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Marvel Cinematic Universe, Phase Three and BEYOOOOONND


Bazza

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9 minutes ago, Lord Liaden said:

We're comics fans talking to comics fans here. We know and accept this stuff. But I don't want to belabor the point. :)

 

I disagree with your premise wholeheartedly. That Marvel personified version of Death was ripped from the popular consciousness, and we've been personifying the concept for AGES. It is literally the easiest sell possible. Ditto the appeal of Death.

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17 minutes ago, Pattern Ghost said:

In other words, they really didn't have a good reason to change his motives. The audience does not need to empathize with a villain.

 

Now I disagree with your premise wholeheartedly. ;)  Aside from villains like the Joker who exist only to be monsters, the most memorable and compelling villains are those we can empathize with, because we can feel what drives them and appreciate that any one of us could have gone down their path and ended up like them. There's still something in them that's recognizable and admirable: Dr. Doom's code of honor, Magneto's mutant crusade, Norman Osborn's love for his son. Look how popular the MCU's Loki is.

 

Besides, Thanos in Infinity War is evil, but he's also the protagonist of the movie. :angel:

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52 minutes ago, Pattern Ghost said:

In other words, they really didn't have a good reason to change his motives.

 

I think in order to make an obsession with Lady Death work, they would have needed to establish Lady Death as a character long before hand, and introduce Thanos' obsession with her as well. Otherwise it just comes out of the blue, and it wouldn't resonate with audiences who will have never seen that unrequited relationship established in any way. It isn't the "personification of death" that is the problem, it is the unwillingness to develop the necessary characters and relationships ahead of time to make the story compelling.

 

But also, and this isn't stated outright by the writers, the direction they chose allows them to make a socio-political statement about irresponsible plundering of natural resources and unrestricted population growth.

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1 hour ago, Lord Liaden said:

Aside from villains like the Joker who exist only to be monsters, the most memorable and compelling villains are those we can empathize with, because we can feel what drives them and appreciate that any one of us could have gone down their path and ended up like them.

 

That's only one approach to building a character. Compelling villains need to have understandable motives, not ones we empathize with. Thanos is a force of Nature. Do people read "To Build a Fire" and say, "Gee, I'm sure glad I didn't end up like that freezing Winter day! That could have been me!"? Nope. Do people watch any of the movies or TV shows featuring Hannibal Lecter and empathize with Hannibal? No. Because he's a monster in a human suit. There's not enough humanity in him to empathize with, and you aren't at any risk of becoming Hannibal through a few bad life choices. But his arrogance? His rage? His appreciation for the finer things, and for good manners? Those are understandable. I could fill this little text box with examples, but I'm recovering from thoracic surgery and not inclined to put in the effort today.

 

You don't dogmatically apply one writing technique to every villain you create. That's a lack of understanding the options on the table. That's amateur hour.

 

 

--- ------------------------------------------------------- screw this post merging nonsense ---------------------------------------------

 

 

1 hour ago, zslane said:

 

I think in order to make an obsession with Lady Death work, they would have needed to establish Lady Death as a character long before hand, and introduce Thanos' obsession with her as well.

 

Yeah, they certainly didn't have the opportunity to slowly roll the concepts out over a decade worth of movies. Shame, that. :whistle:

 

1 hour ago, zslane said:

But also, and this isn't stated outright by the writers, the direction they chose allows them to make a socio-political statement about irresponsible plundering of natural resources and unrestricted population growth.

 

See, that wasn't necessary, and it was done so hamfistedly that every discussion of the plot of the movies comes back around to the stupidity of the plan.

 

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18 minutes ago, Pattern Ghost said:

 

See, that wasn't necessary, and it was done so hamfistedly that every discussion of the plot of the movies comes back around to the stupidity of the plan.

 

 

Too bad the upvote system won't let me select out parts which were particularly good for additional praise.

 

The human population of Earth went from three billion people to six billion people in 39 years.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population_milestones

 

That implies at best Thanos bought a crowded world maybe 40 years before it'd be right back in the same place. But since he apparently killed off people randomly rather than preserving people who could keep civilizations going and get them on a sustainable track, he probably didn't even accomplish that much.

 

It's even worse when you consider that he killed off half of the living resources on each world which would make preserving ecologies tricky.

 

On uncrowded worlds, he slaughtered people, animals, and plants for no purpose at all.

 

He apparently also killed off half of the bacteria and plankton equivalents on unpopulated worlds which might otherwise have been capable of rendering those worlds livable.

 

There's really just no end to the depths of stupidity you'll find when it comes to examining the plan of the MCU Thanos.

 

The writers deliberately wrote the movie to satisfy stupid people who like big explosions and special effects and who wouldn't have given any thought to the motivations of the villain anyway. 

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32 minutes ago, archer said:

There's really just no end to the depths of stupidity you'll find when it comes to examining the plan of the MCU Thanos.

 

The writers deliberately wrote the movie to satisfy stupid people who like big explosions and special effects and who wouldn't have given any thought to the motivations of the villain anyway. 

