#infinity war criticism

[multiversetrickster]

The MCU has always had a quip/comedy problem

This isn’t only a Phase 4/5 problem

Endgame turned Thor’s trauma from the events in all the other movies a joke about his weight because of his binge eating. They undercut the intensity of Scott coming back from the quantum realm and how that’s the solution to the problems by making him randomly say, “is that a sandwich?” In the middle of it

Infinity War constantly undercut the stakes with terrible humor. Seriously the leads stopping to quip at each other in battle with the big bad of 10 years is a joke, and the worst offender of this Tony, Peter, and the Guardians. Did we really need Drax spoiling the emotional moment that Quill and Gamora had about her making him promise to kill her if Thanos shows up with his stupid slow motion joke. Peter Parker is a joke in this movie, being clueless about what’s happening and just making jokes and being awkward

The MCU caring more about quips and humor than serious stakes and character moments because they can’t let it get “too dark” has always been a problem, people just didn’t notice before because it was characters they love doing it. Now it’s characters that don’t have any nostalgia attached to them, and people see how grating and annoying it is

Is this a problem with every MCU project? No. The Captain America trilogy has never had this problem, the OG avengers, and in phase 4 WandaVision, Loki, and Doctor Strange (even though that movie had other problems) didn’t have this problem. But it is still a problem that the MCU as a whole has

[rdjandtomholland]

2016 → 2017 → 2018 → 2024

[woulddieforloki]

I can't believe infinity war didn't make it onto the poll along with endgame

apparently most people seem to like Infinity War more than Endgame and consider Endgame the bigger crime against the MCU and I'm so ??? Infinity War's grown on me, I will admit, but it's not nearly as entertaining as Endgame imo it just drags on so long that by the time the big battle happens I barely remembered that they started the movie by killing off Loki to pRoVe tO tHe AuDiEnCe ThAt ThAnOs iS a VeRy BaD dUdE (I assume was the point at least; proving that the movie does have high stakes and that Thanos is someone to be wary of) but that was like two whole hours before the final fight began and ugh Marvel's worst crime is making Infinity War so goddamn long

[gloriousburden]

Omg so many people love to mock Avengers Loki’s hair for being “greasy”/“unwashed” (which I can’t stand because it’s so obviously hair gel…) but love and even praise his hair in Ragnarok/the all black suit outfit when his hair with that outfit GENUINELY looks greasy and not even just slicked back/styled with gel.

It’s so obviously styled. Greasy/unwashed hair doesn’t do that. Even when I was more tolerant of Ragnarok… I knew this was a mess. Does Loki’s hair in Avengers look crunchy? Yes. Does it look greasy/unwashed? NO!

Btw I really never cared for the all black suit outfit 😭😭😭😭 it’s nothing special to me, and I prefer Stuttgart/Thor 1 when he was wearing a suit. Feel like I’m definitely in the minority though.

On a more positive note, though…

Shitty pictures, but I actually kind of like what they did with his hair in IW. Is it perfect? No, but I like how you could see a bit of his natural waves more (which is adorable), the amount of volume, the fact it’s ever so slightly side parted/moved to the side, the way it’s more in his face and not entirely tucked/styled behind his ears, and how disheveled it is. It’s more natural looking, and not so crunchy/overly defined to the point it lacks volume/separation.

It’s so cute to me that he has naturally more wavy hair rather than straight, so I’m glad that they sort of let that show. Like in TDW too, since his hair had a more natural wave even though it was seemingly still styled. As well as obviously after his breakdown.

[spooky-donut-ghost-house]

[lokigodofaces]

Okay y'all wanna know what sucks?

"You will yearn for something as sweet as pain," was such a chilling line from A1. It gives Thanos credibility, I guess you could say, as a villain. So terrifying that he terrifies the primary villain of the movie. This threat is one of the more horrifying ones in the whole MCU.

It came to mind at the post-credit scene of Ragnarok. Loki failed to deliver the Tesseract. Now Thanos is coming to deliver on that threat.

