Avengers: Endgame

[The NZA]

i too need more time with it but 

 

1) what the hell weapon did thanos have that shattered cap's vibranium shield without even wearing the gauntlet?! was that Thors jambjorn or some shit?

 

2) with the gem and Tony gone did everyone forget about vision or just give up on him? 

 

tasha did get done dirty, especially since we pulled gamora out of the past (i don't care what skull says, if you can do-over once, there's no rules)

 

also my head hurts if i try to think about who came back, who stayed after the 5 year gap and who was lost when that timeline folded so that's how you know its some comic book shit

[Jables]

I always get lost in the meta-complaints but I feel like any environment populated by humans, dealing with the event at the end of IW(ya never know who you're spoiling for), not only would the Catholic Church be calling it the Rapture but they would be financing the rebuild I guarantee. When we see Scott again it would have been cool to see a bunch of death cults and whatnow(kinda like Y: The Last Man).

 

Great balance of levity, action and feels though. Feels great to pretend I share my physique with a Hemsworth.

[Visitant]

Honestly, that sounds like the "side comic" of a cross over event kinda story. 

 

The Purifiers Cometh. (or something equally silly).

 

note: i would totally read that. 

[Keth]

So we saw this again on Friday and I have... Issues. I really like the movie, but there were a ton of missed opportunities. And I'm not talking about Fantastic X-Men cameos. 

 

First off, this is a boring film. Maybe not so much the first time. But even then I could feel the length of the movie about an hour in. Nah, this should have been at least 30 mins shorter. It could have been cut a lot tighter. 

 

Hawkeye's start was perfect. It picked right where the last one left off. And brought us back to that eerie, horror vibe. Cut scene, Marvel crawl. And then... 5 years later. Start with Ant Man escaping the van and wandering the streets. Get us to moving the plot along. We dont know what happened to Thanos at this point. Hulk and Rocket visit Thor. He's broken, and more clues to where Thanos is. Keeping us guessing. Blah blah. Time traveling kicks off. We're moving along. Once we are on Morag and there are two Nebs, THEN we finally see what happened to present day Thanos, thanks to her hologram recorder. That whole scene at the beginning felt so messy and padded. There are some tweaks to be made here, but I feel like the movie would have benefitted from this. There's just so much exposition in this one, it feels uneccessary. 

 

Hell, by the time the last battle arrives, I was kind of ready to wrap it up, while also feeling like the battle was too short. Its really the only big action piece in the movie. I'm not saying it all needed to be filled with action of course. I like how different it was from IW. Its just, we are 2 1\2 hrs in already and I just want it wrapped up. Maybe Im nitpicking, I dunno.

 

Also, I know the main Avengers are supposed to be the focus (except Black Widow cause who gives a shit about her I guess amirite?), but past Thanos is such a different character from present day one that he feels like such a step back in the villain department.

 

Eh I dunno. I like this movie. But I certainly liked it alot less on round two. When I end up watching it again, there will be alot of skipped scenes.

[The NZA]

aside: this is a tweet thread i found interesting about how Thors trauma was treated as a joke vs Tony's, based on weight 

 

 

[Iambaytor]

I don't agree with that take.  I think peopke tend to confuse "things the audience laughed at" with jokes.  There were about 2 legit fat jokes (depeding on how you want to read Rhodey's Cheez Whiz barb) but most of the humor in regards to Thor was about how disheveled and slovenly he was being.  I don't think his panic attack was meant to generate a laugh and his triumphant moment a few minutes later got laughs but the look on his face was filled with genuine emotion.  I think the jokes regarding him were laughing with the character in acknowledgement that he was behaving in the same slovenly way he always has in these movies just without the optimism and drive.  Tony had a similar arc on Iron Man 3 where his PTSD was serious but jokes were made and I think they worked.  I found the fact that they didn't "fix" him (dude didn't even comb his hair or shave) to be pretty empowering and genuinely hope they don't just bring him back to normal for future appearances.

