Wednesday 16 May 2018

I Liked Avengers: Infinity War, But I Didn't LOVE It. Here's Why. (SPOILER FILLED)





Leaving the cinema after watching Avengers: Infinity War, The Bestie turned to me and said:

'Do you get why I said that once you've seen it, you really wanna watch it again, like, straight away?!'





And me, a diehard Marvel fan, who loves the Marvel films 'til the end of the line, said:

'No... not really. It was ok, though.'






Title image with square patterned background: I Liked Avengers: Infinity War But I Didn't LOVE It Here's Why










A note:



There are spoilers in this post.

This post is essentially all MASSIVE spoilers.

Spoilers everywhere.

Spoilers, spoilers, spoilers!

All the spoilers, all of the time!

THERE ARE SPOILERS!


Ok, I think we have now established that there are spoilers.












Avengers: Infinity War gif with Tony Stark taking off his sunglasses while Dr Strange, Wong, and Banner stand by a pile of debris behind him
Via Marvel Studios @ Giphy










I have some Infinity War-related thoughts, dearest Nerdlets!

For the record, this is just my opinion - I hope you really enjoyed Infinity War, and I'm super-pleased for you if you loved it! 💖







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General thoughts:




It was ok. No, I'm not gonna lie and say that it was the best thing I've ever seen. You guys know that I don't lie to you.



I liked it, and reeeeeally enjoyed it.

But I want to wait until Part 2 to make a final judgement.

There's still so much they could f**k up, and I have a few issues with what they've done already - not many!!!!

Overall I think they did really well. Doesn't mean I liked everything about though.








Heimdall in full armor looking up gif
Via Giphy





The Black Guy Dies First trope:



Idris Elba's Heimdall is the first named character to die.

Do better Marvel. It's not a good trope. It's actually usually considered a racist trope. #JustSaying










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The Bechdel Test:





simple Bechdel Test chart gif
Via Giphy







Two or more female characters?




- Wanda/Scarlet Witch

- Gamora

- Nebula

- Mantis

- Pepper Potts

- Shuri

- Black Widow/Natasha Romanoff

- Okoye



Yup. Check, check, and check.








Do they talk to each other?




Gamora talks to Nebula a li'l bit - not much, but it happens.

And on the battle field Wanda, Natasha, and Okoye have a li'l chatty-chat.

Yup. Fine on that score too.










Gamora mugshot/police line-up gif
Via Giphy











Do they talk about anything except dudes?



Erm... kind of.

Gamora tells Nebula she's sorry... but she's sorry because of what Thanos is doing to her, and Thanos is a dude.

(A dude who tortures one daughter and kills another; not good things happening to women there.)

Wanda, Natasha and Okoye do talk to each other on the battle field, but the main point of their convo is to tell Wanda to get to Vision - who's a dude.

Okoye's questioning of why tf they hadn't used Wanda in the battle before now seems to be directed at Natasha, but it's shouted across a battlefield... she could be talking to anyone.

So, I think this is a pass, but a cautious one.

Still, we're doing better than a lot of other superhero movies (lookin' at you, Doctor Strange,) and it's good to see some progress on that.












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The Plot:






On Peter Quill/Star Lord:



(This section contains spoilers for the Guardians of the Galaxy films)



Why didn't they mention that Quill can touch the effing stones?! Albeit he can't touch them for long, and probably not all of them at once.

But still, worth mentioning yeah? Might come in handy????

There's gotta be *some* benefit to being the son of an actual f**king planet!


















Loki's death:



Nope. No. No. No. No. No.

I refuse to accept that Loki dies within the first half hour or however long it was, never to return.






Lokis's 'gurl, wtf?' face gif
Via Giphy








Fix it Marvel. Fix it.

If you refuse to fix it, you must grant us a long naked flashback in the sequel. Yes, I said naked. I don't make the rules, I just enforce them.*

I'm hoping this is a Jean Grey scenario, rather than an Uncle Ben one.






*Ok, maybe I make them - but there's an army behind me on this.








Tony not calling Steve:



GROW THE F**K UP STARK!

I know you're upset, but literally the entire UNIVERSE at stake here!

And you clearly want to call him, you carry the phone with only his number in it FOR A RUN IN THE PARK. Just call. Simple.

Yes, I know that this is totally in character for Tony Stark.

