In a way, the Avengers Endgame dilemma was even more compelling... the moral questions raised by Thanos were very complex, and he as a character was both horrifying but also very relatable at times. There were a couple moments during the movie where I could actually understand his perspective - and hated myself for it! I'm sure that was the intent of the filmmakers - the good acting also amplified that. But the 'Thanos' story was innovative - a twist in the genre I had never seen before... so I liked it for that alone.
Thanos was, to me, the most interesting MCU character.
But his plan was the stupidest "plan" I've ever seen. More than some moral questions, it raised the question of why is the plan so immeselly silly?
Thanos is presented as an intelligent, thoughtful and even sensitive guy, who thinks about and meditates on things, who speaks so calmly and deliberately, a philosopher and a scientist. They show how he mourns for those he has lost, to make him more humane; they show him explaining his motives, to make his actions feel thought-through and justified...
• He wants to help people, wants life to thrive.
• He gathers the stones that give him the power to change virtually anything, in this incredibly vast ever-expanding universe.
• His thought-out plan is to kill half of all life to achieve that...
• Human population in a hospitable environment can get back from a half of its amount to the full in somewhere between one or two generations. Some animals way faster, some not, aliens would probably be akin to humans.
→ So! Thanos does all of that so in just like 30 to 50 years, the population of the whole universe is back again where it was before the snap!!!
→ AND he destroys the stones! So he can't do the snap, or anything that could actually really help, again!!!
It's sooo stupid. :/
...Seems the filmmakers fell into a trap, they wanted a highly relatable AND super-intelligently imposing villain, AND needed to make that iconic comicbook snap moment, but couldn't pull it off, making it all work together.
Also, story-wise, I thought Endgame had a huge problem because the Thanos they were against was some different guy,
who had nothing to do with the events of Infinity War. It was a different person who had not made the snap, with no experience of fighting Avengers in Wakanda, killing Gamora, fighting Tony and others on Titan, etc. So in the whole 11 years/20+ films finale, they are fighting some
other guy.
I really liked the second act, the time-travel part of the film, that was done really well, IMO.
The third act battle was a huge mess, with badly structured stakes and badly done sense of topology. Felt all over the place and half-baked.
Every time I see something like that, I recall Jackson's Helms Deep or Pelennor Fields, where it's all done so greatly. Disney producers and directors sure as hell we not anywhere near the Jackson's mad lad creative explosion mind during his acme.
I'm curious how will Snyder's LotR-like scenes look in his JL.
Hmm Consona you called out Thor Ragnarok twice now. I understand your criticism that it's not a very original movie, but shouldn't you acknowledge that it was kind of a risky move at the cinematic-universe scale? They allowed a guy who had never directed a blockbuster film, to significantly reinvent the Thor character, just a year before that character was going to be a core protagonist in their big series finale smashup. I think DC would be more successful if they pulled more moves like that.
Risky? They made a big budget colorful action comedy, they knew MCU fans, "film critics" and general audience will love it to death. At that point, MCU was pushed through the media as "can't do wrong" for several years, and it was all so over-hyped.
To me, it feels like people eat up anything MCU throws at them and will call it a modern masterpiece no matter how shitty it is.
I tried to rewatch Ragnarok multiple times, the story is so boring, the humor so cringy, Hela is such a bland villain. There's like 2 great scenes in a 2 hour tiresome snorefest.
And I'm saying that as someone who liked some things from Taika before he joined Disney. But this was one of the most irritating experiences I've had in a cinema.
And seeing Thor in Infinity War made me dislike Ragnarok even more. IW has easily the best portrayal of Thor in MCU, IMO.