaker, he seriously kicks ass. We also get to meet Brokk, the dwarf who forged Mjolnir (played by Peter Dinklage!) and now Stormbreaker. The final fate of the Red Skull was interesting - he is condemned to be a guardian of the soul stone. I am 95% sure that Strange, as ruthless as he appears to be, built some sort of trap or command into the time stone before giving it up to Thanos. If he didn't I'll be disappointed. Lots of planets appear, including Titan, which isn't one of Saturn's moons in the MCU but a completely different world that Thanos hails from. It also has one less moon now because Thanos threw one at Tony. Thanos doesn't appear to have his 'cosmic' powers but may be a telepath - this point is unclear, but his mind is very strong. He isn't infatuated with death but sees himself more as making tough decisions on overpopulation by killing half of everyone alive on the basis that the universe has finite resources.

I mentioned carnage. In rough order, this is the casualty list:
Half the population of Xandar (off screen)
The Asgardian refugees - Thor says half of them were killed by Thanos, which fits his M.O., but if so we don't see where they went and the ship was completely destroyed.
Heimdall
Loki (possibly for real this time)
The Collector (presumed dead)
Gamora
Half the population of Gamora's planet (shown in retrospective).
Vision
The 300 dwarves of Nidavellir plus Brokk's hands
A lot of Wakandans
Thanos's four 'children' - his remaining assassins, who are not to be trifled with
A lot of Thanos's army
. . . and then half the population of the universe, including half the remaining heroes (Wanda, both Peters, Drax, Mantis, Groot, Dr Strange, T'Challa, Nick Fury, Maria Hill, Bucky, Sam - I think that's everyone . . .)

There is still a lot to digest. These are just my first impressions/recollections.

[Shannon]

Also (ghetto edit)

Hawkeye and Ant-Man have been benched for this movie - there is one line about them being away with their families.

Fury is trying to call Captain Marvel when he gets disintegrated.

[generator_g1]

Just got back from the showing. I like that they put more depth in Thanos and he’s not the death loving entity in the comics. The bit where Drax and Gamora were swooning over Thor was funny.

[Shannon]

Yes, that was funny

Some more thoughts on Thanos . . .

Yes, his motivation of bringing 'balance' and his reasons for doing so made more sense (in his head anyway) and didn't require huge exposition or backstory.

The CGI of Thanos was very well done, vastly better than what we saw with Steppenwolf in JL. He had real presence, possibly due to Josh Brolin's voice. The way he was introduced, especially if you'd just seen Thor:Ragnarok, also demanded attention: Having seen what Thor is now capable of, to see him hanging limply in Thanos's fist was something. He also directly demonstrated his physical prowess early on in his beatdown of the Hulk and his intelligence in the way he dealt with Loki. His character was nuanced; he wasn't a kill-crazy vicious bastard but he killed without hesitation when his mission demanded it. He showed respect to worthy foes such as Thor, Tony and Peter Quill (when Peter actually tried to kill Gamora as per her wishes). He also left people alive when there was no point in killing them. Even after he shredded Mantis and Drax with the reality stone, they returned to normal when he left. The only times he was deliberately cruel were when he wanted information about the stones and had to inflict pain to get it. He even shielded Gamora from the death of her family. The one time I can remember him killing without there being some point to it was when he killed Heimdall, and he probably justified that as necessary because Heimdall had defied him by teleporting Hulk away before Thanos could kill him. Come to think of it, he didn't have to kill Loki but Loki had just tried to kill him, so . . . He inspires religious devotion in his 'children' and Gamora treated him as one would treat an abusive parent - loving him and hating him at the same time. The fact that he really did love Gamora and sacrificed her at great personal cost to achieve his mission added extra depth.