Then comes the opening of Infinity War. And what happens to Loki? Not that much.

Okay, technically speaking he did give Thanos the Tesseract right before his death. But not willingly. Only because Thanos was killing Thor. And years after he was supposed to give him the Tesseract but instead failed and lost the Stone Thanos did have. So, yeah, Thanos wasn't happy with him.

But what did Thanos do to Loki? Well, there was an off screen battle of some sort, but Loki was left mostly unharmed. Emotional damage from seeing Thor tortured, I guess we can give Thanos that. Initially literally nothing after Loki gave him the Tesseract other than verbal remarks. Then he strangled Loki and broke his neck. And that was it.

What happened to, "you will yearn for something as sweet as pain"? Loki honestly got a very quick death. Excruciating, I imagine, but it was over in a minute. Doesn't really line up with the threat Loki got in Avengers.

And, I get it, Infinity War is PG-13, they're limited in what they can show, that's fair. But there literally are torture scenes in this movie! Stephen and Nebula are both very much tortured! Perhaps that torture doesn't fit with the threat, okay. I'm not saying Disney had to show us the torture. They could have shown Loki after being tortured. I'm just saying that this along several other things make Thanos seem not as terrifying as he was set up to be in Avengers and Guardians of the Galaxy. In Phases 1 and 2, he was outright terrifying and we were all excited to see him in Infinity War and how cool of a villain he'd be. Infinity War gave us nothing more than an overglorified purple Thomas Malthus that didn't uphold any of his threats to anyone but Nebula.

[therese-lokidottir]

Like, seriously. Gamora broke free of this monster because she couldn't let all this death and destruction continue, because she couldn't stand to let what happened to her happen to anyone else and these guys use her death to make us feel bad for the monster!?!?

Zoe Saldaña as Gamora Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) dir. James Gunn

[jinxquickfoot]

I'm rewatching Infinity War and I want to address one of the key criticisms I hear of it which is: Steve: We don't trade lives, Vision. Also Steve: *takes the fight to Wakanda where a lot of Wakandans die* First point - even if they had destroyed the Stone when Vision first suggests it, the army would have no way of knowing that. They would have come for it anyway. Or even if they did know it was gone, Thanos surely would have sent them to Earth anyway for vengeance. Point is - Earth is getting attacked either way. Wakanda has the best defenses and weaponry in the world. Not to mention that Steve didn't just rock up and start fighting and force everyone else to get on board - T'Challa agreed to make the stand against Thanos there, even knowing the risks to his people.

Second - it's a thematically sound choice. Throughout the entire movie, we see that the good guys aren't willing to sacrifice love for the big picture. Loki won't let Thor die, Wanda and Team Cap won't let Vision sacrifice himself, Gamora can't bear to see Nebula tortured. The only person who is willing to make that personal sacrifice for 'the greater good' is Thanos. He thinks big picture only. The ends totally justify the means. What does one small life matter if he's saving the universe, even if that person is someone he 'loves'? And then we get Stephen and Tony. Even after declaring that he will let Tony or Peter die before handing over the Time Stone, Stephen realizes the value of one life - Tony's life - because it's the one life that will make all the difference in the end. Yes, it's important to keep the end goals and the greater good in mind, but we can't do that by bringing untold harm and suffering to individuals. The Avengers win because they're not Thanos.

[dani-luminae]

I mean I'd argue they already undid all that considering they killed him then dedicated 40 minutes to speedrunning that entire character evolution/redemption in the first ep of his namesake series...

[lucianalight]

You say the show characters weren't divided to "good" and "evil" but they are still stripping people and putting collars their necks which personally I find pretty messed up. This is my problem and why I can't bring myself to watch season 2 because everything I end up seeing seems like the TVA is still doing horrible things and not treated with the weight it should. Like, there's torture scene, but it's supposed to be okay because turns out it wasn't really physical? Like thats still torture that crosses the line way past grey in my opinion.

It's these two images for me is why I can't be asked to see any of the TVA as just grey especially it's asked while Loki is still called a villain. He didn't do a fraction as bad as they did.

