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Btw something semi-related does anybody else go to AMC theatres for viewing their movies? Does anybody else think they have one of the most fake openings with obnoxious smiles? Seriously they could win an award for that.

 flamingkillamajig wrote:
Btw something semi-related does anybody else go to AMC theatres for viewing their movies? Does anybody else think they have one of the most fake openings with obnoxious smiles? Seriously they could win an award for that.

I do think they're pretty cheesy.

Regal does it too, and they're even worse imo. My favorite is the "Breakfast" club of unnamed randoms who just randomly decide to all go to the movies together and all of the actors seem to be silently screaming inside.

 timetowaste85 wrote:
Tony already commented that they play "Hide the Zucchini" in AoU..

That they should, not that they were. It was an unfulfilled thing that was lost when he chose to take the jet rather than stay around and deal with his issues. When he came back, they didn't try to pick it back up, and didn't really try to do so during the five years. A shared pained grimace was about all the acknowledgement that got.

Mind you, in this one, Nat was one of the ones that coped with the Snap the least. She threw everything into trying to deal with the world's issues rather than her own. She handled it in a healthier way than Barton or Thor (mass murder and abject failure), but she wasn't in a healthy state of mind (unlike Stark, or even Steve, who wasn't there but was at least trying).


And honestly this leads into one of the movie's plot holes: the Soul Stone. Unless there was some unwritten rule that no one bothered to share, their competition to NOT be the one to make the sacrifice (to be the sacrifice), should have disqualified them both for gaining the stone. Both wanted to die, neither was willing to make the sacrifice the stone supposedly required. Barton waking up with it moves the plot along, but actively trying to NOT sacrifice the other person doesn't strike me as fulfilling the terms laid out.
I also feel like we missed out by not getting to see the 'Holy Carp!' moment that seemed inevitable with Captain America returning the Stone to Vormir and finding Red Skull is the guardian...

The Russos have said that once the soul stone left Red Skull was free to leave. He may have done so.

Also You probably can't just return the soul stone. Where it actually ended up is up in the air. Nobody has ever acquired it before. Once it was taken it's probably done. It's out and about. Traditionally Adam Warlock has a very close association with the soul stone. Maybe that will come up?

Finally, the "rules" about the sacrifice are not that clear. It's the soul stone that decides what does and does not happen. That much is said. That the stone requires a sacrifice is known. It doesn't have a RAW document that say "You yourself have to kill the person you love most to gain the soul stone." It could be as simple as you have to "loose that which you love". The words Red Skull actually used. A Soul for a Soul. That one person went willingly doesn't take away the loss or the sacrifice.

Imo, I don't think they needed to return the stones to their exact spot, just the exact time.
Like, the stones just need to exist and removing them from the timeline completely feths it up.

Well, Hawkeye DID “drop” her. If anyone wanted to be super technical, he killed her by letting her go. Even though they fought to kill themselves to save the other. I wrestled with that too, but that’s the only way the sacrifice made sense to me. He held on as long as he could to save her life, then “let” her fall.

He didn't drop her. She pushed herself away from the cliff.

I've seen some discussion on whether or not Black Widow being the one to die (and likewise with Gamora in the last film) was "fridging" or not. I can see both sides of the argument, but my opinion is that those two had to be the ones to die because they were the only ones with long red hair; so it can spread out under them when they fall looking like a bloodstain on the ground.

Neither of them died to provide motivation for another character. They weren't fridged.

They couldn't kill Hawkeye as he had a family. Black Widow by contrast had no relatives or loved ones, so she was expendable.
Well, technically HE did not have family left at that point, but it was what he was in for.

Gamora’s death motivated Quill to frack up their whole plan right when they almost had it.

 AduroT wrote:
Gamora’s death motivated Quill to frack up their whole plan right when they almost had it.

It doesn't constitute fridging though as Quill was already motivated in fighting Thanos. Her death just derailed the plan. Fridging implies that the female character was only killed (maimed or raped) to lead the hero to accept his call to action or to show the villain's cruelty. Neither Black Widow and Gamora were fridged in my opinion.

If there was one character who was fridged well and proper, it was Vision.

Backfire wrote:
If there was one character who was fridged well and proper, it was Vision.

I didn’t realize that was an optional feature Ultron had installed.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Neither of them died to provide motivation for another character. They weren't fridged.

I would agree.

Especially in the case of Black Widow, she's had an undercurrent of seeking redemption to her character for the entire Avenger's film franchise, and sacrificing herself to wipe the red from her ledger as it were seems completely in keeping with what she would do, especially to save Clint after he saved her in the past (at least that's what she seems to imply as to how they met). Gamora is maybe a bit more close to fridging, since it played a bit into Thanos' character and motivations, but even if it were fridging in a very technical sense, the scene was great and gave Thanos a sort of emotional depth few villains ever get in comics or film so I don't know that I'd even care. Even then Gamora had a fully developed character and wasn't just eye candy (though obviously...) so even if her death served Thanos' plot development it's not like that's the only thing she did in the franchise.

Maybe add this to my list of trick questions I sometimes throw out to gauge how much thought someone's put into their opinions

I agree, myself; "fridging" was probably a poor choice of word (although it is the case that the female characters were only the "logical" choice because the male writers chose to make them so; it's as likely that the script was written to justify their choice to kill those two); it just occurred to me that both of their bodies were framed with their hair surrounding their heads like a pool of blood, and it seemed just as likely that those two were chosen for that visual as for any other reason.

Definitely not a fridge. Honestly it would probably be worse if Hawkeye had died to “save the girl” since there’s really no argument for it being him otherwise.

