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rocks fall everyone dies
I saw Infinity War! As I tweeted after leaving the theater, I need help reacting to something.
This is going to just be a terrible ridiculous train of thought post, fair warning.
After chatting with Amiel a bit and texting several excellent friends, my main takeaways are:
- the team movies are always unwieldy and difficult, and this one had a billion characters, and the fact that literally any of them, let alone quite a LOT of them, actually had room to breathe and have character moments while keeping the story going at a good clip, is REALLY IMPRESSIVE, good job delivering on this exhausting crossover brief
- oh GOD I'm SO SAD ABOUT ASGARD
So uh yeah.
I'm in this weird limbo state where, okay, obviously the entire last act is going to get retconned, it killed way too many main characters and there is absolutely no way they're erasing either T'Challa or Peter Parker from their franchises (plus lol the trolling move of killing both Sam and Bucky but not Steve) -- but it's possible both Loki and Gamora are for-real dead? Which sucks, dang, I know a lot of people think Loki is played out but this is MY reaction post so you have to pry Loki from my cold dead hands, and Gamora is always the most interesting part of the GotG movies for me.
...I have to say, though, I genuinely loved all the Gamora and Nebula bits of this movie, and unlike in the GotG movies, where I felt myself continually going "No wait you have interesting backstories and family dynamics, let's concentrate on THAT instead of whatever trash misogynist bs shenanigans Peter Quill and co are up to!" this movie actually did some delivery on that front! Tbh Gamora and Nebula are also the only reason I found Thanos bearable. I get that the incredibly absurd motivation of "I, a space goth, want to impress Death by killing everyone" isn't going to be very translatable straight out the gate in a major blockbuster, but given my druthers between "This guy 100% cannot be reasoned with, he's implacably going to kill everyone" or "This dude cannot be reasoned with, he's going to implacably kill exactly 50% of the universe's population because he has a tragic backstory and believes in environmental activism genocide," I ... honestly don't know, both of those are deeply boring?? Sorry, Thanos is REALLY BORING. Literally the only scenes of his I was at all emotionally invested in were the ones where he was interacting with Gamora and/or Nebula, because apparently I do enjoy a Terrible Space Dad. Thanos' A+ Parenting!
Other things that were boring: the amount of screen time given to Vision and Wanda, who kind of seem like my jam on paper but who I give zero fucks about in actuality, and the amount of screen time given to Dr Strange, who I passionately wish would just go away. (At one point when he and Tony were having an argument I turned to Amiel and whispered "Two Sherlocks, one spaceship!" and gave them a laughing fit in the theater and I'm not sorry.) It just ... seemed like a surprising amount of screen time was given to them, ESPECIALLY to the Vision/Wanda plot, and almost none to the entirety of Team Cap, a group of people we've had several full movies about and presumably some actual emotional investment in? Maybe Steve & co get more to do in the next one.
Speaking of the Vision/Wanda plot: WHY DID EVERYONE HAVE A MOMENT OF PLOT-MANDED IDIOCY, THAT WAS SO FRUSTRATING. The Vision/Wanda plot is definitely the most egregious example, but almost EVERYONE had it at some point! Like: Vision repeatedly says that he's willing to die to save the universe, and yes, it makes sense that Wanda wouldn't be down, but I feel like one has to do several mental contortions to believe that Steve would be team prioritize Wanda's feelings over team honor Vision's willing sacrifice to save the universe?? I don't feel solid enough on my opinions on T'Challa's characterization to say whether or not I believe he would decide the plan to give Shuri time to get the stone out of Vision's head was worth sacrificing BASICALLY HIS WHOLE ARMY but that seems like ... bad kinging, honestly, sigh, idk. I would probably feel less frustrated with all of this if at the end of it Wanda didn't try to destroy the stone ANYWAY, good job getting all those Wakandans killed for nothing!! Also good job to: Peter Quill, whose manpain was SOOOO IMPORTANT that he had to punch Thanos in the face and torpedo his entire Steal Thanos' Glove mission, FUCK that one was deeply frustrating. Like, in character, but SO FRUSTRATING, and I don't really want to be spending my entire movie wanting to shake characters until they rattle for making terrible decisions.
