Infinity War [SPOILERS]

Coin

Man, if you are looking at this and you haven't seen Infinity War, it's your own damn fault.

Let's open this up with: which death rocked you the most?

I know a lot of them will be reversed, but for me, the one that most got me that I somehow doubt will be reversed is Loki.

I mean that shit was cold and established the hell out of what the movie was gonna be like.

Gamora's was powerful, too.

Also, did anyone else feel like the Black Order got cleaned way too casually? Like, I understand time constraints, etc., but Proxima Midnight and Ebony Maw especially got basically punted rather unceremoniously.

TheOnceler

Ebony Maw was the only one with any real personality (but he oozed personality) so I was surprised at his out of the box death. The others I didn't much care about, though unlike Corvus Glaive and Cull Obsidian at least Proxima Midnight had a good line.

If anything I was annoyed that twice in the movie Proxima Midnight was sectioned off for a chick fight. Guys, it's okay for the girls and guys to fight. No one's going to get upset.

Also, look up James Gunn's recent tweet on what Groot's last words were. Certainly changed my most affecting death from Spidey to Groot.

Coin

@theonceler said in Infinity War [SPOILERS]:

Ebony Maw was the only one with any real personality (but he oozed personality) so I was surprised at his out of the box death. The others I didn't much care about, though unlike Corvus Glaive and Cull Obsidian at least Proxima Midnight had a good line.

If anything I was annoyed that twice in the movie Proxima Midnight was sectioned off for a chick fight. Guys, it's okay for the girls and guys to fight. No one's going to get upset.

Yeah, this bugged me, too.

It also kind of bugged me that we didn't get to see Gamora and Nebula interact with what I can only assume they view as fellow adopted siblings.

Gamora and Nebula treat each other as sisters but I am super interested in what the dynamic might be between them and the other four. I suspect Maw would be the hypercondescending Oldest Brother, while Proxima Midnight might have once been the Example Set By Oldest Sister whom both Neb and Gam probably surpassed at some point (I get the feeling that properly armed they could take her). Corvus and Cull had such absolute lack of personality that I can't infer shit, as you said. And yet they got the least unceremonious deaths of them all.

Also, look up James Gunn's recent tweet on what Groot's last words were. Certainly changed my most affecting death from Spidey to Groot.

Oh, sonuvab--

God damn it.

Ugh. My fucking gut just got punched again.

Arkandel

This is from a post I made elsewhere but it might make for a fun shitpost here.

So let's assume things had gone different in the movies leading up to Infinity War. Let's say the villains had reconciled with the heroes, maybe because Thanos' attack started early and they wanted to avoid becoming culled along with everyone else.

Could they have turned the tide?

Asgard. Would Hela have been enough if she hadn't annihilated Asgard's defenses, standing with her brothers against Thanos (who we could then assume had multiple Infinity Gems but not all of them) ? What if Odin was around as well, would it have been enough?

Alright, fine, and Malekith as well.

Earth could have had multiple additional villainous defenders. Aldrich Killian, Hydra's Helicarriers, The Ancient One, Killmonger and Iron Monger, even the Abomination could have lent a hand.
Could Ego have taken Thanos out? Would he have been enough? What if Ronan stood with him along with the Guardians of the Galaxy?
Honorary mentions but irrelevant in this context are bad guys who wouldn't care to stand against Thanos. Ultron would want him to snap twice! And Dormammu... well, he's probably even worse.

I'm also leaving out X-Men villains since they haven't joined the MCU officially yet. If you want though feel free to toss in names like Apocalypse or Magneto to the fold.

What do you think?

Coin

@arkandel said in Infinity War [SPOILERS]:

This is from a post I made elsewhere but it might make for a fun shitpost here.

So let's assume things had gone different in the movies leading up to Infinity War. Let's say the villains had reconciled with the heroes, maybe because Thanos' attack started early and they wanted to avoid becoming culled along with everyone else.

Could they have turned the tide?

Asgard. Would Hela have been enough if she hadn't annihilated Asgard's defenses, standing with her brothers against Thanos (who we could then assume had multiple Infinity Gems but not all of them) ? What if Odin was around as well, would it have been enough?

Alright, fine, and Malekith as well.

Earth could have had multiple additional villainous defenders. Aldrich Killian, Hydra's Helicarriers, The Ancient One, Killmonger and Iron Monger, even the Abomination could have lent a hand.

