Avengers: Infinity War (SPOILER DISCUSSION)

Title says it all! Stay away if you don't want to be spoiled!

Warning aside, anyone else seen this one yet? Was it what you'd hoped it would be?

What do you think of that ending? Where do you think they might take it in the follow-up next May?

I enjoyed it and was actually surprised to see red skull was back.

I'm curious on what's going to happen next Obviously giving Thanos the Time stone put the Avengers on the path to victory that Dr Strange saw. also I hope they explain why Nick Fury didn't call Capt Marvel during the Avengers or Age of Ultron

I do find it curious that most of the characters who were turned to dust are the newer ones who still have sequels to make.

OK now below contains a spoiler for the new God of War game. I repeat if you do not want get spoiled by something that gets revealed at the ENDING!!! of the newest God of War game do not click the spoiler tab. You have been warned

Spoiler:

Rickster wrote:

I do find it curious that most of the characters who were turned to dust are the newer ones who still have sequels to make.

I didn't notice that myself at the time. But then I figured this is all getting reversed in the next movie anyway.

That said, I'm hoping there will be a real cost for that kind of "fix". I think death reversals in fiction should have a heavy, heavy cost. Otherwise it's too easy for my jaded mind to shrug whenever someone is killed or threatened with death in a story.

I've heard some speculation on character deaths for this event, with Cap and Iron Man being the top contenders for perma-death.

I'm in agreement, but my meta-reasoning is probably a stronger influence than my story reasoning:

Chris Evans has apparently been open about his disinterest in playing Cap for a long time. He has used his Cap money to fund smaller projects he has been more passionate about. And since the Cap role has at least been temporarily handed over to other comics characters for significant stretches of time, it's the easier one for me to imagine being passed off. The problem there is that no one else, not even Bucky, has the same origin that Steve Rogers has. He was a good, traditionally moral guy from the 40's, who just wanted to help the underdog. Bucky is also a man out of time, but he lacks that same "wholesome" aspect of Rogers. So a new Cap just wouldn't have that same heart of gold.

Tony Stark as played by Downey Jr just works for audiences so well. And reliant on that suit, Stark can age and keep doing his thing well into his 60's if he wants to, unlike other more physical heroes that will need to age out and let younger heroes take over. But Robert Downey Jr. has several times implied that his time as Iron Man is coming to an end, having an off and on relationship with the idea of doing any more Iron Man solo movies. So like Evans he's also likely ready to move on. But while his origins story isn't as central to his character as Rogers, that dry wit and delivery that has come with the character's cinematic interpretation likely can't be replicated. (In fact TRYING to replicate it repeatedly is what has made so many of the Marvel movies unfunny to me).

So I really don't know who could die, although there is a distant third possibility that the whole Universe "dies". In other words, we see some major character deaths, without the heroes being replaced, then Marvel does a few more solo movies, and then the whole universe gets rebooted and everyone gets re-cast. This is the most unlikely option. It would be a crazy risk for Disney, given how attached people are to these characters/actors now. I think it will happen eventually, but not now. Reboots, historically, are reserved for those times when audiences have lost interest in a property and it needs to be refreshed. But near as I can tell, audiences love the MCU more than ever.

Any guesses on who might perma-die next May? Or will no one ultimately be gone forever?

I really enjoyed Avengers: Infinity War. If part two pans out, they could become my favorite marvel movies; currently my favorite is Captain America: The Winter Soldier.
With that said there are some things I didn’t like:

Heimdall, the guy who was frozen by the casket of ancient winters and broke free by merely yelling… seemed to be easily defeated at the beginning of the movie.
That was very disappointing, especially since it was always talked about how immensely powerful he was.

I don’t like Iron Man’s new nano-armor.
It’s way too convenient and doesn’t seem to have any limitation on what it can do/create. His biggest weakness is when he doesn’t have the power suit, now it’s always with him.

Ebony Maw died way too early in the movie; that character was awesome.
He also died in a not so satisfying way. He was probably the only one in Thanos’ group that I thought posed an actual threat to the Avengers.

Thor learned how to control his omega lightning powers without the need of a specially forged weapon in the Ragnarok movie, but then spends half of infinity war trying to get a new specially forged weapon… a little confused on that.

Scarlet Witch has the ability to destroy an infinity stone… what? OP much? I also still do not understand her powers.

What exactly the infinity stones can do is not explained very well.

Thanos’ motivation didn’t make sense to me at all. He says that there are too many people and not enough resources… in the universe! Does he not know how big the universe is? So his solution is to kill half of the people in the universe. Okay. Well, it won’t take long for people to reproduce and then you have the same problem again, right? Why not snap your fingers and say… permanently reduce the fertility rate? Or create infinite resources? Or anything else along those lines? Nah, let’s just kill a ridiculous amount of people because supervillain.

