So, are we ready to talk about this?
My first comment is that it didn't feel like a three-hour movie -- it felt like they packed four hours of story into it. I felt sometimes like I was drinking out of a firehose. Maybe it was because I loved just about everything. Here's my firehose of comments:
OK, I've wandered into mindless speculation territory. What did y'all think?
Tags:
Drat! I started to write my response and lost it! I'll try writing again in another program and post it!
I loved this. It was a perfect capper to this phase, and it's clear that things will look different from here on out. That's a perfectly fine thing, and I look forward to it.
I think it quite telling that after so much anticipation there is very little discussion or debate being added to your opening statements Captain.
For once I think we all agree!
You summed up all the good, all the intriguing and all the (slightly) annoying - and we ALL feel the same.
This movie delivered an almost unique state of affairs - we all loved it and we all agree we did!!
(IMHO!)
Let's try this again ...
I saw Avengers: Endgame last night two nights ago. Some very random and out-of-order thoughts:
I saw a commercial for this movie which claimed Avengers: Endgame had the best opening weekend of all time. How can they make such a claim? How far into the future did they look? I’m sure some film will earn more money sometime. It probably had only the best opening weekend of all time so far.
Some additional thoughts:
ClarkKent_DC said:
- Another: during the climactic battle when the good guys are playing keepaway with
the McGuffinthe Infinity Gauntlet, we get Okoye, the Scarlet Witch, Shuri, Valkrie, Nebula, Gamora, Mantis, the Wasp and Captain Marvel line up(!) and let Spider-Man know, We got this. (Too bad the Scarlet Witch wasn’t there.)
Forgot to mention Pepper Potts was in that lineup.
Captain Comics said:
- Surprised they chose to kill Black Widow, and disappointed that it was in exactly the same way as Gamora. I could have gone for a new approach to obtaining the Soul Stone -- I mean, surely the Avengers are more creative problem-solvers than Thanos. But I suspect that it will play into the Black Widow movie in some way, and establish a replacement Widow. (Either Yelena "Black Widow II" Belova or a re-cast of Natasha.)
- And my first thought when Widow was killed was "Damn. Should have been Hawkeye." I'm sorry, but Natasha was interesting, and Hawkeye is not. (Oh, how odd, he's a family man! Yes, odd for a superhero -- but not interesting.) Also, I loved Jeremy Renner in American Hustle, but man, is he unattractive. If nothing else, I'd rather look at Scarlett Johansson.
Since I have seen the movie I can now look at spoilers and commentary. Like this piece from The Washington Post: "This ‘Avengers: Endgame’ Battle Scene Captures Marvel's Tricky Relationship With Female Heroes." The writer doesn't use the term, but she argues that the Black Widow's demise was a case of Women in Refrigerators:
Sonia Rao said:
Black Widow doesn’t join the #girlgang because she can’t. When she and Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) travel back in time to retrieve the Soul Stone from the planet Vormir, they learn, as Thanos and Gamora did in “Infinity War,” that one of them must sacrifice their life in exchange for the stone.
They first duke it out verbally, with Hawkeye arguing that he doesn’t deserve to live because of the murder rampage he carried out as Ronin after Thanos’s snap killed his wife and children. But when the tussle eventually leaves the pair dangling off the edge of a cliff, Black Widow implores her friend to let her go. She says the Avengers are the only family she’s ever had, so she owes it to them to do “whatever it takes.” (There’s also an implication that Hawkeye should go on living because he has a family — a bit icky, given the “Age of Ultron” revelation that Black Widow is unable to bear children.)
Black Widow spends the first half of “Endgame” establishing herself as an essential member of the team; she is the only one who remains steadfast in her mission to reverse the damage Thanos did, a display of grief that develops the character as other MCU films have only briefly done through glimpses of her former assassin life. But in death, she is once again reduced to a secondary character. The Avengers grieve Black Widow, but the loss primarily serves to motivate them, whereas other endings — such as the death of Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.), who also sacrifices himself, or Captain America (Chris Evans) getting to grow old with the love of his life — carry an emotional heft that satisfyingly completes the character arcs.
Loved your comments, CK!
CK: The writer doesn't use the term, but she argues that the Black Widow's demise was a case of Women in Refrigerators:
Yeah, killing off the Widow has some WIF overtones. And no funeral? We got two brief convos about her death (between Hulk and Cap, and Wanda and Clint) where I don't even remember her name being specifically mentioned.
CK: A while back, there was an Internet petition going around that the filmmakers should make a trailer with Ant-Man’s fast-talking buddy Luís doing a recap of the 22 previous MCU movies, in his own inimitable way, to help viewers get up to speed.
