#this is supposed to be post Ragnarok and literally minutes before infinity war

[kittyprincessofcats]

MCU movies ranked by how well-written Loki was

Well, one person did tell me to post them, so here we go. This list ranks the 6 MCU movies Loki appeared in - solely based on how well-written he was. This list disregards how good/bad I thought the movie was otherwise, and also doesn’t factor in how well the story treats the character - it’s based just on how much I agree or disagree with Loki’s characterisation. (In other words if he gets brutally murdered or treated like shit by his family, that doesn’t necessarily mean he himself was ooc.) Also, this is of course just my opinion and very much up for debate :)

This ended up getting kinda long, sorry - I just really like talking about Loki :D

ALSO THIS LIST CONTAINS ENDGAME SPOILERS

6th Place - Thor: Ragnarok

Yeah... Sorry, I know people love this movie, but it really deserves last place on this list. Now, to be fair, I didn’t completely hate how Loki was written here, there definitely were some nice moments (”I’m here”), but overall I felt like the movie played Loki’s trauma for laughs to much, made him the butt of a joke too often and didn’t make him stand up for himself like he did in his previous movies - which is one of the things I liked most about him. I also didn’t like that the movie tried to retcon him into someone who’s been hurting Thor his whole life, or that they made his “redemption” involve forgiving Odin. And even though this movie is praised for its “anti-colonialism” message, it really fails to address that Loki was one of the biggest victims of Asgard’s colonialism and that Odin never really changed his ways after banishing Hela.

And beyond that, I just felt like there was something slightly “off” about how Loki was written here. It was his first time back on the big screen in 5 years, and somehow it just didn’t feel like the same character anymore. Ragnarok was the only movie Loki was in where I went out of the cinema and didn’t feel the need to read tons of fanfic about him. At first I thought it was just because I’d moved on in those 5 years and wasn’t as invested in his character anymore - but then Infinity War happened and (despite killing him off) absolutely nailed Loki’s characterisation and brought my love for him back full force. And that’s when I realized I hadn’t moved on - Ragnarok just hadn’t gotten Loki right.

5th Place - The Avengers

I initially wanted to place this higher, mainly because it’s such an iconic movie (that I really like) and because so many of Loki’s most iconic and well-known lines are from this one. Tom absolutely plays the sassy, charming but vulnerable trickster to perfection here. Then why is is to so low on my list? First of all, because I feel like there was a giant personality shift for Loki between this movie and the first Thor. Loki has previously stated that he never wanted the throne (of Asgard) and now he suddenly tries to conquer earth and we’re not really meant to question it.

Now before you all say it - Yes, I’m aware that Loki was tortured by Thanos between this movie and the last one. And while the movie doesn’t explicitly tell us that, I think between him looking like hell and limping in his first scene and his scene with The Other (”He will make you long for something as sweet as pain”), the implications were clear enough. Plus, there’s the whole revelation that the mind stone influenced his thinking. So yes, I think his personality shift is understandable - BUT I wish the movie itself had made that clearer instead of leaving it to fans to connect the dots and understand why Loki is acting so different now.

And lastly, I don’t like his “mewling q**m” line to Natasha. I think it’s incredibly misogynistic on the writers’ part (ahem... Joss Whedon again), and it’s also incredibly ooc for Loki, who subverts gender roles, is genderfluid himself if we go by the comics, and has always been shown to respect women, especially his mother. So I don’t feel like using gendered insults is something he would do.

4th place - Avengers: Infinity War     

Yes, the scene was horrible. Yes, it broke my heart and made me angry at the Russos. No, I don’t have the desire to rewatch it. BUT the one thing I do have to give this movie credit for is absolutely getting Loki’s character right. This was the movie that reawakened my love for Loki after Ragnarok failed to do so. Tom’s acting throughout this scene is brilliant and heart-wrenching and the dialogue features some of my favourite Loki lines. I mean: ”For one thing, I’m not Asgardian - and for another, we have a Hulk.” “The sun will shine on us again.” “You will never be a god.” Loki finally acknowledging himself as “not Asgardian” and “the rightful king of Jotunheim”? Loki repeating “We have a Hulk” - symbolizing that he’s on the same side as the Avengers now? Loki looking his biggest fear in the eye and choosing to sacrifice himself for his brother? GOOD SHIT. That’s some good shit right there!

Even Loki attacking Thanos with a butter knife isn’t necessarily ooc - He didn’t do it because he thought it would work, he was simply out of ideas and decided to distract Thanos and save Thor. He knew he would die. And if you tell me that wasn’t absolutely heroic then I don’t know what is. Though I do agree that the writers (not just of this movie, but of all of them) seem to have forgotten all the powers Loki is supposed to have and I’m also annyoed that they just make him stab people instead. And also, I don’t like that Loki calls himself “Odinson” in this scene. Forgiving Odin shouldn’t be a part of his redemption, bla bla, we’ve been over this. I like to headcanon that that part was more meant for Thor than Odin.

3rd Place - Avengers: Endgame

I know what you’re thinking - Does Loki even have enough screentime in Endgame for it to be on this list? And yeah, good point. It’s hard to be completely ooc when you basically have two minutes of screentime and I did consider leaving it off the list for precisely that reason. But, I mean COME ON. I just had to give a shout-out to how absolutely iconic those two minutes were. Imitating Cap? Sarcastically waving at the Hulk from the elevator? Dramatically rolling his eyes when Thor mentions Odin? Grabbing the tesseract at the first chance and just noping out of that horrible mess of a movie? ICONIC. Two minutes of screentime and he somehow stole the show. When could your fave ever?

2nd Place - Thor 1

This is the movie that made me fall in love with Loki in the first place, so obviously it had to be high on this list. The way he was written (and acted) here was absolutely beautiful, his story is heartwrenching in all the right ways, he makes all the wrong choices but as a viewer you understand why he makes them. He’s presented to us as this outcast who doesn’t quite fit in, who’s always in the shadow of his brother, kind of gets bullied by his brother’s friends, yearns for his father’s love - and who one day has to deal with the realisation that his life was a lie and that his father resents him for something beyond his control. The confrontation between him and Odin in the Vaults is still the best Marvel-scene ever, hands down.

Fun fact: I literally first watched this movie because I wanted to know “who that Loki-guy is and why people love him so much”. I finished watching the movie and was like “Ah. I get it now.”

My only complaint would be that they deleted all the scenes that explained Loki’s motives and made him more sympathetic. To be honest, I sometimes forget that they’re “deleted scenes” because I’ve watched them so often that I just consider them canon.

1st Place - Thor: The Dark World

Honestly, it was close between this one and Thor 1. I love them both, but while I think the first one is a better movie overall, Loki’s portrayal in the second one is probably my favourite. He starts the movie already disillusioned with his family and spends it unafraid of calling them out on their mistreatment of him. This is the movie where Loki won’t be silenced about the injustices he’s suffered, and I love that about him. I also love how he just replies to threats with sarcasm now (”You’ll kill me? Evidently, there will be a line.”).

I also like that his movie gave more depth to his relationship with Frigga, and also showed Loki being heroic: Helping Thor, never betraying him, protecting Jane, sacrificing himself for Thor. In fact, I stick by what I said before: Loki wasn’t a villain in this movie. There isn’t a single evil thing that he did in this film. NOT ONE.

I also love how this movie makes Odin’s hypocrisy more evident than ever (Telling Loki they’re not gods and that he shouldn’t think himself above Midgardians, but telling Thor he shouldn’t date Jane because Midgardians are “goats”... You get the idea). I also like the contrasts painted between Odin and Loki and how they think about Thor’s relationship with a mortal - Odin tells him he shouldn’t date Jane because she’s “beneath” him, Loki tells him he shouldn’t date Jane because she’ll die one day and that’ll break his heart. And that’s just one of the many contrasts between them in this movie.

And THAT ENDING! Thor getting his only bit of good parenting ever and it was actually Loki - Loki still being alive - Loki sitting on that throne. HELL YES.

(I seriously don’t get how people thought that ending meant Loki was evil? Hello?? He just freed Asgard from a totalitarian dictator? Last time I checked that was a good thing? Have some people not gotten the memo that Odin’s evil? This movie in particular was very clear about that.)

My other rankings: Thor | Steve Rogers | Natasha Romanoff

[alkja]

Well, here we come: Endgame review (spoilers galore)

Endgame is essentially two different movies for me: the one up until the last three minutes and the one that includes those last three minutes.

The first is a decent movie – riddled with stupid crap, plot holes and the occasional nonsense, but on the whole acceptable.

The second is a waterfall of crap that makes me seethe in anger.

If you liked that ending, I seriously discourage you from keeping on reading. Otherwise, let us discuss the good, the bad, the wtf and the “How dare you?”

THE “DID YOU EVEN TRY THINKING ABOUT THIS” DIVISION

 Let’s start with the inevitable: time shenanigans equal inevitable fuckery. That is known.

The most egregious example being: Nebula kills her younger self and is apparently fine and dandy. What the shit? I don’t care if you killed her in 2023 (or whenever Endgame happens, I’m going with Infinity War happening in 2018 as released), if Nebula 2014 dies there is no Nebula 2015 and so on to eventually become Nebula 2023. Ergo, she should absolutely have died. Same with Thanos & Co. No matter where you do it, if you kill a past version of someone, there is no one to do the things they would have done in the future. Thanos 2014 dies, so there cannot be a Thanos from after that to do the Snap.

Which is not bad, go ahead and kill past versions of evil shits, but doing so changes the timeline. Period. Rodhey even proposed that and they had a long nerd out about why that would not be possible... and then they went and did that and pretended it didn’t count. That is so goddamn stupid.

Same with all the time travel.

I don’t care if you go and put the Infinity Stones back, because those stupid McGuffins are not the only thing that can mess the timeline. First of all, there is no one to use them anyway since Thanos died before he did the Snap, but we’re supposed to ignore that.

More to the point, in order to put the timeline to right, you have to put the Stones back after the future Avengers have stolen them. Fine, that puts them back in the timeline. However, that doesn’t erase the actions your slightly-past selves have taken trying to grab them. Which means, for example, that Loki fucking escaped with the Tesseract after Avengers 1, which is a MAJOR change.

Or, it should be. But apparently we’re supposed to ignore that because in the Dark World time Loki is in his cell, and wow. NO. If he escapes in Avengers 1 (with the Tesseract to boot), that leads to massive changes in Dark World and Ragnarok. For one thing, without the Tesseract, the Bifrost cannot be repaired. More essential to those plots, Loki should plainly not be there.

Putting the sceptre back also doesn’t erase the fact that Captain America said “Heil Hydra” to a Hydra agent (oh oh oh, such canny comic references!), who apparently never mentioned it again to anyone ever? Not even to his goddamn boss? So, did Sitwell legitimately think Steve was Hydra up until Winter Soldier? And yet come Winter Soldier he never thought to ask Steve “Wait, even if you’re not actually Hydra, you clearly knew about us for years, so why are you now so outraged like this is brand new information for you? Why did it take you this long to move against us and why are you doing it without much in the way of planning or allies? The hell did you do these past years?”

Hell, why did Sitwell – a prominent Hydra agent in SHIELD who would not raise any flags doing so – never approach Steve, Hydra agent to Hydra agent? No, he discovers that Captain America is apparently Hydra and just rolls with it. No “What the hell, sir?” call to Pierce, no secret handshake to Steve. For years. I can handwave him not saying anything to Rumlow and the rest of Strike, because if Steve is Hydra maintaining his deep cover with everyone is more important than anything (even if they were right there when he gave him the scepter, so what did he say to them?), but not mentioning it to Pierce? Cannot buy that. And not having any mention of that in Winter Soldier is pretty damn unbelievable.

The timeline was also changed by having future!Steve fight past!Steve. And no, it doesn’t matter that past!Steve thought it was Loki. It was still a change.

Not to mention, Loki could not have had a Peggy compass or known shit about Bucky, so it stands to reason it’s not Loki. So, what gives? What did past!Steve think it happened? Hell, come Winter Soldier what did he think about that time some guy who looked and fought like himself told him that Bucky was alive and lo and behold, here comes Buckaroo?

  In essence, the Avengers fucked the timeline without lube but we’re supposed to pretend they didn’t.

To me, that is shit.

Mess with time all you like, but acknowledge you’re doing so. Either your plan goes off without a hitch (as if!), or the moment where everything goes inevitably to hell and there are changes - and here we are talking about major changes - you say fuck it, pull out all the stops and change away.

[Ok, I admit it, by that I mostly mean: pull out all the stops, take 5 minutes to explain to your past self you come from the future and tell him to get his ass in gear because Hydra is literally running the government and SHIELD and most importantly Bucky has been frozen, tortured and brainwashed for about 70 years, so get to it, save Bucky Bear save the world, and smash Nazis like the fucking Hulk. May the fic gods, as ever, be kinder to me than the canon ones.]

This “pretend nothing has changed even while we change important stuff that should logically have repercussions” approach only works if you think your audience has the reasoning capabilities of concussed goldfishes. Tony’s last bout of genius solving time travel on the fly deserved better than this.

(Also, good luck trying to sell me on any future conflict stakes when our heroes now have the capabilities of fucking going back in time and change things, even if you don’t want to admit it.)

In the “this is so dumb and nonsensical and wow look at those strings” camp, we also have the two Nebulas being connected. That is so stupid and clearly only there for the sake of plot you can literally see the writers going “Uhm... how can we make it so past!Thanos knows what the heroes are doing? What if we make it so past!Nebula gets the memories of future!Nebula from a galaxy away? How? Why? Because!”

Riveting.

About as riveting as the Thor stuff. Here you can see the writers desperately wracking their brain wondering “But how are we gonna have dumb jokes in a serious movies? Where will we go for cheap, juvenile humor? I know! Let’s make Thor a drunk idiot with a beer belly! Oh oh oh, what could be more funny than a parade of fat jokes, we’re comedic geniuses!”

Yawn. Also, offensive much? But really, everything about Thor spits in the face of his three movies long character arc (which was all about responsibility): dudes, do you even know the characters you’re writing about?