By knowing there is a part two, the ending is less impactful unless they actually don’t reverse anything in the next movie… which would be an epic move. So epic that it’s highly unlikely. But yeah methinks Cap and Iron Man are going to perma-die. I was hoping Iron Man would die in this movie (they had a perfect scene for it). But I agree that if they ‘fix’ everything then there should be a huge cost.

And those are my thoughts, but again, it was an enjoyable movie.

This is long. Hang on to your hats!

I enjoyed the film but I have three major issues:

1. Thanos could have easily been killed on Titan. Why the crap would you try to get his glove off when you can just blow his brains out when Mantis has him paralyzed?
   
2. "You should've gone for the head." Yup. It would've taken 3 seconds for Thor to pull Stormbringer out of Thanos' chest and finish him. Why didn't he?
   
3. The Time Stone. All of this is moot because it can be reversed by the Time Stone. In fact, Every. Single. Event. In. The. Last. Ten. Years. Can. Be. Reversed. That's dumb.
   

Now on to some comments and speculation:

• Thanos is NEVER getting a Father's Day card.
  
• Thanos will undo all of this with the Time Stone because of his grief over sacrificing Gamorra.
  
• We know Spider-man, Black Panther, & Guardians of the Galaxy 3 are already planned. This takes away from these characters turning to ash and shows that what happened isn't permanent.
  
• I liked the Banner/Hulk struggle but I think it would have been better suited in an individual movie.
  
• The Time Stone will be used to reverse the events of the entire MCU and they will "reset" the franchise and focus on new characters.
  
• Not sure where Ant-Man and Wasp fits in but I bet they get stuck in the nanoverse which would explain why they weren't in this movie. I suspect they'll show up along with Captain Marvel in the next movie to help save the day.
  
• Deadpool 2 better have a comment about Cable looking better in purple.
  
• Besides Cap and Ironman, I think Loki and Heimdal are "permanently" dead. We may see a newer version of them but I think this is it for these iterations of those characters.
  

Now I'll comment on some things that have already been said:

Rickster wrote:I enjoyed it and was actually surprised to see red skull was back.

This surprised me too. It felt ret-conned so I'll need to rewatch Captain America to see if it make sense.

Rickster wrote:I'm curious on what's going to happen next Obviously giving Thanos the Time stone put the Avengers on the path to victory that Dr Strange saw. Also, I hope they explain why Nick Fury didn't call Capt Marvel during the Avengers or Age of Ultron.

Maybe it's because he didn't have a cool Motorola pager that had been modded. That pager looks to be from the same timeframe that Capt. Marvel will be set (the 1990's). [/quote]

Rickster wrote:I do find it curious that most of the characters who were turned to dust are the newer ones who still have sequels to make.

That was a cheap trick to try and tug on our emotions.

Archsaint wrote:Scarlet Witch has the ability to destroy an infinity stone… what? OP much? I also still do not understand her powers.

Vision mentioned that the stone was oscillating. I don't think it's so much a power issue. Scarlet Witch can match the oscillation and destroy it.

Archsaint wrote:Thanos’ motivation didn’t make sense to me at all.

I see where you're going. Considering the Marvel universe is billions of years old, it would take a long time for it to fill up again.

Paeter wrote:I've heard some speculation on character deaths for this event, with Cap and Iron Man being the top contenders for perma-death.

These are the two I think will "die".

OK, that's it for now! I need to write a review and record a podcast with my daughter about this movie some time this week.

jorowi wrote:I enjoyed the film but I have three major issues:

Thanos could have easily been killed on Titan. Why the crap would you try to get his glove off when you can just blow his brains out when Mantis has him paralyzed?

Peter Quill was trying to find out what happened to Gamorra. Plus, Mantis was in the line of fire. Also, weren't they acting on Strange's plan, which appears to have been to make sure Thanos ended up with the Time Stone.

jorowi wrote:"You should've gone for the head." Yup. It would've taken 3 seconds for Thor to pull Stormbringer out of Thanos' chest and finish him. Why didn't he?

Big axe in the chest seems pretty lethal to me. Thor isn't used to thinking on a cosmic scale yet.

jorowi wrote:The Time Stone. All of this is moot because it can be reversed by the Time Stone. In fact, Every. Single. Event. In. The. Last. Ten. Years. Can. Be. Reversed. That's dumb.

Thanos will undo all of this with the Time Stone because of his grief over sacrificing Gamorra.

Weren't the stones and the gauntlet both cracked and destroyed at the end of the movie? I doubt Thanos will even consider that. And Strange was the only one who knew how to work the Time Stone. Captain Marvel might be able to do something with that, but I don't think it will be a factor at all. My early speculation is that the remnants of the infinity stones will be forged into a Cosmic Cube.

jorowi wrote:
We know Spider-man, Black Panther, & Guardians of the Galaxy 3 are already planned. This takes away from these characters turning to ash and shows that what happened isn't permanent.

