RDU Neil

More or less agree on all counts.  It feels like they were trying to cram as much Black Panther lore into one movie as possible, because there may not be another.  The result was three adversaries who could each have carried a movie (Klaue/KLAW, M'Baku and Killmonger) each getting limited time.  A "succession" film with M'Baku as the primary adversary, with Klaue playing on that to access Wakandan tech - and perhaps Klaue's actions against Wakanda being a wakeup call for M'Baku -  could have worked well, and set up "Klaw" for a sequel, with Killmonger getting his own film.  MCU is, to some extent, a victim of its own success - can't really rely on three films even if the first really delivers, as there is so much more in the hopper.
 
Still a good film, but how much would it take to expand that 4 hour rumoured cut to two or three films of equal or greater quality?
 
 
The other aspect of the suit that bugged me - it seems like many Marvel characters are being made reliant on their costume.  Iron Man is obvious, and he fills that niche.  But Spider-Man's focus on the StarkSuit felt excessive (really, does Spidey need an onboard AI and an Iron Man-esque swiss army attacks multipower?  Now we have Panther, again largely reliant on the suit-tech (and basically ignoring his enhanced senses after early mention).  Gadgets built into the suit, like the "sneakers" and claws?  Sure.  But the suit should not be the focus of his abilities.

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

https://www.dailygrail.com/2016/06/the-5th-young-one-pay-no-attention-to-the-girl-behind-the-sofa/

Just move outta Leilani, Johnny, get outta Kapoho, Joe,
Don't need to stay there, Cher, just listen to me,
Get a moving truck, Chuck, 'cause the lava don't give a f**k,
Just find a new place, Jace, and get yourself free.

What if I meant to clip an article out of a magazine?
 
Lucius Alexander
 
Cutting pages out of "!WOW!: the Magazine for Palindromedary RIders"

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"

Halfway through Season 2 of Dear White People. Absolutely brilliant writing, cutting social commentary and general hilarity. It is a show that is about as honest as you can get with the intricacies, power and even hypocrisies of activism and social justice.

If it makes you guys feel any better, that one subdivision is thoroughly screwed.  One dude even got hit by flying lava!  It broke his leg.
 
If you're really lucky, the lava will soon overrun the nearby nuclear reactor geothermal plant, where they store used to store hundreds of tons of explosive solvents.

SPOILSPORT !

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"

Seriously... it takes all the fun out of it!
 
 
The first picture is "ENTIRE SUPER HERO CAMPAIGN!"
 
The second picture is "Half of a Wednedsay night game..." 

This is more what I mean. The players know what the general rule is as an option... and yes, judgment requires consistency. I just meant that because in certain situations where it is dramatically appropriate to check for the effects of inadvertent blow through doesn't mean we are going to check every missed shot, every time.
 
I do tend to like rules that help adjudicate "when to apply"   i.e. taking the classic luck roll... I tend to use a "chance" roll in certain circumstances.  Player knows the battle is in a relatively crowded street, I'll say "Ok... remember, if you are blazing away, or doing big knockback in this scene, there is a chance to harm bystanders, destroy property... every miss or big knock back... if you roll unluck, you hit something you didn't want to."

In that way, you don't roll all the complex rolls for every shot, but if unluck comes up, then blow through or whatever might apply.

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

Suspected, and now confirmed...
 
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/may/14/europa-moon-of-jupiter-prime-candidate-for-alien-life-after-water-blast-found?utm_source=esp&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=Lab+notes+2016&utm_term=275369&subid=24646434&CMP=ema-3242
 
 

It would be hilarious if there was some kind of legal apocalypse that prevented A4 or any other film from being released to tie up IW. 

Just read the 5th Ed Dark Champs blowthrough... 1/2 Damage exceeds both defense and body... blowthrough.  Easy enough, but pretty restricting. Would require a 14 damage roll to blow through a 3def 3body interior wall. That seems extreme, but likely balanced for most games. My rule would make that much more easy to blow through, and I'm ok with that.

Ok... I'm surprised none of you are pointing this out...
 
Thanos... take away his "personification of death" obsession, and give him and real and serious problem to which he takes a grand and psychopathic approach... but this makes no sense.
 
Thanos argues that the universe can't withstand unchecked life due to limited resources... and originally believes that wiping out half of all life just needs to happen to balance things out. Honestly, from a mortal and desperate POV, this could make sense.
 
BUT... then he goes on a quest to gain all the power to UTTERLY CHANGE REALITY however he wants... succeeds in gaining that power... and he still can't think of anything better to do that kill half of all life?  Oh... and never considers that half of all life will quickly double back to where it was before and keep going?
 
This whole concept suddenly makes no sense and Thanos' motivation is laughably stupid. I'm not saying that I wanted "lady Death" in the movie... that Starlin weirdness was quintessential '70s Marvel and can stay there... but they needed to give Thanos a more well thought out motivation, because once he got the stones, he could have just changed the rules of reality so life doesn't consume, or there are infinite resources, or whatever. He was omnipotent... and all he could think to do is kill half of everyone?
 
That and his killing of Gamora had zero impact. It lacked all verisimilitude that he actually cared for her. There was no development in that area, and in fact, any such scene was actually the opposite... psychologically torturing her at every instance.
 
The good Marvel movies leading up to this were about something... and more than comic book movies. Winter Soldier was about post 9-11 fear and control and was a classic political suspense thriller... Civil War was about the limits of friendship, repercussions of past acts, and was a great revenge flick... Black Panther was a Shakesperean tragedy about colonialism and isolationism, etc.
 
What was Infinity War about? Nothing, really. Just a guy trying to kill people and fights. As folks have pointed out, this was the "most comic booky" of all the Marvel movies... and that is why it fell flat. It wasn't ABOUT anything. It was all plot, zero story.
 
This was disappointing because Marvel has largely succeeded because they took comic book concepts and made actual movies with them... while DC fails because they just try to put comic books on the screen. The fact that Marvel was just building up to a DC movie... and it will require significant fan speculation and theory to explain why this movie was actually really good, instead of it being obvious... bleh.

I had to revisit this discussion, because I realized this is a false equivalency. The difference in police officers being killed is 7.1 per 100,000 people in the United States, vs 5.6 in Canada. The per-capita rate of people being shot and killed by police in the United States is seven times higher than in Canada. That's not remotely proportional.

"Come to Australia; you might accidentally get killed.  Blood is sure to be spilled.  Your pants will soon be filled."

Yeah, I don't think we're supposed to think too hard about them.

I think those shout-outs were purely metatextual, and only intended to say, "Hey we're a CW show too!" rather than, "Hey, we're all in the (same) CWverse!" Then again, Vixen (from LoT) could show up next season and prove me wrong.