Speaking of desperation: no Steve and Bucky reunion post UnSnapping? Seriously? We have Tony and Peter - who have known each other for 5 minutes - tearfully embrace but no scene between two characters who have known each other all their lives and have been through massive shit in those lives? Marvel execs, we know that every time Steve and Bucky shared a scene The Dreadful Spectre of The GAY appeared and made your blood pressure rise but this is ridiculous.

Which is also why you get no cookie for The First Gay Character in the franchise: an unnamed character in a single blink-and-you’ll-miss-it scene, truly stellar representation. What made you believe this was a smart move?

  That said, there are some good things in this movie.

  THE “I DIDN’T NECESSARILY WANT THIS BUT I CAN ACCEPT YOU DID IT. ALSO, OUCH: MY HEART” DIVISION

First of all, Tony Stark.

Never thought I’d say that, because I’m the furthest thing from a Tony fan and spent all of Ultron and Civil War wanting to punch him. And Infinity War being indifferent to him.

But goddamn if I didn’t feel how goddamn much he adored Pepper and their daughter. Goddamn if I didn’t tear up at his heroic sacrifice, going out with the line that started it all (“I am Iron Man”- my heart), goddamn if I didn’t tear up at his goodbye with Pepper and then at his funeral.

For all his many, many faults – which I’m not gonna forget for a second – Tony went out exactly as he should be: a goddamn hero. With a heart big enough, strong enough to give himself up for everyone else even at the moment where he had everything he ever wished to have.

My hat’s off to him.

Never thought I’d ever say this, but I will miss him.

 Other MVPs of Endgame: Clint Motherfucking Barton and Natasha “Love is NOT for Children” Romanoff. I know: Natasha, sure, but who would ever have guessed that about Clint? Prior to Endgame, he was just sort of there, not helped by Ultron and his sudden family in a farm.

Endgame managed to make me care about the family I loathed. How? I don’t know, but I am totally down for a Clint + Kate Bishop + Lila show, where everyone is a badass archer and they are all codenamed Hawkeye just because! I am also totally down for Clint’s badass reinvention (after, I’m guessing, mainlining all 7 seasons of Arrow), no matter how heartbreaking the reason or questionable the style choices.

And that Clintasha scene was pretty much worth the whole movie to me.

Because, first of all, that’s how you solve a problem like the Soul Stone: a willing sacrifice. (Which, btw, makes even more disgusting the fact that we are supposed to see this as equally worthy to Thanos murdering his daughter).

Second, because I am a total sucker for characters fighting about who gets to sacrifice themselves. Clint and Natasha beating the crap out of each other just like in Avengers 1 (just one of many delightful callbacks that pepper the movie), this time because they love each other too much to let the other be the one to die is everything.

Third, because it’s just a really good scene, based on one of the better relationships in the MCU. Even those not shipping Clintasha have no doubt that those two are extremely important to one another, and Renner and Johannson acted the hell out of it - just as they did every scene together, from their reunion post-yakuza slaughter, to the giddiness of flying a spaceship. I teared up like a baby at Nat’s sacrifice and I was right there with Clint hoping for a loophole that made it so we could get Nat back and was heartbroken anew when that did not come to pass.

But, again, the Black Widow went out just like she should have: a true hero, loving, strong and unafraid. The red in her ledger was wiped out once and for all.

  The “Feels” subdivision

 Scott Lang was an integral part of the solution. I mean, never before have we heard about time passing differently in the quantum realm – and in fact Janet Van Dyne aged the 30 years she spent in it, so more plot service crap – but who cares! Still, his desperate checking to see if his daughter was among the Snapped only to find his own name and running like hell to get to Cassie only to be suddenly confronted with a teenager and realizing he missed those 5 years with her and not caring because she was still there was absolutely perfect.

Speaking of families: I have already said it but Tony and Pepper and little Morgan were amazing.

Also, Thor and Frigga! Frigga was an egregious fridging to start with, so it was lovely seeing her again, but especially giving her a wonderful scene with her son that shows her intelligence and strength and exactly why she was Queen of Asgard. Not to mention being the one to restore Thor’s confidence and absolving him of his failures. Sometimes you just really, really need your mom. (Too bad about that stupid salad joke.)

Natasha and Steve. Just... Natasha and Steve being badly messed up by those 5 years post-Snap and yet being so supportive and understanding of each other. Really, after Winter Soldier, this was the best Natasha movie. And rightly so.

In general, the Avengers being not just a team but also friends, fucking finally. Sure, there is the whole “found family-baited” post going around, but memes aside, it is true that we never got to see those people acting like friends and not merely co-workers. Was that so difficult to do before the very last moment?

  THE “IN HERE FOR THE HOLY SHIT QUOTIENT” DIVISION

 A small but admirable moment for a villain that was otherwise pretty underwhelming no matter how much they tried passing him off as deep: Thanos having the smarts and the metaphorical stones to goddamn destroy the Infinity Stones. Better to accept never using them himself again than run the risk of someone stealing them and undo his work. He may be evil and incapable of properly understanding the concept of proportions (that whole: if you destroy half of the resources along with half of the people using said resources, you are just as screwed as before), but the guy is smart.

Carol was as amazing as she could be in a movie that by design could not be about her kicking Thanos’s ass up and down the whole galaxy but was necessarily the Last Hooray  of the Old Guard. Her face seeing Fury among the Snapped, her entrance and towing a fucking spaceship, her pointing out that while the Avengers have been watching (with mixed results) over a single planet she was watching over a lot of them (likely with better results), her second entrance, her goddamn everything. Not as good as her solo movie but what could ever be?

Speaking of ladies, Valkyrie becoming a Literal Queen warms my heart. I have some doubts about Thor just up and leaving what remains of his people, even after everything (read: I don’t buy it, just like I don’t buy anything about Thor in this movie), but considering Heimdall is not around anymore, we can all agree he left them in excellent, badass hands. I want more.

Switching to metaphorical Valkyries... It was a fanservice-y, mostly unearned scene in a series that has historically been pretty low in female friendships or relationships, but goddamn if the optics of all the badass ladies of the MCU banding together weren’t made of FUCKYEAH! Give us a ladies-led movie, Marvel, you fucking cowards: DC is giving us the Birds of Prey (and Harley Quinn), what’s your excuse?

In that vein: Pepper donning an Iron Man armor! Basically everything I ever hoped for, so much so that for a moment I legitimately thought I had imagined it. Now that Tony is gone, let Pepper step up as Rescue or Iron Maiden or whatever, get her to mentor a bright intern named Riri Williams and we’re set to go for maximum awesomeness.

Still, when talking about maximum awesomeness: CAP. WIELDING. MJOLNIR. We Italians don’t have the habit of reacting to movies out loud at the theatre, but you could hear the current of FUCKYEAH!!! coming from all the nerds in the room, and rightly so. Cap fighting with the shield in one hand and Mjolnir in the other was everything every superhero fan could ever have wished for in a movie distilled into the Crowning Moment of Awesome to top all CMOAs. (Too bad this gets incredibly undermined by that ending beacuse I refuse to believe that that guy could be worthy of a fucking shoehorn, much less Mjolnir.)

Thor dual-wielding Mjolnir and Stormbreaker deserves a mention too.

(This as long as we forget Mjolnir being taken away to the future at the start of Dark World makes gaping holes in Ultron e Ragnarok, because past!Thor wouldn’t have it anymore, but whatever LALALALALA what time logic?)

But the moment that threatened to bring down the house in cheers was the sight of all the Unsnapped returning followed by - finally - the call: AVENGERS ASSEMBLE! Every single person visibly restrained themselves from punching the air and shouting along. I think we all regret not doing so, dignity be damned.

   So, leaving aside the truck-sized plot holes that are practically a given once you decide to muck around with time travel and the occasional plot-over-character-or-sense stupidity, all in all we have a rather solid movie full of badass moments and with occasionally meaningful emotional beats.

Not my favorite by a long shot, but a mostly fitting end to an insane project no one ever thought could possibly be achieved that ended up sweeping the world and fandom.

Too bad those last five minutes arrive to shit all over that, and incidentally all over a beloved character.

   THE “ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME YOU GODDAMNED HACKS” DIVISION

 Steve – I must suppose SERIOUSLY concussed during the battle to the point of brain damage beyond the repairing capabilities of the superserum – returns the Infinity Stones to the past and, while he’s at it, decides to abscond in the same past to live his life with Peggy, only returning as an old man to pass the shield to Sam.

Awwwwwwwwww... Steve and Peggy living their life together, so heartwarming...

Yeah, except once you think about it, then you want to use that shield to fucking brain the skrull that must be impersonating Steve Rogers.

Because, in order to buy this story, we have to believe that Steve “I don’t like bullies” Rogers, Steve “If I see a situation pointed south, I can't ignore it” Rogers, Steve “On va voir” Rogers, Steve “I can do this all day” Rogers deliberately chose to spend the rest of his fucking life doing exactly nothing, otherwise the timeline would have been SERIOUSLY rebooted.

A life of inaction, hiding the fact of his existence.

Sure, that totally sounds like the Steve Rogers we have been watching up until this point.

Instead of an ending about moving forward no matter what life throws at you, we got one about happiness being literally going backwards.

Because that’s a totally healthy message.

Hell, you decide to go the retirement route, I don’t even necessarily disagree with it. If, after all the trauma of Infinity War + the five years interlude + the shitstorm of Endgame, Steve decided to lay aside the shield for a while and try to make an actual, functional life for himself I would have been all for it. If nothing else, the guy could make do with a lot of therapy. Most crucially, not being Captain America would not mean quitting the fight: he could do just as much good as an artist, a politician, an opinion leader, an activist or what have you. All that is not gonna be possible in the past, because to mantain the timeline he cannot become anyone relevant in any way. Especially since he knows Hydra is still around and attracting notice would mean risking some of that attention coming from them. So no, absconding to the past means by necessity a life not fighting in any way, not doing anything of any particular importance whatsoever.

This is completely antithetical to everything that Steve Rogers, as he was shown up until now, stands for.

And we have yet to touch the morality of it all, or the lack thereof.

Lest I get accused of being a bitter Stucky shipper whose slash goggles cannot make her appreciate a Steggy ending, let me point out that I ship Steggy as much as Stucky and if anything I am a bitter Peggy Carter fangirl: Our Kick-Ass Lady of the No Holds Barred Beatdown unquestionably deserves better than this crap.

By which, I’m not even talking about how this ending shits all over the closure we got before and the entirety of the Agent Carter run, which both show that while Peggy unquestionably loved Steve, she mourned him for a while and then, as healthy people do, moved on to have a perfectly fulfilling life with a rewarding job and eventually a new love and family. I’m not even talking about how this takes her back the “Steve Rogers’ Love Interest” route, Betty Carver-style, instead of letting her be her own woman with her own story that may have started alongside Steve Rogers but then developed on her own terms. I’m not talking about how she was rewinded from a character in her own right to a “hero’s” prize.

I’m talking about how this supposed happy ending to slow dancing and snuggling is based on either Peggy being apparently also brain damaged to the point that, upon hearing that the organization she’s busting her ass to run is a Nazi cesspool, just rolls with it - which, I think we can all agree, is definitely not something our Agent Carter would ever in a million years do -  or Steve merrily electing to spend something like 50 years lying like a motherfucker to the supposed love of his life about how the organization she’s busting her ass to run is a Nazi cesspool. True love, everyone!

Fuck you: Peggy Carter fucking deserved better than this.

This also leaving aside the fact that, in this happy ending, Steve knows that while he’s squirreled away in the woods dancing and doing decoupage, his supposed best friend is getting tortured to the point of complete dehumanization. But whatever, he’ll eventually be fine, no use doing anything about it. Oh, JFK got murdered? Nice shot, Buck! Oh, there goes Howard, a smooth operation, buddy: hope the brain-frying won’t be too bad, just hang on until 2014.

End of the line my goddamn ass.

Oh, and since no-one’s memories are rewritten, Bucky also conceivably knows all this. He knows that his supposed best friend voluntarily spent his life doing squat to save him.

Fuck you: Bucky Barnes fucking deserved better than this.

SO, TO RECAP: Steve Rogers is a selfish ass who chose a life of inaction, Peggy Carter is either his accomplice or a dupe and Bucky Barnes lost his best friend all over again. Coherent characterization got sacrificed for a theoretical feel-good moment that doesn’t stand up to the most cursory examination before being revealed as sheer horrifying fuckery.

Sure, Sam gets to be the new Captain America (which, don’t get me wrong: he totally deserves it and at this point he’s more worthy of it than the original), but that’s literally the only good thing in a mountain of shit dumped over characters that deserved much better.

I get that Evans wanted out, but there are ways to do it and then there are ways. Tony went out like a goddamn hero. So did Natasha.

Steve went out quitting - aka the one and only thing Steve Rogers would never ever do - and in addition what can only be called a bastard who shrugged off his best friend’s decades-long torture and quite likely spent his life lying to the woman he loves.

Fuck you: Steve Rogers fucking deserved better than this.

If there could be a worse impression to leave bowing out than this one, I’m honestly unable to imagine it (Well, beside making Steve Hydra for real: but considering that he spent his live blithely pretending they were not still around murdering, torturing and so on, that makes him a collaborationist at best and WOW, at this point it’s kinda splitting hairs, isn’t it?).

Coming into Endgame, I knew this was gonna be Cap’s last waltz and after spending years as a Steve Rogers fan I was dreading watching him die. Now, I wish he could have gone out with the heroism and dignity of Tony or Natasha instead of... whatever this was. I could have mourned him while celebrating him, instead of mourning what he used to be while despising what he was made to become.

This Steve Rogers fan, who spent years loving him while being annoyed and occasionally enraged by Tony Stark, left the theatre feeling deeply moved by Tony and quite honestly hating the guts of whatever was left of Steve. If someone told me this would happen I wouldn’t have believed them and yet here we are.

 Personally, in order to actually enjoy the movie and especially to be able to retain any fondness whatsoever for one of my most beloved characters, those last five minutes are gonna join the entirety of Age of Ultron in the realm of “I recognise Marvel Studios have made a decision, but given that it's a stupid-ass decision, I've elected to ignore it”.

As far as I’m concerned, Endgame ended with Tony Stark’s funeral. A fitting tribute to the fallen hero who started it all, to the road that took us to this moment and all those characters who travelled it with us.