I would pay good, cash money to see that.
CK: we get Okoye, the Scarlet Witch, Shuri, Valkrie, Nebula, Gamora, Mantis, the Wasp and Captain Marvel line up(!) and let Spider-Man know, We got this.
That shot felt forced and pandering to me, but I would love to see the next Avengers movie take advantage of all those women. The movie doesn't have to be A-Force, but if the team was mostly female then most scenes would naturally be mostly (or all female). The next "Big 6" could be Captain Marvel, Wasp, Scarlet Witch, Shuri (in Panther armor), Valkyrie and Cap/Falcon. Oh, and Ant-Man as comedy relief/mascot.
Rescue is also available, but Paltrow says she's done, so probably not. Jessica Jones, Medusa and Colleen Wing/Misty Knight are established, although they're Marvel TV and not Marvel Films. Still, a mostly-female Avengers team could form organically, at least for a little while.
CK: When it’s time to get the band back together, and we meet Bruce Banner – and he’s Intelligent Hulk! (I didn’t understand why he needed glasses, though.)
I wondered about that, too. But as a guy heading for cataract surgery, I'm well aware that the causes of presbyopia, myopia and astigmatism have nothing to do with how strong you are. So I have rationalized that he needs readers because having big, strong eyes doesn't mean you can read tiny print well.
CK: but I thought it was shades of those Gardner Fox Justice League of America stories where he put Superman and Green Lantern out of commission on page 2 because if they participated in the adventure the story would be over on page 3.
They also sidelined the Hulk for most of the final big battle so that the Cap, Shellhead and Thor could have their (last) moment in the sun together.
CK: We spoke to a friend who saw the movie a week ago. Our friend said there was applause.
There was tons of applause at my showing, the first Saturday night (sold out, of course). I missed a lot of dialogue as a result, but I didn't mind.
CK: “I can do this all day.”
And then current Cap's exasperated response: "I know."
CK: It was noticeable that the movie spent a lot of time showing Stark alone with Morgan, and not with Stark, Pepper and Morgan together. I don’t think we ever did see all three of them together in a scene.
It was so noticeable that I noticed it. There were so many opportunities for Pepper to show up while Morgan and Tony were fooling around, and then she didn't, I began to think her contract was up and she wasn't going to show. Then she did, but without Morgan. Then Morgan and Pepper are together at the end, but Tony is dead. WTF?
CK: The movie also drove home the bond between Stark and Peter Parker. One of the better moves the Marvel Cinematic Universe made was setting those two up as surrogate father and son.
It seems to me that in the MCU, Tony is a stand-in for Uncle Ben.
I don't know if this is anything official, but has anyone else noticed that there are two separate Spidey supporting casts since the MCU/Sony deal? The Andrew Garfield/Tobey Maguire movies had J. Jonah Jameson, Harry Osborn, Mary Jane and Gwen Stacy, but none of those characters are in the MCU/Sony movies, which have instead Liz Allan, Flash Thompson, and some new characters. The villains from the Garfield/Maguire movies also no-shows at Marvel. The only holdover is Aunt May, who is sort of unavoidable. Does anyone know why this is? Is it part of the contract? Or is it just a way to make a clean reboot?
CK: My friend who saw Endgame before I did said he was expecting a moment where Thor got his act together, summoned the lightning, and was restored to his magnficent, god-like physique with six-pack abs, and was a little surprised it didn’t happen.
That thought flashed across my mind early, but I dismissed it -- it would be too cheap an out, and insulting to people struggling with weight. And the hammer doesn't say anything about "six-pack abs," just "the power of Thor." But when he did summon the lightning, he did suddenly have better grooming -- his hair and beard suddenly had braids!
There were assorted things I liked about the movie, but on the whole it's much weaker than INFINITY WAR. I think it's because the people behind the cameras knew that they were going to make a buttload of money no matter what they did, so they felt free to drop a lot of major plotlines (why was the Hulk unwilling to come out of Banner, how did the surviving Asgardians end up on Earth).
I've always opposed the concept of "women in refrigerators" because as stated by Gail Simone it ignores context. I can see women readers getting cheesed off by badly executed deaths or incoherent storylines. But WIR lumps together every story that involves "dis-empowerment" of women, so that even a good story like the original Phoenix continuity would fall under its aegis.
Now, I'm with the Captain in saying that on the emotional level, I'd rather have seen Hawkeye buy it than the Widow. The script puts out there that Hawkeye essentially becomes a version of the Punisher, randomly murdering criminals, and so there's some justification for him to want to pay for his (vigilante) crimes and sacrifice himself. Now, MAYBE a skillful script could have convinced me that BW had more gore on her conscience, and therefore she thought she deserved termination more-- but the movie didn't sell that. An alternate way to go would've been to establish that she had a relationship with Hawkeye's family and wanted them to survive, since BW could never have one of her own. But I don't think that was even suggested.
