Avengers: Infinity War

[thecolorsblend]

Strange how ten years ago the idea of a live action superhero team up was technically still a pipe dream. Now it's Tuesday.

I can deal with the character saturation in AIW though. It's an Avengers movie so it's an ensemble piece already. Going forward though, Marvel really does need to scale back the team ups and whatnot. It's getting a little tired.

[The Laughing Fish]

Strange how ten years ago the idea of a live action superhero team up was technically still a pipe dream. Now it's Tuesday.

I can deal with the character saturation in AIW though. It's an Avengers movie so it's an ensemble piece already. Going forward though, Marvel really does need to scale back the team ups and whatnot. It's getting a little tired.

I'm tired of Avengers movies altogether. The only one that really shone was the first one because, in many ways, it served as a sequel to the Iron Man, Captain America and Thor movies, with the other characters introduced in cameo roles. Let's face it, fewer characters resulted a more balanced screen time per each cast member, more or less. It doesn't mean Avengers 2012 is a cinematic masterpiece, but it resulted a much tighter story, in my opinion.

But the sequels are getting bloated with far too many characters, to the point it even undermines others. For example, the only reason why Ultron was much weaker in AOU was because he needed to create that vibranium body, which ultimately became Vision. Now as good as Vision was in that movie, I reckon it made Ultron less threatening than he should have been, and the film was already overstuffed with the introduction of Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver.

Infinity War, as I said before, was a mess. In retrospect, Guardians of the Galaxy are probably the worst thing to have ever happened to the MCU, including the half-assed introduction of Spider-Man. Even though I enjoyed the first one as a standalone, I couldn't stand Vol. 2 and the comedy has gotten progressively worse as time goes by. Spider-Man is nothing more but a gushing, pop culture referencing fool and brings absolutely nothing to the MCU, despite the hype and praise by the fanboys.

Which brings me to my next point: SPOILERS in white.

When in doubt, Marvel just happily turns characters into complete morons. The way Bruce Banner/Hulk was depicted in this film was utterly pathetic. Is THAT really the best you can do, Marvel? ? I understand Hulk was afraid after his defeat to Thanos with pride and ego badly damaged, which presumably and potentially allows him to have a character arc in the next movie, but that doesn't justify turning Banner, a troubled yet intelligent scientist into a bumbling buffoon. It got to a point where Shuri, T'Challa's sister, putting him in his place in how to treat the injured Vision, and all Banner could say is "um...we didn't really think of that before". This must be the worst performance I've ever seen from Mark Ruffalo. I've heard he was just as bad to watch in Ragnarok too, which makes me glad I never watched that rubbish. A massive backwards step from his first two Avengers appearances. Seriously, after watching Edward Norton's troubled take on the Hulk back in 2008, I would never have imagined Marvel would happily treat the character like a joke.

As for the ending. The marketing and the way Marvel Studios have announced their plans for future movies is exactly the same mistake that WB has made when announcing the DCEU's schedule in advance back in early 2016. To me, Superman's death didn't have a big emotional impact because the studio already spoiled his revival by announcing Justice League would be made. I'm not taking away Superman's death plotwise, it served as an important turning point for humanity embracing what it truly lost and helped Batman and Wonder Woman come out of their shells; I'm just talking about the media press taking away the emotion of the moment when it happened, at least for me.

The same thing happened here. It's already announced there would be sequels for Spider-Man, GOTG, Black Panther before IW, so their deaths didn't have an impact on me at all. Actually, I would've preferred if some of the original movie Avengers had perished instead, and the new additions like Doctor Strange, Black Panther, Scarlet Witch and so on have to carry on the legacy to get back at Thanos. It would've been more risky and imaginative. Instead, we have the 2012 team needing to regroup, but I just don't have any emotional investment for it. It does feel too safe for my liking.

[The Laughing Fish]

Speaking of the use of Thanos in "Infinity War", there's no way you can tell me that his motivation doesn't fly in the face of the "Courting Death" line at the end of Avengers 1, which I believe was from the comic book storyline where he literally wanted to court a female Death (hence killing billions being on the agenda in order to get her attention). Oh well, it was only a after-credits scene, I shouldn't be too hung up on it. Even though it was the audience's introduction to the character to begin with ....