In terms of his personal power, we learned that he has Hulk-level strength and durability, and vastly better fighting skills, possibly on par with Thor. That said, Gamora clearly expected that he could be hurt and he wasn't tough enough to stop Thor burying Stormbreaker in his chest. I already mentioned the possibility that he's a telepath (based on his voiceover to his fake death in Knowhere), but then he couldn't just pluck the information he wanted from the minds of Loki and Gamora either.

It was good that the IG itself had to be specially crafted to hold the stones, and who better to do it than Brokk? It was also interesting that Thanos seemed to have to close his fist to use it - possibly a psychological limitation. It didn't seem to make him omniscient and until he got all six stones he had to use them individually. I wasn't clear on the nature of a couple of the energy blasts he used, first to attack Tony and second to try and defend himself from Thor (there may have been other occasions too). The blasts were while, not the colour of the stones. If they were blasts from the stones, then Tony's armour and Stormbreaker should not have been able to withstand them, especially since he had all six stones and yet his blast wasn't able to stop Stormbreaker. Maybe those were his 'cosmic' powers? I'm sure other people will have their own comments to make on this.

I'll try to post more tonight.

[Shannon]

Some more notes on powers and abilities:

Stormbreaker appears to be (and Brokk infers) more powerful than Mjolnir was. It has an axe head and a hammer head, and the power seems to reside in those because Brokk didn't have a handle ready and as far as I could tell, the handle Groot provided had no particular effect other than bringing the weapon together. It has the same flight and thought-guidance capabilities as Mjolnir. In addition, it can manifest a BIfrost effect for long-range teleportation. Not sure if it amplifies Thor's natural lightning or just channels it. The weapon is durable enough to withstand whatever Thanos blasted it with and sharp enough to penetrate his natural defenses. Although it didn't kill him, Thanos inferred a head shot would have.

Thor is durable enough to survive vacuum unaided. He also (for a minute or two before he collapsed with serious burns) endured the beam coming from the neutron star at the heart of Nidavellir, which I have some questions about - I thought neutron stars don't generate heat? And yet Brokk was using it to heat the forge.

Wanda has become much more skilled with the use of her powers and is formidable. She is definitely among the more powerful Avengers given the way she was able to redirect Thanos's war-wheel vehicle things and shatter the mind stone.

Tony's new nanite armour (I haven't been following the comics so I assume it's a thing) is giving him near-Green Lantern creative abilities when it comes to his weapons. It seems like the armour is also constantly regenerating itself, presumably by assimilating materials around it. Thanos ripped the faceplate off with little effort but Stark recovered and stayed in the fight long enough to earn his respect.

Rhodey's War Machine armour plays the role of tactical fighter-bomber rather well.

I initially thought that Wakanda's cloaking field was also a force field dome but now I'm not sure. Thanos's crew had no trouble locating the city from orbit. The field easily withstood one of the ships falling on it (the ship died) but at ground level the massed army was pushing through. T'Challa only dropped that portion of the shield because if he hadn't they would've been outflanked. They were picking off the creatures who came through with no trouble until then. Not sure why he didn't just redeploy to cover the bottleneck at the shield opening rather than ordering a charge, though, especially considering the enemy's numerical advantage.

I liked that Banner could still look after himself (albeit in Hulkbuster armour) and that he managed to defeat the Black Dwarf using his brain.

Peter got the Iron Spider suit.

There was so much going on in this movie that I'm still unpacking it in my brain . . .

[SCRawl]

I saw it tonight, opening night here. The crowd was the die-hards, for sure; never before have I heard so much applause during a film. These fans were well and truly served by this movie.

I'm thinking that the sequel will be more cerebral, with a little less action, but I'm already formulating theories.

Possibly my favourite moment was during the post-credits scene, when, upon noticing that he's dissolving into nothing, Fury give us an "Oh motherf-" Pretty smart way to get that into a Disney film.

[Cykeisme]

I thoroughly enjoyed how Thanos is portrayed as a well-intentioned extremist rather than an outright maniacal evil villain working toward the usual goals of amassing power and control.

However, I have to question the efficacy of his goal.

