Marvel Phase III Movie Discussion Thread

[Niners Fan in CT]

I didn't love the Doctor Strange movie but he was fucking AWESOME in this.   Huge pops for Cap and Thor at one point also.   Huge pop for another character I won't name here but he's on a popular TV show.   Also,  the ending just everyone was in shock.  It was crazy.    

Then we thought for sure there would be a mid credits and there wasn't and everyone gasped AGAIN.   It was perfect that they dragged it out until the very end.  I'm not sure how many people "got" the post-credits but we popped.  

Ebony Maw might also be one of the best villains they've ever had. 

[John from Cincinnati]

I’ll co-sign the love for Strange. He was my favourite hero in this thing, and I was so-so on his mystic-flavoured origin pic. 

Guardians and Thor tie for second place here. Not at all what I expected. Great flick. 

Spoiler

There was some complaining in my group about a lack of buy in for the ending. Fair, but I don’t care. It’s a comic book movie. These things happen and they don’t harm my investment. It’s just the genre. 

Although I could see general audiences being iffy about it as they keep steering into the weird. 

 

[Casey]

Spoiler

As for the complaining about the "lack of depth" for the Black Order - they aren't meant to be anything more than jobbers. Nothing spells that out for the audience better than when Thanos finally does the snap, and he sees young Gamora.

 

Quote

 

Gamora: Did you do it?

Thanos: Yes.

Gamora: What did it cost?

Thanos: Everything.

 

Would I have loved to see a fleshed out version of Proxima Midnight, because she's a badass and Carrie Coon is awesome? Ebony Maw was a highlight as well, but at the end of the day, the Black Order is just a means to an end, and even they know it. Maw died, and he still sent Spider-Man, Dr. Strange and Iron Man to Titan on the ship because the ship couldn't be course corrected, so one way or another Thanos would get what he needed.

Also, the whole thing about "lol all the new characters died but it's supposedly random who's affected by the snap!" is sorta explained by Thor, to Rocket, when he tells him that fate wants him alive for a reason after everything he's been through in his life. The same could be said about Iron Man, Captain America and Hulk. Fate has plans for all of them, and they'll likely have to sacrifice themselves so the new heroes (and ultimately that half of humanity that perished) can return.

 

[AxB]

They never said Guardians 3 wouldn't star Sylvester Stallone, Michelle Yeoh, and that robot who speaks in Emojis.

[J.T.]

That shit was great.

Spoiler

Kinder, Gentler, Genocidal Thanos is far more frightening than Courting With Death Thanos. 

The character in the comics did not age well for me.  When I re-read the Cosmic Cube stuff as an adult, Nihilism Thanos really did reek of an entitled man-child with abandonment issues whose sole goal was to take his ball and go home on a cosmic scale.

This new Thanos really does scare the living shit out of me because he is mature, self-actualized, honestly believes that he is in the right, and has the means and the will to carry out his plan.

It felt strangely comforting to cross The Red Skull off of the Dead Marvel Villains list even though exile and being turned into a cosmically aware phantom has drastically changed his world view to say the least.

I'm still unpacking a lot of what happened and a year is a long time to wait for resolution that we won't even get from the Captain Marvel movie next March since that is an origin tale set in the 90's.

Mark Ruffalo getting to be just Bruce fucking ruled.  His delivery is perfect.  "There's an Ant-Man AND a Spider-Man?"

Dr. Strange also elevated himself to the top tier of awesomeness for not only battling Thanos to a standstill, but for also keeping Tony Stark's ego in check.

Everything happens at the same time in the MCU so I am wondering how Infinity War will affect Ant-Man & The Wasp?  Who will go poof at the end?

I was kinda bummed by the lack of development for the Black Order, but they were cannon fodder so I gave it a pass. 

