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Avengers - Infinity War

Started by Judgedreddrocks, 27 April, 2018, 10:54:04 AM

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JOE SOAP

Quote from: Jim_Campbell on 28 April, 2018, 07:16:01 PM
Quote from: TordelBack on 28 April, 2018, 06:12:42 PM
Such massively long game these lads are playing.

Marvel has spent ten years playing chess whilst DC is barely playing noughts-and-crosses.

Marvel managed to make a more developed, dynamic character than any in the Justice League out of a feckin' cloak.


The only impediment to making a Justice League film first – like they had previously intended with George Miller – and for it to be entertaining enough to be successful, was the initial pretence that WB were all about making serious, important films, and then changing their minds half-way through production on the rest of their slate resulting in complete writer/director failure.

TordelBack

As so often with MCU movies, I kept finding moments where I almost couldn't believe what I was seeing on the screen: it seemed to finally justify the existence of those endless crossover events, simply as vague inspiration for this.  Even Secret Wars 2 seemed to make a contribution!

Link Prime

#17
Quote from: Jim_Campbell on 28 April, 2018, 07:19:29 PM
My only real regret is that

We didn't get a few belts of Led Zeppelin when Thor arrived with Stormbreaker.

SmallBlueThing(Reborn)

All reservations I have about this one, are probably entirely down to the cinema I saw it in and the audience I saw it with. You know how one of the complaints about 3D is that it's "projected darker" than the 2D equivalent? Well, this seemed to be projected for 3D despite seeing it in 2D. Great swathes of the film were a murk of greys and muted colours, which meant I couldn't work out what the sneck was going on, and even daylight scenes were darker than you'd expect. Even Wakanda seemed more a drizzly day on the Isle of Wight.
The audience found EVERY joke hilarious. I mean, really hilarious- meaning every line of dialogue following a gag was lost. Then halfway through they all decided to go and empty their bowels/ fill up again with nachos- five at a time.
As for the movie- no spoilers- it really did feel like the culmination of a decade of careful world building. Bearing in mind my kids (and by extension quite a lot of the audience) had never consciously known a time when these films didn't exist, there was a sense of great importance about the events playing out. Did it disappoint? Only in small, nerdy bits that anyone not versed in these characters would never even consider.

I will be going back to see it on a better screen one night this week, buying the dvd on release day, and watching it now and again for the rest of my life, probably.

Minor, yet joyous, spoiler: [spoiler]Groot providing the handle of Thor's new axe. Perfect.[/spoiler]

SBT

Jim_Campbell

Quote from: radiator on 27 April, 2018, 04:42:30 PM
The glaring problem for me was that the non-stop pacing and the almost total lack of any non-superhuman characters in the movie made it all feel weirdly small scale and lacking in stakes and context.

I genuinely don't understand this. The film posits different stakes — this isn't about whether the heroes can save everyone, it's about whether they can save everyone including themselves. There are —what?— twenty-one superheroes in this movie (I think, excluding sidekicks), about half of which are currently supporting their own franchises and several of whom have had lead/major roles in four or five movies.

If you're not invested in them by this stage, fair enough, but this probably isn't the movie for you. I don't think you can argue, however, that Marvel hasn't put the effort in trying to get you invested in them.
Stupidly Busy Letterer: Samples. | Blog
Less-Awesome-Artist: Scribbles.

JOE SOAP

#20
Quote from: Jim_Campbell on 28 April, 2018, 07:19:29 PM
My only real regret is that [spoiler]unless the hints at the end of GotG2 get realised way faster than I expected, Marvel is going to do their big Thanos storyline without Adam Warlock.[/spoiler]

Sorry, Jimbo.

Markus: Well, there are some in the original Infinity Gauntlet series that are-- Like, we didn't introduce Adam Warlock, because it's a massive backbend and you practically have to make an Adam Warlock movie to introduce him. He just can't walk onscreen. So, there was a brief moment where we were like, Ehhh..., and then we were like-- [He points to the movie's poster.] We have that many characters already! And then there were others we couldn't use. Like, Silver Surfer would have been useful, but we can't touch him. Currently.

https://www.etonline.com/avengers-infinity-war-nearly-included-adam-warlock-and-a-giant-fking-snake-exclusive-100952

Steve Green

Infinity Gauntlet needs a copyright sorting stone.

Jim_Campbell

I'll confess I'm not really that up on much that's happened in the Marvel (comic) universe in the last twenty years, so I probably missed a lot of geek nods... but I did get a little bit of a geek thrill seeing the crimson bands of Cyttorak...!
Stupidly Busy Letterer: Samples. | Blog
Less-Awesome-Artist: Scribbles.