To the end of an era and hope for the next one.

[fromdirectorlanawachowski]

honest and unmerciful endgame thoughts

a sequel to this post

this is deadass one of the worst movies i’ve ever seen.

a few brief thoughts before i get into the more or less play by play.

- making jokes about how time travel in movies isn’t really how time travel works doesn’t work if you’re a fucking movie dude

- fat thor was a fucking disgrace

- professor hulk has to have been 80% ad-libbed because there’s no way someone actually wrote that garbage dialogue

- using a past thanos was a mistake because we don’t actually give a shit about him

OKAY LETS GO

actually fuck it i was gonna do plot point by plot point but i’m just so exhausted i don’t have the strength to do it. i’m gonna go in broad strokes and if you want me to elaborate on WHY something was bad feel free to yell at me in the DMs

okay lets go

right away the whole thing with clint fucking turning on the spot as his family disappears was goofy as all hell. i know exactly what they were going for but having him literally turn on the spot instead of go into the house or go into the shed just draws attention to the absolute hilarity of how fast they vanished compared to others.

why the fuck was tony skin and bones when he got back to earth. i know he was in space for three weeks but they clearly show him eating during the montage of him and nebula doing.... things?

also everyone just kind of trusts nebula? okay? i’d be wary of purple aliens in light of what just happens but inclusivity i guess

also you mean to tell me that in three weeks they scanned the entire universe for gamma radiation? also enough gamma radiation that would show up on a scan from light years away but not fry everyone nearby when thanos snapped?

as soon as they killed thanos i knew the climax of this movie was gonna suck ass.

the writers have no idea how fast human hair grows if five years later natasha still has that godawful blonde dye on her tips

a fucking rat got scott lang out of the quantum realm. i don’t have any commentary for this because this scene speaks for itself. a rat.

moreover how did they even get the van down from the rooftop it was on at the end of ant man 2

fat thor. i don’t have any commentary about this either. the whole thing reeks of the russos looking at taika and going “you wanna be a funny man? you want thor to be fucking funny? you think he’s hilarious? fuck you”

oh i guess i did have commentary on that after all

i’m glossing right over the gay scene because again, taika fought tooth and nail to get bisexual valkyrie and now the russo shitters get to say they had the first canon lgbt character and it’s a couple of throwaway lines that can be redubbed for china. seriously. i don’t think there’s ever a scene where he says “he” or “him” while his lips are on screen.

apparently i am doing this relatively plot point by plot point but i digress

if i was keeping points like cinemasins (ew) i’d take a few off for morgan stark. i’m an bitch but not that much of one.

oh yeah pepper potts’ first of, i believe, four lines in this movie is “yeah i’m reading about compost”. i have no commentary for this either. it speaks for itself.

tony hits upon time travel in a day

i’m so glad we couldn’t get any real character development for anyone but we had time for the four minute “ant man becomes various aged forms of himself and then makes a peeing your pants joke in 2019″ scene.

“that’s how time travel works in movies this is real life” that’s great except that joke falls flat cause you’re a fuckin movie bro

i’m skipping over the entirety of the battle of new york thing because that was just fucking.... *benny hill music*

oh no i’m addressing the ancient one thing. love to have characters retconned into previous movies so they can try and explain the time travel in a way that actually makes it more confusing and also isn’t the way the movie follows

steve leering at peggy through the blinds was creepy, i’m sorry. actually the way he was suddenly obsessed with her this whole movie was really creepy.

howard potts

tony meeting his dad was so awkward and uncomfortable and they really meant for it to be heartwarming but i’m sorry it was fucking hilarious and i was howling with laughter in the theater

likewise thor with frigga. a really nice, emotional moment where thor gets closure with his mom and she overtly says she knows she’s going to die soon but she loves him and she’s so proud of him....

..... and then tops it off with a fat joke. the russos can’t let any kind of emotion hang without making a joke.

when they killed natasha a guy three rows down said “if they were killing her here why the fuck did they greenlight her movie then”

why did thanos get a scene confronting the cost of the stone but clint just wakes up in a puddle? are you gonna tell me thanos cared more about gamora than clint did about natasha? ok.

okay i’ll admit seeing quill dancing on morag without the background music was funny as fuck. rhodey explaining the punchline was not funny as fuck though

three cheers for nebula inexplicably having new abilities

as soon as they brought in past thanos i knew the climax of this movie was gonna suck a big ass

hulk snaps the iron infinity gauntlet because he’s the only one that can withstand the gamma radiation that it allegedly emits and has been mentioned only once before in this movie

the fact that it works is demonstrated by not anyone coming back, but ant man looking out the window at some birds. yeah. gee.

okay i have a question here that may take a little bit to explain.

earlier in the movie it’s explicitly stated they only have enough pym particles for one round trip each. that’s why steve and tony had to go back to 197X to get the tesseract and more particles. 

so.

past-nebula takes current-nebula’s place and uses her particles to travel back to the present, leaving current-nebula with no particles

so how did past-thanos bring his ship to the present with no pym particles

anyway past-gamora and current-nebula kill past-nebula to get the iron infinity gauntlet back

the final battle was whatever. i couldn’t for the life of me tell you what happened or where anyone was in relation to anyone else because it was cut so poorly

everyone comes back. remember at the end of my infinity war thoughts when i said the end had no stakes because obviously everyone snapped came back and you all got mad at me? everyone comes back.

the ladies all running the gauntlet would be cool if it wasn’t encompassed by shots of all the men running the gauntlet, drawing attention to the fact there’s literally only like seven ladies and one of them isn’t even a hero

joss whedon was the cinematographer the day they shot wanda fighting thanos, judging from all the gratuitous shots down her shirt. i know elizabeth olsen has nice boobs. believe me, i do. i’m envious. but for the love of christ stop being creepy voyeurs about it

also “you took everything from me” “i don’t even know who you are???” that was a great setup for her to use her mind powers and make thanos experience some suffering but they just didn’t do that so those lines are hilarious

tony gets the stones and snaps, killing thanos and all his army. thanos fades away into dust while a woman vocalizes in the background in a manner that’s less satisfying than when voldemort did the exact same thing in deathly hallows part 2

tony dies because i guess?

at the funeral everyone is there and there’s shots lingering on everyone including this weird kid who looks like he’d microwave a gerbil? i had to google him and it’s supposed to be the kid from iron man 3. i feel like seven years later you should probably put in a line like “thanks for coming <whatever that kid’s name was>

okay we’ve reached the part i have the absolute most beef with.

steve’s ending

from the start of this movie he’s been inexplicably obsessed with peggy. the ending is telegraphed from a mile away and i was still shocked and stunned that they actually did this.

so steve just gives up everything, all his friends and family, to go back in time to be with a woman he knew for max a year, in the heat of war, where emotions run high and they may very well have latched onto each other in case they died.

steve rogers, the man who wielded mjolnir, the man who broke his friend’s mental conditioning just be refusing to fight him, just sits back through the 50s and 60s and 70s and 80s and 90s. the cuban missile crisis, the LA riots, the assassination of JFK, the death of howard and maria stark, the infiltration of shield, the berlin wall, 9/11, the war on terror, and he just.... did nothing?

what the fuck was that

sam is captain america now though so i’m down with that

but i’m still so angry

this is beyond character assassination for steve. it’s... outright brutal murder and mutilation. anywhere i can, i give endgame a half star review FOR THIS ALONE. setting aside fat thor and how they treat Ragnarok, the fact they think steve rogers would, after everything he’s done and learned, go back into the past where there was still a chance he could help his friends in his own way, and do NOTHING, is the most infuriating thing about this barely-polished turd of a movie.

IN CONCLUSION i said infinity war was the worst movie marvel had ever put out and marvel went “haha we can do you one better”

endgame is just three hours of setpiece, gag, setpiece, gag, setpiece, gag, occasionally punctuated with emotional moments that aren’t allowed to hang long enough for the emotion to sink in before a joke is made, usually at thor’s expense.

[samcarpnter]

/post/184221536620/i-hate-the-russo-brothers-i-hate-the-russo why do u hate the russo bros ??

i posted that after seeing the endgame spoilers that came out after the world premiere last week, and while i regret and am apologizing for saying bad things about the movie before seeing it, i stand by this post because i really have not liked them post catws. the short answer to this question is that it really seems like they don’t care about what happened with their characters in the movies preceding theirs and ruin a lot of the really good characterization other directors had. plus they have very much contributed to the poor treatment of female characters but that’s kind of an mcu staple. it really seems like for every one good thing the russos do, they do about ten more bad things.

the long answer to this question is going under the cut because i am 100% going to rant and i am sorry but this is really gonna get into my unpopular marvel opinions and it will include endgame spoilers (they will be marked though). read at your own risk, i will try to warn if there is any “anti” characters or something. 

examples of how they ruin the characterizations other directors set in place:

wanda. look i’m just gonna say it now i don’t care for mcu wanda (even without discussing her whitewashing) so if you don’t want to read something written by someone who doesn’t like her, skip this bullet point … in age of ultron, wanda WAS WILLINGLY WORKING FOR A NAZI ORGANIZATION AND UNLEASHED THE HULK ON AN INNOCENT CITY AND PUT THINGS IN TONY’S HEAD THAT LED HIM TO CREATE ULTRON. in age of ultron though, it was fairly clear that the avengers didn’t fully trust wanda and pietro when they “switched sides” but immediately in civil war, the russos wrote it as if none of that happened. i would like mcu wanda so much more if she was given a real redemption arc, like loki in ragnarok, letting her answer for the things she previously did and proving that she is trustworthy and a true ally. the avengers immediately pardoned her, so much that it wasn’t even talked about clint is exempt because pietro saved his life and a child’s life and thus felt responsible for wanda because the russos just really want to get the brownie points for including a female hero that isn’t black widow

tony in civil war. they made it pretty obvious that tony was supposed to be an antagonist or at least someone you should root against. whether you were team cap or team iron man or you didn’t care because it was so stupid the movie was written pretty clearly to favor team cap and make tony look awful … even though he had a perfectly valid and reasonable argument for signing the sokovia accords … i mean they really do need to be held accountable for all of the destruction they cause. and yeah i agreed with cap too because they shouldn’t relinquish all control to the government, but the russos wrote it so that tony looked like the bad guy, when he really reallyyyyyy wasn’t

thor. poor, poor, beautiful thor. in ragnarok, thor went through a major character arc that allowed him to see that he is more than just the person who can wield mjolnir because he has had the power and strength to be a hero within him all along, then BAM russos say screw that in infinity war and make him go off on this whole mission that really was a waste of time to get a weapon that he doesn’t need to defeat thanos. yeah i’ll admit storm breaker is cool and i love that he got to build a relationship with rocket and kind of groot but it is just so unnecessary when they could have done something different to build that relationship, but it literally says fuck taika’s storyline for thor.

loki. in the first five minutes of infinity war they kill him off in the most un-loki-like way possible. taika did so much for the characters in ragnarok, giving loki a true redemption arc and adding valkyrie to the mcu as a strong and important character, but do the russos care about any of that? NOOOOOOOO.

ENGAME SPOILERS START HERE.

so they ruined steve. i am not accepting his ending. it really just is not him, because as we have seen from the past six movies, he will pretty much do anything for bucky. ANYTHING. and i know he loves peggy, peggy was the love of his life except bucky but marvel is full of cowards but he moved on from her, and she moved on from him. i mean agent carter was about peggy proving herself as more than just captain america’s girlfriend, and steve going back in time to be with peggy erases all of the character development peggy went through as well. honestly, i think the russo brothers did that because they knew people would likely be more upset with steve dying than tony dying (maybe i’m wrong, but just of all the marvel fans i know irl, they like steve more than tony. for the record, i would have been equally sad with either of their deaths because i love them both) and the russo brothers are fully aware of how big the stucky ship is, and this was their way of saying “hey, guess what? we didn’t kill steve and he is hetero, and there was Nothing There with bucky”. they made steve just reinsert himself into peggy’s life, when he KNEW she was happy without him and peggy had no choice in it. 

and as if they didnt do enough to thor in infinity war, they screwed him over EVEN MORE in endgame by making his only purpose to supply lazy fat jokes. there were so many other ways they could have depicted his depression, SO MANY WAYS, but they chose the lazy route of putting hemsworth in a fat suit and making fun of fat people the entire movie.

i can admit that they wrote carol well … but only when she was actually in the movie. i mean what she was there for maybe eight minutes?

and of course the lgbtq character was fucking joe russo as a glorified extra. queerbaiting that it was carol, thanks russos

ENDGAME SPOILERS END.

i really feel like i do need to clarify that i do love marvel and the mcu, and most of these characters just mean so much to me, but the way they are written and done dirty by the russo brothers when they were given such great developments before just ruin so much of it. and the russos actually do some great things, like as i said the rocket/groot/thor team up was awesome in infinity war, just what they were doing with said team up was undoing taika’s beautiful movie. the best way i can describe the russos is that they do one good thing for every ten bad things, and that’s that on that.

[northlandian]

Final Thoughts

So this is it. 

Endgame is 1000% complete. The premiere was last night, and in less than 48 hours, it will be released to the public. Well, at least for me, in about...

(Yes, I have a countdown on my phone that’s been set up since last year that goes until Thursday, April 25, 2019, at 6:00pm)

I wanted to make a post about my predictions. Something I could come back to, so I could see if I was right or wrong. I remember doing that last year with some of my favourite fan artists and laughing at their prospective situations that turned out to be true.

But you see, the truth is... I have absolutely no idea what to expect. And that's not just a cheap copout of me saying "It's a Marvel movie, therefore anything can happen". We know nothing. Literally nothing. The trailers are compilations of repetitive clips revealing nothing past the first 20 minutes of a 3-hour 2-minute movie. We don't even know the films true plot.

Is there a time jump? Do they time travel? Why are they splitting up into teams, seeing how well that proved to work last time? How is Scott saved? Tony and Nebula? And what is their plan?

I don't know. I really don't. All any of us can do is take shots in the dark. RDJ said it himself that it is near impossible to predict what's going to happen.