Edited May 7, 2019 by Iambaytor

[The NZA]

i can dig that, but it wasn't the vibe i got when i saw it - i might be projecting here, granted. 

i admittedly laughed with the belly rub, (i wanna say) racoon's joke about looking like melted ice cream, etc - but something felt wrong, and i didn't really think about it until his conversation with freya & his trauma just came pouring out

 

i liked the points that tweet chain made about him losing so much in ragnarok, and how much harder he took his failure to end thanos (after all that trouble of him fixing his hammer) and save everyone, how his very identity as a god was basically shattered & the last vestige of that - his body - felt lost to thanos as well.  like you said, i was happy it wasn't simply washed away (though ill not be surprised if guardians 3 "fixes" it).  @Donatella also made a good point about how despite deep depression/PTSD, it was great seeing mjilnor still find him worthy, too.  

 

i will say that even if the jokes moreso seemed aimed at the lebowski/slob state, that's kinda a trope that goes along with being fat too, though

 

looking back i kinda dug how we got to see some of the avengers deal with that truama too - widow buried herself in her work, clint's ronin stage (man i hope he sought therapy), hipster hulk etc. 

[Iambaytor]

See, I don't think that Thor cares that he's fat.  I don't think he cares that he's disheveled.  Sure he's now got a prodigious gut from 5 years of getting drunk and sitting on the couch.  He never seems to react to any of the jokes about his appearance expect the Lebowski comment from Stark which he seems to defiantly laugh in the face of.  The only time he seems to care is when Freyja tells him to eat a salad and I hated that bit though it totally reads as in character for their dynamic.  Ultimately Thor seems less interested in getting back into peak form so much as he seems to care that he's still worthy to wield Mijolnir.  He seems very comfortable in his skin and I think people gloss over that because "LOL he's fat."  Like I feel like the backlash against the fat shaming is pretty telling of peoples' ideas of what being fat is.  I think people who see Hemsworth with the belly as sad and grotesque are kind of projecting their own ideas of being fat as sad, laughable, and grotesque.  The character owns it and while it's disappointing that he's wearing a prosthesis I'm fine with this for a number of reasons: 1) Chris Hemsworth wants other jobs and we still live in a world obsessed with abs, 2) I think bulking up to become Thor (likely using some form of steroids like every other person with a superhero body) has wreaked enough havoc on his body and Christian Bale-esque body transformations are super bad for your body and only really useful for the illusion of talent (not that Bale isn't talented, just that his body transformations are just performative ways to make him seem more talented) 3) While they just could have made a fat superhero I think it's important for an existing character who's not fat to become fat and then be fine with it.

 

They could have handled this a little better but compare this example with how Into the Spider-verse handled fat Peter Parker and you'll see a very big improvement.

[spiffytee]

 

[The NZA]

big ol spoilers 

 

 

hyyyyyyype

[Newtype]

Spoiler

 

[The NZA]

Kevin Feige discusses how a pivotal Avengers: Endgame moment was influenced by LOGAN (Spoilers for both)

 

Endgame needed to have impact. And not just Thanos punching people. It called for real, lasting consequences, especially in a cinematic universe where death has not always been the final word. "There was some sense that deaths don't matter in our movies – Nick Fury gets shot and died in Winter Soldier and comes back in the third act, which was awesome, but is not a death," Feige explains. "And people were clamouring for, not death necessarily, but stakes and real emotion. And I remember thinking, 'be careful what you wish for,' as we started getting closer to this. But we never questioned it. All of the angst and all of the effort went into sticking the landing, to making it worthwhile."

A big influence on Feige and his team was another superhero movie that did very different, very final things with its main characters. So perhaps we can thank director James Mangold and star Hugh Jackman for some of Endgame's emotional power. "We saw Logan like the audience did, in a theater having nothing to do with the making of that film and went, 'oh my god, what an amazing ending for Hugh as this character.'" Feige says. "And there are only a handful of examples where an actor so associated with a character can go out perfectly. And Logan is the only one that jumps to mind right now, there are not that many of them. And that's what we desperately wanted to give Robert, and that was what our focus was on."

 

another interesting bit:

 

 

10) If you were on a flight during the snap, you didn’t die when you returned

Hulk’s un-snap (resulting in a phenomenon now known as ‘The Blip’) saw the 50% of all life in the universe that Thanos blinked out of existence get blinked back into it. But with that happy result came lots of questions – like, if you return at the exact same place where you left (as has been established), what happened if you were in a giant metal tube hurtling through the sky? “If people were in an airplane when they were dusted, they didn't return at 35,000 feet,” Feige says, putting our minds at rest for the first time in months. “They didn't fall to their deaths because Smart Hulk is smart, and when he snapped... You can wish for whatever you want and you can wish for everyone to come back safely. Done.