Apestrife

#23
I'm not much of a Marvel-fan and managed to fall asleep and laughed for the wrong reason more than one time, but overall I quite enjoyed it. Best Marvel film I'v seen since Iron Man 3 (I also quite enjoyed GotG, CA:WS and T:R).

Went with some friends, and we were all on a different number of marvel movies seen. Everything from 3 up to each one (a million or something). Found it really interesting that it manages to both feel like a sequel, stand alone as well as prequel, while juggling I don't know how many characters in how many places. They really pulled that off. Nor my friends, or myself, felt unsure of why/what, or why a character was cool.

I it captured the feeling I had as young when thoroughly enjoying SW:RotJ or T2 (No, I'm not saying this one is up there with those) without having watched what came before.

Regardless what becomes of the second film (hope it doesn't undo too much of the [spoiler]damage[/spoiler], I think this one would work really well stand alone.

TordelBack

My 8yr-old daughter came up with the most damning flaw yet:[spoiler] WHERE WERE THE RHINOS!?[/spoiler].  I did have to fight a genuine urge to shout 'Wakanda Forever!" at several points (and "Ouch time!" just the once), but she makes a good point (explanations that they had all been killed by the end of BP didn't find a welcoming harbour). 

Pleasing consequence of all this MCU stuff for me has been the ability to strut my (limited) knowledge of the source material both at home and at work (in addition to my own kids' generation, the low-mid-20-somethings really dig these movies).  I'm repeatedly outclassed in my Harry Potter knowledge (many of these youngish adults have their own wands, acquired as tw-/teenagers but still proudly retained, and can recount their own Sortings), but at least with the geneaologies and affiliations of Marvel superheroes I can hold my own over the tea-break table.  Wasted youth? Pshaw.


JamesC

I thought it was great. I'm quite astonished at how good it was actually, considering all the threads they had to pull together. A shame about no Adam Warlock but I think Captain Marvel may fill the AW shaped hole in part 2.
Seeing all these characters on screen did help to define exactly which characters I do and do not care about. I think this may be a good opportunity to clear the decks of some of the second and third stringers, either by killing them off or by allowing them a retirement (much like what seems to have happened with Hawkeye). I honestly couldn't care less about Rhodes (3rd rate Iron Man), Falcon (just lame), Vision (charisma vacuum), Wanda (mopey dullard) or Winter Soldier (worked as a villain, doesn't work as a hero).
All in all it was bloody impressive. There was a metric ton of CGI though which I feel may not hold up too well in years to come, especially on Thanos unfortunately.

TordelBack

#26
I had thought the visual realisation of Thanos would probably disappoint, but in the event I thought it was pretty much flawless (dated original design aside).  As to JamesC's list of less-welcome second-stringers, you're totally wrong about Wanda, I could watch her for hours (although as her powers come from an Infinity Stone...), but more pertinently I'd think that keeping [spoiler]Hawkeye out of it was far from a quiet retirement[/spoiler], more a setup for a central role in Avengers 4.  As the human heart of the movie team, he's best placed to highlight the impact of [spoiler]Thanos' victory[/spoiler] - I wouldn't be surprised if the next one actually opens with[spoiler] his wife and/or kids >poofing< out of existence, and his initial efforts to navigate a ruined world[/spoiler]. 

I also suspect that the[spoiler] carbon-freezing removal of many of the rest of the guys JamesC mentions is actually to preserve them for future adventures, away from the more permanent transformations that are going to play out on the original Avengers in the next one[/spoiler]: that's where the other shoe is going to land.

Some questions I didn't feel were answered: what is Thanos, or rather what are the innate abilities of a Titan?  When did Iron Man become Green Lantern?  Why is Cumberpatch so relentlessly flat?  Did Vandar really get destroyed out of hand after all the efforts to save it in GotG1?


TordelBack


The Monarch

#28
to be fair in guardians 1 xandar kinda got buggered pretty badly a lot of the nova corps died and their defences got wrecked they were easy pickings for thanos and it was stupid to keep the stone with them. We already saw the near genocide of the last asgardians it may have been overkill to see it happen to xandar

JamesC

I think TB is probably right - I did wonder about Hawkeye. He's been as dull as dishwater in previous films so I hope if they use him, they use him well.
I'd love to know what's interesting about Wanda though, I must be missing something.
It seems inevitable that some of the big players will be bowing out of the MCU once contracts are up but I'd like to think the future lies in the direction of Spidey, Black Panther, Dr Strange, Ant Man and Wasp, Captain Marvel and (it's a long shot but I'd love it to happen) She Hulk. I can't see Wanda or Falcon taking a lead in anything.