Did anyone really think this was the end of the story? The Black Panther sequel is not signed or confirmed, and Kevin Fiege (director of Marvel Studios) has stated that movies after phase 3 will be "something different". Spider-Man 2 and GoG 3 are set to be the end of this story arc. Infinity War is the "Empire Strikes Back" of Marvel. No one really believes that Han will stay in carbonite forever, even as it happens, but it doesn't lessen the impact of the scene.

Rickster wrote:I'm curious on what's going to happen next Obviously giving Thanos the Time stone put the Avengers on the path to victory that Dr Strange saw. Also, I hope they explain why Nick Fury didn't call Capt Marvel during the Avengers or Age of Ultron.

I don't think either of those events were big enough for Captain Marvel. I think it's probably just that simple.

jorowi wrote:

Rickster wrote:I do find it curious that most of the characters who were turned to dust are the newer ones who still have sequels to make.

That was a cheap trick to try and tug on our emotions.

I disagree. The characters that remain are the original Avengers. It allows them to close the story arc begun by the original characters without interference from the new popular ones that might upstage them.

Everyone seems to be under the assumption that characters will die. I don't think it's necessary. The comics have a long history of other character's picking up heroic mantles from other. Captain America has passed the shield on at least twice, we've had at least three other Thors, two different Hulks I can think of, half a dozen Iron Man pilots.....

Also, why does Marvel need to continue this continuity at all? Let the story conclude and tell another one with different characters or different versions of these characters! Plus, serial storytelling of this kind in movie form has got to be monstrously expensive. All it would take is one box office flop to derail the whole thing I fear.

I'm late to this party because the movie didn't come out in China until May 11th. I wrote a blog about my theater experience, if anyone is interested: https://theexpatriateact.wordpress.com/2018/05/14/my-first-10-day-day-check-in-seeing-avengers-in-china/

One thing I didn't mention in the blog due to spoilers: my loudest reaction during the film was the reveal of the stonekeeper as the Red Skull. I knew he didn't die in The First Avenger because there was no body, but I also knew that Hugo Weaving wasn't interested in doing any more superhero movies, so I often wondered if they'd find a way to bring him back. They did, even though it wasn't Weaving under the makeup. But it was still really cool to me.

I really liked the movie and look forward to seeing it again. I've got numerous ideas of what they could do in the sequel, but I think they mostly line up with what everyone else is speculating. I assume Doctor Strange gave up the time stone to save Tony because Tony is integral to the one scenario Strange saw where they defeated Thanos. But I do think Tony and Steve are the most likely to die, retire, or whatever after Avengers 4 due to the behind-the-scenes stuff mentioned.

Regarding Captain Marvel and the stinger at the end: Since the Captain Marvel movie takes place in the 90's, I'm guessing we're going to get an explanation at the end for where she's been this whole time and why she's able to come back for Avengers 4. You'd think if she had been around and Nick Fury had known her since before he put the Avengers together, she'd have been involved with the battle of New York. Maybe she's been stuck in space and was finally able to contact Fury sometime between Age of Ultron and Infinity War. Interesting that Fury contacted her on an old pager instead of, you know, a normal smart phone like everyone else. That seems to hint at her being very out of the modern loop.

Reed Benson wrote: Interesting that Fury contacted her on an old pager instead of, you know, a normal smart phone like everyone else. That seems to hint at her being very out of the modern loop.

Yeah, I'm interested in that! Not as cool as the Steve Rogers "man out of time" stuff, but I think it could help her stand out a bit!

I can finally join this thread! Woohoo

So, really enjoyed this one. Appreciated the places they went to. I was expecting a body count, but not quite half the universe! Obviously most of them will be re-set. Knowing that didn't really lessen the emotional horror of it, though. Do you think they'll be bold enough to leave Gamora dead? Probably not, as they probably really want her for GOTG 3. Part of me wants them to let her actually die, though.

I did notice that what we're left with now, is basically the original 4 avengers. Kind of fitting.

The biggest surprise of the movie was that the guardians of the galaxy could be used for serious drama. Who knew? It has actually made me respect those characters a little more.

My biggest question has been, why on earth did Doctor Strange give up the timestone? Especially after saying he wouldn't hesitate to let both Tony and Peter die to protect it. But a vert god theory has been suggested by Rugged Warrior and Reed. It's gotta be related to his vision of the one future where they win.

Also, thanks for clarifying that logo on Nick Fury's pager at the end.

AdamCollings wrote:
Also, thanks for clarifying that logo on Nick Fury's pager at the end.

I didnt know what it was until the guy sitting behind me yelled Captain Marvel. My sister's boyfriend who I saw the movie with was like Thanks now i dont have to look that up now.