So that got me thinking about something I've considered pretty much since the debut of the first trailer...this movie is unpredictable...but there are some assumptions we've been making that we are assuming as a fact are going to happen.

But then there are also moments that I believe deserve to happen. Story arcs that need to be completed. Endings certain characters deserve.

So, drawn-out intros aside, here are my final thoughts on this movie.

Tony

Tony is an enigma. I've made a post in the past discussing why he might actually not die based on the chess motif and the necessity to save him as the "King", despite the fact that death is what we'd all expect. I'll be honest, when the first trailer came out, I thought to myself, "Wow. They're really trying to prep us for the heartbreak by shoving this foreshadowing down our throats.” 

Obviously, this is based on the first half of the first trailer, with him adrift in space. I thought that maybe Captain Marvel would be the one to save him, or maybe Pepper in her rescue armour that was seen a couple months ago from a set photo. But how would they know where he was?

But after the second trailer debuted, I think I'm going to make the assumption that it is, in fact, Nebula, with her spare bodily robotic parts, who saves the two of them and brings them back to earth. I'm also going to assume that the scene from the trailers of Steve and the rest looking up at the night sky outside the compound (if that scene is even real) is them seeing Tony and Nebula arriving back to earth. Though I have considered the possibility of the space ship recording scene actually taking place at the end of the move...which would suck. But I'm also going to assume, based on the third trailer and clips that followed of Steve and Tony together, that they actually do reunite, in the present time.

Of course, this does not excuse him from the possibility of dying at all. And he very well could. But then, another thought crossed my mind. In Infinity War, the first time we see Tony on screen is with Pepper, discussing their wedding and possible children. See...why would they foreshadow that if they were to never make reference of it again? Sure, there's a possibility of a time jump with perhaps a wedding and maybe kid squeezed in there. After all, the whole vibe we're given from the second trailer is the question of where the world is supposed to go from the tragedy endured, and how some move on (then Steve of course says "but not us" but anyways). But that's only with the off chance that there is a time jump, and it seems kind of off in the first place. So assuming the foreshadowing wasn't for no reason, I'd like to think that there's a chance he lives long enough to retire and have a kid. 

Tony and Pepper mentioning a kid isn't the only foreshadowing given for his survival, though. There was one line from Avengers that always stuck with me, and sort of got overshadowed by Tony's narcissistic but hilarious description of himself ("Genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist."). It comes when Steve is criticizing Tony's character and motivation. He says:

"You're not the guy to make the sacrifice play. To lay down on a wire and let the other guy crawl over you."

To which Tony immediately responds:

"I think I would just cut the wire."

Time and time again, Tony has proven Steve wrong, the first obviously being when he flew through the wormhole in the same movie. But what if this is his play in this one too? To be presented with a one-or-the-other choice for who can be saved, but manages to do both? Alternatively, this could also play out to the opposite of our favour; maybe Tony does finally just crawl over the wire for someone. For example, I've pictured a scenario where they do indeed go back in time to retrieve the stones before Thanos does. It's a plausible situation, considering we know nothing of their plan. But when it comes time to retrieve the soul stone, it's Tony who decides to make the sacrifice. Maybe he argues over it with Steve, who would want to finish what he started with Red Skull and complete the fate he was given 70 years ago, but ultimately Tony forces him to comply to what he wants, which is to finally make the ultimate sacrifice. 

(And for the record, if either of those situations plays out, I'm suing Marvel for emotional distress)

But there's one other option, and it's based on a line spoken by Tony in the trailer that really stuck out to me. It was when he was leaving his message to Pepper in the second trailer, and it's where he says:

"I know I said no more surprises, but I was really hoping to pull off one last one."

At first thought, I thought it may be like a "Surprise, honey! I'm not dead, and I've returned to earth to help defeat that giant grape!" sort of thing. And maybe it is. But I've also considered the possibility of Tony tricking someone or something. Perhaps tricking those into thinking he was dead. He did do it in Iron Man 3. But then again...who knows.

Sidenote: That's the end of my first thought and everything on Tony, and I have, like, *at least* twelve more to go. I was not expecting this to be this huge. Whoops.

Steve

It is so hard to get a read on what the hell is happening with this damn character. On one hand, Chris Evans has been talking for the longest time as if we all already know that his characters dead, with the way he speaks about his wrap-up with Marvel in general. But then there are people like the Russo's who say they have things in store that we don't know about yet. Like what?? Who do we believe? Are they just trying to cover up his obviousness? Or are we, again, making predictions that we shouldn't because this movie is actually so unpredictable??

Obviously, I don't know what's going to happen. What I will say is, I know what the fanbase expects, and that's for him to die. But again, just like in Tony's case, if that's one of the top expected outcomes, isn't it less likely going to happen?

Personally, I'm in favour of one specific theory many fans have contemplated and considered. The theory is that Steve, whether it be a result of the plot or by choice, goes back in time to the '40s, and that's where he lives out the rest of his life. He has his dance with Peggy, something foreshadowed so many times, including in the trailers, and they end up living together happily, and he endures the life he always wanted before going in the ice - that is how he phrased it at the end of Age of Ultron. So yes, he would most likely be "dead" in the present day from old age, as would Peggy (since she had already died in Civil War), but he would live out the life he always wanted.

OR - and I just thought of this now, literally as I'm writing - get this. He goes back to live in the '40s. But in present day, he's still alive, just very old. The Avengers (or whoever's left) go to see him by the end of the movie, maybe even during the after credits. And...it's Stan Lee. He is Steve Rogers. His final cameo.

(This seems highly unlikely, but the thought amused me. I also can't remember if the super soldier serum allows you to age properly in normal circumstances, but I don't wanna look it up at the risk of running into spoilers. Oh well, unresearched theory is unresearched.)

Thor

Don't get me wrong, I am still very much in the mindset of:

But if I'm being completely honest, yes, Thor, just like every other O6, the God of Thunder known by humans for his immortality, has a chance of not making it. With talks of a Thor 4 with dir. Taika Waititi, it seems unlikely, but the chance is still there. And it did get me thinking...

Loki telling him before his death, "The sun will shine on us again"...did he mean in Valhalla? I have had the thought of Thor possibly biting it, but then a scene where we see him there, reuniting with Loki, Heimdall, Frigga...even Odin. His loved ones. The ones he thought he could not go on without, finally being together again, him being happy in the afterlife.

It's a sucky thought, but a possible one.

Loki

Soooo...here we are. I'm not going over my whole freaking theory again, but I stand by what I wrote. Including the portion with the disclaimer where I established that I could be totally wrong.

But a possibility I also totally support is one where he is brought back with time travel. Why would he have a poster if he doesn't make a reappearance? What that reappearance is, I have no idea. Maybe, just like the comics, he does purposely bring the Avengers together in New York. Or maybe it's something heartfelt at the end, where time has rolled back, and it's immediately following Ragnarok. Thor is aware of the reverse, and everything that's happened, and Loki saunters into the dressing room again and makes the comment on Thor's eyepatch, but Thor is just so happy to see him, that he just hugs him, as it was foreshadowed in Ragnarok, and all is well, and they live happily ever after in Norway on Earth ruling Asgard together...

Idk. Just a thought.

A Cinematic Parallel

So this was just something I noticed when comparing the Infinity War and Endgame trailers.

So remember in the Infinity War trailer, where we see Tony just sitting with his hands folded over and we were like "huh wonder why they're covered in dirt", and then it turned out it was cause Peter just died, and it was his dust, and we all had a good laugh/cry when looking back on it.

Well...you know that moment in the Endgame trailer when Steve is covered in what looks to be sweat and dirt and he tightens his shield around his arm or something, and looks to be in extreme anguish over...something?

Well... I think that's our one glimpse at the end, just as Tony's was in the Infinity War trailer. I think someone just died in that moment.

That's literally it for that.

Death

We don't know who's going to die. We don't. And we don't know how. But that fact that the Russo's, Paul Rudd, and Chris Evans have been openly joking about character deaths is a definite indicator that whoever and however they go is not going to be mainstream. Like, I don't think it's going to be a Loki-type death, or the Tony-almost-death, where the character is just too overpowered by Thanos, or whoever else, and they die as a result. It's going to be complex. Or a decision the character makes that is self-sacrificing. Or something similar to the Steve time travel theory. But whatever it is, it is likely incredibly hard to guess.

Time Travel

The theories of time travel that have been circulating since the debut of Ant-Man and the Wasp are still just that - theories. I'll be honest, I'm still not 100% sure how the quantum realm can possibly assist them, other than getting them stuck in a time vortex. And even still, the operators of said quantum realm machine are dusted. That's all we have to go off of; that, obvious hair and suit changes throughout the trailers and set photos, and, of course, the fact that there are limited options as to how they can actually succeed at this point.

The Suits

Honestly, I just included this section to make fun of their new suits some more. They are so freaking ugly, it's hilarious. I remember when the photos of them were first leaked, everyone laughed and said it was too ugly to be real, yet HERE WE ARE.

So you can imagine how hard I laughed when I saw the second trailer for the first time, and how conflicted I was over how cool their "walk" was, but how gross the suits were.

Some actual memes I saved before the official release of the suits:

Bonus: Something I saved literally last November. And we're about to find out in less than two days...God, I'm not ready.

Prospective Scenes

There were a couple of scenes other than those I've already listed that would be incredibly satisfying to see.

Firstly, Tony and Pepper's wedding.

I always pictured it as the after credits scene. A final symbol of rest, retirement, and relaxation for Tony. And everyone's there, too. The rest of the O6, but also Peter and May, Happy, Rhodey, Sam, Wanda, the Guardians, T'Challa, Shuri, and their friends, Bucky, Dr. Strange (both reluctantly), Wong (of course), and the rest of their friends and (remaining) family. Everyone's watching as the shot is on them. And standing behind them, telling Tony he may kiss the bride, is the minister - Stan Lee. His final cameo.

(Or at least the one I originally had in mind).

The perfect ending for the perfect character arc. And oh, how unlikely it is to happen.

I'm also curious to know, now that it's confirmed, how the story will reintroduce Valkyrie, who happens to be one of my favourite characters, and also who may have escaped with her (hopefully with one of my other favourite characters...).

But there is a scene which we know for a fact is going to happen, and may have gotten a glimpse of during the final trailer, with the shot of Rocket and Nebula sitting somberly and holding hands. It's Rocket finding out that the other Guardian's didn't survive. Since separating from the other Guardians in Infinity War, Rocket did not know of their outcome, and there was no one to relay the message. That...is going to be heartbreaking to watch. Especially after seeing Rocket's character development in GOTG 2.

Prospective Dialogue

Just like certain scenes, there are lines that would be amazing to hear from specific characters.

The first, and probably most popular and obvious, is, of course:

"Avengers Assemble"

If Cap doesn't finally deliver this line with so much passion in this goddamned movie...

But then there was also a line of my personal preference that I really wanted to be heard in the movie, especially if it was said by either Tony, or Steve, or both of them to Thanos. And it's...:

"Because if we can't protect the Earth, you can be damn well sure we'll avenge it."

Which is why I was SO HYPED BUT ANNOYED when I heard it in the trailer because so much of that content isn't going to make it into the movie.

I guess we'll see.

The Stones

So a common...what would you call it...theme, I guess? I've noticed is the correlation between the Avengers and the infinity stones. There are, of course, the six original Avengers left, and six stones. Each Avenger happens to almost perfectly fit into the representation of each stone.

Thor is the Space Stone - Probably most obvious. The Tesseract came from his family, and he has done space travel all his life.

Steve is the Time Stone - As he is "the man out of time".

Banner is the Mind Stone - A scientific genius, yet can't control his own mind.

Barton is the Reality Stone - He conceals his reality - his family - from the rest of his life and his world.

Natasha is the Power Stone - Often viewed as the weak link, even by allies (ie. Scott in Civil War), yet probably one of the strongest and most powerful team members, both physically, and mentally.

And finally - Tony is the Soul Stone - The godfather and soul of the team.

I don't know what this means for Endgame, if it means anything at all. It was just something I noticed.

Fate

There is one last theme I've come to notice throughout the original six, and it's the fact that each of them had their fate severely altered, almost unnaturally, to end up where they are in Endgame.

Tony, of course, almost died in a cave after being kidnapped by terrorists. He only built the Mark 1 suit to escape, and nearly died in the process of that. If he did not go to Afghanistan for the weapons presentation, not only would he not be Iron Man, but he would not be with Pepper, and he would still be manufacturing weapons - or worse, Obidiah would've had him killed another way.

Steve, of course, was selected to be the test subject of the super soldier serum, but that's not what altered his fate. He was destined for that for his grit and determination alone. His fate was altered when he survived something he shouldn't have - When he came out of the ice alive. None - and I mean none - of the events within the Avengers, SHIELD, or anything could have happened if he had died as he was supposed to.

With Bruce, you'd think I would refer to his gamma experiment in general, but that's not it either. That was also destined, similar to Steve's experiment. His is mentioned more briefly in Avengers, and it's the fact that he tried to kill himself. His attempt backfired, as he says he immediately transformed into the Hulk and thus, survived. But his intent was there, and if not for the quick reflexes and will to live of the Hulk (something that was NOT demonstrated in Infinity War, mind you), he would be gone.

Clint's and Natasha's basically go hand-in-hand. In Avengers, we find out that Clint was sent to kill Natasha, as she was part of the KGB. Natasha, in return, would have to try and kill Clint, not that it would have been different from any other enemy of theirs at the time. But because Clint made the call to try and reason with her and get her to turn, they both came out alive rather than the false dichotomy of a situation that would have left at least one of them dead.

And finally, there's Thor. His is a bit trickier to pinpoint because although he's been in death-defying situations, it's unclear if he's ever come close to death like a mortal would. But it's Thor who actually describes this fate that got me thinking about this theme in the first place, as he tells Rocket in Infinity War:

"You know, I'm 1500 years old. I've killed twice as many enemies as that, and every one of them would have rather killed me, but none succeeded. I'm only alive because fate wants me alive."

Fate wants him alive. And apparently it wants the other five alive as well. Otherwise, three of them would be dust, based on probability of the snap. But all six of them remain.

Again, I have no idea what this means for Endgame. I'm just pointing out what I believe to be significant.