It was refreshing to have a movie in which that character wasn't Tony, though! Like, this is the first time I've liked Tony since IM3! I just so violently hated his entire Ultron plot, and everything since then has been either directly or indirectly in reaction to it, and ... this was too, I guess, but instead of just looping him back through "Tony Stark tries to grow as a person and keeps making the same terrified mistakes" it just ... let him be terrified but still make pretty good choices, and keep his head better than most of the people around him! He didn't spend too much time grandstanding, possibly because he had a TEENAGER to take care of, Peter is perfect and I've been really enjoying his and Tony's dynamic. (Also the one fade-away last act death that hit was Peter clinging to Tony, that was AWFUL, WELL DONE.)
Anyway um I am sad about Asgard! I am sad I only got about five months to bask in how great Ragnarok was before a lot of that was taken away or reversed, tbh. I loved the Asgardian refugee ship, and now very best case scenario Thanos only killed half of them and the other half ... survived despite their ship being blown up?? and are, idk, elsewhere with Valkyrie? I'm unsure whether this is a "Valkyrie is alive because we didn't show her" situation or a "Valkyrie is an unaddressed mystery a la Sif because we didn't get Tessa Thompson for this movie" situation, sigh. So bye, Revengers Diaspora, we barely knew ye! Heimdall at least got a pretty baller death, WHO KNEW YOU COULD SUMMON BIFROST WITHOUT YOUR MECHANICAL DOME, though either it was badly aimed or for some reason he was only intending to send Bruce to Earth to warn everyone, but honestly it seems weird that he didn't try to get Thor out of there. Oh well!
I am probably sadder about Asgard than about Loki, honestly -- because I just have NO IDEA what's going to happen with Asgard but I'm not sure this franchise cares about what happens to Thor's people. DON'T YOU DO SOME LAST OF THE TIME LORDS NONSENSE WITH THOR, HE DOESN'T DESERVE IT. I'm surprised at how many people I've seen genuinely believe Loki isn't dead, but I guess that's fair, they do kill him like every other movie. (Which they also lampshaded!) Idk I'm just going to assume he's dead so I'm pleasantly surprised when he isn't rather than freshly disappointed when he stays dead. I am also, obviously, going to write way too much fic about how he ISN'T dead and neither is Asgard, so there. But the one thing I was really worried about, Loki-wise, was that he would genuinely align himself with Thanos to save himself, and instead we get the movie's first, and I think best, "no wait take this stone in exchange for his life" moment. (Lol gosh that one landed in a way the weird Tony and Dr. Strange one very much didn't.) Also shoutout to Loki doing a whole nonsense mythic naming of himself before he tries to stab Thanos, that was nice. Aaaand then he didn't have any additional tricks up his sleeve and just dies, WELL DONE, but if that must be our last Loki for a while or ever, I am really pleased that he died trying to save his brother and possibly the universe, that's a nice character arc.
Okay let's talk about Thor! Speaking of reversing what Ragnarok did, I'm pleased they didn't walk back his characterization, and that it was consistent, and that he got to be funny (I have NEVER enjoyed Rocket as much as I did when you separate him from Quill and let him go on wacky adventures with a space pirate angel) but OH BOY DID THEY REVERSE SOME SHIT. Like, honestly, how dare you give Thor a new eye, he fucking EARNED that eyepatch and attendant wisdom and power, do you understand NOTHING about Norse mythology?! Also, on the one hand I love me a good weapon quest and I was delighted to see Nidavellir, but otoh I ... don't think he needs a cool new axe? I mean I guess it works better than his lightning fists for Thanos-fighting, and also the feature where it has its own personal Bifrost is nice, but I loved everything that Ragnarok did with Thor as the god of thunder, and giving him another gizmo to channel his power felt backwards. That said, though, I did love a lot of Thor's plot: they actually gave him space to be sad! I was sad and then Thor got to be sad and I felt less like they'd just tossed Asgard and Loki off to up the stakes and more like they were willing to acknowledge that it sucked. (Also lol the part where Rocket asks Thor if he maybe has a best friend left and Thor says said friend was stabbed through the heart and I had this amazing awful moment where I realized he could've meant Heimdall or LITERALLY ANY OF THE WARRIORS THREE, Thor you gotta stop losing all your best friends to stabbings.) Also I guess if we didn't have the weapons quest plotline we also wouldn't have the moment where Thor opens the forge iris and takes the full brunt of a star because he has nothing left to lose, that was GREAT, what a lovely gift, it isn't even my birthday.