Firstly, there's the fact that the Infinity Stones might be able to alleviate suffering due to resource depletion (say, by magicking resources into existence, or providing the necessary means for colonizing uninhabited worlds via transportation of populations and terraforming).

Secondly, worse still, even if we ignore that possible use of the Stones, how effective exactly is his solution?
We don't know about the many alien worlds in the MCU, but we do know that on Earth, the last doubling of the human population only took about 40 years, and the previous doubling of the population took double that time, meaning a roughly hyperbolic growth rate.
So assuming Thanos' goal is to prevent overpopulation from reaching a certain point where suffering and civilization collapse occurs as it did on Titan, then at most, he's only delayed that point by a few decades for Earth.

As a related point, we may not know how the biological, societal and economic pressures that affect the sentient populations of all those alien planets out there, though I must state that in the MCU, many seem be very human-like for reasons we can only guess at (perhaps Celestial-guided evolution). Even with lower growth rates, if they're similar to humanity, the delay in reaching the critical overpopulation point would only be set back by a few decades too, or a few centuries at best.

Would I be wrong in saying that Thanos is well-meaning, but not only is he an extremist, he's also stupid and/or lazy?

[Cykeisme]

As a corollary, can anyone predict what major factors would affect the population change rates if we were to randomly disintegrate every one-in-two humans on Earth?

How do you predict that this will affect growth rates in developed nations in Western Europe and North America? And that in countries with large percentages of the population living below the poverty line?

Once the initial shock from the catastrophe has passed, would there be a general decline or increase in the price of basic necessities? Would it have some effect on the former question?

[Ralin]

I thoroughly enjoyed how Thanos is portrayed as a well-intentioned extremist rather than an outright maniacal evil villain working toward the usual goals of amassing power and control.

I liked it, but I also kinda miss the comic version where he's literally in love with the personification of Death and wants to impress her by killing half the universe so that there won't be more people alive than have ever died. Yeah it's cartoonishly evil, but it's such an epic take on cartoonish villainy.

So assuming Thanos' goal is to prevent overpopulation from reaching a certain point where suffering and civilization collapse occurs as it did on Titan, then at most, he's only delayed that point by a few decades for Earth.
…
Would I be wrong in saying that Thanos is well-meaning, but not only is he an extremist, he's also stupid and/or lazy?

Well, one, he killed half the universe with a snap of his fingers and he can do it again anytime he wants to. Meaning that if that happens again then it would be trivial for him to repeat the process until everyone gets with the program.

And on that note, everyone has a pretty strong incentive to practice strong population control now because there’s a guy who’s basically God that wants them to and has shown he will do terrible things if they don’t.

[Cykeisme]

Well, one, he killed half the universe with a snap of his fingers and he can do it again anytime he wants to. Meaning that if that happens again then it would be trivial for him to repeat the process until everyone gets with the program.

Oh, that's a good point!

I think he said something about sitting down and chilling out, watching the sunset, after he did his first genocidal finger-snap.
That'd be lazy.. if he's really serious about this (which he seems to be), then he needs to know that this isn't a one-off thing, it's a continuous job.

[Ralin]

if he's really serious about this (which he seems to be), then he needs to know that this isn't a one-off thing, it's a continuous job.

*snaps fingers*

"Now everyone in the universe knows who Thanos is, what he wants and why half the population died."

*snaps fingers*

"Now anytime a given world goes over a certain population limit, a random person instantly dies."

*snaps fingers*

"Suddenly whichever leader on any given world agrees with Thanos the most gains a huge war chest of powers/wealth/robot super soldiers to seize power with."

With that much power you don't really need to exert a lot of effort.

[Anacronian]

I thought the film had 2 good scenes(Gamoras death and the end) and a bunch of good jokes so an above average Marvel film.

[NeoGoomba]

Was it just me, or did the gauntlet look wrecked after the fingersnap?