At least Ebony Maw seemed well fleshed out, although his true believer ramblings really reminded me of The Purifier from The Chronicles of Riddick

I see that even in the MCU. US Presidents still make shitty Cabinet choices.  I totally forgot that Thunderbolt Ross has been the Secretary of State since Civil War.

I would love for this story to take more than two movies to resolve, but you can't run a trilogy with your Empire Strikes Back as the first fucking film.  Thanos needs to get what's coming to him by next Spring.

 

[JonnyLaw]

Spoiler

Yes, it’s obvious to us or anyone who reads comics/spoilers/movie news that these deaths aren’t final.  Tell that to the kid next to me in the theater bawling because “All my favorite heroes are dead???”  (No seriously, tell them.  The kid was shook.  I told him not to worry and they’ll come back in the next one, and he was all “Really??”)  This thing is Empire meets Transformers: The Movie.

 

[Craig H]

Oh damn, I didn't even think about how kids might react. This may break them harder than Empire did for some of us when we were their age. 

[J.T.]

Yeah, I could hear several children openly sobbing in my theater, 

Spoiler

when Thanos murdered The Vision (AFTER MANIPUATING TIME TO GET THE FUCKING STONE~!) and when Peter Parker went poof.  My daughter never cries at these things and even she felt a little sting at the eye when T'Challa turned to ash.

It was tough.  You want to console the kids, but you don't want to ruin the story for thenm going forward either.

Spoiler

I remember when some kids started bawling during LOTR: Fellowship when the Balrog pulled Gandalf down the chasm and some well intentioned asshole shouted "He's fine.  Just read the books," which drew boos from the audience followed by thrown popcorn.

The kids will experience Ramsay Bolton Is Dead levels of elation when Thanos gets his comic book come uppance.  It will be glorious.

 

[nate]

Thanks, Quill, now I have to explain to my daughter what "nutsack" means and why you don't say it in public.

[Matt D]

7 minutes ago, nate said:

Thanks, Quill, now I have to explain to my daughter what "nutsack" means and why you don't say it in public.

My wife is still pissed about the middle finger in Speed Racer.

[Coletti]

"Motherf-"

[Niners Fan in CT]

Hey,  grown men were sobbing with this too!  A couple things definitely affected me.   Also,  I think this is the first MCU movie that accurately depicted how powerful Strange,  Thor and Wanda are.  Maybe some of that is they were all still learning their powers in previous films.  But it was definitely cool as fuck to see them tearing shit up.  

Honestly,  I'd rank Ebony Maw pretty high on the villain list.  The shit talking alone..   he is not someone who I could ever see shedding tears.  He gives zero fucks. 

[The Unholy Dragon]

EDIT: There's more film thoughts below the cut. I just accidentally nested spoilers instead of having the discrete batches I wanted and the editor hinders more than helps in correcting this.

 

@J.T. I totally agree on Thanos. I still like the classic stuff, and his arc ended up coming around to more interesting stuff later, but then comics were comics and he kept coming more or less back to the classics. Film Thanos had way more to him. I particularly liked two things:
 

 

His conviction comes from the trauma of loss. Thanos is MESSED UP. He saw his people suffer and die because they wouldn't do what they needed, only in this case he felt he directly had the power to change it and failed. The trauma of that has given him this crazy conviction that what he's doing is right and just. This is best embodied by the second thing.

 

He has a total failure of imagination paired with a massive ego. Dude gets what is described as functionally being absolute power. He can do basically anything. He could bring back his people and the people he killed along the way and make the whole universe a utopia of infinite abundance, free of the things that set him on his path to begin with. But that trauma convinced him there's only one way, so...snap. 

I also like that while he sees the violence as an unpleasant necessity on a conscious level, he's clearly got a sadistic streak that he'd rather not acknowledge.

 

Speaking on moments that hit me in the feels, permanence or not...

 

 

The stuff with Quill and Gamora. Where he doesn't end up faltering and tries to kill her...but fails because Thanos wasn't playing fair. Or when he finds out she's dead and LOSES IT to the point of screwing them all over in the fight. Chris Pratt has nailed those emotional beats and like the bit in GotG2 where he just starts laying into Ego, it felt super real to me. 