I also loved all the Guardians being super into him, and Quill feeling threatened, although that latter bit went on slightly too long, hello yes I think Starlord may be my very least favorite character in this movie INCLUDING DR STRANGE, OOOOH. I also like the bit where Thor got to Earth and he and Steve had a beard conversation, they are such chill bros, I want the world to stop ending for five dang minutes so they can hang out. I would like ANY of them to hang out, really aside from several scenes where people find out Bruce is back there aren't really many quiet moments where anyone can be together. (Also that deeply awkward Bruce & Natasha moment, can we ... maybe drop that plot entirely, yikes.)
Also having an Every Superhero movie REALLY underlines how few women there are in this franchise, fuck. Valkyrie is gone without explanation, Shuri and Okoye and Natasha basically get cameos, I guess Mantis is in a couple of scenes, and ... maybe they felt they could paper it over by giving as much screen time as they did to Wanda and Gamora and Nebula? But y i k e s, and also lol the one scene with Pepper where it turns out she is just as frustrated by Tony constantly rehashing his character arc as I am! You triiiied.
Anyway I ... feel like I just yelled about all the things I didn't like, but I did actually have a fairly good time, it was engaging and I had my expectations correctly adjusted, I knew Loki was probably fucked and that there were going to be waaaaay too many characters and that the end was probably going to be a downer/cliffhanger. Now we have a year to find out what weird retcon shenanigans will get us out of this mess!
In the meantime, sigh, I have to go see it again immediately and take notes, because damn right I'm already writing a fic where Loki just fake died as usual, and he and Valkyrie have to get the half of Asgard that survived to safety, and also there's going to be a bunch of weird stuff about death and liminal spaces and there is probably gonna be some katabasis nonsense to save Gamora, and meanwhile Thor and Rocket and Nebula are going on an awful revenge quest, and by god if this movie gave me ONE THING it gave me a plot on which to hang all my previously vague Gamora/Nebula feelings. Space siblings rescue each other and then kiss, go go go.
This is going to just be a terrible ridiculous train of thought post, fair warning.
After chatting with Amiel a bit and texting several excellent friends, my main takeaways are:
- the team movies are always unwieldy and difficult, and this one had a billion characters, and the fact that literally any of them, let alone quite a LOT of them, actually had room to breathe and have character moments while keeping the story going at a good clip, is REALLY IMPRESSIVE, good job delivering on this exhausting crossover brief
- oh GOD I'm SO SAD ABOUT ASGARD
So uh yeah.
I'm in this weird limbo state where, okay, obviously the entire last act is going to get retconned, it killed way too many main characters and there is absolutely no way they're erasing either T'Challa or Peter Parker from their franchises (plus lol the trolling move of killing both Sam and Bucky but not Steve) -- but it's possible both Loki and Gamora are for-real dead? Which sucks, dang, I know a lot of people think Loki is played out but this is MY reaction post so you have to pry Loki from my cold dead hands, and Gamora is always the most interesting part of the GotG movies for me.
...I have to say, though, I genuinely loved all the Gamora and Nebula bits of this movie, and unlike in the GotG movies, where I felt myself continually going "No wait you have interesting backstories and family dynamics, let's concentrate on THAT instead of whatever trash misogynist bs shenanigans Peter Quill and co are up to!" this movie actually did some delivery on that front! Tbh Gamora and Nebula are also the only reason I found Thanos bearable. I get that the incredibly absurd motivation of "I, a space goth, want to impress Death by killing everyone" isn't going to be very translatable straight out the gate in a major blockbuster, but given my druthers between "This guy 100% cannot be reasoned with, he's implacably going to kill everyone" or "This dude cannot be reasoned with, he's going to implacably kill exactly 50% of the universe's population because he has a tragic backstory and believes in environmental activism genocide," I ... honestly don't know, both of those are deeply boring?? Sorry, Thanos is REALLY BORING. Literally the only scenes of his I was at all emotionally invested in were the ones where he was interacting with Gamora and/or Nebula, because apparently I do enjoy a Terrible Space Dad. Thanos' A+ Parenting!