 

Had he only snaptured half of all intelligent life in the universe you might have made an argument for his plan.  You could have even dropped a line or two about the unexpected things that did and did not get snapped away based on "intelligence".  The ecological damage that he inflicted by destroying half of all living things is a bit much.

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7 hours ago, Hugh Neilson said:

How do those Infinity Rocks actually work, applying actual physics? 


Physics by its nature cannot explain it. Philosophy can, cf. Platonic Forms, Aristotelean Categories, Empedocles’ Roots (cf. classical elements), and the Traditional School of the Perennial Philosophy. 

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As many people here has commented on Thanos’s motive in Infinity War. Here is a somewhat example from history. Posting the abstract from National Center for Biotechnology Information’s* abstract of the Population Reference Bureau’s** journal Population Today.

 

* NCBI part of US National Library of Medicine, an institute within the National Institutes of Health, which is part of US Department of Health and Human Services. 
* * Independent think tank
 

Spoiler

 

Popul Today Aug-Sep 2000;28(6):3.
John D. Rockefeller 3rd, statesman and founder of the Population Council
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=Dunlop+J&cauthor_id=12349764P
MID: 12349764

 

Abstract
PIP: This article presents a profile of John D. Rockefeller 3rd, statesman and founder of the Population Council. It is noted that Rockefeller took a broad view of population control as a means to address poverty and economic development rather than as an end in itself. In 1952 he initiated the convocation of the Conference on Population Problems held in Williamsburg, Virginia. The discussion focused on food supply, industrial development, depletion of natural resources, and political instability resulting from unchecked population growth. In 1967, Rockefeller initiated, lobbied for, and finally achieved a World Leaders' Statement signed by 30 heads of state including US President Lyndon Johnson. The document drew attention to population growth as a world problem and engendered political support for family planning as a solution. After 3 years the Commission on Population Growth and the American Future was established, and Rockefeller was made its chairman. Several issues were debated, including more safer fertility control and the legalization of abortion.

 

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12349764/
https://www.prb.org/johndrockefeller3rdstatesmanandfounderofthepopulationcouncil/

 

Commission on Population Growth and the American Future’s report titled, Population and the American future
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015007261855&view=1up&seq=1

 

 

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10 hours ago, archer said:

 

Too bad the upvote system won't let me select out parts which were particularly good for additional praise.

 

The human population of Earth went from three billion people to six billion people in 39 years.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population_milestones

 

That implies at best Thanos bought a crowded world maybe 40 years before it'd be right back in the same place. But since he apparently killed off people randomly rather than preserving people who could keep civilizations going and get them on a sustainable track, he probably didn't even accomplish that much.

 

It's even worse when you consider that he killed off half of the living resources on each world which would make preserving ecologies tricky.

 

On uncrowded worlds, he slaughtered people, animals, and plants for no purpose at all.

 

He apparently also killed off half of the bacteria and plankton equivalents on unpopulated worlds which might otherwise have been capable of rendering those worlds livable.

 

There's really just no end to the depths of stupidity you'll find when it comes to examining the plan of the MCU Thanos.

 

The writers deliberately wrote the movie to satisfy stupid people who like big explosions and special effects and who wouldn't have given any thought to the motivations of the villain anyway. 

 

:)

https://www.herogames.com/forums/topic/89987-marvel-cinematic-universe-phase-three-and-beyooooonnd/?do=findComment&comment=2817202

 

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13 hours ago, archer said:

The human population of Earth went from three billion people to six billion people in 39 years.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population_milestones

 

That implies at best Thanos bought a crowded world maybe 40 years before it'd be right back in the same place. But since he apparently killed off people randomly rather than preserving people who could keep civilizations going and get them on a sustainable track, he probably didn't even accomplish that much.

 

It's even worse when you consider that he killed off half of the living resources on each world which would make preserving ecologies tricky.

 

On uncrowded worlds, he slaughtered people, animals, and plants for no purpose at all.

 

He apparently also killed off half of the bacteria and plankton equivalents on unpopulated worlds which might otherwise have been capable of rendering those worlds livable.

 

There's really just no end to the depths of stupidity you'll find when it comes to examining the plan of the MCU Thanos.

 

The writers deliberately wrote the movie to satisfy stupid people who like big explosions and special effects and who wouldn't have given any thought to the motivations of the villain anyway. 

 

How fortunate that, in the real world (you feel Thanos' motivations are unrealistic, right?), people NEVER rally behind a really stupid solution to a very real, scary and complex problems. 

 

Or does that happen on occasion? 

 

Hey, let's build a wall to keep illegal immigrants from slipping in over the Rio Grande!

 

You know what would REALLY help low income earners?  Trickle down economics!

 

Hey, let's outlaw alcohol - that will resolve all the abuse problems, and would never boost organized crime!

 

Laissez-faire - the Invisible Hand of the Free Market will ensure economic equity!

 

This is a kid-friendly board, I hope, so we will not address some brilliant ideas for solving the problem of teen pregnancy!

 

And, of course, those promoting really stupid solutions are always 100% honest about their motives, both to themselves and to the outside world, right?

 

15 hours ago, zslane said:

But also, and this isn't stated outright by the writers, the direction they chose allows them to make a socio-political statement about irresponsible plundering of natural resources and unrestricted population growth.