Could Ego have taken Thanos out? Would he have been enough? What if Ronan stood with him along with the Guardians of the Galaxy?

Honorary mentions but irrelevant in this context are bad guys who wouldn't care to stand against Thanos. Ultron would want him to snap twice! And Dormammu... well, he's probably even worse.

I'm also leaving out X-Men villains since they haven't joined the MCU officially yet. If you want though feel free to toss in names like Apocalypse or Magneto to the fold.

What do you think?

I think the biggest question is the first one: would hela and Odin have made a difference? Possibly. On the other hand, a lot of people were assuming Hela was going to take Death's plac e in the whole Thanos Loves Death bit (probably not with love, but definitely with influencing his decision, etc) if they hadn't gone with the (much better, imo) motivations for Thanos that they did.

I am not sure Hela wouldn't have sided with Thanos. She's the goddess of Death. In a nod to the comics, she might actually have become more powerful after such a massive fucking killcount.

Odin was old, and probably woudn't have been able to do much, especially if, like, Heimdall and Thor got smacked around like they did--and Malekith without the Aether was pretty much papier-mache.

Ego might have been a heavy hitter (not Ronan, he'd be scrap faster than Heimdall was--Thanos had him as a lackey and wasn't concerned with Ronan's posturing even when he didn't have any of the Stones). But again, as with Ultron (which you mention rightly would probably want Thanos to snap twice), Ego's entire schtick was kind of "wipe everything out, start brand new" so he might have just been like "yeah, sure, go for it, it'll be easier for me later" Assuming that he didn't get scrapped too in the fingersnap. But if he's the last Celestial (no confirmation) with the other being Peter, it's a 50/50?

Everyone else (Killmonger, Killian, Iron Monger, Hydra Helicarriers, etc., etc.) would just have been part of the Battle of Wakanda which, frankly, would have made absolutely no difference. Notice that the heroes win that battle. The speed with which they win the battle makes absolutely no difference. It's not until Thanos arrives that they lose, quickly and definitively.

Now, if the Tony-Spidey-Guardians team had had some more help... then maybe. I suppose maybe this is where Ronan might have made a difference--but narratively it would have been futile anyway.

SG

@coin said in Infinity War [SPOILERS]:

if they hadn't gone with the (much better, imo) motivations for Thanos that they did.

I have to disagree with his motivations in the movie being better. I was watching the movie and was like, huh? In two or three generations, things will be back to where they were, why not use the IG to affect fertility rates or just like, you know, make more food?

.

Arkandel

@sg Yeah, this can be chalked up to the Matrix's reasoning. Sure, obviously it makes no sense when you really think about it, but it still gave us a great movie.

Also Thanos doesn't need to be perfect. Lots of highly intelligent people in real history supported some really dumb ideas.

Coin

@sg said in Infinity War [SPOILERS]:

@coin said in Infinity War [SPOILERS]:

if they hadn't gone with the (much better, imo) motivations for Thanos that they did.

I have to disagree with his motivations in the movie being better. I was watching the movie and was like, huh? In two or three generations, things will be back to where they were, why not use the IG to affect fertility rates or just like, you know, make more food?

.

Because Thanos motivation isn't actually altruistic, it's prideful. He wants to prove he was right, and that not listening to him on Titan was wrong.

There's no actual benevolence or mercy to what he's doing, it's all egotism.

In any case, it's a better motivation for a movie aimed at a much larger audience (than the comic books) because it's not so (pardon my redundance) "comic book-y". It's more grounded and less abstract and gimmicky. "Oh, I'm in love with death, let me kill truillions and trillions of people for Her". Ennnhhhh. Comic book readers are used to and like the hammy shit on occasion, but these are major blockbuster films aimed at several orders of magnitude above, in audience numbers. A more grounded motivation is much better.

SG

@arkandel I guess my issue is that the comics already had a solid motivation, Thanos was nuts and in love with an abstract concept. They really didn't need to change that for the movie.

Coin

@sg said in Infinity War [SPOILERS]:

@arkandel I guess my issue is that the comics already had a solid motivation, Thanos was nuts and in love with an abstract concept. They really didn't need to change that for the movie.

See my post above. They really, really did. It doesn't work for the broader, "layman" audience the movies have compared to the comic books.

Arkandel

@sg said in Infinity War [SPOILERS]:

@arkandel I guess my issue is that the comics already had a solid motivation, Thanos was nuts and in love with an abstract concept. They really didn't need to change that for the movie.

