Avengers Infinity War with spoilers

[Bazza]

Amused is still on Facebook. 

[Bazza]

 

That first picture is like a comic page brought to life. 

[Matt the Bruins]

I thought it was a slightly blurry movie still, myself. Action figures have come a long way from when I was a kid.

[Lord Liaden]

The face isn't just a neutral sculpture, either. That's a readable expression.

[wcw43921]

48 minutes ago, Matt the Bruins said:

Action figures have come a long way from when I was a kid.

 

You have to remember--that came from a time when kids actually played with their toys.

[Bazza]

 

[wcw43921]

 

The thing that occurred to me at that moment was that there was Iron Man trying to get Quill to stay focused on the mission and not give in to his thoroughly understandable grief and anger--whereas if Stark had not given in to his thoroughly understandable grief and anger at the end of Civil War the Avengers might have stayed together and may have responded to Thanos more effectively.

I wonder if that occurred to Stark as well. If he had a line saying something like "Don't make the mistake I made!" I missed it. I don't know if there was a way to note it in-movie without having it seem shoe-horned in, but I thought that measure of irony made the situation all that more tragic.

[zslane]

Well, the huge difference there is that the knowable consequences of Tony giving in to his rage in Civil War was, at most, estrangement from Cap and around half the Avengers team. And those were the only consequences Tony would have been aware of at the time. The stakes of Quill not keeping his s**t together for a few more seconds was most likely the annihilation of half of all sentient life in the universe, and those stakes were known to everyone, including Quill. Tony's reaction in Civil War was understandable; Quill's reaction was (almost) unforgivable. (I say "almost" because we know that the events of Avengers 3 will be reversed by the events of Avengers 4, and ultimately Quill will not have been responsible for anything of consequence).

[Lord Liaden]

The consequences of Iron Man's action, had he succeeded, would have been the deliberate murder of a man arguably innocent by reason of "mental disease or defect," of which he was well aware beforehand. And while at least some consequences of Starlord's action may be reversible, that doesn't negate the grief he caused everyone in the Universe.

 

OTOH Stark was a victim of Zemo's plan. Starlord said the plan to take the Infinity Gauntlet from Thanos was his. And he still screwed it up.

 

However, everyone keeps focusing on Peter Quill's blunder. Thor had the opportunity to take out Thanos before he could accomplish his goal, if not with his first strike, then certainly as soon as he had the Mad Titan wounded and on his knees. But he wasted time torturing Thanos rather than finishing him immediately. That indulgence cost everything.

[RDU Neil]

7 minutes ago, Lord Liaden said:

The consequences of Iron Man's action, had he succeeded, would have been the deliberate murder of a man arguably innocent by reason of "mental disease or defect," of which he was well aware beforehand. And while at least some consequences of Starlord's action may be reversible, that doesn't negate the grief he caused everyone in the Universe.

 

OTOH Stark was a victim of Zemo's plan. Starlord said the plan to take the Infinity Gauntlet from Thanos was his. And he still screwed it up.

 

However, everyone keeps focusing on Peter Quill's blunder. Thor had the opportunity to take out Thanos before he could accomplish his goal, if not with his first strike, then certainly as soon as he had the Mad Titan wounded and on his knees. But he wasted time torturing Thanos rather than finishing him immediately. That indulgence cost everything.

 

All of this "fan-splaining" type discussions are at the heart of why this movie was so "bleh" to me. Essentially, this movie fell back on the oldest tropes... villain is crazy, don't look to closely... and villain only succeeds because heroes do stupid things.

 

That kind of thing just ruins it. Marvel has been much smarter than this with most of their movies and to come to their tent-pole feature and get so sloppy... "bleh"

 

You want Thanos to be truly bad-ass... then have him beat the heroes... totally, without mercy... beat them at their best game. They do all the right things, and he still wins. Don't have the Hulk getting curb-stomped be a throw-away scene at the beginning... have it be a clear 2nd act beat down, where a well executed heroic plan goes to hell because "OMG! He beat the Hulk!" where it is shown that, without the Power Stone, the heroes would have Thanos and the Black Circle on their heels, but no... he's just too strong now... then, Third Act, knowing the stakes... they line up, desperate last stand (Wakanda all over again)... and they know they might lose, but they have to try... big, pitched battle... new tactics, using their own Mind Stone... they manage to hold... and then Thor shows up and... and holy crap, Thor is really godlike... and holy crap, we might just win... and THEN... not with any posing and stupidity... pushed to the brink... we see just how powerful Thanos really is... and he wins. All the sacrifices, dead heroes everywhere... and they couldn't stop him.. "snap!"

Now THAT is tragedy. THAT has emotional resonance. THAT just requires following the classic 3 act (five act if you want) structure, with the final climax being loss, not victory. Infinity War was, instead, a mess of set pieces, silly quips and humor completely out of place, zero character development, no real plot structure, and everything turns on "fan-splaining" stupidity by the protagonists.

 

"bleh"

[zslane]

4 hours ago, Lord Liaden said:

The consequences of Iron Man's action, had he succeeded, would have been the deliberate murder of a man arguably innocent by reason of "mental disease or defect," of which he was well aware beforehand. And while at least some consequences of Starlord's action may be reversible, that doesn't negate the grief he caused everyone in the Universe.

 

OTOH Stark was a victim of Zemo's plan. Starlord said the plan to take the Infinity Gauntlet from Thanos was his. And he still screwed it up.