Wow, so those are a lot more thoughts than I thought I'd have...this took about 3 hours to write, lol. So I think I'm going to leave it at that, and find out what happens on Thursday. I am in no way ready for it to all be over. And I've never been so terrified to watch a movie. And I've never had to consider that this might be the final 48 hours of a characters life.

This is going to be big. And I can't wait. But goddamn I am so scared.

[valentineblaze]

Endgame Spoilers

Listen up people I am here to rant.

Tony Stark is effing amazing and I love every second of his gilded trashbag life. But this was just a killer. Dad Tony was everything I wanted and more let me tell ya. I love you 3000 is freaking heartbreaking. I have no issue with his arc in the movie at all even if the end does cause me to break out into back breaking sobs because fuck you. If Tony is going to die by gauntlet then you had better be damn sure everyone he even peripherally gave a damn about is going to make it through this fight. Natasha, Gamora, Loki, and every single Asgardian Tony could remember would have been brought back because that man is the definition of all or nothing.

What I have issues with is the sheer lack of world building we get in this movie. Honestly its the Snap and the only glimpse of this Post apocalyptic world is group Therapy and Remembrance walls. As well as several miscellaneous flashbacks to Hawk-eyes surprise family? That not even comic fans are super attached too because they were literally made up probably for male man pain. Where was the atmosphere? Where was the drama? Where was the angst? Post snap was quite honestly not heart wrenchingly rendered into a suitable level of grief. It just wasn't. I expected break downs and rage. All I got was three seconds of Natasha tears as she has let someone else tracking down her soulbro. And a Tony Stark screaming at Captain America. This movie just told us what was happening didn't show us what was happening. It was piss poor story boarding.

Then there was the character development. Like wow. We get all these new and amazing side characters in which you could have fleshed out and made us root for and you just throw them to the sea like chum. -Captain marvel is just not there at all, she gets a gratuituous girl power scene which was random and then she gets slapped to the ground never to get up? Right after she take a head butt without a single flinch. You can small Thanos's fear right then. -Rocket gets to slap Thor? Thats it thats his most memorable moment other the holding Nebula's hand. -Rhodey has some of the best lines but no development or follow up. -Nebula there is so much happening off screen that it physically hurts me. She is amazing. I adore her. I want a series of her. Nebula is my bitch bea. I found a new hoe to die for and it is she. She is my new ride or die. Found family and redemption arcs come at me. -Sam and Bucky both get maybe two lines a piece and that just irks me.

Time travel... yes bitch I am always there for time travel hijinks and drama but honestly five minutes of a single episode of leverage had more heist feels then this three hour train wreck. It might have been the lack of a great soundtrack but it just wasn't that compelling to watch. I'm also really confused about the time travel thearory in this shit because they kept going back on thier own writing through out the movie (cough cough STEVE cough) I'm a fan of we rewrite the future by affecting the past. Butterfly effect is my Jam. This alternate reality thing is fun yes but it can't really be that because they may create alternate realities okay? then if there was the need for pym particals for time travel to occur how did Thanos's big ass army get enough to travel through time to the future? Because the avengers were out or at least low regardless of Steve's thievery and Nebula only had the one from my understanding. Also if changing the reality makes a new reality how the fuck was Steve in this reality.

Bruce , Bruce, Bruce. My beautiful green rage monster and yoga doctorate what have they done to you. What is going on. Why are you so cheerful. Why are you at peace. I hate to say it but go back. Why are we still doing this Nat/Bruce ship? It is so random. I just can't see it. Fandom can trick me into it for a few chapters but not forever.  Ya'll should have taken a hint from Ragnorok give me that personality and it would have been a win. Shock and dismay was my only emotions when it came to this mess.

My constant rage with this series is pick up an effin comic book. Sit down watch a cartoon. If anyone is going to become a human disaster post Snap its going to be effin Hawkeye. Like yay Ronin cool but what the actual fuck. Why did you come at me like that? Hawkeye is not your edgy overlord. He probably would have died ages ago with out the female influences in his life. He has regular dates with dumpsters.  I'm sure he even has a ranking system for prefered dumpsters to end up in after a beat down. Yes he is startlingly competent but even he doesn't know how he does it half the time. He eats food off the floor and thinks expiration dates are guidelines.

Thor was a new one. They threw me for a loop. One this man needs a hug. Two, why is no one hugging him? His rampant depression and weight gain shouldn't have been the butt of jokes. There should have been some honest concern and meaningful conversations with the living not the dead. Thor never doubted his mother's love. That was never up for debate. Thor is not to blame for the snap. Thor will give no fucks if he messes up the timeline if it means his family is alive and together. Especially post Ragnarok. Also I could have sworn Thanos killed every asguardian on his ship at the beginning of infinity war? How is Valkyrie alive? Why would Thor decide to go to space?

I’m not even gonna touch on the Black Widow for this one. I’m just not gonna go there. Blind rage doesn’t even cover it.

Howard Stark. Wow just wow I thought I was having some weird ass delusion. That man is scum. Comic canon scum. One of the smartest men on the planet yes, revolutionary war hero technically yes, great father and overall good human being? Hell to the no. Tony literally named his A.I. after Jarvis, cried over the death of J.A.R.V.I.S,  I would have expected a quiet chat about fatherhood and marriage and how it can make the best out of any man (he hopes)  before I got a conversation with dear old dad.

Why can’t Tony and Steve have one friendly conversation? A sense of camaraderie? Anything? Why is that so hard?

Steve "fight me" Rogers what has MCU done to you? I'm supposed to believe that you would have left Bucky Barnes to Hydra's hands for over 70 years. Im supposed to believe that you would have been in the past and had no interactions with Howard Stark. Im supposed to believe that the you married the Director of Shield and you didn't wax poetry about the amazing woman that diegned to marry you every damn day of your life? This woman on her deathbed told you she lived a long and fulfilled life and that you should move on to have the same happiness as she and you did what? That he wouldn't have dismantled every last bit of Hydra. That he would just let Natasha and Tony die because of that shitty delusional grape? The disrespect STEVEN the disRESPECT! I am a Stony stan for sure but hell if I don't respect Peggy Carter. So yay steve gets his happy cis gendered ending but what about the rest of em?

[that-shamrock-vibe]

Movie Review: Deadpool 2 (Spoilers)

Spoiler Warning: I am posting this review the weekend after the movie is released in the U.K. So if you haven’t yet seen the movie don’t read on.

General Reaction:

Pop culture references, or "Meta-Referencing" as it's called in some circles, has become such à staple in both movies and television that it is hard to know who originated it. But in terms of who owns it, that largely is Fox as their animated TV shows, such as Family Guy and American Dad, are built around it. However, Deadpool as a character is a meta-referencing construct. Spouting pop culture satire is what he has been known for since his creation, being the "Merc with the Mouth" and fans may worry that if he didn't have that, would he be a quality character.

Well if Deadpool 2 is anything to go by, I'd say that's a yes. Yes there are still meta-references spread throughout this movie, but the movie doesn't rely on them and instead becomes a fully-rounded comic-book action movie. In my opinion more so than the first Deadpool movie and even Avengers: Infinity War in terms of story.

Yes the plot is pretty much ripping off Terminator but it does Terminator how you would expect Deadpool to do Terminator. Not only does it satirically play homage to that movie but also the amount of pot shots it takes both at the MCU and DCEU is fantastic.

My two critiques with the meta-referencing in this movie is 1) There is a joke made about child molesting early on in this movie that hinders on that line of very poor taste and 2) They missed some very obvious chances to make fun of some of the movie's cast that they had no reason to miss. When your main character wears a mask covering his mouth, then the writers and director have no excuses when watching this movie in post and saying "Hey we missed an obvious Billy Skarsgård as Pennywise joke and a joke about Orange is the New Black, Black Panther and Wonder Woman, no worries we can have Ryan Reynolds dub over" but alas there is nothing.

As a fully rounded movie however, there is one thing I never expected to see in a Deadpool movie and that is a genuinely emotional scene, in this case Vanessa's death, yes the first movie had Wade discovering he had cancer, but with this scene there were one or two moments I felt would be used to turn the scene satirical, both with the microwave pinging and Wade's emotional reaction but surprisingly they just kept to the reaction...it was somewhat watered down at the end when Wade went back in time and saved her but I'll get into that when I talk about Vanessa further down.

Cast:

On the subject of characters, much like the first movie this cast proves to be a great support in a movie that is solely the Ryan Reynolds/Deadpool show, unlike the first movie though this cast do just seem to be supporting players.

Ryan Reynolds was born to play Deadpool just as Hugh Jackman was born to play Wolverine and Krysten Ritter was born to play Jessica Jones. What he does with this character is nothing short of magic. I cannot describe just how much I love this actor in this role, this is coming from a guy who has never been a Ryan Reynolds fan...at all.

I love the fact they finally embraced Pansexual Deadpool as he was clearly in a committed relationship with Vanessa but he did have some flirtatious banter with Colossus and even Cable, I mean he used his crotch in Cable’s face as an offensive attack.

Reynolds’ physical comedy is upped in this movie, not only does he have that brilliant crouched over through the legs on a moving car bit that I found quite funny but also the that prison break scene when Wade falls from the walkway smack onto a table with his body effectively bent over was really gross and really cool. I haven’t seen physical comedy this funny since Jim Carrey in the 90s; think Ace Ventura or The Mask, even The Grinch, that is what I was reminded of watching Ryan Reynolds in this movie.

As I said, everyone else was effectively a supporting player but the next two with the biggest roles were Josh Brolin as Cable and Julian Dennison as Russell Collins aka Firefist. What is interesting about both these characters is I have only ever seen them in the 90s X-Men animated series. Cable was a recurring player in all four seasons while Russell was named Rusty and only appeared in one episode during Season 3.

Josh Brolin as Cable was surprisingly very good and the fact he is still appearing as Thanos in Avengers: Infinity War was not a distraction because both characters are very different and with the CGI on Brolin for Thanos, there is a definite distinction between the two.

They definitely didn’t spend enough time establishing Cable as a character in his own right, outside of the fact his wife and daughter Hope were killed by an adult Russell which is why he traveled back in time there was no real character development. There was a minor scene when Cable is looking in the mirror at his body and it does seem he’s pained over the fact the techno-organic virus that is never mentioned is trying to take over his body but other than that there is really nothing defining other than the fact he was a formidable threat.

The fact he chose to stay at the end of the movie wasn’t exactly a shocker because Deadpool 2 was a back-door pilot in setting up X-Force, even though he saw that his family were alive because his daughter Hope’s teddy bear that he carries with him which was burned but then looked like new when they fixed the timeline which was a stereotypical time-travel trope but a good one, he decides to stick around for no real reason. When Wade says a line earlier in the movie saying “That’s just bad writing” I was thinking Cable’s ending was more sloppy.

As for Russell Collins aka Firefist, I really didn’t get on board with this character. Yes he was the troubled youth that had trauma in his past and being a Mutant in this universe is never good for anyone of any age, but he was just angry. Yes he had one or two funny lines but most of the time his motivation as a character did not seem genuine. In fact, Russell here reminded me of Jamie Foxx as Electro in The Amazing Spider-Man 2, a character needing to be needed.

Whereas Domino I felt I did not get enough of, genuinely mostly everything we have seen of the character in this movie was in the trailers. She had one or two more good lines particularly with the truck chase but outside of that I was left underwhelmed as a fan of Domino’s because I wanted her to be a scene-stealer similar to Black Widow, Deadpool even calls her “Black Black Widow”.

Colossus again proves to be quite a comedic and competent character despite his earlier appearances in the original X-Men trilogy. The only issue is, we never see him outside of being metallic and yet again Deadpool makes the joke about the studio not being able to afford more X-Men than Colossus and Negasonic Teenage Warhead.

Although there is a fantastic cameo from the X-Men: Apocalypse X-Men team while Deadpool is making this budget speech as the shot cuts to a profile shot of Wade showing a classroom with that team played by those actors in. In the room there is Beast, Quicksilver, Nightcrawler, Storm, Cyclops and bald Professor X all of whom were played by the same actors who portrayed them in X-Men: Apocalypse. It was interesting to see that neither Sophie Turner nor Jennifer Lawrence made an appearance as Jean Grey and Mystique respectively but literally the show was a blink and you will miss it type of shot.

Circling back to Negasonic Teenage Warhead, and I’m going to call her Ellie because it’s easier and that’s her civilian name, again like Domino most of what we’ve seen from her we saw in the trailers but what was confirmed in this movie was her LGBT status.

Now it is not confirmed if she is bisexual or a lesbian but she is in a relationship with Yukio, who I think is supposed to be Surge from the comics but her name is Noriko not Yukio and Yukio is in fact from The Wolverine portrayed by Rila Fukishima in which case I am frustrated with this character because I loved what Rila did with it. Regardless, I applaud this movie because I have recently written up a Research Project for my university course about the lack of LGBT representation in Marvel and this movie gave me hope that maybe they are turning a corner, both with the teenage lesbian lovers and Deadpool’s pansexuality.

I did have the opportunity to meet Brianna Hildebrand at Comic-Con in March but opted out in favour of Yondu but I continue to be happy with her role in these movies.

Then X-Force as a team, the biggest tease I have seen for quite some time, I haven’t seen such a tease lacking followup since The Amazing Spider-Man 2 and the promise of the Sinister Six. Almost every trailer in this movie promoted the X-Force team starting in this movie but what the trailers failed to say was that they’d be seen for a grand total of five minutes and then literally be killed off save for Deadpool and Domino.

When you have the likes of Terry Crewes and Bill Skarsgård in the movie, particularly with Billy coming off of such a success with It, yet barely have them speak and don’t really have any screen-time or development before killing them off just to say “We’ve had X-Force” it’s a waste. I mean I get only having Lewis Tan for a glorified cameo as he is more of a stuntman and he was playing a character that would have been all stunts mainly but again it was such a wasted opportunity.

Although the one thing the team did right was give us a bigger shock cameo than Matt Damon in Thor: Ragnarok and I am talking Brad Pitt as Vanisher. Now for most of the time Vanisher was invisible however when he fell down onto the power-lines and got electrocuted to reveal himself as Brad Pitt, the audience I saw this movie gave the biggest reaction all movie. It was such a surprise and such a non-commitment type of role that Pitt didn’t have to do it but either did 20th Century Fox a favour or Ryan Reynolds a favour, either way it actually made me respect him more.