It's funny, though, that anyone would bring up WIR, since ENDGAME is so rife with shout-outs to feminine empowerment. Maybe that's the real reason they shafted BW: they had to make way for crude feminist icons like Valkyrie and the "Marvel that dare not speak her superhero name."
Did not like Fat Thor or Professor Hulk.
A.) Who is the "Marvel that dare not speak her superhero name"? I must have missed out on that one.
B.) I was fine with Fat Thor, but I LOVED Professor Hulk!
Gene Phillips said:
"Marvel that dare not speak her superhero name."
Did not like Fat Thor or Professor Hulk.
Gene Phillips said:
There were assorted things I liked about the movie, but on the whole it's much weaker than INFINITY WAR. I think it's because the people behind the cameras knew that they were going to make a buttload of money no matter what they did, so they felt free to drop a lot of major plotlines (why was the Hulk unwilling to come out of Banner, how did the surviving Asgardians end up on Earth).
I'm inclined to cut them some slack on this. I don't think the people behind the cameras went in for lazy storytelling (even though they were going to make a buttload of money no matter what they did), but, rather, took some narrative shortcuts because they didn't want a three-hour movie to be a four-hour movie.
Like the surviving Asgardians on Earth. Thor: Ragnarok ended with them searching for a new home; Avengers: Endgame revealed their new home was Earth. Really, where else were they going to go?
As for the Hulk being unwilling to come out of Banner, I thought it was pretty clear in Avengers: Infinity War he was scared of getting his butt kicked, because Thanos actually did just that -- and that was something that had never happened to him before. Exploring how he got over that and became Professor Hulk would take another movie, and it could be an interesting one ...
... but Mark Ruffalo has said many times another solo Hulk movie can't happen because of a rights snafu with Universal, which produced Hulk with Eric Bana and The Incredible Hulk with Ed Norton. Why Universal can't reach a deal with Marvel the way Sony did with Spider-Man is one of those things that keeps lawyers busy at work.
Gene Phillips said:
Now, I'm with the Captain in saying that on the emotional level, I'd rather have seen Hawkeye buy it than the Widow. The script puts out there that Hawkeye essentially becomes a version of the Punisher, randomly murdering criminals, and so there's some justification for him to want to pay for his (vigilante) crimes and sacrifice himself. Now, MAYBE a skillful script could have convinced me that BW had more gore on her conscience, and therefore she thought she deserved termination more-- but the movie didn't sell that. An alternate way to go would've been to establish that she had a relationship with Hawkeye's family and wanted them to survive, since BW could never have one of her own. But I don't think that was even suggested.
Can't argue with you there.
Captain Comics said:
I don't know if this is anything official, but has anyone else noticed that there are two separate Spidey supporting casts since the MCU/Sony deal? The Andrew Garfield/Tobey Maguire movies had J. Jonah Jameson, Harry Osborn, Mary Jane and Gwen Stacy, but none of those characters are in the MCU/Sony movies, which have instead Liz Allan, Flash Thompson, and some new characters. The villains from the Garfield/Maguire movies also no-shows at Marvel. The only holdover is Aunt May, who is sort of unavoidable. Does anyone know why this is? Is it part of the contract? Or is it just a way to make a clean reboot?
I've never seen anything official, but I figure the first Andrew Garfield Spider-Man movie left out J. Jonah Jameson, Mary Jane Watson and Harry Osborn (Osborn was in the second one) because they had to show they were different to justify existing at all, a mere five years after Spider-Man 3 in 2007.
And I think the Tom Holland movie is going out of its way to tell us This Is Not Your Father's Spider-Man. Certainly, if I was reinventing Spider-Man for the 21st century, I would excise the whole business of Peter Parker selling photos of Spider-Man to the newspaper that uses them only to trash his reputation. I can't imagine it would ever enter a modern teenager's mind to sell pictures to the newspaper. The Sony movies have it right: Peter Parker posts videos on a YouTube channel.
Also, the MCU/Sony movies borrow from Ultimate Spider-Man, putting Parker in high school, not college, and giving him a multi-culti supporting cast. I'm okay with that, except for them irritatingly renaming Ganke Lee -- who was borrowed from Ultimate Comics Spider-Man -- "Ned Leeds." Why go out of your way to find an actor who is perfectly cast in the role, and give the character the wrong name? (It's as annoying as casting somebody to play Ron Troupe in Supergirl and calling him "James (Not Jimmy) Olsen.")
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