Author Topic: Avengers Infinity War: it begins  (Read 1683 times)

Arcana

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Avengers Infinity War: it begins
« on: February 13, 2017, 09:24:16 PM »
First Avengers Infinity War teaser: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAOzrChqmd0

Apparently they are shooting Infinity War and Infinity War 2: the not-sequel not-called-that back to back for a year, with most of the MCU cast shuffling in and out of production, meaning lots and lots of rumors and teasers as people pop in and out of production.

Non-spoiler spoiler from the official teaser: the Avengers definitely meet the Guardians of the Galaxy, and Spider-man is in there somewhere.

I gotta say, I know some people like the Marvel movies and some don't like them, some hate the DC movies and some like them, but I think Infinity War feels a lot more exciting than Justice League.  Marvel fans are genuinely excited about the start of production for Infinity War, like the Avengers were going to stand in line for the new iPhone 8 at the start of the movie or something.  Even hard core DC movie fans seem to be more anxious about Justice League than pumped up.  DC fans hope Justice League is good.  Marvel fans just know Infinity War will be good.

The Avengers movie was the big payoff for four years and six MCU movies that Iron Man first teased.  Infinity War is the super-big payoff for ten years and eighteen movies that The Avengers first teased.  I really wish DC wasn't in such a rush.  They are trying to do the equivalent of Marvel releasing Iron Man, then Civil War, then the Avengers movie back to back and in weird order.  That would have never worked for Marvel.  Marvel fans got to meet all the Avengers before the first Avengers movie, and each one of those movies was a strong enough movie stand alone to put the characters on a stable footing.  The Avengers movie already had a well-established "vocabulary."  That vocabulary supported Civil War in a way that BvS lacked.  And now Infinity War can reassemble the Avengers to face Thanos in a way that DC seems unwilling to have the patience to set up.

I find it interesting that Justice League will actually be almost face to face up against Thor: Ragnarok.  The entire Justice League will hit the theaters two weeks after Thor and the Hulk do.  Marvel has everything to gain and nothing to lose with that match up.  If Justice League does better box office and is reviewed strongly, well of course it did.  That was the entire Justice League against two Avengers, and not the two most important ones (Iron Man, Cap).  On the other hand, if Ragnarok holds its own against Justice League?  Six months later the Infinity War juggernaut lands.

doc7924

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Re: Avengers Infinity War: it begins
« Reply #1 on: February 13, 2017, 09:58:27 PM »
First Avengers Infinity War teaser: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAOzrChqmd0

Apparently they are shooting Infinity War and Infinity War 2: the not-sequel not-called-that back to back for a year, with most of the MCU cast shuffling in and out of production, meaning lots and lots of rumors and teasers as people pop in and out of production.

Non-spoiler spoiler from the official teaser: the Avengers definitely meet the Guardians of the Galaxy, and Spider-man is in there somewhere.

I gotta say, I know some people like the Marvel movies and some don't like them, some hate the DC movies and some like them, but I think Infinity War feels a lot more exciting than Justice League.  Marvel fans are genuinely excited about the start of production for Infinity War, like the Avengers were going to stand in line for the new iPhone 8 at the start of the movie or something.  Even hard core DC movie fans seem to be more anxious about Justice League than pumped up.  DC fans hope Justice League is good.  Marvel fans just know Infinity War will be good.

The Avengers movie was the big payoff for four years and six MCU movies that Iron Man first teased.  Infinity War is the super-big payoff for ten years and eighteen movies that The Avengers first teased.  I really wish DC wasn't in such a rush.  They are trying to do the equivalent of Marvel releasing Iron Man, then Civil War, then the Avengers movie back to back and in weird order.  That would have never worked for Marvel.  Marvel fans got to meet all the Avengers before the first Avengers movie, and each one of those movies was a strong enough movie stand alone to put the characters on a stable footing.  The Avengers movie already had a well-established "vocabulary."  That vocabulary supported Civil War in a way that BvS lacked.  And now Infinity War can reassemble the Avengers to face Thanos in a way that DC seems unwilling to have the patience to set up.