If they had gone with Hela I'd have been fine with that. Or if they had mentioned a different avatar of Death before in the MCU, same deal.

But this was already a long-ass movie with a crap-ton of characters in it. They didn't need an extra major one, especially coming out of nowhere and whom they'd need to explain.

SG

I did enjoy it, that was the only thing that bugged me. When I re watch it, there better be a Thanos-copter somewhere in the background near his retirement home, I will be shocked if they didn't easter egg that.

Coin

@sg said in Infinity War [SPOILERS]:

@coin said in Infinity War [SPOILERS]:

if they hadn't gone with the (much better, imo) motivations for Thanos that they did.

I have to disagree with his motivations in the movie being better. I was watching the movie and was like, huh? In two or three generations, things will be back to where they were, why not use the IG to affect fertility rates or just like, you know, make more food?

.

Also, uhm.

If there was a super-powerful, axe-crazy, armies-commanding, mass murdering nutjob who came to your planet, committed mass genocide and literally reduced your population to half, and then said, "and don't let it happen again", I suspect that the people of that world would take birth control and population rates much more seriously for much longer than two or three generations, just out of sheer terror of it happening again.

Never mind if that same guy suddenly had the omnipotence to do it with a snap of his fingers.

Not saying he did the right thing, but I meaaaaaaaaaaan it might have been effective, if not moral or ethical.

SG

@coin He did that to relatively few planets, though. All the planets out there where people just disappeared will be having baby booms for the next twenty years.

Coin

@sg said in Infinity War [SPOILERS]:

@coin He did that to relatively few planets, though. All the planets out there where people just disappeared will be having baby booms for the next twenty years.

Not necessarily.

I suspect a lot of populations will just die out.

But I mean, he can let everyone know that they should control their birthrates with as much ease as he annihilated half their population. Space/Mind/soul, everyone knows they need to watch it.

Or maybe he didn't think of it because, again, super prideful and not really actually merciful.

Also, maybe he just figured if things got out of hand again he'd just, you know...

finger snap

TheOnceler

It may not follow real world logic, but Thanos has already seen results that back up his logic.

He doesn't reduce Titan by half. It's a wasteland.

He reduces Gamora's world by half. It's a paradise.

Coin

@theonceler said in Infinity War [SPOILERS]:

It may not follow real world logic, but Thanos has already seen results that back up his logic.

He doesn't reduce Titan by half. It's a wasteland.

He reduces Gamora's world by half. It's a paradise.

To be fair, @SG's logic takes into account generations, which clearly haven't passed, since Gamora isn't even middle-aged now. But from a radical, genocidal extremist's point of view? Yeah, absolutely.

Also, I mean--personally, for a movie I've been waiting ten years to see, I prefer the grounded motivation of "absolute nutjob thinks he's saving the universe by murdering half its population" than the rather silly, "nutjob is in love with abstract concept of Death and so kills half the universe".

Coin

@theonceler said in Infinity War [SPOILERS]:

It may not follow real world logic, but Thanos has already seen results that back up his logic.

He doesn't reduce Titan by half. It's a wasteland.

He reduces Gamora's world by half. It's a paradise.

Further consideration to your comment also brings up:

Maybe killing half the world doesn't solve the issue long-term, but it does give the population a chance to rectify it.

Not doing it turned Titan into a wasteland--doing it made Gamora's world a paradise and gave it a chance to remain that way.

Still completely batshit insane, but.

Arkandel

@coin Also do you see Thanos being the kind of guy who looks back at his actions and goes "oh, yeah, I guess I was in the wrong there"?

He seems the type to double down. He's be that guy for sure.

But also to the earlier point, I'm happy they didn't go for the Death angle since it'd also kinda cheapen his motivation. The guy killed his fucking daughter (oh and half the universe), so he might as well have done it because he thought it was the right thing instead of just trying to impress a girl.

Coin

@arkandel said in Infinity War [SPOILERS]:

@coin Also do you see Thanos being the kind of guy who looks back at his actions and goes "oh, yeah, I guess I was in the wrong there"?

He seems the type to double down. He's be that guy for sure.

But also to the earlier point, I'm happy they didn't go for the Death angle since it'd also kinda cheapen his motivation. The guy killed his fucking daughter (oh and half the universe), so he might as well have done it because he thought it was the right thing instead of just trying to impress a girl.

Exactly, to both your points.