 

Viewed in light of my comments above, I see another socio-political statement one could intuit.

 

Or we could assume that the writers wanted to sell  movie tickets, and a "villain" with really noble intentions, and a solid and rational plan to achieve them, isn't the best draw for action movies to become a summer blockbuster.\

 

What was Shakespeare really trying to say?  "My rent is due and my family wants to eat" is a strong possibility!

 

13 hours ago, Jhamin said:

Had he only snaptured half of all intelligent life in the universe you might have made an argument for his plan.  You could have even dropped a line or two about the unexpected things that did and did not get snapped away based on "intelligence".  The ecological damage that he inflicted by destroying half of all living things is a bit much.

 

I've never been sure where the line was drawn.  I don't recall half of the trees and underbrush vanishing.

 

hmmm...looks like the Politics and MCU threads had a one-night stand!

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My understanding is that the snap only affected "intelligent" life in the universe (however the cosmic metaphysics of the Infinity Stones chose to define that). I mean, they kept throwing the word "intelligent" into all the dialog to make that point rather clear, didn't they?

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I'm pretty sure Black Widow at one point said, "half of all living things." I also remember Scott Lang looking out a widow after the "return snap" and seeing birds in a tree, implicitly which weren't there before, and saying, "I think it worked, guys." If I'm correct in my memory, then I agree, that is a flaw in the thinking behind the writing.

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I suppose it all goes back to that fallacy Starlin had Thanos parrot in the original source material, that life and death are out of balance because there are more beings alive today than have ever lived and died previously. That's not even true of humanity, let alone all the varied life forms on earth and all the other planets that have been born and died over billions of years.

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4 hours ago, Lord Liaden said:

"half of all living things."

 

Okay, yeah, according to the Spider-Man: Far From Home writers, the Snap affected "All life forms. Even down to the bacteria in your digestive system."

 

Of course, there are profound consequences of that which the writers chose to ignore because they didn't want to "get bogged down in the nitty-gritty". Hooray. Put another check in the "win" column for Lazy Writing.

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It would have been an easy fix, though. Just change the wording to, "half of all human beings/intelligent life." Doesn't change Thanos's motivation and plan at all.

 

What Thanos could have been thinking, and again, this would be an easy addition to the dialogue, is that once everyone realized how much better their lives were with lower population, they would take steps to prevent getting into the same situation again. Essentially Thanos was giving everyone a second chance to "get it right." That would be far from the most unreasonable assumption about human behavior ever made.

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16 hours ago, zslane said:

 

Okay, yeah, according to the Spider-Man: Far From Home writers, the Snap affected "All life forms. Even down to the bacteria in your digestive system."

 

Of course, there are profound consequences of that which the writers chose to ignore because they didn't want to "get bogged down in the nitty-gritty". Hooray. Put another check in the "win" column for Lazy Writing.

 

If half of all humans cease to exist, don't they take half of the bacteria in human digestive systems with them?  And who in Far From Home had undertaken the detailed analysis of the Infinity Gauntlet to determine precisely how it worked?

 

15 hours ago, Lord Liaden said:

What Thanos could have been thinking, and again, this would be an easy addition to the dialogue, is that once everyone realized how much better their lives were with lower population, they would take steps to prevent getting into the same situation again. Essentially Thanos was giving everyone a second chance to "get it right." That would be far from the most unreasonable assumption about human behavior ever made.

 

Sadly, "I believe humans will learn from their mistakes" could make him the most insane villain in the history of both movies and comic books.

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8 minutes ago, Hugh Neilson said:

 

If half of all humans cease to exist, don't they take half of the bacteria in human digestive systems with them?  And who in Far From Home had undertaken the detailed analysis of the Infinity Gauntlet to determine precisely how it worked?

 

 

I imagine at least thousands of human survivors went to the doctor to try to figure out why they had the runs and the hospitals eventually figured out that half of their intestinal bacteria had disappeared...just like half of the birds had disappeared, half of the fish had disappeared, and half of the people had disappeared. 

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11 hours ago, archer said:

 

I imagine at least thousands of human survivors went to the doctor to try to figure out why they had the runs and the hospitals eventually figured out that half of their intestinal bacteria had disappeared...just like half of the birds had disappeared, half of the fish had disappeared, and half of the people had disappeared. 

But wouldn't that mean 75% of the bacteria were destroyed?  The destroyed humans would not have half of those bacteria live on.

9 hours ago, zslane said:

 

I don't think any Far From Home in-universe characters were shown undertaking such an analysis. Why is this relevant?

I see it now - my reading too fast is to blame.  Thought the comment was about characters in Far from Home, not writers (who may not have the entire playbook anyway as the details were not overly relevant to their movie).

 

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21 hours ago, archer said:

 

I imagine at least thousands of human survivors went to the doctor to try to figure out why they had the runs and the hospitals eventually figured out that half of their intestinal bacteria had disappeared...just like half of the birds had disappeared, half of the fish had disappeared, and half of the people had disappeared. 

 

Why would half the intestinal bacteria of those that remain disappear when 100% of the intestinal bacteria of those that were snapped went with them?

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