I find it interesting that Justice League will actually be almost face to face up against Thor: Ragnarok.  The entire Justice League will hit the theaters two weeks after Thor and the Hulk do.  Marvel has everything to gain and nothing to lose with that match up.  If Justice League does better box office and is reviewed strongly, well of course it did.  That was the entire Justice League against two Avengers, and not the two most important ones (Iron Man, Cap).  On the other hand, if Ragnarok holds its own against Justice League?  Six months later the Infinity War juggernaut lands.

I think the major problem with DC films is they lack fun. They are going too much for the dark, nasty, violent side of the DC Universe.
Marvel films have a nice balance to them. Serious and violent and nasty when they have to be, but at the same time they have some humor and little things that make it fun.

"Loki is my brother." "He killed hundreds of people and tried to take over the world." "Well, half-brother."

Plus DC is way behind the curve since Marvel has been setting up their film universe one hero at a time for the last 7 or 8 years, and then paying it off with stuff like Avengers and Civil War.

Its like DC is trying too hard and too to catch up to Marvel in films, and the films are suffering.

Marvel took Guardians of the Galaxy, an obscure title to the general public, and turned it into a big film success.
Even Ant-Man did decently.

DC tried Suicide Squad and failed miserably.


Arcana

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Re: Avengers Infinity War: it begins
« Reply #2 on: February 14, 2017, 12:16:21 AM »
I think the major problem with DC films is they lack fun. They are going too much for the dark, nasty, violent side of the DC Universe.

I think there's some truth to that, but I don't think that is the whole truth, or even the most important part.  The Nolan Batman movies are undoubtedly much darker and much more serious in tone than the MCU, but they do not suffer for that.

I think a more important issue is the MCU movies know what they want to be, and they strive to be that.  Their fans appreciate that and their detractors slam them for that, but they each have a specific viewpoint.  The Nolan Batman movies know what they want to be, and they generally achieve that.  The DC movies so far seem to me to not know what they want to be or at least don't adhere to that consistently.  Man of Steel actually starts with an interesting idea: Kal El as The Fugitive.  I could almost hear the theme from the Incredible Hulk tv show in my head when Clark starts hitchhiking after the oil rig disaster.  That's an interesting idea.

And then its abandoned for an alien invasion.  But then the notion that General Zod isn't a two-dimensional megalomaniac, that he was actually born and bred to protect Krypton and he's trying to recreate Krypton on Earth, because even though he hates the staid decadence of the Kryptonian leaders he's tragically just as much a slave to his own genetic programming, is another interesting idea.  And then that is mostly underdeveloped and eventually discarded.  Man of Steel is a lot like X3: The Last Stand.  There are these great individual moments in the movie that out of context you might think could be assembled into a great movie, but the missing context is truly missing: its just not there to connect them.

BvS is half of a good Batman movie connected to one quarter of a totally confused Superman movie punctuated with one Batman vs Superman fight that makes no sense and one pseudo-Justice League vs Doomsday fight that has no build up to it and is thus narratively wasted.  I think an injection of fun would not have materially improved BvS.

Vee

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Re: Avengers Infinity War: it begins
« Reply #3 on: February 14, 2017, 04:29:02 AM »
Completely agree with Arcana. And if Suicide Squad is any indication I think we might be better off with DC not trying to inject fun.

CG

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Re: Avengers Infinity War: it begins
« Reply #4 on: February 14, 2017, 02:30:06 PM »
I watched an interesting video about this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38Cy_Qlh7VM

Basically, the author's thesis is that the problem isn't that BvS is dark, but that Snyder chooses to make Moments instead of Scenes.  Moments are where you slo-mo in on some individual shot, whereas scenes are longer and let you get into the characters, environments and plot.  Movies are built on scenes and the awesome moments are awesome because of context provided by the scenes.

There are lots of other problems with the movie, but I thought this was an interesting perspective.

Arcana

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Re: Avengers Infinity War: it begins
« Reply #5 on: February 14, 2017, 09:09:10 PM »
I watched an interesting video about this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38Cy_Qlh7VM

Basically, the author's thesis is that the problem isn't that BvS is dark, but that Snyder chooses to make Moments instead of Scenes.  Moments are where you slo-mo in on some individual shot, whereas scenes are longer and let you get into the characters, environments and plot.  Movies are built on scenes and the awesome moments are awesome because of context provided by the scenes.