Other things that were boring: the amount of screen time given to Vision and Wanda, who kind of seem like my jam on paper but who I give zero fucks about in actuality, and the amount of screen time given to Dr Strange, who I passionately wish would just go away. (At one point when he and Tony were having an argument I turned to Amiel and whispered "Two Sherlocks, one spaceship!" and gave them a laughing fit in the theater and I'm not sorry.) It just ... seemed like a surprising amount of screen time was given to them, ESPECIALLY to the Vision/Wanda plot, and almost none to the entirety of Team Cap, a group of people we've had several full movies about and presumably some actual emotional investment in? Maybe Steve & co get more to do in the next one.
Speaking of the Vision/Wanda plot: WHY DID EVERYONE HAVE A MOMENT OF PLOT-MANDED IDIOCY, THAT WAS SO FRUSTRATING. The Vision/Wanda plot is definitely the most egregious example, but almost EVERYONE had it at some point! Like: Vision repeatedly says that he's willing to die to save the universe, and yes, it makes sense that Wanda wouldn't be down, but I feel like one has to do several mental contortions to believe that Steve would be team prioritize Wanda's feelings over team honor Vision's willing sacrifice to save the universe?? I don't feel solid enough on my opinions on T'Challa's characterization to say whether or not I believe he would decide the plan to give Shuri time to get the stone out of Vision's head was worth sacrificing BASICALLY HIS WHOLE ARMY but that seems like ... bad kinging, honestly, sigh, idk. I would probably feel less frustrated with all of this if at the end of it Wanda didn't try to destroy the stone ANYWAY, good job getting all those Wakandans killed for nothing!! Also good job to: Peter Quill, whose manpain was SOOOO IMPORTANT that he had to punch Thanos in the face and torpedo his entire Steal Thanos' Glove mission, FUCK that one was deeply frustrating. Like, in character, but SO FRUSTRATING, and I don't really want to be spending my entire movie wanting to shake characters until they rattle for making terrible decisions.
It was refreshing to have a movie in which that character wasn't Tony, though! Like, this is the first time I've liked Tony since IM3! I just so violently hated his entire Ultron plot, and everything since then has been either directly or indirectly in reaction to it, and ... this was too, I guess, but instead of just looping him back through "Tony Stark tries to grow as a person and keeps making the same terrified mistakes" it just ... let him be terrified but still make pretty good choices, and keep his head better than most of the people around him! He didn't spend too much time grandstanding, possibly because he had a TEENAGER to take care of, Peter is perfect and I've been really enjoying his and Tony's dynamic. (Also the one fade-away last act death that hit was Peter clinging to Tony, that was AWFUL, WELL DONE.)
Anyway um I am sad about Asgard! I am sad I only got about five months to bask in how great Ragnarok was before a lot of that was taken away or reversed, tbh. I loved the Asgardian refugee ship, and now very best case scenario Thanos only killed half of them and the other half ... survived despite their ship being blown up?? and are, idk, elsewhere with Valkyrie? I'm unsure whether this is a "Valkyrie is alive because we didn't show her" situation or a "Valkyrie is an unaddressed mystery a la Sif because we didn't get Tessa Thompson for this movie" situation, sigh. So bye, Revengers Diaspora, we barely knew ye! Heimdall at least got a pretty baller death, WHO KNEW YOU COULD SUMMON BIFROST WITHOUT YOUR MECHANICAL DOME, though either it was badly aimed or for some reason he was only intending to send Bruce to Earth to warn everyone, but honestly it seems weird that he didn't try to get Thor out of there. Oh well!
I am probably sadder about Asgard than about Loki, honestly -- because I just have NO IDEA what's going to happen with Asgard but I'm not sure this franchise cares about what happens to Thor's people. DON'T YOU DO SOME LAST OF THE TIME LORDS NONSENSE WITH THOR, HE DOESN'T DESERVE IT. I'm surprised at how many people I've seen genuinely believe Loki isn't dead, but I guess that's fair, they do kill him like every other movie. (Which they also lampshaded!) Idk I'm just going to assume he's dead so I'm pleasantly surprised when he isn't rather than freshly disappointed when he stays dead. I am also, obviously, going to write way too much fic about how he ISN'T dead and neither is Asgard, so there. But the one thing I was really worried about, Loki-wise, was that he would genuinely align himself with Thanos to save himself, and instead we get the movie's first, and I think best, "no wait take this stone in exchange for his life" moment. (Lol gosh that one landed in a way the weird Tony and Dr. Strange one very much didn't.) Also shoutout to Loki doing a whole nonsense mythic naming of himself before he tries to stab Thanos, that was nice. Aaaand then he didn't have any additional tricks up his sleeve and just dies, WELL DONE, but if that must be our last Loki for a while or ever, I am really pleased that he died trying to save his brother and possibly the universe, that's a nice character arc.