I'm actually annoyed at TONY, not the film, for this one. #FangirlProblems 😉











Vision and the Scarlet Witch's smooch times:



Dear Lord, Marvel, STOP TRYING TO MAKE US CARE ABOUT THESE TWO.

Like, most of us honestly couldn't care less.

(And it still stings that you're more willing to go with a robot love story than a Queer one.)

And you could've cut at least 10 minutes of them faffing around Edinburgh - because dude, what exactly was the point of that whole thing?!

I like them individually, but as a couple? NO-ONE GIVES A SH** MARVEL!

Literally everyone had more chemistry than these two. ARGH!!!!











That ending:



Controversial opinion: the ending was lazy writing.

Because we knew, the moment literally half the superheroes disappeared, including those who have sequels in production, that it wasn't gonna stick.

Not that death often sticks in Marvel, but you have to leave some jeopardy there for f**k's sake!

Don't get me wrong, I want them back. Not least because THEY TOUCHED MY BUCKY BEAR AND HOW DARE THEY!!! GIVE HIM BACK RIGHT NOW!!!!!










Steve and Bucky helicarrier scene gif with 'Your Bucky' written over









(Also, Cap searching the leaves for any sign of Bucky? Way more emotional than Wanda grieving for Vision. #GiveCaptainAmericaABoyfriend.)

But... I'm just hoping they deal with it in a way which is both semi-believable and somewhat-satisfying.

Fingers crossed they can write their way out of this corner in a way that does that.









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The pacing:



Good Lord, the pacing was all over the place. I can't believe no-one else seems to have noticed it.

I get that they had A LOT of sh** to cram in, but it's like they thought: 'we'll fix it in editing!' and then... just didn't.

It was like, they spent a long time on things which DID NOT need it, included scenes that were actually completely unnecessary (like the stuff in Edinburgh) and then rushed through the stuff we could've spent more time on (like... Wakanda; they really didn't use the setting very well there.)

And some of the jumps were... look, I know that we were following a butt-tonne of characters but they could've streamlined this a lot better.

I think there could've been less action too - it actually makes a bigger impact on the action you do have when you don't cram too much in; but then, that's a personal thing.








Lemme demonstrate an alternative route for this plot:





- Asgard refugee ship blown up (hopefully with more emphasis on wtf happened here.) - Hulk is shoved off to Earth, but we DON'T go straight to him and Dr Strange. Instead we resolve all the Asgard bits, AND follow Thor floating in space, then picked up by the Guardians of the Galaxy. - After Thor and the GoTG team, we go to Earth, and we INTERSPLICE the New York and Edinburgh storylines (with less emphasis on Vision and Scarlet Witch, and more on wtf Cap's been up to.) - Then we flit to Wakanda, where Black Panther's picking up Bucky in a less rushed fashion. - The spaceship of Thanos' crony with Spidey, Iron Man, and Dr Strange. No splicing here. This is serious sh**. - GoTG's storylines. They don't split up. Because that makes no effing sense. Fracturing this thing further is really not a good plan.  - We splice the merged GoTG storyline with Tony steering the spaceship and crashing. - Thor and anyone else you want in the Wakanda fight scene can rainbow bridge there together, while Quill and anyone else he wants to take with him go to find Gamora. - Explanation of the Vision ridiculousness with the neural network. - Fight with Thanos. - Normal service resumes. Assuming you wanna keep that ending. I wouldn't, but you do you.








I'm not saying that's perfect, but I came up with it in 5 minutes, so Marvel should be able to manage something.








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The stuff that was pretty awesome:




Thor with the Guardians of the Galaxy:



OMG I love it! XD

From the pirate-angel comments through to the whole 'rabbit' thing - although, really Thor, you totally need animal flashcards!

This was amazing - more please! XD






Peter times two:



I think Spider-Man and Star Lord are at the same level of maturity.

Like, seriously, that was great.





Bucky and Rocket:



I love the way Bucky doesn't even question the whole talking-racoon-on-the-battle-field thing.

Like, is this normal to you, Buck? Did this happen a lot when you were the Winter Soldier?!

I still over-relate to Rocket. Like, he is me. Cynical, opportunistic, easy to please, completely off-the-wall sense of humour.






Rocket Raccoon 'It's time to rock 'n' roll!' gif
Via Giphy






He's me. Only fluffier.