If what I saw was Mobius owing up to being wrong about believing in the TVA and how his glorious purpose hurt people instead of seeing Loki say he invaded New York because he was mad at Thor and Odin, maybe I wouldn't still mad at the show

The actions are wrong, it doesn't matter who they're against what justification they have for using them. I rather have a story the condemns those actions and finds a better way than one that keeps the system with only a promise that now they'll only target the bad people

What I've been trying to say and said before in my s2 review, is that the narrative is neutral this time. It just shows you the story and leaves you to decide for yourself how you want to judge characters and their actions. That's sth very important for me in a story. I always have an instant knee jerk reaction to any blunt sort of message/framing even if it's a good one. I hate it when I feel like the writer is holding up a sign and telling me "look look it's a bad/good action or you should love/hate this character". No, thank you very much I can think for myself. The writer's feelings towards the characters can also bleed through so you understand when a character is treated by distaste and another with adoration.

These were the most important issues I had with s1. Because it stopped me from doing what I love most, in-universe analysis. Sth the fandom were doing before TR. No one told us, what happened to Loki before Avengers, we were shown clues. No one told us the reasoning behind every sentence of the characters and what they meant. But we analyzed every single action and expression. We put the pieces of puzzle together and built the picture. I was happy doing just that, until with TR the in-universe analysis didn't make sense so we had to look what caused it from out-universe pov.

Now with s2 having that neutrality I want, I don't care what the creators wanted to say as long as the characterization and actions make sense and are consistent with how I see the canon material. That's why Loki's line about New York didn't make me angry.

That hatred and dismissal toward Loki we felt in TR, IW and S1 is also gone. So having that irritating narrative of s1 out of the way and a better writing, the characters look grey to me. Which means like any other human they do bad things and good things. I didn't got the feeling that any of wrong actions are framed as sth good. Not putting collar on people(they were actually uncomfortable), not the torture scene(which I hated as I explained in my review) and not what TVA was doing all this time. In fact one of the few instances of framing in the narrative is that their atrocities were acknowledged.

The promotions of S2 were terrible though. I have no idea what they were thinking. None of the trailers were interesting and who would buy TVA merch? They're not even aesthetically beautiful and why would anyone want one of those creepy posters anyway? Although that's what happens when you sideline your main character in s1 and then you have nothing except creepy totalitarian merch for promotion smh. So yeah I get what you mean.

The ending also wasn't like now they're targeting the bad guys. It was shown that they won't interfere with what happens in timelines unless one of HWR's variants start a war and their intervention was needed. I haven't watched ant-man 3 but I assume they were referring to it when they said one of his variants made trouble but it was handled and their intervention wasn't needed. So they just intervene when the people of a timeline can't handle sth themselves. I also got the impression that they were changing their whole system to sth new.

In the end I hope it's been clear that by posting about the series, I'm not insisting, encouraging or recommending others to watch it. Because I know what Loki means to us. And Because I've seen many of my mutuals didn't like s2. Some did. S1 still makes me as angry as the first time I watched it but I liked s2(that doesn't mean I won't criticize it though). No two people are ever gonna agree with each other on everything. So it's ultimately a choice everyone need to make themselves.

[eeniyilee]

Infinity war and Endgame should be more guardians focused rather than avengers. Mostly because they were closer link to Thanos.

Especially Nebula and Gamora, who deserves way more screen time.

I get that Thanos targeted earth and avengers had to step in but still.

Guardians should be taken more seriously.

[buckymilf]

i still get so annoyed thinkin abt how much they nerfed Bucky. it's bad enough that he went from deuteragonist w deep connections storylines & dynamics w the main to sidelining the shit outta him in favor of minor characters who did nothing but Quips for multiple Phases, but they also forgot Bucky's a supersoldier?? we went from Bucky having Steve's powers & more and beating him in CATWS & him & Steve beating the brakes of Tony's uglie ass to Buck getting compared to regular humans since 2016...

REAL

[mensuited]

[scriptmyworld]

VAX’ILDAN?????????