Thor's talk with Rocket about everything he lost. Chris Hemsworth just nailed this vulnerability that he's trying desperately to turn to resolve because the only thing he has left to drive him is his anger and need for revenge. And Rocket trying to help him deal with those feelings but not knowing quite how was also a great bit of growth on Rocket's part. 

Wanda bringing herself to kill Vision too. Not for the moment itself which was fine but verging on narmy. No, the bit after where Thanos just presses rewind and Wanda and Vision both realize she just suffered that for NOTHING before Vision dies in failure, for nothing. Just an ungodly gut punch.

Peter and Tony's goodbye was BRUTAL too. Peter's bravery totally faltering as he becomes a scared kid facing his own death and Tony having to sit there and realize he's letting down everyone he's loved. He left Pepper behind and has this kid who looked up to him as a father and he sees as a son dying in his arms and all of it because he failed just like he was always afraid of. Bookending the film with Tony talking about having kids and his surrogate son dying in his arms was BRUTAL and I'm honestly getting a bit dusty eyed thinking of it. Incredible acting by both.

 

Also on a grand scale, the fact that Thanos basically undoes most of the big things the heroes had done in the past felt like such a gutpunch. We just saw the last refugees of Asgard looking hopefully to the future, now they're gutted and almost all dead and Thor's whole damn family is dead and gone. The Guardians found their purpose saving Xandar and Thanos obliterated it so swiftly and casually that it happened off-screen. Tony gets his shot at finishing the guy behind NY to bring closure to that part of his life and fails. Wakanda's new beginning is undercut by the death of their king and massive destruction to their country. Steve finally got Bucky back fully and he dies. Everything the major leads wanted and fought for over the last decade is shattered as nothing more than a side effect of Thanos' victory and it makes the whole thing land way harder for me. 

 

Few quibbles I had
 

 

I don't like that after multiple films moving the MCU into more heroic territory we're back to heroes killing nonchalantly and basically acting like a paramilitary organization. The wartime thing is fine, but in particular Peter just casually planning the murder of Ebony Maw rubbed me the wrong way a bit. 

 

While I appreciate the arc, the slow-mo and sad music for Gamora's death made the whole thing super narmy. And though I bought it fine, my wife didn't think the relationship had been sold enough to make the moment mean what they wanted, leading to her having to stifle laughter at how stupid she thought the scene was. 

 

Loki's death could have been better. I liked the idea and it IS consistent with MCU Loki, but that has more to do with the fact that MCU Loki is kind of an idiot who thinks he's a genius. Which is...look, it's FINE but it's not really what I want from Loki.

 

And one last thing that not enough people are talking up...

 

 

Grootspeak is an Asgardian school elective. Fantastic.

[J.T.]

The Unhoiy Dragon has just made the most brilliant observations yet discussed in this thread..

Spoiler

It had not dawned on me that Thanos really could use the infinity Gauntlet to improve the quality of life rather than simply eradicate life.

The fact that he had all of that power and still believed that genocide was the best course of action speaks volumes to how big of a monster he really is.

And yeah, Wanda experiencing the death of the man she loved TWICE was an extremely cruel story point.  The look of on her face was haunting when she turned to ash.  First fear, then acceptance because she'd rather die than live on without the Vision..

I felt sick inside when Thanos started using the Time Stone, because I knew exactly what he was going to do.

 

[The Man Known as Dan]

1 hour ago, Matt D said:

My wife is still pissed about the middle finger in Speed Racer.

 

As someone who found out what the middle finger means because I got sent to the principles office by doing it to a girl on accident in 2nd grade, there are worse things to explain.

[_MJ_]

15 hours ago, Matt D said:

Fine.