(On an exceptionally nerdy note: the CGI on Rocket's fur is utterly amazing! I actually wanna touch his fur! It moves when he moves and everything!!!)







Bruce and the Hulk having issues:




Oooooh! Complex emotional sh** going down!

Also, the half-Hulk half-Bruce face intrigues me.








On Spidey's death:



heiorhgn/ilerhgiwb!!!!!JDFBGIERHUEJBFJE!!!!

Tom Holland what was that?! How do you act that well?!

Someone give him an Oscar. I don't care if the Oscars hate superhero movies, that was... wow!!!!!

HOW DID HE DO THAT?! THE FEELS!!!!!!!!!!!!! 😭😭😭😭












So... I'm a little scared to ask this... but what do you think? How did you find the pacing? Were you impressed by Tom Holland's performance? Talk to me! 😎💬















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Last Updated: 12th July 2018

10 comments:

  1. I haven’t watched the movie yet but read all the spoilers weeks ago (don’t judge me) so I did read through this entire post! Although I didn’t quite understand everything that you said because I obviously haven’t seen it yet I think your reasoning is totally valid! I mean, I still definitely want to see it and I have high hopes that the Guardians of the Galaxy will deliver some very deserved humour!

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    Replies
    1. Ha, I would never judge Em. ;) Sounds like something a Bookish Rebel would do ;)

      Lemme know what you think when you see it! XD

      Delete
  2. I was pretty disappointed too. After 10 years of buildup, this is what we get? I thought Thanos was very underdeveloped for the "big bad" world ender that he's supposed to be. I also felt that everything could have been avoided if Quill hadn't punched Thanos. You've highlighted many of the other reasons I was left wanting more. Hopefully part 2 resolves most of these qualms.

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    Replies
    1. I didn't have *much* of an issue with Thanos - but, like, I think they might've showed us *too much* of his good side... it makes it hard to figure out his motivations.

      I feel like in every one of Dr Strange's scenarios, Quill still punched Thanos ;)

      I really hope they work things out right in part 2 - to be honest, I'll settle for them not f**king it up!!!! ;)

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  3. I really liked the movie but I agree with a lot of points you made, especially how the ending felt a bit cheap given that we know some of them will have sequels. I think part 2 is going to involve some more heart-wrenching sacrifices and hopefully provide some believable explanations. I don't know why, but I'm actually a bit in love with Vision. I don't care much for Wanda, but I really felt for him when he was trying to reassure her at the end.

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    1. I don't mind them individually. But I honestly couldn't care less about their relationship!

      I really felt like the ending was lazy writing!!!

      Delete
  4. I haven't seen it yet (but I read all the spoilers). I was already kiiiiinda not excited about it because I love these movies for the characters and there are too many characters in this movie for anyone to get much screen time? You know? So I'm just going to catch it on Netflix, and also I read what happens to Gamora and I'm furious about it.

    ReplyDelete
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    1. I'm hoping they fix a butt-tonne of sh** in the sequel.

      Like, if this were comics-Wanda, who is OP af, she'd just be like, 'Hell nah!' and use her powers (which are literally defined in the comics as changing reality) to bring everyone back. There would be unintended consequences ofc, which is why she doesn't use her powers willy-nilly in the comics (she accidentally created an extra brother for Scott Summers once... I think it was on an asteroid. This is the level of random sh** that happens when she changes big stuff!) But they can't do that here, because she has about 1% of comics-Wanda's powers. (Comics-Wanda is terrifying.)

      Delete
  5. Interesting to read your reasons why! Mine were a bit different. I know the black guy dies first is a really sad trope but I kind of... didn't really see it that? Mostly because everyone is dying and I don't really care about Idris's character in the Marvel world (I do LOVE HIM as an actor though) so that might be why I didn't really mind in this case. I am so not okay with Loki's death either. And ahahaha I totally don't care about Vision and Scarlet as a couple or individuals either, so I am with you on that one. I did like the plot and all, but I am starting to feel like the Avengers movies are just too many heroes in one movie. Sometimes it feels a bit disjointed or a bit... separate? I know it all comes together but it doesn't quite grip me like a movie with one focus done.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That's a fair point - and they totally need to stop pushing Scarlet Witch & Vision. Nobody cares dammit! ;)

      Delete

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