I honestly didn't love the movie. I guess when any story starts trying to seriously resolve conflict by introducing either cosmic godlike powers, or time travel, or in this example BOTH, it kind of falls apart for me.

For one thing, it was odd that all of a sudden using the infinity stones causes grievous bodily harm. When thanos used it to erase half of all life, it seemed simple and it didn't bother him in the slightest.

Slight aside - I thought the whole 'Snap' thing was supposed to be a metaphor. Like it would be that easy to do whatever you wanted. Not, which is what happened, that is literally how the infinity stones are activated. I mean, when the hulk used them, he was in incredible pain and was struggling to simply snap his fingers.

Anyways, it seemed like they retconned the infinity stones to cause massive bodily harm to utilize their godlike powers, which I guess is the only reason they didn't use them to revive everyone.

And the whole time travel thing to go back and grab the stones when they existed seemed kind of cheesy, like a clip show in a sitcom that has run out of ideas. And they could just keep going to any point in time and space to solve literally any problem, as was shown when they went back to the 70s to get more pimm particles.

Lastly, the former sorcerer supreme said something to the tune of if the stone didn't exist, it would cause great harm to the universe (which is why she was hesitant to loan the time stone). What does that mean for the present timeline for the movie, in which the universe has been more or less restored, but all the stones are gone?

The big fight scene near the end was solid.

I guess I think I would have liked the story a lot more if they had enlisted Kap'n Marvel and come up with some plan to defeat an empowered thanos with the resources they could muster, rather than what amounted to an episode of time-traveling dragonball z.

 Kap'n Krump wrote:
For one thing, it was odd that all of a sudden using the infinity stones causes grievous bodily harm. When thanos used it to erase half of all life, it seemed simple and it didn't bother him in the slightest.

You might wanna go back and watch IW. In addition to nearly destroying the gauntlet itself, it left visible charring on Thanos' arm and neck. He also seemed quite disoriented just afterward.
The only reason is doesn't do as much damage as it did to Banner and Stark is because they AREN'T Thanos, whose been shown already to be way more powerful than either.

-

Also, the first gauntlet was designed as a magic shock absorber that still mostly fried itself. Tony’s gauntlet worked, but didn’t seem capable of providing the user with the same kind of protection.

At the end of Infinity War, Thanos actually looks surprised that he survived - after all, it was only odds-on that he would.

like a clip show in a sitcom that has run out of ideas

Haha I didn't realise it but you're so right! It's like those Simpson episodes where they replay all the stuff from previous episodes.

 LunarSol wrote:
Also, the first gauntlet was designed as a magic shock absorber that still mostly fried itself. Tony’s gauntlet worked, but didn’t seem capable of providing the user with the same kind of protection.

Thanos is incredibly strong and durable, more so than any of the Avengers, even Hulk. Tony is a regular human, if anything his gauntlet worked super well, otherwise he would have been reduced to pile of ash straight away.

Did Steve have his alternate timeline life then come back to the film timeline as an old man?

I liked it well enough.

I was disappointed that Thanos’ final version became a bad-guy shell, after all the development that came before it.

I have a genuine dislike of time-travel to fix the present. As a device, it diminishes the importance of any character’s actions. I recognize it was needed to reset the snap, but the time heist was a failure other than to nod at the previous films.

I would have rather seen the Avengers battle on from the snap, to recover the stones, and send Thor back to “aim for the head” as Thanos advised at the end of IW.

I would rather the movie had gone full circle, rather than “psych!” It didn’t count! I would have rather seen the older, wiser, but less powerful Thanos have to fight to keep his prize, and ultimately lose it. Victory for the Avengers, and a tragic end for Thanos. I realize I’m wishing into my fist, but I think it would have been a better movie.

 Gael Knight wrote:
Did Steve have his alternate timeline life then come back to the film timeline as an old man?

No, it was the same Steve. He was technically in the ice while he went back for Peggy, but only a handful of people really knew anything about that. So his timeline goes WW2 > Ice > MCU Movies > back into mid 20th Century. He knew to come to that spot in his old age as he knew Sam would be there to pass the shield to.

 Azreal13 wrote:

 Gael Knight wrote:
Did Steve have his alternate timeline life then come back to the film timeline as an old man?

No, it was the same Steve. He was technically in the ice while he went back for Peggy, but only a handful of people really knew anything about that. So his timeline goes WW2 > Ice > MCU Movies > back into mid 20th Century. He knew to come to that spot in his old age as he knew Sam would be there to pass the shield to.

Except he can’t do that because you can’t change the past. Like, he can go back and live that, but old him shouldn’t be there in the present like he was. For all the crap they gave other time travel movies, they couldn’t even manage their own consistency.

Maybe best not pick at that thread..

Although to be honest, if what happened went as intended, Cap has actually survived two snaps by the end of the movie, not to mention holding Mjolnir in one hand AND every Infinity Stone in a case in the other, and doing absolutely nothing untrustworthy.

 Galef wrote:

 Kap'n Krump wrote:
For one thing, it was odd that all of a sudden using the infinity stones causes grievous bodily harm. When thanos used it to erase half of all life, it seemed simple and it didn't bother him in the slightest.

You might wanna go back and watch IW. In addition to nearly destroying the gauntlet itself, it left visible charring on Thanos' arm and neck. He also seemed quite disoriented just afterward.
The only reason is doesn't do as much damage as it did to Banner and Stark is because they AREN'T Thanos, whose been shown already to be way more powerful than either.

-

That was established since at least GG1. Ronan can barely hold one stone long enough to stick it in his hammer. Quill is almost disintegrated leveraging the power of a single stone in a small way. This wasn't some last minute change for plot convenience.