 

However, everyone keeps focusing on Peter Quill's blunder. Thor had the opportunity to take out Thanos before he could accomplish his goal, if not with his first strike, then certainly as soon as he had the Mad Titan wounded and on his knees. But he wasted time torturing Thanos rather than finishing him immediately. That indulgence cost everything.

 

If Tony had succeeded (and not held back a final lethal blow at the last moment), then yes he would have killed poor Bucky. Shocking to some perhaps, but we're talking about the death of only a single individual here. Cap's stated ethos of never asking someone to sacrifice their life just to safeguard the lives of others (even countless trillions of others) sounds lofty, but makes no sense coming from a guy who proudly enlisted in and subsequently fought in the Army, and understood its grave calculus. And while Bucky's death might have haunted Tony for the rest of his life, Quill's actions could have arguably led to being judged by the Living Tribunal (if you don't believe me, just ask Reed Richards about the consequences of so noble an act as saving Galactus' life.)

 

As for Thor, well he thought he had defeated Thanos, and had no reason to strike another blow until Thanos taunted him with the "you should have aimed for my head" line, at which point it was too late to do anything (it was Thanos' Phase, and if Thor had a Held Action, he clearly lost the DEX Roll-off). At least Thor's attack was both appropriate in intent and realistic in terms of expectations for success. Quill had neither of those going for him.

 

In the end, I suspect we will learn that Quill's failure, along with the loss of half the universe's sentient life, was all part of the one "winning play" Dr. Strange alluded to. The thing is, nobody but Strange would have known this, and so while Quill's actions may be burdened by a kind of Oedipal determinism, his intentions in that moment were nevertheless unsupportable.

[Starlord]

Particularly when he himself was clearly ready to kill her for the greater good just a smidge earlier in the movie.

[drunkonduty]

37 minutes ago, Starlord said:

Particularly when he himself was clearly ready to kill her for the greater good just a smidge earlier in the movie.

 

Hmmmm.

 

Quill wasn't going to kill her for the greater good. He was, very reluctantly, willing to carry out a promise she had made him swear. At this point no one, not even Thanos, had any idea that he would have to "sacrifice something he loved" to get the soul stone. Presumably (and yes, I have to indulge in assumption at this point as character motivations through the whole movie were pretty murky) Gamora wanted to avoid the torture she expected Thanos to subject her to. Thanos certainly subjected Nebula to some pretty bizarre torture. But it turned out that Gamora is the favourite child and so escaped punishment.

 

I will also assume that Gamora didn't want to risk going back to being the person she had once been.

 

So, on a very personal level and for very personal reasons she asked the person she trusted most in the galaxy to end her suffering. Nothing about 'the greater good' at all.

[Starlord]

Preventing the situation she would end up in is a type of 'greater good' IMO.

[Lord Liaden]

Quill may not have acted for the greater good, but Gamora's request for his promise definitely was. She knew what would happen if Thanos got the Soul Stone, and she also realized that if she didn't tell him where it was, he'd force the truth out of her eventually, one way or another.

[drunkonduty]

Yep, Gamora's actions were better informed than Quill's. Given that Quill is Quill this is not a surprise. Doesn't effect Quill's motivations.

[mattingly]

"Quill, I told you I could become invisible." 

[Dr. MID-Nite]

Okay....again. I work with the public. Humans do irrational things ALL the time. If everyone made the best possible decision at all time....things would definitely be different. Quill let emotion override reason...and that is also something humans let happen ALL the time.

[zslane]

I don't think it is reasonable to compare the situation Quill was in to the typical situations real people find themselves in when they make bad decisions on a daily basis. I'm sorry, but when the fate of half of the sentient universe is at stake, that excuse simply doesn't hold water. Heroes who find themselves in such epic situations are expected to rise to a much higher standard than ordinary humans. When they don't, they become tragic failures who, IMO, deserve all the cultural scorn and derision that gets hurled at them.

[Armory]

On 6/3/2018 at 6:47 PM, zslane said:

I don't think it is reasonable to compare the situation Quill was in to the typical situations real people find themselves in when they make bad decisions on a daily basis. I'm sorry, but when the fate of half of the sentient universe is at stake, that excuse simply doesn't hold water. Heroes who find themselves in such epic situations are expected to rise to a much higher standard than ordinary humans. When they don't, they become tragic failures who, IMO, deserve all the cultural scorn and derision that gets hurled at them.

 

IOW, it's not reasonable to consider Quill a human being.  He shouldn't be a human being, because he's a hero.  Pffft.

[Starlord]

...also he's not technically a human being.  

[RDU Neil]

Just now, Starlord said:

...also he's not technically a human being.  

 

I was about to say that. heh.

 

Seriously, it is less about whether you buy into Quill losing it like that for me... it is about sloppy/lazy writing. When the big plot of 10 years worth of movies hinges on the lamest hack maneuver of "have the hero do something stupid" in order to move the villain along... that is just lame. I've written this before, but it galls me from a creative POV, and especially when the Russo brothers have been so smart in the past with character motivations and plot connections... and this was just bad. It also makes the villain seem 'less' as well removing all pathos for the viewer. "Really? That trope? What garbage!" and the rest of the movie is undermined.

[dmjalund]

Quill is 50% a human being!

[Starlord]

Well, that's more than some Presidents, I guess....

[BoloOfEarth]

But he's also 50% Ego (which is considerably less than some Presidents).