And yeah, Thanos, while very well written, is extremely stubborn/foolish. His plan makes no sense long term. I could see where he was coming from while Titan was burning itself out, but once you attain nigh-omnipotence you'd think a few more options would be made available. At least in the comics it was explained by his Death-worship.

And holy shit, surprise Red Skull!

[SCRawl]

Was it just me, or did the gauntlet look wrecked after the fingersnap?

It did to me. Not really sure why, considering it's supposed to be the "ultimate power". Unless the gauntlet itself can only handle channeling a certain amount of energy -- assuming the means by which it operates is to channel the energy of the stones -- snuffing out half the people in the universe seems like it ought to require well short of infinite energy.

[Ralin]

Was it just me, or did the gauntlet look wrecked after the fingersnap?

It did to me. Not really sure why, considering it's supposed to be the "ultimate power". Unless the gauntlet itself can only handle channeling a certain amount of energy -- assuming the means by which it operates is to channel the energy of the stones -- snuffing out half the people in the universe seems like it ought to require well short of infinite energy.

I can't remember, but did Scarlet Witch try some sort of last-ditch attack? Since they thought she could destroy at least one of the stones.

[Ralin]

Was it just me, or did the gauntlet look wrecked after the fingersnap?

It did to me. Not really sure why, considering it's supposed to be the "ultimate power". Unless the gauntlet itself can only handle channeling a certain amount of energy -- assuming the means by which it operates is to channel the energy of the stones -- snuffing out half the people in the universe seems like it ought to require well short of infinite energy.

I can't remember, but did Scarlet Witch try some sort of last-ditch attack? Since they thought she could destroy at least one of the stones.

[Majin Gojira]

I just got back from seeing it, and even knowing that there were going to be a lot of deaths, and let's be honest most of them are going to be undone in due course, I was still hit with them emotionally.

That's good writing/directing/acting right there.

[GuppyShark]

Wow. It would have been so easy to fuck this up - but they didn't. This movie exceeded my expectations. Most of what I wanted to say has been covered already, but one thing:

T'Challa only dropped that portion of the shield because if he hadn't they would've been outflanked. They were picking off the creatures who came through with no trouble until then. Not sure why he didn't just redeploy to cover the bottleneck at the shield opening rather than ordering a charge, though, especially considering the enemy's numerical advantage.

Mass battlefield movie tactics are usually awful. They had it set up to absorb a charge on a Wakandan spearwall and they threw it away.

[Vendetta]

Was it just me, or did the gauntlet look wrecked after the fingersnap?

And yeah, Thanos, while very well written, is extremely stubborn/foolish. His plan makes no sense long term. I could see where he was coming from while Titan was burning itself out, but once you attain nigh-omnipotence you'd think a few more options would be made available. At least in the comics it was explained by his Death-worship.

And holy shit, surprise Red Skull!

Being omnipotent doesn't make him any smarter. He'd already decided what the solution was before he even began collecting the stones, he's not actually captain foresight.

Also, one of the key elements of the Infinity Gauntlet storyline is how Thanos doesn't get what he wants. Unlimited cosmic power doesn't actually help him at all. (The reason he's left with the Reality stone as part of the Infinity Watch, he's the one person who's actually learned how unhelpful power is). So hopefully when part 2 rolls around that will be a significant part of it, delivered partly through the heroes and I suspect mostly through Gamora who is clearly "alive" in the Soul World.

[Silver Jedi]

It looked to me like the gauntlet and his left arm and shoulder were burnt after "the snap".

[Shannon]

It looked to me like the gauntlet and his left arm and shoulder were burnt after "the snap".

NeoGoomba wrote: ↑Sat Apr 28, 2018 7:42 am
Was it just me, or did the gauntlet look wrecked after the fingersnap?

And yeah, Thanos, while very well written, is extremely stubborn/foolish. His plan makes no sense long term. I could see where he was coming from while Titan was burning itself out, but once you attain nigh-omnipotence you'd think a few more options would be made available. At least in the comics it was explained by his Death-worship.