Okay let's talk about Thor! Speaking of reversing what Ragnarok did, I'm pleased they didn't walk back his characterization, and that it was consistent, and that he got to be funny (I have NEVER enjoyed Rocket as much as I did when you separate him from Quill and let him go on wacky adventures with a space pirate angel) but OH BOY DID THEY REVERSE SOME SHIT. Like, honestly, how dare you give Thor a new eye, he fucking EARNED that eyepatch and attendant wisdom and power, do you understand NOTHING about Norse mythology?! Also, on the one hand I love me a good weapon quest and I was delighted to see Nidavellir, but otoh I ... don't think he needs a cool new axe? I mean I guess it works better than his lightning fists for Thanos-fighting, and also the feature where it has its own personal Bifrost is nice, but I loved everything that Ragnarok did with Thor as the god of thunder, and giving him another gizmo to channel his power felt backwards. That said, though, I did love a lot of Thor's plot: they actually gave him space to be sad! I was sad and then Thor got to be sad and I felt less like they'd just tossed Asgard and Loki off to up the stakes and more like they were willing to acknowledge that it sucked. (Also lol the part where Rocket asks Thor if he maybe has a best friend left and Thor says said friend was stabbed through the heart and I had this amazing awful moment where I realized he could've meant Heimdall or LITERALLY ANY OF THE WARRIORS THREE, Thor you gotta stop losing all your best friends to stabbings.) Also I guess if we didn't have the weapons quest plotline we also wouldn't have the moment where Thor opens the forge iris and takes the full brunt of a star because he has nothing left to lose, that was GREAT, what a lovely gift, it isn't even my birthday.
I also loved all the Guardians being super into him, and Quill feeling threatened, although that latter bit went on slightly too long, hello yes I think Starlord may be my very least favorite character in this movie INCLUDING DR STRANGE, OOOOH. I also like the bit where Thor got to Earth and he and Steve had a beard conversation, they are such chill bros, I want the world to stop ending for five dang minutes so they can hang out. I would like ANY of them to hang out, really aside from several scenes where people find out Bruce is back there aren't really many quiet moments where anyone can be together. (Also that deeply awkward Bruce & Natasha moment, can we ... maybe drop that plot entirely, yikes.)
Also having an Every Superhero movie REALLY underlines how few women there are in this franchise, fuck. Valkyrie is gone without explanation, Shuri and Okoye and Natasha basically get cameos, I guess Mantis is in a couple of scenes, and ... maybe they felt they could paper it over by giving as much screen time as they did to Wanda and Gamora and Nebula? But y i k e s, and also lol the one scene with Pepper where it turns out she is just as frustrated by Tony constantly rehashing his character arc as I am! You triiiied.
Anyway I ... feel like I just yelled about all the things I didn't like, but I did actually have a fairly good time, it was engaging and I had my expectations correctly adjusted, I knew Loki was probably fucked and that there were going to be waaaaay too many characters and that the end was probably going to be a downer/cliffhanger. Now we have a year to find out what weird retcon shenanigans will get us out of this mess!
In the meantime, sigh, I have to go see it again immediately and take notes, because damn right I'm already writing a fic where Loki just fake died as usual, and he and Valkyrie have to get the half of Asgard that survived to safety, and also there's going to be a bunch of weird stuff about death and liminal spaces and there is probably gonna be some katabasis nonsense to save Gamora, and meanwhile Thor and Rocket and Nebula are going on an awful revenge quest, and by god if this movie gave me ONE THING it gave me a plot on which to hang all my previously vague Gamora/Nebula feelings. Space siblings rescue each other and then kiss, go go go.
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