There are lots of other problems with the movie, but I thought this was an interesting perspective.

I saw that, and I agree.  Across Snyder's filmography, from 300 to Watchmen to Sucker Punch to Man of Steel, you see that Zack sees his movies as sequences of Epic Moments.  I call it "story-board-itis."  Its like Snyder turned his concept art into an HD set of animated gifs.  The scene at the end of BvS where Wonder Woman lassos Doomsday, Batman hits him with the Kryptonite, and then Superman swoops in with the kryptonite spear is actually a wonderfully shot scene.  Its also totally nonsensical.  But it is beautiful to watch.  If you only saw that one scene, you'd wonder what led up to that climax.  Its actually a better scene if you don't know.

Let me switch gears.  Why am I excited about Infinity War?  Partially its because I believe Marvel for the most part has done well.  I think when they stumble, as they did with Age of Ultron, its still not bad, and when they score, as they did with Avengers and Civil War, they do really well.  But I also have some specific reasons to be excited about Infinity War.  I remember when the first X-Men movie was in production.  What I remember being most hopeful about was that the director was Brian Singer.  And that made me hopeful because Brian Singer was the director of one of the best ensemble movies of that time: The Usual Suspects.  The X-Men was a novelty; superhero movies up to that point focused on *a* superhero, like Spiderman.  Could you make a superhero movie about a team?  I thought if anyone could crack that nut it was Singer, and I think he did a good job with that.  Perhaps that was part of his problem with Superman Returns: Singer does better when his main characters have someone to consistently play off of.  Clark doesn't really have that in Returns.

What I see from the Russos in Winter Soldier and Civil War is that the brothers know how to balance story and action.  They know how to give the characters their moments in the sun.  And most importantly, I believe, almost all of the action in Winter Soldier and Civil War is part of the story, not stand alone set pieces.  The characters don't disappear into the action, they express themselves with the action.  I fell in love with Winter Soldier when Rogers asks if anyone wanted to get out of the elevator, just before he knew they were all going to try to jump him.  I think its very interesting that the enormous airport fight scene in Civil War is not the climax of the movie, it is actually the turn of the movie when it switches gears to execute the end game.  The actual climax is a much more intimate but important fight between Iron Man and Captain America.  That fight is about something, just like the fight at the airport is about something, just like the chase in the streets is about something.

These aren't perfect movies, but I think the Russos know how to make big action scenes mean something.  Not everyone agrees, but I think Infinity War has a real chance to deliver on being worthy of all the build up of the Marvel movies, because the movie(s) are in the hands of directors that understand the epic moments have to serve the larger story: that there actually has to be a larger story.

One more thing.  Remember what Coulson said to Fury, just before he "died" in the first Avengers movie?  He said "this was never going to work unless they had something to [avenge]..."  The team is not called the protectors, or the defenders, or the warriors.  They are the Avengers.  Why is that?  I think it is because these guys are so strong and so powerful, they can be protectors or defenders or warriors on their own.  That's what they do in a normal day.  And they each have their own way of doing things, their own strengths, their own perspectives, their own redlines of behavior, their own codes of conduct.  Day to day, week to week, year to year, getting them all on the same page constantly was probably always doomed to failure.  The only thing that could bring them together is something so awful, so devastating, so obviously beyond any one of them, that they could set everything aside to work together.  Coulson understood perhaps better than Nick Fury that the Avengers only really work when there is an existential threat that leaves no doubt it would take all of the might of the Avengers to even have a chance to stop them.  The Avengers have to *react* to something horrible.  That's what sets the stakes.  I think that's what made the first Avengers movie work, and what was somewhat missing from the second one.  I think Infinity War is designed to return to that concept, with the Avengers fractured and dispersed and even distrustful of each other.  And then along comes Thanos, and the Infinity Gauntlet.  I think we will actually get to see the Infinity Gauntlet in action.  We have to.  Because the Avengers won't respond to the theoretical threat of Thanos.  They have to Avenge his victims.