I read The Infinity Gauntlet shortly after IW came out, and I totally get what you mean. Unfortunately, I think the storyline with Death would've been too macabre for mainstream audiences. And let's face it, Thanos suffering defeat because he feels he doesn't deserve such power deep down, would've likely earned a massive backlash and ridicule in this meme-obsessed culture we live in. Yes, that comic does a good job exploring how could a villain face defeat against all odds because of such psychological distress, but that level of character study isn't something audiences are interested in, I'm afraid. Like it or not, I think Marvel may have made the right decision to go for the character arc they chose for IW.

Speaking of Thanos in the comics, I read The Thanos Quest during the week - the prequel to The Infinity Gauntlet (both written by Jim Starlin), and basically the movie borrowed ideas from both comics. In TTQ, Thanos explores the universe to steal all the Infinity Gems from six Elders, which is similar to his hunt for the Infinity Stones in the movie. The Collector was the only Elder character who appeared in the movie, which Thanos gets the stone from, as he did in the comic. Another feature that was taken from TTQ was Thanos removing the Infinity Gem from a few of the Elders' foreheads, which was identical to the way he violently takes the Mind Stone off Vision's forehead in the movie. In TIG, the Silver Surfer crashed into Doctor Strange's house and warned him that Thanos was coming, in the movie, it's Bruce Banner instead. And last but not least, the finger snap is obviously taken from TIG.

I got to say, Drax the Destroyer in TIG is even dumber than the movie version we ended up getting. But at least he isn't as annoying compared to what we see of him in the last two movie appearances. I still can't fathom how this character had a good movie debut, only to regress ever since.

For all the comic influences in IW, it's a shame I found the movie to be an annoying, stupid waste of time. It's really become one of my least favourite MCU films, and that's saying something considering how much I disliked GOTG2 and Homecoming. This movie had not only made me lose interest in the sequel, but it made me lose interest in the future of the MCU.

[thecolorsblend]

There's no thread for the Captain Marvel movie and I'm too lazy (and risk-averse) to start one. But the tracking for CM is dropping noticeably. Originally, people who sound like they know their stuff were suggesting a $180'ish million opening weekend.

Now, though, the figure is closer to $100 million by some estimates.

The common denominator in all these different predictions is Brie Larson going full SJW/feminist in her media appearances related to the movie. Things have reached such a level that some outlets are predicting this could be the first Marvel movie since 2014 to under-perform.

The expression goes "Get woke, go broke". It seems to be coming true for CM.

[Silver Nemesis]

The producers have compared Captain Marvel to a nineties action movie, but so far I've seen nothing to support that analogy. Unless they're referring to Renny Harlin's The Long Kiss Goodnight (1996), which was a tongue-in-cheek female-led action movie set in the nineties and featuring Samuel L. Jackson as the heroine's sidekick. But Brie Larson is no Geena Davis. And banking this movie's success on a sanctimonious uncharismatic SJW like her could prove to be one of the biggest mistakes Marvel Studios has made.

Apparently she's already requesting fewer white males interview her while she's promoting the film:

"About a year ago, I started paying attention to what my press days looked like and the critics reviewing movies, and noticed it appeared to be overwhelmingly white male. So, I spoke to Dr Stacy Smith at the USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative, who put together a study to confirm that. Moving forward, I decided to make sure my press days were more inclusive."

https://www.cbr.com/captain-marvel-brie-larson-inclusive-press-days/

We know critics will champion Captain Marvel for political reasons, but will audiences be as supportive? I think that's going to depend on Larson – both in terms of how well she performs in the film, and how she behaves while promoting it.

[thecolorsblend]

I reserve the right to be wrong but I think White men are a bit fed up with being made into everybody's whipping boy. Considering how White male fans on YouTube are simply asking for non-politicized entertainment and then getting shouted down over it, I think it's a bit of a stretch to think there will be no consequences for Larson's statements.

With things like Ghostbusters 2016, Ocean's 8, The Last Jedi and, now, Captain Marvel, we've seen negative feedback loops where those associated with a movie attack White men, White men attack back, the movie's performance suffers, repeat. The difference in this case is that CM is obviously part of the MCU.