Outside of that brief cameo, the biggest shock for me was the reveal of Juggernaut. I was actually very surprised to see him in this movie. When they “foreshadowed” the character, I genuinely did not know who it was going to be but the fact it was Juggernaut and looking more like Juggernaut than Vinnie Jones did I was loving it. Although I wasn’t so keen on the fact that Ryan Reynolds provided the voice, again Vinnie Jones was great vocally and physically in the role it was just how they styled him I had a problem with. Also the fact he was defeated by essentially having an electric enema was a little bit in poor taste, again there’s a line and Deadpool both as a character and a franchise dance very finely on it.

Then as for Vanessa, I really like Morena Baccarin as an actress but currently I am not entirely sure she knows what role she wants to commit to. Yes she is a mainstay on Gotham and has been fantastic on that all season and it is clear she was not in the first few episodes because of filming this, but then there is the fact she is back voicing Gideon on The Flash which is a minor voice-over role and then there was this but it is such a watered down version of the character from the comics to the point where she was never revealed as a mutant or had her appearance from the comics. Although interestingly enough the character did first appear in the comics as Domino before revealing herself properly.

The end-credits scene which saw Ellie fix Cable’s time-travelling device and stupidly giving it to Deadpool allowed him to go back and save Vanessa, meaning she’s not dead, which if you follow time-travel lore means the events of this movie should not have happened but even so I digress.

Deadpool’s Future:

My final thoughts are on the future of Deadpool in terms of movies because of course there is a pending merger that could threaten that.

I do think that when you consider the fact Fox is in the midst of having it’s movie and television properties going over to Disney, one has to consider if Deadpool and the X-Men have a future. Yes Kevin Feige is going to want to capitalize on Deadpool’s box office to add to his own gross and they have confirmed that Deadpool will stay R-Rated. but the meta-referencing to the MCU may have to be taken out if the character becomes part of the MCU and also if Ryan Reynolds does not continue to have control over the character as he does now then we lose something special.

Now they have said that Deadpool 3 will in fact be an X-Force movie and it is already in negotiations, however I do not believe that any development in terms of script, casting or filming will take place until this merger is confirmed. While I think Deadpool is meta enough to be the only surviving character from Fox in this merger, I do think making the movie as Fox but then either part way through or even at the point of premiere becoming a Disney property would mess up what is currently one of the best comic-book movie franchises out there.

Overall I rate this movie a 9/10, it’s not the best movie I have ever seen however both as the type of comic-book movie it promised and the type of character actor Ryan Reynolds is it is a perfect movie. It just isn’t higher because I do not feel the immediate urge of a rewatchability factor.

So that’s my review of Deadpool 2, what did you guys think? Post your comments and check out more Marvel Movie Reviews as well as other Movie Reviews and posts.

[mattelektras]

GIRL HEY I LOVE YOU and your blog and just all your marvel thoughts and opinions and your recs tag WOW you got me into comics like THANK YOU AND YOUR SOUL and so i am so curious to know like what are your issues with mcu? like everything i want to know EVERYTHING, every little detail that's bothered you to the shitty casting to the whitewashing to the lack of development LET ME HEAR IT PLEASE

OH HOW LONG DO YOU HAVE. pretty much all of this excludes black panther and ragnarok. nothing but respect for my mcu

it took them literally 10 years and like 20 movies to have anyone that wasn't a white man lead a solo film. like. that is a LONG ASS TIME

not to mention the straight people EVERYWHERE until valkyrie who they didn't SHOW is bi. trust only tessa thompson and taika watiti. let that be the lesson here

and the women and people of colour they DID have in their movies were done incredibly dirty like rhodey (who could absolutely have held a solo movie following iron man 2. or even 1 like. they just slipped in that he’s become a superhero n didn't do anything with it like... really????????) gets shot in the fuckin spine by that piece of shit robot. sharon was set up so well and now doesn't exist. mcu nat i dont even know where to begin

mcu maximoffs/dr strange/iron fist. the whitewashing trifecta. they went for the hatrick and they nailed it. thanks i hate it 

but with the maximoffs specifically like. GOD theyre bad. wendy has gone from ‘moves things with her mind’ (not wanda’s actual powers but whatevs we’ll get to that bit) to literally being able to destroy an infinity stone. she’s everything mr whedon wants in a female character. and mcu pietro??? a weak bitch. pietro maximoff would die of spite before he sacrificed himself for clint fucking barton

so many of the movies dont line up with one another like PLEASE marvel directors watch each other’s movies. the russos basically turned up at taika watiti’s house and told him to go fuck himself 

or just... hire good directors.... the russos fooled everyone into thinking they were good with cap 2 but what the ever loving fuck was civil war and infinity war

stop with the war shit no one likes superheroes vs superheroes

this is petty and i KNOW movies dont have to follow the comics like. i know that and sometimes its a very good thing, but with marvel they wanna take parts from the comics, sometimes GOOD parts and they wanna fuck it all up and force it to fit into their shitty narrative. like. civil war for example.. had a PURPOSE in comics. it was a genuine grey area and, well written, it could've been a nuanced scenario about how different types of people might have benefited or suffered from it (re: mutants etc). in the mcu, civil war was uuuuuh wendy blew up some people and she used to be a nazi but we’re all gonna defend her because im steve rogers and i do what the fuck i like regardless of literally everything else. 

they based the mcu on the ultimates universe???? TAKE THE GOOD BITS THEN!!!! like take miles morales instead of just giving peter his life and his friends 

get better actors jesus christ. just. better as people would be a start. ms substitute asian johansson and mr Gun Rights pratt. perish

the chris x3 jokes really arent endearing either. some of em have gotta go

please hire someone with real eyes for your costume department!!!!!! say what you like about dc movies, but they all WORK together. their suits have the same tone/materials/overall look. the avengers look like a bunch of people who have never met before 

speaking of, i physically cannot buy the ‘friendship’ the avengers supposedly have. they dont talk!!!!!! there’s too many of them to actually get any solid team development!!! you want me to believe thor even knows hawkeye’s real name??? he doesn't!! and he doesn't give a shit either!!

if you're gonna do a romantic relationship......... fucking stick with it or actually end it. steve/sharon could have been SO GOOD but where has that gone. nat/hulk was hideous and thank god it died but WHERE has it gone. 

not to mention the fact that gamora has literally shown no interest towards peter but she loves him in infinity war somehow

peggy carter is really NOT THAT IMPORTANT!!!! people are still out here shittalking sharon, the LEADING CAP COMICS WOMAN, STEVE’S MAIN AND PRETTY MUCH SOLE LOVE INTEREST, because she's not peggy carter and she doesn't talk about girl power whilst wearing winged eyeliner. steve and peggy kissed once like if thats your standard for a life long relationship then im married to like 8 people i knew when i was 15

the general need marvel has to own all of their properties. homecoming was a good movie, but did we need it??? like really???? people have seen so many spider man movies but no one had seen a black panther or captain marvel movie and they both got shoved back to accommodate the 3rd peter parker ive seen in my lifetime

SPEAKING OF REPETITION.... snarky movies led by white men alongside a woman who is clearly more capable than they are but dont get any recognition for it are the same. the exact fucking same 

CAN POST CREDITS SCENES PLEASE DIE im not sitting around for 20 minutes waiting for something cool like a hint of a new hero only to see steve fucking rogers doing his ironing or some shit. if its not worth it, dont do it maybe 

the colour grading is ugly as sin. if it’s got some over saturated primary colours in it... its a marvel movie 

marvel movies are just.... straight up not funny at this point lmao like im not a 13 year old boy i dont find dick and whore jokes funny try again

��it’ll kill you’ ‘only if i die’ ‘yes thats what killing you means’ is supposed to be funny and i get that but uuuuuh its just bad dialogue and there are so many lines like that. write a good fucking movie and then MAYBE you won't have to fill scenes with empty conversations to take up the time

fuck the mcu guardians of the galaxy, to put it finely. mcu peter is a dick and his altered back story makes him even more of a dick. drax isn't a dumbass, gamora would rather die than touch peter. mantis is a literal celestial goddess, not some old white dude’s sleep time therapist 

mostly what it comes down to with me though is that marvel literally does not have to make good movies. they can make any old shit and make literally millions of dollars. barely anyone gave a fuck about ant man or doctor strange, and if you didn't read comics, you likely wouldn't have even KNOWN who they were but everyone went to see them because they had marvel on the posters. and thats pretty much marvel’s entire deal. ALL they do is get credit for things they havent done 

oh and fuck vision too 

[why-this-kolaveri-machi]

avengers: infinity war

um. SPOILERS.

so i finally watched spiderman: infinity war avengers: infinity war yesterday with the inimitably awesome aakanksha ( @franklyineedcoffee). it was great! very cgi and very Epic.

like. mcu movies were never terribly remarkable to me, but then they got Spiderman involved (and made him great!) and the ensuing trifecta of extremely enjoyable films (homecoming, ragnarok and black panther) finally made a fangirl out of me. which basically primed me perfectly to enjoy the shit out of infinity war. 

a few thoughts! a second reminder for SPOILERS because i discuss about basically everything.

1. the film did a great job juggling so many characters and so many plot threads? of course some parts were under-served (the whole wakanda stretch was a bit meh to me), but at no point was i just waiting for the film to get back to the Interesting Bit. almost all of it was equally engaging.

2. i’d heard a lot about thanos going into this film but what i wasn’t expecting was to be reminded of two villains that the mcu had done really, really well recently: adrian toomes/the vulture from homecoming, and erik killmonger from black panther. thanos isn’t nearly as compelling as either of them and certainly doesn’t deserve a fraction of the sympathy we can reasonably afford to either toomes/killmonger, but the kind of sad, single-minded conviction that he used to justify murdering trillions of people? yeah, that was all-too-familiar. far from the cackling, evil villain trope, both toomes and killmonger were shaped and scarred by unforgiving circumstances; you didn’t approve of the stuff they did but their pathos was palpable. thanos plays this part of the villain arc very well--he doesn’t visibly delight in death and destruction, but does it because he is burdened with it. and isn’t that how it usually goes in the real world? the worst people in the world never believe in their own evil--just their own status as a Special Person Who Knows Something Better Than Everyone Else. a special destiny, a special responsibility with all that power. sometimes the line between superhero and villain is so, so thin.

2.5. because looking at it objectively, his motivation was some malthusian bullshit, yeah? and in a way recalls some of the most harrowing repercussions of bullshit science from the early twentieth century. so if i read one more thinkpiece about ‘errrrr guys maybe thanos had a point’ i’m going to lose it. both the writing and performance for thanos was fantastic--he practically dripped with gravitas, even under all the layers of cgi and chaotic fight scenes--but let’s not confuse that with actual sense/decency, yeah?

3. the groupings were great--so great that i could’ve readily watched an entire film based on any one of them. my favourite had to be thor with rocket/groot. i would’ve never guessed it, but it turned out to be the most poignant dynamic of them all. that little conversation that rocket had with thor was a little oasis in the middle of a terribly chaotic movie and neatly tied in and mirrored the incredible character development both the characters had undergone in their last movies--GotG vol 2 and ragnarok. this scene for me was an example of the ultimate reward of getting a film like infinity war--a moment of truly resonant emotional connection between two wildly differing characters and genres.

3.5. and, btw, the genres! can we talk about that a bit? it was a really cool mix of generic superhero stuff with sci-fi, a touch of horror, magic, swords-and-sorcery, opposites-meet comedy, a bit of romance, and just good old-fashioned family drama. 

3.75. and speaking of drama, the whole arc with gamora was gutting and inspired more tears from me than the much-talked-about snap. the sheer range of emotions she went through right before and after she realised that thanos was going to kill her and why! zoe saldana is fucking amazing.

4. aagh i just wished we had more time but all of the groups played really well off each other: i enjoyed iron man and company in particular because duh, spiderman, and watching three gigantic egos clash in the form of tony stark, dr strange, and peter quill was entertaining as all hell. and i know tumblr fandom in particular likes to give tony a hard time but i was impressed not just by his quick thinking, his surely-impossible technology, and his raw physical strength, but also his ability to lead, well, any team. he had spiderman covered (summoning the iron spider suit! appointing him an avenger! collaborative flying of an alien spaceship!), had dr strange figured out pretty quickly, and tried his best to steady peter quill. 

4.5. the group on wakanda wasn’t nearly as compelling, but much of their screen time was filled with fighting cannon fodder and that’s literally the least interesting part of any mcu movie, so. i guess i was also annoyed by rhodey basically throwing away the principled position he took in civil war--the narrative had to essentially make the regulatory body a one-dimensional super-villain. and, like. whatever. the avengers have to reform, etc. but it still stinks. i kind of dozed through the parts of civil war that didn’t involve spiderman but some of the issues that it raised were compelling. but then those issues were just used as an excuse to get a slugfest between iron man and captain america and now somehow an agreement signed by 150+ countries is all about oh no! will steve and tony ever make up?? like, fuck that shit. 

4.85. i didn’t expect to be as moved as i was by vision and wanda, though. unlike the nat/bruce thing that also kind of came out of the blue in ultron, these two were weirdly compelling. (although wanda’s missing accent is bothering me.)

5. there was so much cgi in this movie! some of it was truly breathtaking but more often than not it felt suffocating. i feel like tony stark and co. were especially ill-served: the deep blues of the doughnut spaceship and the flashy, dusty oranges on titan just made it more difficult to see the characters and, idk. i’m not a fan of the effect. 

5.5. everything involving thor was great, tho. couldn’t possibly match the climactic bridge scene in ragnarok in terms of pure Epicness but came close several times. 

6. mmm, what else? i really liked that this film undercut a lot of the truly dramatic scenes with humour--it just lent a dreadful sense of finality to the scenes that left us with death rather than a punchline.

6.5. another note: i realise that thor continually calling rocket and groot ‘rabbit and tree’ was supposed to be funny, but why would he do that? the ‘captain’ has a name. and he speaks groot’s language! why would he call him something as reductive as ‘tree’? (unless groot’s actual name is tree) it’s just a little niggling thing but it’s starting to bother me a lot now.