 

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The next movie is going to be about the original team getting back together and undoing this. That's what heroes do. Maybe someone that didn't fade away like Gamora doesn't come back. Maybe Cap dies for good. The idea that anyone is either a> doubting this or b> complaining about how it's not believable/real/full of honest stakes is absolutely insane and completely moronic. This is the way this genre works. It's a feature not a bug. Deaths, especially widescale deaths, can be undone if people are heroic enough and the sacrifice is big enough. The journey matters, not permanence and change. Let's all just move on and talk about that journey instead.

 

I usually have a visceral reaction when I seen "it's about the journey" phrase, thanks to the LOST creators (Matt D better not be Damon Lindeloph) and my argument that both the adventure and the expectations set by the people who control the story/franchise are equally important.  However, no need for that tangent because while I had a different reaction to the weight of the consequences, my experience isn't as important as the majority, especially the teenagers and kids it was aimed at.  More importantly, this movie executed the "journey" part a bit better than season 6 of LOST.

[Ace]

11 minutes ago, El Dragon said:

 

As someone who found out what the middle finger means because I got sent to the principles office by doing it to a girl on accident in 2nd grade, there are worse things to explain.

I'm pretty sure I learned what a hooker was from D.A.R.Y.L.

 

[Eivion]

On the Black Order:

Spoiler

I was fine with the way they had them job. None of them went down easily, and it took more than 2 people to take down all of them save Black Dwarf who I think was the weakest in the comics. Depth wis,e more could have been done, but it wouldn't have fit in the film with everything else going on. Even in the comics the only member who has real depth is the one who joined Post Secret Wars, Black Swan. While I'm sure Hickman has more behind each member, its nothing that has really entered the comics yet. There really just wasn't enough there to work with outside of making them sub bosses to beat.

 

[J.T.]

There is not enough love for the 1970's Mantis callback during the fight with Thanos on Titan.

I marked big for the leg-scissors chokehold, because I knew exactly what panel inspired that shot.

[The Unholy Dragon]

1 hour ago, J.T. said:

The Unhoiy Dragon has just made the most brilliant observations yet discussed in this thread..

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It had not dawned on me that Thanos really could use the infinity Gauntlet to improve the quality of life rather than simply eradicate life.

The fact that he had all of that power and still believed that genocide was the best course of action speaks volumes to how big of a monster he really is.

And yeah, Wanda experiencing the death of the man she loved TWICE was an extremely cruel story point.  The look of on her face was haunting when she turned to ash.  First fear, then acceptance because she'd rather die than live on without the Vision..

I felt sick inside when Thanos started using the Time Stone, because I knew exactly what he was going to do.

 

Spoiler

Wanda's reaction is great, but the look on Vision's face when he's been restored and is staring at Thanos totally helpless? Paul Bettany KILLED that. 

 

[JonnyLaw]

Spoiler

Also, Peter’s last words to Stark were another pop culture reference (to Dr. Who).

 

[J.T.]

There were people in my theater singing along with the movie when the crew of the Milano was jamming out to The Rubber Band Man by The Spinners.

[Niners Fan in CT]

My only gripe with the ending:  

This will probably be explained maybe in her own movie but where has Carol been all this time and why did Fury wait until the final ten seconds to summon her? Fury,  I think has known this was possible the entire time,  it's why he formed The Avengers in the first place. He waited until half the universe was dead to sub in Carol? That's like having LeBron James on the bench and not using him until you're down 20 in the 4th quarter.

[Niners Fan in CT]

Also,  one more minor nitpick: 

Couldn't Strange have done more with the Time stone to unravel Thanos plan?

[John from Cincinnati]

3 minutes ago, Niners Fan in CT said:

Also,  one more minor nitpick: 

 

  Reveal hidden contents

Couldn't Strange have done more with the Time stone to unravel Thanos plan?

 

Spoiler

I assume it’s the standard cop-out of “you don’t mess with time travel too much lest you risk unintended consequences,” that type of thing