Movies AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR v.8

[NickNick]

both of them do, Ant-Man is set before IW.... and Captain Marvel is set in the 90's

Oh I didn't realize Infinity War 2 is coming out next year, I figured the time between would be longer like from the first one to Age of Ultron.

 

[SmilinDesperado]

One complaint that I will say about some of the MCU, is that I feel not everyone's powers have been adequately described.
Most of the GoTG are a ? to me. What are Gamorrah's and Drax's strength and durability compared to a human? Quill is half celestial---a celestial isn't just an alien...it's like a top tier god being...he really has no powers????

I don't get exactly what Wanda's powers are. I know she has a sort of telekenesis..but wasn't sure what exactly she was doing to the Mind stone. And she had some sort of brain washing powers in Avengers 2 that never was shown again.
I think it would be cool if the MCU put out actual stats on power levels and such, like the old Marvel cards.

 

[chickenluver]

Well that's a mistake lol

Why do you say that?

 

[NickNick]

One complaint that I will say about some of the MCU, is that I feel not everyone's powers have been adequately described.
Most of the GoTG are a ? to me. What are Gamorrah's and Drax's strength and durability compared to a human? Quill is half celestial---a celestial isn't just an alien...it's like a top tier god being...he really has no powers????

I don't get exactly what Wanda's powers are. I know she has a sort of telekenesis..but wasn't sure what exactly she was doing to the Mind stone. And she had some sort of brain washing powers in Avengers 2 that never was shown again.
I think it would be cool if the MCU put out actual stats on power levels and such, like the old Marvel cards.

I thought in guardians of the galaxy 2 they said that once Ego died any celestial power's Quill had would disappear.

 

[chickenluver]

Quill is half celestial---a celestial isn't just an alien...it's like a top tier god being...he really has no powers????

I believe his dormant powers had to be activated by his father, and when Quill choice to reject his father, he lost his powers.

I don't get exactly what Wanda's powers are. I know she has a sort of telekenesis..but wasn't sure what exactly she was doing to the Mind stone. And she had some sort of brain washing powers in Avengers 2 that never was shown again.

Comic book lore dump incoming

When the Scarlet Witch was first created by Lee and Kirby, her powers were not well defined. She had "hex powers", that could cause random unlikely events to take place. This gave creative freedom to the writers, as it actually meant that her powers could be used for any purpose required by the plot.[4] Despite the character's name, she had those powers as a mutant, and not because of actual witchcraft. Later writers gave her an increased control over her power, so that she could cause specific events and not just random ones. Englehart also made the character explore witchcraft under the tutelage of Agatha Harkness, a trait that was kept by later writers. The effects of her powers are varied but almost always detrimental to opponents, such as causing the artifact the Evil Eye to work against the inter-dimensional warlord Dormammu,[111] forcing the robot Ultron to short circuit,[112] or a gas main underneath the Brotherhood of Mutants to explode.[113] Scarlet Witch also has the potential to wield magic and later learned that she was destined to serve the role of Nexus Being, a living focal point for the Earth dimension's mystical energy.[114]

Writer Kurt Busiek redefined Scarlet Witch's powers, and maintained that it was in fact an ability to manipulate chaos magic, activated due to the demon Chthon changing her mutation at birth into an ability to wield and control magical energy. This was offered as an explanation for her various feats that seemed to go beyond probability alteration, as well as why her hexes almost always have an effect that is favorable to her goals.[66] During Busiek's run as well as the subsequent run by Geoff Johns, she was shown to be capable of large-scale spells given enough concentration and time to shape the chaos magic to a specific goal, including the resurrection of Wonder Man.[66]

Her powers were retconned in Avengers Disassembled, removing chaos magic and turning them into reality warping. In House of M, this new power was enough to change the whole universe.[115] Her powers were retconned back to their previous ones in The Children's crusade, and the previous events attributed to an outside force that had temporarily increased them.[84]

 

[SmilinDesperado]

I thought in guardians of the galaxy 2 they said that once Ego died any celestial power's Quill had would disappear.

Yep, I remember that.
I just think that's really dumb though. He's half celestial. How does he not have any natural physical differences or abilities? Ego is one of the most powerful entities in the universe, and his son has NO power?

I just looked up his powers in the comics, and yea, it's the same there apparently, no real powers except he might age slower.

 

[SmilinDesperado]

I believe his dormant powers had to be activated by his father, and when Quill choice to reject his father, he lost his powers.