6.55. but i do find it a little endearing that prideful, extremely sensitive rocket never once bothered to correct thor.

7. ultimately the Epicness that made this movie possible is also one of the things that repeatedly threatens to bring it down. i just don’t want this film to fall down the rabbit hole that SPN finds itself in--expand its scope exponentially and find itself unable to remotely do it the justice that it deserves. what do you do with a character who could kill half the universe with a snap of his fingers? what do you do with characters who, in their individual movies, have expressed powers and resources that are seriously large-scale?

we see the film sputter in this respect a couple of times: i never understood why thanos didn’t just use the reality stone to, say, turn tony’s tech into cheesecake or something. out of respect at the man’s sheer tenacity? idk. and loki going out by trying to stab thanos was weird to me. was he deliberately sacrificing himself? is there something else going on? doesn’t he have much better weapons in his arsenal? at least he was aiming for the head

and the consequences of the final snap where more than half of the heroes disintegrated in front of their friends’ eyes should’ve felt more devastating, but the neatness of the old avengers being spared so that they could save (avenge if you will) their next generation in a final hurrah in the next movie seemed way too obvious. that’s not to say it wasn’t impactful. watching peter parker disintegrate in tony’s arms, fighting till the very last minute to stay he was so scared oh god he just wanted to stay and for mr stark to make it all right was gutting, no matter how much i’d prepared myself for it. i may have whimpered. 

8. i’m sure i have a lot more to say but it’s getting late and i’m tired, so. another post in the near future maybe.

but before i go, how could i not talk about spiderman?? i screamed my throat raw at the first sight of peter parker, and although he doesn’t actually get all that much screen time he made every second count. the awe-inspiring appearance of the iron spider. “have you ever seen that old movie, aliens?” the sheer range of emotions that passed his face when tony stark officially made him an avenger. flying spaceships along with tony. fun with magic portals! almost getting the gauntlet off because he is Just That Strong. saving mantis and drax. and clinging to life till the very last second even as the edges of his body were starting to wisp away. this boy. god. how mcu hit the perfect formula to represent my all-time favourite superhero on screen is a mystery, but i’m so so glad it happened. 

[agent-ches]

THOR : RAGNAROK THOUGHTS (SPOILER ALERT)

literally the visuals of the damn film were great, A+++

- first of all THANK YOU TAIKA FOR DIRECTING THIS BEAUTY 

- he literally added all of his little touches from Rachel House as Topaz from The Hunt for the Wilderpeople (there was an easter egg in the first trailer with reference to the movie through graffiti of the Skux Life) to Luke Hemsworth and Matt Damon impersonating Thor and Loki on stage

- THOR TALKING TO A DAMN SKELETON 

- you’re probably wondering how i ended up like this cliche

- THANKS FOR BRINGING IN MY MAN KARL URBAN TO PLAY SKURGE who has a pretty decent character arc from replacing Heimdall to collecting knick knacks from the nine realms (machine guns named ‘Des’ and ‘Troy’, together they’re ‘Destroy’) and trying to impress ladies to temporarily becoming Hela’s Executioner although he hasn’t the heart to kill his own people to trying to be a stowaway (some would call this cowardly but wait) to deciding to fight for Asgard and giving his life as a result, he got his recognition 

- Thor’s hammer antics, putting it in the dragon’s mouth and setting it on Loki’s chest like, “Stay!” and “OW OW OW” yeah that hammer is a real gem, pity Hela had to destroy it, makes sense that she would be able to do so since she wielded it before Thor was ever born when she and Odin had their fun rampaging the realms

- HELA IS THOR’S (and technically Loki’s) OLDER SISTER????????????? WHAT THE HELL????

- Loki as Odin was bloody hilarious, going “Oh shit” the moment his brother shows up (plus the giant statue of himself in gold, really??? a bit much???)

- LOKI LEAVING ODIN IN AN ELDERLY HOME HAH (the damn thing was being demolished like HELLO) 

- Loki having to outdo Thor in some way aka FULL BLACK SUIT, SHIRT AND TIE FROM HEAD TO TOE while Thor is literally in jeans and a jacket (his face when Thor was asked for a selfie though, like how is that ever possible) 

- THANKS FOR BRINGING IN BENEDICT TOO LIKE I NEEDED ME SOME STEPHEN STRANGE BEING SUPER EXTRA AND TELEPORTING(???) EVERYWHERE MAKING THOR WHOOZY (honestly i laughed so hard when Loki said he’d been falling for thirty minutes since Strange opened a portal for him to fall into and then reopned it much later, loved it) 

- Thor disguising his hammer as a damn umbrella and it completely wrecking the New York Sanctum as it flies to him 

- Sentimental bros when Odin passed on IN FRIGGING NORWAY

- The clouds and thunder mirroring Thor’s grief and anger and the sparks crackling like the perfect foreshadowing 

- Thor being a dramatic dork with the most unnecessary costume change of the century, a lightning strike *rolls eyes to the moon and back* 

- CATE BLANCETT IS SO HOT HOLY SHIT 

- HER HAIR TURNS INTO HER HEADDRESS????? WHAAAAA?????

- HELA WHY YOU KILL MY WARRIORS THREE SOBS 

- heimdall the fugitive, cue the mission impossible theme song (completely necessary i assure you) 

- the amount of humour littered throughout the film is ridiculously fantastic so much so that i can’t possibly go through all of it but kudos to Drunk!Valkyrie, that is a mood i can totally agree with

- Loki and Thor arguing like a bunch of children good lord (CAN I JUST, THE GRANDMASTER SUBTLY FLIRTING WITH LOKI AND THOR JUST LOOKING COMPLETELY CONFUSED LIKE ????? GOLD!!!)

- SPARKLESSSSS

- “What’s the word we use for her that start’s with B?” “Trash.” 

- Valkyrie sassing her way through the film, everywhere from speaking to Thor to Topaz and Loki like, what a boss

- Thor getting his hair cut by Stan Lee with a robotic arm (he’s so damn attached to his hair like woah)

- TAIKA VOICING KORG LIKE WHAT A PRECIOUS BEAN THAT GIANT STONE MONSTER IS I LOVE HIM ( he’s so precious “I tried to start a revolution but couldn’t print enough pamplets” + “We’re going to get out of here on that ship, want to join us?” + “I accidentally stepped on [Meek] on the Bridge and I felt so bad, I’ve been carrying him around all day” + Meek wakes up, “HEY EVERYONE MEEK’S ALIVE”) also the subtle explicit jokes did not go unnoticed ahem ahem -.-

- Loki’s projections being a recurring theme throughout the whole movie from the start where he visit’s Thor in the contender’s holding area, “to try and help him” and Thor keeps throwing stuff through him because his brother won’t even try to come and meet him face to face (Korg attacking supposed ‘ghost’ was also adorable), to when Loki is chained up in Valkyrie’s room and Thor throws something at him (it hits him in the head) to check if he’s really present, to when they try to escape and Thor figures out the trick because Loki’s inherent selfishness tips him off, and finally the ending when Lokis shows up after throwing Surtur’s crown into the fire, Thor not even daring to believe his brother is there in the room, “I would hug you if you were here,” and he tosses something at supposed projection only to have Loki catch it, “I’m here”, that was a tender scene between the brothers and I love Taika all the more for executing it as such (he could easily have had Tom miss the object and allowed it to hit him but he kept the moment an intimate one, bless him for that) 

- the classic “HE’S A FRIEND FROM WORK” and Loki’s face when he saw the Hulk, “I NEED TO GET OFF THIS PLANET” *flashbacks to PUNY GOD* 

- Thor’s lightning being triggered by Odin and the Hulk’s punches though, the lightning is so flipping amazing and it’s honestly really cool to watch?????

- Bruce was the Hulk for TWO YEARS????? and Nat is the one to trigger the switch back (also his and Thor’s little frienship squabble was pretty cute, not to mention the Quinjet recognising Thor as POINTBREAK BAHAHAHA)

- Bruce in Tony’s clothes (can i get a little SCIENCE BROS up in here) 

- Valkyrie and Bruce being so damn oblivious 

- “Loki turned into a snake and I liked snakes and then he changed back into himself and stabbed me with a knife WHEN WE WERE EIGHT” and Loki still has the guts to smile, devious little bastard

- “Let’s do ‘GET HELP’!” “No, that’s embarrasing” proceed to Thor literally TOSSING Loki at the guards

- “It’s a leisure ship, the Grandmaster uses it for his orgys” oh lord bless me 

- I don’t have much to say about Heimdall or Hela to be very honest, because we were only briefly introduced to Hela and Heimdall was barely touched on except as a fugitive getting the Asgardians to evacuate. Hela was mostly just stipulated as the villain and sister goddess, though her ability to produce swords continuously is fantastic and nicely presented 

- Valkyrie’s past was cleverly dealt with instead of having a cheesy heart to heart, with Loki showcasing his magic abilities to pluck the memory from her mind and see for himself what really happened that turned her into a drunken scavenger 

- Thor wanting to be a Valkyrie growing up then realising they were all women

- Bruce has 7 PhDs, good to know (none of them are for flying alien spacecraft though, also good to know) 

- LOKI IS ACTUALLY RELATIVELY GOOD IN THIS ONE (although he does halt by the Tesseract and we all can guess that he takes it since he has it in Infinity War) 

- Taika handled the missing Gauntlet fantastically with Hela tipping the relic over in Odin’s vault, calling it a fake, which alludes to the real one being missing, really nice segway right there (she also hovers by the Tesseract and recognises it’s power)

- Thor losing an eye, Loki thinking his new eye patch suits him and Hela saying he looks like their ‘dad’ 

- VENTRESS AKA THE REALLY CUTE AND SCARY GIANT WOLF THAT HELA CALLS HER PET IS SO COOL but also undead so yeah ....

- Asgard is a people (and Thor being their king, decides to take them to earth...) 

- Ragnarok having a completely different meaning by the end of the film 

- “Let me rephrase, how do you think the people will react to you bringing ME back?” “They wouldn’t be very pleased.” and cue what supposedly looks like a giant ass ship from Thanos 

- second post credits scene was mostly for the laughs 

- NO SOUL STONE IN THIS ONE FOLKS 

- things were just a tad rushed in this one but the graphics and fight sequences were gracefully done and i’m satisfied

[empress-of-snark]

(last header by @caseyblu)

AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR (2018)

(I am a Fool and I didn’t post this yesterday, I apologize)

AKA: I wish I hadn’t already used the “Everything hurts and I’m dying” reference on Iron Man 2, because it’s even more applicable now.

(So many spoilers, like seriously, don’t read if you haven’t seen Infinity War yet.)

Hoo boy, wow. This was the big one. It’s kind of like Civil War--there’s just so much going on that it’s hard to know where to start. Only it’s like 100 times bigger than that. So yeah, this might get confusing. Sorry in advance.

First off, I’m not totally convinced that Loki’s dead. I know, I know, I’m not gonna go off on a rant and it’s not just because I like him. It’s because his death really didn’t make sense. I mean, I understand why it had to happen plot-wise, but I don’t understand why someone as powerful as Loki would simply use a knife to attack Thanos, who now has two infinity stones. One could argue he wasn’t thinking clearly after seeing Thor tortured, but that doesn’t seem in-character to me. I dunno, maybe I’m just in denial. But I have a hunch he may come back one last time in Avengers 4, maybe with Valkyrie.

There were a lot of characters absent who I expect will make an appearance in Avengers 4, assuming they weren’t dusted. Hawkeye, Ant-Man & the Wasp, Valkyrie, Korg & Meik, Lady Sif, Wong (if he’s done protecting the Sanctorum, that is).

Actually, I’m calling it right now. End credits scene of Avengers 4. Dr. Strange opens the doors to the Sanctum Sanctorum, bloody, bruised, and exhausted after the fight of his life. Wong is sitting on the stairs with a half-eaten carton of Ben & Jerry’s “Hulk-A-Hulk-A-Burning-Fudge” ice cream. “How’d it go?”

Also excited to meet Captain Marvel and learn what exactly she’s been doing for the past ten years that was more important than ever helping save the world. Maybe she’s just so powerful that no threat has been big enough to require her presence? I guess we’ll find out next year.

Anyway, it was great seeing all the different characters meet and interact for the first time. It’s another big crossover, like the first Avengers movie. Except this one is like three or four big groups scattered across the galaxy and you have to keep track of who knows who and who’s where doing what. It gets confusing at times, especially trying to remember things like who’s supposed to know about the infinity stones, who knows about Thanos, who has no idea what’s going on, etc.

I spotted another timeline issue that confuses things even more, actually. Tony references the events of the first Avengers film and says they happened six years ago. Which means that technically Spiderman Homecoming is supposed to happen two years after this (as the beginning indicates it’s eight years after the attack on New York). I guess it doesn’t make a huge difference, I’m just surprised they’d make a mistake like that, with how meticulous they usually are about continuity.

It was still pretty painful to watch all those characters turn to dust at the end, even though I know they’re definitely coming back in Avengers 4 (they literally just announced the release date of Spiderman 2). Ugh, his scene still gets me. Knowing that his lines there were improvised honestly makes it worse.

This is obviously the first time we’ve ever seen a villain actually win, even if it’s just part one. And before anyone says anything else about Quill ruining the plan and being responsible for their loss, consider this: Strange saw this future. He knew there was only one way they could defeat Thanos and if he didn’t stop Quill then, that means it had to happen. If Quill had stayed quiet and they’d gotten the gauntlet off, something else would’ve gone wrong and Thanos still would’ve killed half the universe.

Also, consider that Quill has always been a very emotional character. He had the same reaction to Gamora’s death that he did in Guardians 2 when he learned that Ego killed his mother. He was not acting rationally and we shouldn’t condemn him for being sad/angry that the woman he loves is dead.

It is a little unhelpful that Strange dissolved before leaving any sort of instructions. He’s the only one who knows exactly what should happen and now he’s gone, leaving everyone else to figure it out on their own.