Importing a demonstrable bad publicity strategy into what has been heretofore a virtually untouchable Hollywood juggernaut is plain stupid.

[The Laughing Fish]

Speaking of Captain Marvel, there has been a lot of controversy over how it's getting reviewed on Rotten Tomatoes. Users have complained they've had difficulty trying to submit negative reviews for the movie on the website - some saying their reviews get deleted soon after.

It turns out that not only Rotten Tomatoes have been deleting negative reviews they perceive to be coming from "trolls", they've announced they're CHANGING their entire rating system because Captain Marvel was getting a very low "want-to-see" percentage ratio on the website. Apparently, the "not interested" ratings are no longer available on the website.

https://society-reviews.com/2019/02/25/rotten-tomatoes-changes-their-entire-rating-system-after-angry-captain-marvel-fans-complain/

If that's not all, Rotten Tomatoes is looking to manipulate audience feedback even further, with suggestions that it could "eventually tie into the Fandango ticket-purchasing system showing that a reviewer did indeed buy a ticket to that movie before they can review it." Fandango is the parent company that owns Rotten Tomatoes, which funnily enough, the current CEO used to work for Disney. Hmm. But putting that aside for a moment, what about all the users who live outside of the US that use the site, where Fandango isn't available in those markets?

https://society-reviews.com/2019/02/27/rotten-tomatoes-to-make-audience-reviews-more-difficult-following-captain-marvel-backlash/

The audience score for Captain Marvel is also coming under scrutiny. Originally it was around 30 something percent, but apparently it's now bumped up to 50-60%, as an effort by the website to crack down on they deem as fake reviews. Well, I found this particular video of somebody on Twitter who did a breakdown of the scores and claims the website is faking the aggregate audience score.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t52Og_NTH6Y&ab_channel=SCReviews

It gets even juicier when a critic admitted in an interview for SyFy podcast while on the subject of Captain Marvel and other things, acknowledges people in the industry submit fake positive reviews in order to keep their job in reviewing the next move by certain companies, and are forced to "pick their battles".

https://mobile.twitter.com/Dataracer117/status/1103524417190092800?fbclid=IwAR1T0Q90OSm5cHmsh6DsJ2qdr0VLyWVNrbrrjplAwDIpsZ_Xt0TglENs-To

The media have been cheerleading for Captain Marvel, and that includes those hacks from Rotten Tomatoes. I never thought that critics and that website had any credibility to begin with, but their transparent approach in trying to control the narrative behind the critical reception for this movie is rubbing people the wrong way, and making everybody open their eyes they can't be trusted. Some fans are saying they'll quit Marvel after Avengers: Endgame, others are saying they might even skip it. Time will tell if this negative reaction is coming from a minority of disgruntled fans or otherwise, but I doubt this will hurt MCU's next movie financially. Regardless, the MCU already lost goodwill with me awhile ago following the drop in quality of the most Phase 3, and Rotten Tomatoes can go to hell. Especially after they made a tasteless tweet ridiculing Affleck after he announced from his departure from playing Batman.

[The Laughing Fish]

A couple of more things to add: Rotten Tomatoes policing audience scores over an MCU movie is nothing new either. Let's not forget they deleted a lot of negative reviews for Black Panther because of alleged trolls trying to hurt the movie.

Finally, putting aside that controversy for a moment, Captain Marvel is coming under fire by some fans because it had apparently retconned a few things in the MCU i.e. how Nick Fury lost his eye, where he got the name of the Avengers Initiative from, and how he acquired the Tesseract. It's also complained by some fans that this movie makes it as if it's trying to undermine Steve Rogers as the most important Avenger to build up Carol Danvers. Most importantly, given that this movie is set in the 90s, I've seen some fans complaining that Nick Fury's co-operation with Carol as they fought the Skrulls, Kree or whoever contradicts his later statements in Avengers 1, where he explains Thor was the reason SHIELD began taking drastic measures with the Tesseract.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bj6yMYaQPrw&ab_channel=CharelduToit

Personally, I don't have an opinion about this, because I haven't watched Captain Marvel, and I have no desire to. But what catches my eye the most, is this video by a fan who claims Kevin Feige drank the SJW Kool-Aid, and fears the MCU is in trouble because Carol Danvers is expected to become the new face of the MCU.