Avengers: Infinity War (spoilers ahead)

That was my take on it. They established in Ragnarok that Hulk and Banner have largely become two people sharing the same body. Once Hulk got his ass kicked by Thanos, he got a major case of butthurt and is either too embarrassed or scared -- or even ashamed, since it led to the death of a lot of his Asgardian friends -- to come out. Hulk no longer strongest one there is, and all that.

 

I hadn't realized that this was going to be a two-parter. So, I loved it up until the end when I found out this was only a down payment for the whole story.

I mean, this might lead to a soft reboot for a younger generation of actors to play these heroes. You know, reality gets changed around a little bit to bring them back. But no one's dead-dead, which was tiresome after two-hours-plus of pretty clever writing.

 

Rudd has Ant-Man & Wasp coming out soon. I'm assuming that is set between Civil War and Infinity War. I would also assume he is in Avengers 4. Renner has definitely been on the set in Avengers 4, though the new outfit is a different superhero identity entirely, Ronin. Hawkeye disguised himself as Ronin in the comics, though under completely different circumstances. My guess is his family was among those who Thanos snapped out of existence, so Clint Barton will take on a new persona as he returns to the fight.

Captain Marvel is the only other MCU movie scheduled between now and Avengers 4. They set her up in the post-credits scene, though the movie is set in the '90s. That might explain why Fury knew about her and could call on her help. The only other bits I know about that one is Coulson returns to the MCU movies in it, as does Ronan the Accuser (the villain from the first Guardians of the Galaxy.)

I just got back from seeing it with my wife and daughter. My wife was confused by some of it, but enjoyed it. My daughter thought it was well done, but was sad to see so many of her favorite characters die.

Like Wenders, I also thought of the scene with David Tennant on Doctor Who.

I've been sure Thanos would get all of the stones and snap half the universe out of existence for a while, but showing the characters react as it happened made it work even if you saw it coming and you expect at least some of it to be undone. It is among my favorite movies in the MCU, but no way in hell do I buy that Spider-Man and Black Panther are dead. I'm guessing the pre-snap deaths will hold up. As others said, I think Dr. Strange knew this had to happen to eventually defeat Thanos. I'm sure those characters will be back and they will use Avengers 4 as a soft reboot, recasting some characters, killing off some others and maybe even bringing the X-Men and Fantastic Four into the MCU.

This is kind of how I felt as a kid seeing The Empire Strikes Back. Of course, this is an even darker ending.

Also, to correct the list from earlier in the thread, War Machine was not among those who were snapped out of existence. He was standing there with Cap and the other survivors a the end.

 

Since this is a spoiler thread, that's another thing on my mind. In addition to the trailers and commercials, some people look to toys and other merchandise for spoilers. In some cases, they did give things away. In others, they pulled a fast one.

One spoiler I read a while ago was about Thor not only regaining his eye, but also that Stormbreaker's handle would be a piece of Groot. This was based on a toy advertisement.

Captain America showing up to save Vision and Scarlet Witch was also given away by the trailers.

There are also some scenes that were in the trailers, but not the movie. One was Black Panther talking about how they weren't fighting for one life, but all of them. Of course, it's not that unusual to have this happen.

But I think they faked the audience out with a couple of spoilers that were tied together, one in the trailers and another in a toy. Supposedly, there is a Hulkbuster armor toy that you can have the Hulk bust out of it. We also saw the Hulbuster being overwhelmed by Thanos's army, which actually was in the movie, and a clip of the Hulk charging across the field in Wakanda along with the other heroes. I'm wondering if it was an intentional fake-out, leading the audience to expect the Hulk even though he never shows.

Mark Ruffalo has spoken about a three-film arc for the Hulk that began in Ragnarok and will end in Avengers 4. I'm sure we'll get some explanation for the Hulk refusing to show up. I just hope it is more than just him being afraid of Thanos. That seems kind of lame.

 

Whenever they do the soft reboot, I hope they bring in new characters. They've proven they can use the formula to make any character a franchise star. These were the third-tier properties behind X-Men and Spider-Man when the MCU began.

You can retire Iron Man, Cap, Banner, etc.

Captain Marvel, Spider-Man, Dr. Strange, Ant-Man, Falcon-Cap and bring in one or two more, and that's every bit as much star power character-wise as you had with this generation of Avengers. I think the current audience would go nuts over a good film version of the current Ms. Marvel or even Spider-Gwen. Or Amadeus Hulk.

 

Don't forget Black Panther in that group going forward. No way he's going anywhere after the massive success of his solo movie.

The theory I read is that the scientist who helped Ultron create Vision's body in Age of Ultron was Amadeus Cho's mother. If so, that's a ways off, but they could go with She-Hulk. Ms. Marvel could work, though maybe wait until Captain Marvel is established. Spider-Gwen doesn't really make sense at this point, with so little work done with Spider-Man in the MCU. Then again, they are doing a Venom movie that is an origin story without Spider-Man, so who knows? (I know that isn't Marvel Studios, but it still fits in there somewhere.)

I'm guessing the next step is weaving in some of the characters from the Fox deal. That's where the reality stone comes into play, because you'd have to establish mutants as part of the MCU, which they hadn't been before. At the very least, I expect to see Wolverine in an Avengers movie at some point.

 

I might be wrong, but I'd heard somewhere that Spider-Man might not become a fixture in the MCU because the rights issue is still a bit tricky.
The story was that Marvel/Disney worked out the deal to get him from a regime at Sony that has since been replaced, and the new regime was not too happy about letting that cash cow slip out of their grasp. Meanwhile, the deal that was worked out included, IIRC, a couple of solo Spider-Man movies and one or two Avengers films. So once that deal runs its course in a couple of years we might be right back where we started from.

 

Clearly, this is just part one of two, but I don't have a problem with that. Isn't The Empire Strikes Back a great movie, one that most people talk about as the best Star Wars movie? How is that different from Infinity War? It had an ending, but there was no real resolution of the entire story. Couldn't you have argued that was splitting one movie into two?

Sure, there was some stuff you could cut from Infinity War, but I wouldn't. They jammed so much story and so many new characters into things that I don't think they could have done it well in under two hours.

I also loved the Red Skull's role. It was just one way they had things set up over the past 10 years pay off.

They didn't just make a movie with a good villain. They made him the main character. More than anything, this is a Thanos story.

 

Possibly. The Fox deal isn't final yet, either, so that could all fall apart. I hope not. I'd like to see where they go with Holland's version of Spider-Man.

On a side note, I loved the visuals with the Iron Spider costume, especially the use of the extra arms. For somebody who read those stories in the comics, it was fun to see it on screen.

 

I also don't understand the "it doesn't have an ending!" complaint because we know a sequel is coming. As you mentioned, if that's the criteria, then stuff like Empire and Harry Potter middle movies also don't have endings.

 

The more I think about it, the more I enjoy this aspect of it. The movie has almost all of the beats of a traditional hero's journey (minus the second act fall), except they're happening to the villain. Thanos' satisfied smile at the end is a mission accomplished moment for him, not an evil cackle.

 

I thought about fitting it into the Joseph Campbell model. It fits a little better when you consider Thanos's story about Titan and think of that as the call to action. The fall could be his near-defeat by the Avengers on Titan or his sacrifice of Gamora.