One complaint that my brother pointed out is that this movie kind of negates a lot of what happened in Ragnarok. Yes, Asgard is still gone, but the point of Ragnarok was to strip Thor down to nothing. He lost his hammer. In Infinity War, he’s got a new axe. He lost an eye. Rocket gives him a new one. He and Loki finally reconciled. Loki’s dead now. He befriended Valkyrie. Who even knows where Valkyrie is. Also half the Asgardian refugees are dead now. It just makes you wonder what the point of Ragnarok was if nothing stuck.

So let’s talk about Gamora real quick. First of all, her singing along with Quill to his music was the cutest thing I’ve ever seen. Second of all, I’m not convinced she’s dead either (yes, like Loki, this is partly just because I don’t want her to be dead). There’s theories that she may be trapped in the soul stone, possibly along with everyone who got dusted, which means that there may be a chance of getting her back in Avengers 4. I really hope so, cause I just can’t imagine another Guardians movie without her.

There’s probably a million and one other things left to say but I don’t want this review to drag on too long. You all saw the movie, you know how devastating it is, I don’t have to tell you.

RANKINGS:      Disclaimer: We’re considering the characters who went through the most change/development as ‘heroes’ and everyone else as ‘supporting.’ I’d love to sit down and rank every single character in this movie, but we’d be here all day.

     Hero(es): 8.5 Stormbreakers out of 10. This is Tony, Dr. Strange, Peter Quill, Gamora, Vision, Wanda, and Thor. All seven of these characters went through a ton of character development and growth, and come across as the real main characters. They all played off each other well (those that interacted, that is), and every one of them had to make some incredibly hard decisions that really reflected their heroism.

     Villain: 9.5 snaps out of 10. I mean, a villain always gets points when he’s easy to hate, and Thanos makes it soooo easy, omg. Like some others, his motivations actually make sense in a really twisted way and he’s not just trying to take over the world, which gets old. Plus, he actually succeeded in his goal! Can’t wait to see him get beaten to death in Avengers 4, fingers crossed.

     Supporting characters: 8 tuna melts out of 10. This is everyone but the seven mentioned above. Lots of the supporting characters provide a little comic relief in the more stressful moments. Just about every character plays some important role in the story and they all manage to work together to defeat Thanos.           Female characters: 7.5 Bechdels out of 10. This one kind of passes for a very brief interaction between Wanda, Natasha, and Proxima Midnight (Thanos’s evil daughter) on the battlefield in Wakanda. But we’ve established in the past that a movie can still be feminist whether or not it passes the Bechdel test. And this one still gets points for having multiple female characters who play crucial roles in the plot. Wanda and Gamora especially, as previously stated, are central characters. In fact, I think I read somewhere that Gamora actually gets the most screen time out of all the heroes, at something like 19 minutes.

     Action scenes: 10 punches out of 10. Nearly every MCU hero from the past ten years has to band together to fight Thanos and we get to see the full extent of everyone’s abilities. I especially love watching Dr. Strange and Wanda’s fighting techniques. Plus, the movie does a great job at balancing all the action by cutting back and forth between the different locations and giving us some reprieve from non-stop fighting.

     Stan Lee: 4 cameos out of 10. As Peter’s field trip bus driver, he delivers one of his best cameo lines: “What’s the matter, kids? You never seen a spaceship before?”

     Charisma: 8.5 points out of 10. This movie has some great themes of love and sacrifice. Multiple times one of the characters is forced to choose between a stone and a loved one (Thor and Loki, Gamora and Nebula, Wanda and Vision, etc.), and nearly every time, they choose their loved one. Thanos believes in sacrifice for the greater good, which is why he was willing to kill Gamora for the soul stone, but the heroes do not. Wanda is the only one who ends up sacrificing the one she loves (Vision) in order to destroy the mind stone, but she only does so under extreme duress and after exhausting every other option first. The running themes are very consistent, though I can’t say you leave the movie feeling good about anything, lol.

In total: 56 out of 65, so an 86%, which is actually higher than its Rotten Tomatoes score of 84%.

And that officially concludes the Great Marvel Rewatch of 2k18!! Thanks for following along, those of you who did! It’s been a fun, emotional, two weeks. Stay tuned for later, follow-up posts featuring a complete rankings list and possibly some other bonus materials! :)

[aion-rsa]

Loki Was Supposed To Die for Good in Thor: The Dark World and Avengers: Infinity War

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The Marvel Cinematic Universe just can’t seem to quit Tom Hiddleston as trickster God Loki. Both the actor and character he plays are returning for their seventh total Marvel project, the chronologically ambitious Disney+ procedural Loki, on June 9. 

In an interview Thursday with EW promoting the new series, however, Hiddleston and Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige revealed that the MCU did try to quit Loki several times throughout the franchise’s run. The God of Mischief was marked for death (for good) not once, but twice in the MCU.

As was previously reported, Loki was never intended to make it out of Thor: The Dark World alive. Loki’s death at the hands of Malekith and the Dark Elves was supposed to be permanent, closing off a story arc that began in the original Thor and continued with Loki as the big bad of the first team up film, The Avengers. Fortunately for Loki though, Hiddleston was just too convincing as a devious character for audiences to think he could be taken out so easily. Test audiences literally did not believe that Loki was really dead so the character was spared.

After a successful, largely redemptive arc in Taika Waititi’s Thor: Ragnarok, Loki made what Hiddleston thought would be his final appearance in Avengers: Infinity War, when Thanos crushes his neck in the film’s opening minutes. 

“It felt very, very final, and I thought, ‘Okay, that’s it. This is Loki’s final bow and a conclusive end to the Odinson saga,'” Hiddleston told EW. 

Loki would, of course, return for a brief scene in Avengers: Endgame, in which the team has gone back in time to the events of The Avengers to secure the Space Stone within the Tesseract. Though that earlier version of Loki escapes with the Tesseract, the scene was never intended to set up a Loki spinoff on television. 

“[That scene] was really more of a wrinkle so that one of the missions that the Avengers went on in Endgame could get screwed up and not go well, which is what required Cap and Tony to go further back in time to the ’70s,” Feige said.

It wasn’t until Disney CEO Bob Eiger approached Feige about developing Marvel TV shows for Disney+ that the new de facto Marvel showrunner realized there was an opportunity to continue Loki’s story.

For those keeping score at home, that represents two times that Loki was supposed to die definitively in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, before wriggling his way out of certain death. This guy is only seven more lives away from reaching cat status…which is probably why he’s one of Marvel’s cat people.

That EW piece is worth reading in its entirety for a look behind the scenes at how Marvel is developing its third, and potentially biggest, series. One item that’s particularly interesting to note is that Loki technically did die and stay dead in Avengers: Infinity War. It’s only the parallel 2012 timeline version of him that got away to live another day. 

This means that the Loki who underwent some redemption in Thor: Ragnarok and Avengers: Infinity War is no more. The Loki we’re set to meet on television hasn’t even endured the events of The Dark World yet! He’s a full three years away from the Cleveland Cavaliers winning the NBA Finals. I can only hope Loki’s Time Variance Authority chooses to keep that particular event as part of its Sacred Timeline. 

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Loki is set to premiere its first episode Wednesday, June 9 on Disney+.

The post Loki Was Supposed To Die for Good in Thor: The Dark World and Avengers: Infinity War appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[avelera]

Some next day thoughts about Thor 3: Ragnarok:

(cut for spoilers)

- At first I was a little jarred by the ending’s abruptness. But then I thought about it a bit more. Yes, as a movie ending, I still think it’s a bit too abrupt, I would have liked 5-10 more minutes to cover some of the dangling plotlines I’ll discuss further down. But then I realized that with all the Marvel movies out there, they’re likely going to be binge watched. So this format makes sense when you realize that this movie is only going to end there for about 1 year in its lifecycle. For the rest of its existence, viewers are just going to immediately go to or cue up either Black Panther or Infinity War, so it’s actually more like a very long TV or Netflix episode than a standalone movie in the traditional sense.

Nevertheless, some things I would like to have seen more resolution are:

- Bruce - They made a pretty big deal of the fact that if he ever switched back to the Hulk again, Bruce Banner may never come back. Now, most likely it’s not a dark enough movie series for that to be true. But still, the fact it was never brought up again after he transformed nags at me, I would have liked to see some concern from Thor & his crew over whether Banner is ok. Though I suppose some of that could be explained by Valkyrie knowing Hulk better, Thor “preferring” Hulk, and the fact that Hulk has now had enough time out in the world to actually be quite stable. It almost implies that Hulk was an infant, or an overly-caged animal so his unmanageability was purely because he wasn’t getting enough time to grow up or exercise. That being said, you’d think Loki would be a little more freaked out. And dammit, I’m worried for Bruce.

- Loki - Has shown a pathological inability to play well with others, pretty much since he learned he was adopted and from the stories of Thor 3 even before that. He is the ultimate little shit. The fact that he was shown peacefully going along with the good guys for even 5 minutes without stabbing Thor again or just causing mischief or fucking off from there gave me a weird feeling of cognitive dissonance. Like, this status quo has already lasted 5 minutes without someone actively trying to kill them, no way Loki is this patient. Then again, this was somewhat resolved by the post-credit scene of the other big ship appearing, since Loki will sometimes go along with things if a team up is required for survival, at least until he figures out how to join the other side.

Some other thoughts:

- Apparently Asgard has fewer people in it than your average shopping mall? Also none of them have the same superpowers as their royal or valkyrie elites? Apparently it is an anime land where if you don’t have a cool character design you don’t have powers, sorry guys, you’re all cannon fodder with as little ability to defend yourself as the average human and maybe less considering you have advanced magic and science sometimes but most of the time you don’t even have guns.

- Hela looks hella like Loki. I’m beginning to wonder if Thor is the adopted one here. Also wondering if, in a more serious moment, what impact Hela having once been Odin’s favorite child would have on Loki given their similarities? Some reflection by him on that point would be interesting.

- Also, wtf, are they gods, are they random aliens with delusions of grandeur, how do they embody concepts...? Thor’s lighting powers were SICK AS HELL AND I LOVED EVERY SECOND OF THAT FIGHT AND HOLY SHIT HE LOOKS AMAZING WITH THE ONE EYE GODDAMN but I’m just really confused from a lore/cosmology angle of what the fuck Asgardians are in the larger cosmos and as relates to Earth.

Some other good/GREAT things about the movie:

- Seeing that level of diversity was such a fucking relief like I didn’t need to brace myself or roll my eyes whenever anyone who wasn’t the Designated POC was shown as always white and usually male, it was actually wonderfully diverse and awesome wow thank you Taika. 

- (A little mad though that we didn’t get to see the Valkyrie bisexual scene, Disney is still really bad with dealing with LGBTQA+ stuff and this is another reason I fear the consolidation of all IP under The Mouse)

- Anyway, just in general, the directing, holy shit Taika Waititi is a master. 

- Like, the movie was 95% laughs and it’s really hard to transition an audience that was just laughing its asses off to a serious moment but every single serious moment hit like a punch in the gut. Like immediately. Holy shit. Odin’s death, Valkyrie’s flashback, the tiny micro-expressions of Loki and Thor dancing around what they really mean to each other these days, Banner’s identity crisis... my only complaint about any of those is that they didn’t last a little longer, but they were so efficiently done that I can’t really be mad about that. Their brevity matched the pacing of the film, and it’s only my fangirl heart that would have loved some long lingering over all the horrible Feels everyone is going through. Ah well, that’s what fanfic is for.

- That being said, it did feel like there was a couple moments and themes that could have used a little more attention, though the complaint here is minor. There is some serious fridge horror in Banner losing 2 years of his life. What about the people he killed under Hulk’s influence? What about the feeling he’s going to lose himself forever if he ever changes again, and him doing it anyway to help his friends? That was one theme that felt a little under served to me given the seriousness of the implications. 

- Hela was amazing omg. Like, it is hard to introduce a new villain that’s just magically better than everyone at everything and is also a stone cold badass woman. Somehow, somehow they managed it most likely through the immortal talent of Cate Blanchett. She was genuinely terrifying and genuinely felt like a member of their family, unlike some missing family member villains who just feel tacked on. 

- Though I will say I was a little surprised by the reluctant villainy of Karl Urban’s character. I expected him to be a more willing ally of Hela, his story was interesting in how he was basically just an opportunistic but otherwise loyal Asgardian trying to survive and I could have used a few more minutes of focus on him just to sort of pull his story together as more than just someone for Hela to talk to while shit is going down.

- Btw, SPEAKING OF HELA I’ve been saying for AGES that we should be reexamining what Thor being “worthy” is all about because it’s not necessarily the modern concept of good vs. evil. Given that Odin slaughtered his way across 9 realms then turned on the child who helped gain it for him, being “worthy” could literally just mean “able to kill the largest number of people efficiently” according to Odin.

- Uh, do any of our heroes have their powers anymore if they drew them from Asgard which is now a pile of rubble?

- But OMG WE’RE GETTING ASGARD ON EARTH YEEEESSSSSSS. Ok so one of my number one writerly influences, J. Michael Straczynski who also wrote Babylon 5 and Sense8, wrote a Thor comic about Asgard being reestablished on Earth and IT IS HILARIOUS AND WONDERFUL GUYS I am SO EXCITED to see Asgard planted in the middle of the goddamn MIDWEST this is going to be GREAT. Also Dr. Strange must be losing his shit right now HE ASKED THEM TO PLEASE LEAVE NOT BRING THEIR WHOLE PLANET HERE

- Oh, and on a total badwrong side note, I still ship the fuck out of Thor and Loki and I am sorry. I hate incest in general, blech, as a plot device but Loki definitely does not see Thor as a brother also they’re kinda not even human so for some reason that sneaks by my radar. But I’d dearly love to see some Thorki where they’re as snarky and antagonistic and sort of tragically doomed to always be messing with one another as was in Thor 3, and not like... wide-eyed tragic uke Loki or some such (not that that isn’t valid for writers to explore, I just DESPERATELY want some obnoxious-conniving-little-shit Loki and exasperated but actually able to keep the upper hand and occasionally tragically upset and annoyed that Loki just can’t stop being such a conniving little shit for five minutes and sit at the dinner table like a normal person goddamnit why can’t i quit you Thor... just saying). 

Honestly, that movie was just so much fucking fun, I need to see it again.