Comic book lore dump incoming

When the Scarlet Witch was first created by Lee and Kirby, her powers were not well defined. She had "hex powers", that could cause random unlikely events to take place. This gave creative freedom to the writers, as it actually meant that her powers could be used for any purpose required by the plot.[4] Despite the character's name, she had those powers as a mutant, and not because of actual witchcraft. Later writers gave her an increased control over her power, so that she could cause specific events and not just random ones. Englehart also made the character explore witchcraft under the tutelage of Agatha Harkness, a trait that was kept by later writers. The effects of her powers are varied but almost always detrimental to opponents, such as causing the artifact the Evil Eye to work against the inter-dimensional warlord Dormammu,[111] forcing the robot Ultron to short circuit,[112] or a gas main underneath the Brotherhood of Mutants to explode.[113] Scarlet Witch also has the potential to wield magic and later learned that she was destined to serve the role of Nexus Being, a living focal point for the Earth dimension's mystical energy.[114]

Writer Kurt Busiek redefined Scarlet Witch's powers, and maintained that it was in fact an ability to manipulate chaos magic, activated due to the demon Chthon changing her mutation at birth into an ability to wield and control magical energy. This was offered as an explanation for her various feats that seemed to go beyond probability alteration, as well as why her hexes almost always have an effect that is favorable to her goals.[66] During Busiek's run as well as the subsequent run by Geoff Johns, she was shown to be capable of large-scale spells given enough concentration and time to shape the chaos magic to a specific goal, including the resurrection of Wonder Man.[66]

Her powers were retconned in Avengers Disassembled, removing chaos magic and turning them into reality warping. In House of M, this new power was enough to change the whole universe.[115] Her powers were retconned back to their previous ones in The Children's crusade, and the previous events attributed to an outside force that had temporarily increased them.[84]

Yeah, this is why I'm so confused with Scarlet Witch. I"m actually kind of surprised that they chose her as one of the characters to bring to the MCU.
I read the comics, and even in the comics her powers are confusing.

 

[CrazyN8]

I thought in guardians of the galaxy 2 they said that once Ego died any celestial power's Quill had would disappear.

He did say that, but he's not the most trustworthy guy either, I figure quill is enhanced on ways he doesn't know or understand yet.

 

[chickenluver]

Yeah, this is why I'm so confused with Scarlet Witch. I"m actually kind of surprised that they chose her as one of the characters to bring to the MCU.
I read the comics, and even in the comics her powers are confusing.

They did it as a fuck you to Fox studios. And they killed off their version of Quicksilver because Fox had already done a version that fans liked.

 

[SmilinDesperado]

They did it as a fuck you to Fox studios. And they killed off their version of Quicksilver because Fcx had already done a version that fans liked.

That was unfortunate and shortsighted of them.
There was a lot of interesting potential stories to be told between Scarlett, Quicksilver, and Magneto.
I'm gonna blame Whedon

 

[Halge]

Most of the GoTG are a ? to me. What are Gamorrah's and Drax's strength and durability compared to a human? Quill is half celestial---a celestial isn't just an alien...it's like a top tier god being...he really has no powers????

Yeah. Their powers are all pretty generic and fluctuates widely. As far as I can tell Gamora, Drax and Quill are all just stronger, more resilient and possibly faster than human, and that's about it. And their physical strength seems to be determined on a "as strong as the plot requires at the moment"-basis.

Quill should by all rights be the most powerful character in the bunch, but as far as I can tell he mostly just flies around going pew pew.

Drax... I dunno. I haven't kept close track of what he does, but his superpower seems to be to get curbstomped repeatedly. That actually started bothering me a bit during Infinity War. Has he ever done anything really badass?

 

[chickenluver]

I'm gonna blame Whedon

I think you have to attribute it to the fact that Wanda and Pietro were first seen in a post-credits scene of Winter Solider in 2014. At that time they couldn't have know that they would ever have the rights to Magneto.

I think they mainly wanted to establish the relationship between Wanda and Vision and never really cared about Quicksilver or had a specific use for him in mind. I'm confident that they killed him off directly because of Fox scoring a hit with their own Quicksilver.

I feel like most movie goers don't even know those two are the same character.

 

[KnightTemplar]

Is there a clip of this? They've done a shitty job in showing this in the MCU films. Loki himself doesn't seem to have super anything with out the Time or Mind Stones.

The character's name was Eliot Randolph. I think he appears early in Season 3.

 

[Bald1]

Drax... I dunno. I haven't kept close track of what he does, but his superpower seems to be to get curbstomped repeatedly. That actually started bothering me a bit during Infinity War. Has he ever done anything really badass?

Curbstomped by two guys who can wield infinity stones, gets dragged through space and laughs off a crash landing, survives in the stomach of an intergalactic beast, and usually survives damage that would level a city.

I think he's the toughest comic relief in movie history.

