Avengers: Endgame (with spoilers)

[firecat]

Because I'm only about 50% of an MCU fan, the opinions under the cut are possibly annoying to more serious fans. Also, massive spoilers ahead.

Yaaay! Tony Stark is dead! (I've always despised Iron Man.)

BOOOO! No Flerken!

UGGHHH: Thor in a fat suit. Fortunately, I was warned. Also fortunately, it wasn't quite as bad as I expected it to be, based on the warnings. The worst part was when the audience laughed. I generally go around trying NOT to believe that people are looking at me and laughing inside, so it's not good for me to be reminded that yeah, an extra ounce of flesh on someone is cause for hilarity.

Thor's becoming depressed in an eating/boozing/playing video games/eschewing a barber and a tailor way as a result of his trauma was apparently Chris Hemsworth's idea. The idea itself is sound. But I wish they'd found a less cruel way to play it.

Not thrilled that Natasha died.

The rest of the movie was meh to pretty good. I liked the scene where all the female superheroes grouped together to kick ass.

(Grumble: Loki is still dead.)

Comments

[julian]

So, for the people actually avoiding spoilers (unlike me), it might be more useful to title this Endgame rather than Infinity War.

(I haven't seen either of them. I may eventually.)

[firecat]

Argh, I'm sorry. Corrected.

[julian]

Nah, you're good; as I said, I'm not avoiding spoilers. So in a way, I'm the perfect person to have stumbled over this.

(I'm sorry people lived down to my expectations on the laughter. I like to think some of them are doing it out of discomfort, though.)

[firecat]

That could be.

[kore]

Oh man, Nat dying threw me for a total loop. If that hadn't happened I might have liked the movie. As it is I start out in discussions chirpily going "Well some parts of it were so good!" and melting down into a pile of sizzling froth within a couple of comments. Sometimes I hate being fannish.

[firecat]

Being fannish when the story is being told WRONG is infuriating.

[jazzfish]

Also fortunately, it wasn't quite as bad as I expected it to be, based on the warnings. The worst part was when the audience laughed.

Yep, same here. Coulda been just a throwaway "oh that was kind of icky" but the audience made it worse.

Not thrilled that Natasha died.

The Soulstone retrieval was awful in Infinity War when it was a stupid excuse to give Thanos some manpain at the cost of one of the most interesting characters in the Guardians movies, and that threw me out of the movie so much that I didn't even much care about the Snapture. And then THEY DID IT AGAIN DAMMIT. I would have paid good money to watch Natasha have to deal with the aftermath of Clint's death.

[ckd]

It would have been significantly more interesting to have Clint come to terms with his behavior as Ronin. I imagine dialogue something like this:

"Nat, you saved me and helped me get myself back after Loki's mind control. But this time you couldn't save me because I wouldn't let you. It wasn't mind control that sent me on those murderous rampages, it was me. I became something I don't know how to live with, and while you've more than erased the red in your ledger over the past five years I've been adding it to mine. Too much. Live for the Clint you once knew."

[firecat]

I want to see your version of the movie.

[jazzfish]

I had some hope that they were going in that direction, and would have very much liked to have seen it.

[firecat]

The Soulstone retrieval was awful in Infinity War when it was a stupid excuse to give Thanos some manpain at the cost of one of the most interesting characters in the Guardians movies, and that threw me out of the movie so much that I didn't even much care about the Snapture. And then THEY DID IT AGAIN DAMMIT. I would have paid good money to watch Natasha have to deal with the aftermath of Clint's death.

ALL of that. Killing someone in cold blood to fulfill your destiny isn't compatible with loving them in any world I want to be told stories about. If the soul stone deemed that Thanos loved her, if that is possible in the MCU, it turns the entire universe into a plot-by-random-number-generator.

[clawfoot]

I'm also gutted that Natasha was the one who died, but I will say, during that scene, I had no idea which one of them would succeed in sacrificing themselves. Usually, during those kinds of scenes, you know before it starts who is coming out of it alive and who isn't, but in that one, I didn't. And it gave that scene the tension it truly deserved.

I did not like the outcome, but I did like the scene.

[jazzfish]

I did not like the outcome, but I did like the scene.

Conceded. It was quite well-done.

[firecat]

If there had been a way to bet on the outcome of that scene going in, I would have made money. It was a good scene anyway.

[hitchhiker]

yeah, i hated the whole idea behind the soulstone retrieval too :( so unnecessary.

[firecat]

I should probably do a separate post about this, somewhere that avengers fandom hangs out: none of the soulstone stuff makes any sense to me. "you get it if you willingly sacrifice someone you love for it." it should basically be impossible to get. if you kill someone against their will to get it, then by definition, you don't love them (that's how i think of it), so thanos shouldn't have been able to get it. but you can sacrifice yourself to save people you love. but clint didn't sacrifice natasha: she chose to fall. she could be argued to have sacrificed herself. if anyone should end up waking up in a puddle of water with the soulstone, it is natasha herself. although one could argue that she didn't love herself, so she shouldn't be able to get it. but anyway, it's not clint who should end up with it.