And holy shit, surprise Red Skull!
Being omnipotent doesn't make him any smarter. He'd already decided what the solution was before he even began collecting the stones, he's not actually captain foresight.

Also, one of the key elements of the Infinity Gauntlet storyline is how Thanos doesn't get what he wants. Unlimited cosmic power doesn't actually help him at all. (The reason he's left with the Reality stone as part of the Infinity Watch, he's the one person who's actually learned how unhelpful power is). So hopefully when part 2 rolls around that will be a significant part of it, delivered partly through the heroes and I suspect mostly through Gamora who is clearly "alive" in the Soul World.

I too thought that his arm and the gauntlet looked damaged after "the snap". I figured that's because activating all six stones simultaneously causes a bit of blowback and the gauntlet itself was specifically created to handle that. That's why Thanos went out of his way to get Brokk to make it. Otherwise any old gauntlet would do.

I agree regarding Thanos's psychology. He had already identified what he thought the solution should be and had implemented it so many times over that he had a rep for it. The gauntlet just gave him a bigger hammer and let him do it all at once. He wasn't interested in finding another way. I'm not sure if that's lazy, stupid or obsessive. He is supposed to be insane; maybe that's the manifestation of it.

I think that at least some of the sequel will take place within the stones. I wouldn't be surprised if that's part of Strange's plan - to influence Thanos from within. Yes, Thanos always loses because he subconsciously knows that he's not worthy of ultimate power and so he creates the means for his own defeat. Adam Warlock points this out to him in the Infinity Gauntlet.

We may also get to see the 'minds' of the stones themselves. We know that they're at least semi-aware because Vision could hear the mind stone speaking to him and the space stone clearly teleported the Red Skull to the soul stone world (and altered him in doing so) on purpose. It's funny - I recognised Hugo Weaving's voice right away but it never occurred to me that it was the Skull!

[Vendetta]

We may also get to see the 'minds' of the stones themselves. We know that they're at least semi-aware because Vision could hear the mind stone speaking to him and the space stone clearly teleported the Red Skull to the soul stone world (and altered him in doing so) on purpose. It's funny - I recognised Hugo Weaving's voice right away but it never occurred to me that it was the Skull!

Ironically, it's not actually Hugo Weaving. He didn't want to come back anyway. Ross Marquand was Skull.

[Shannon]

Really? I couldn't tell the difference (clearly), though I did think the Skull looked a little different.

[mr friendly guy]

Random thoughts

1. In the comics, Warlock defeated Thanos by hiding in the soul gem and causing the soul gem to disrupt the gauntlet such that it came off Thanos. So in the sequel I am going to say Vision and Gamora are in their respective gems and do something similar.

2. Stormbreaker is fucking awesome.

3. Ebony Maw despite his awesome powers gets owned by physics.

4. Why didn't strange simply teleport near the dark dimension and let Thanos and Dormammu duke it out? Can Thanos even teleport between dimensions?

[NeoGoomba]

Random thoughts

4. Why didn't strange simply teleport near the dark dimension and let Thanos and Dormammu duke it out? Can Thanos even teleport between dimensions?

Probably because Strange tried it in one of the 14 million scenarios he examined. He triaged the situation and knew they had to give Thanos the stones (and that Stark had to live, I'm guessing) for whatever long game he's playing to work.

Besides, at that point Thanos had enough of the gems where even Dormamu would be given pause. And with the Reality/Space stones I'm guessing he could have returned if he wanted.

I DO kind of like how Thanos couldn't really use the gems at will unless he really gave an effort, which almost led to him losing on Titan. His subconscious thanatos/self-loathing at work I'm guessing.

That's why I think he couldn't effortlessly harness the stones' power until he had all of them - deep down he didn't want to. ESPECIALLY not after getting the Soul Stone.