 

[SmilinDesperado]

Yeah. Their powers are all pretty generic and fluctuates widely. As far as I can tell Gamora, Drax and Quill are all just stronger, more resilient and possibly faster than human, and that's about it. And their physical strength seems to be determined on a "as strong as the plot requires at the moment"-basis.

Quill should by all rights be the most powerful character in the bunch, but as far as I can tell he mostly just flies around going pew pew.

Drax... I dunno. I haven't kept close track of what he does, but his superpower seems to be to get curbstomped repeatedly. That actually started bothering me a bit during Infinity War. Has he ever done anything really badass?

lol That is true about Drax. His power seems to be running into fights and then getting immediately KTFO. In the comics he throws hands with Hulk, but they really havent made him look all that powerful in the movies.

 

[IamStryker]

What other option do you think he had? I'm not understanding what you thought was dumb.
The way I see it, he had 2 choices..he either tries his hail mary knife trick, or he just lays down and lets Thanos and crew curb stomp him.
If he somehow was able to kill Thanos and grab a stone, he could have a chance.
He had no other reason to believe that Thanos would let him live.

I think his chance of Thanos letting him live was better than Loki actually being able to kill him.

 

[SmilinDesperado]

I think his chance of Thanos letting him live was better than Loki actually being able to kill him.

Really?
Loki had already failed Thanos back in Avengers 1---and Thanos doesn't like failure--Loki's head was already on the chopping block for that alone, Loki is standing in a room full of his dead people next to the 5 psycho murderers, and he was just rooting for the Hulk to take out Thanos 2 minutes prior.
There was absolutely no reason for him to think that Thanos would let him live.
That became clear as the movie went on, Thanos has no time for the weak. He respected strong people, and it's no coincidence that the strong are the ones he let live.
Loki had nothing to offer. If he was going to go out, he might as well try and take out Thanos with him.

 

[Pseudo Sane]

Wow.

I enjoyed this quite a bit. This was the pinnacle of the 'cinematic universe' experiment, in that the movie only works as the culmination of a story that has been 10 years in the telling. It relies very heavily on the viewers' background knowledge of the heroes and their motivations, and on the sheer joy of a huge crossover event with different personalities having the opportunity to interact for the first time.

As a freestanding movie, for a viewer without a good deal of background knowledge, it would lose a lot of its impact and coherence, imo. Most of the heroes don't actually have a character arc of any sort. The only real exceptions are: Vision/Wanda (romance subplot), Thor (revenge subplot), and Gamora (sacrifice subplot). Cap and Panther and most of the others are barely even in the movie in a real sense. Tony gets a lot of screen time, but he only half-heartedly rehashes struggles he already had in Iron Man 3 before he gets swept up in pure conflict.

This of course, makes sense. There are an insane number of named characters in this movie. It would simply be impossible to give a traditional story treatment to them that would do any justice to the heroes, so Markus, McFeely and the Russo brothers didn't even try.

Honestly, I thought the solution of making Thanos the central protagonist of the movie was shockingly gutsy and genuinely inspired, from a movie studio that isn't exactly famous for taking risks. It also simultaneously neuters one of the major criticism of the Marvel movies (how safe and risk free they have traditionally felt, and how forgettable most of the villains have been), while putting the audience in a position where they are psychologically ready to accept a victory by Thanos.

Thanos:

1) is given a discernible (if crazy) motivation;
2) demonstrates emotional connections to other characters;
3) has a clear goal;
4) overcomes obstacles to obtain his goal;
5) is forced to change in order to achieve his goal.

This movie is about Thanos in every way. The heroes are by-and-large the antagonists of the overall story, not the protagonists. If you come away from one realization about this movie, it should be that this was an inspired choice. For an example of how it could have been done (badly), see Steppenwolf in Justice League.

I gave it an 7-8/10 as a film. As a capeshit movie, it is 10/10, the pinnacle of the form, even more amazing when you realize that smart people have been trying to replicate the Marvel formula without any success for a decade.

 

[IamStryker]

Really?
Loki had already failed Thanos back in Avengers 1---and Thanos doesn't like failure--Loki's head was already on the chopping block for that alone, Loki is standing in a room full of his dead people next to the 5 psycho murderers, and he was just rooting for the Hulk to take out Thanos 2 minutes prior.
There was absolutely no reason for him to think that Thanos would let him live.
That became clear as the movie went on, Thanos has no time for the weak. He respected strong people, and it's no coincidence that the strong are the ones he let live.
Loki had nothing to offer. If he was going to go out, he might as well try and take out Thanos with him.

It would be consistent with the movie considering he let many of the other heroes live inexplicably.

 

[Doughbelly]

So I don't get these characters. If Gammorah has some knowledge that she doesn't want Thanos to get, then why does she head straight towards where she knows Thanos is going to be?