All in all it kind of feels like a self-imposed divide-and-conquer. The fact that Thanos struggled in some of those battles shows that he isn't really fully impervious, but the heroes split up and made it possible to be defeated.
Marvel Universe (Film) Discussion Thread - Page 8
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LegalLord
United Kingdom13774 Posts
All in all it kind of feels like a self-imposed divide-and-conquer. The fact that Thanos struggled in some of those battles shows that he isn't really fully impervious, but the heroes split up and made it possible to be defeated. | ||
Sentenal
United States12398 Posts
On May 09 2018 23:57 LegalLord wrote: You know, after thinking about it a bit more, the strategy of the heroes in this movie was really, really questionable. I'm not sure what they were going for. Of the separate little subplots, the only one that actually proved to be a constructive development was Thor getting his new weapon. Heading to Knowhere - a fight they couldn't win that just let Thanos take Gamora and gain a gem for free. Heading to Titan rather than changing course and making a last stand on Earth with the rest of the team? That just made the Earth battle a lot more difficult and gave Thanos the Time Gem, the one that made the biggest difference of all of them in terms of what he was actually able to do against the heroes. All in all it kind of feels like a self-imposed divide-and-conquer. The fact that Thanos struggled in some of those battles shows that he isn't really fully impervious, but the heroes split up and made it possible to be defeated. Meh, its not like really any of them knew what they were actually dealing with to formulate an effective strategy, aside from Gamora (and she and the Guardians wanted to try and get to Knowhere first, but didn't). Especially the ones from Earth, who only knew he was a big scary guy. | ||
LegalLord
United Kingdom13774 Posts
On May 10 2018 00:13 Sentenal wrote: Meh, its not like really any of them knew what they were actually dealing with to formulate an effective strategy, aside from Gamora (and she and the Guardians wanted to try and get to Knowhere first, but didn't). Especially the ones from Earth, who only knew he was a big scary guy. While there may be some truth to that, I don’t think “the heroes were incompetent and underestimated their opponent” is great storytelling, especially since nothing suggests that Thanos is a brilliant strategist or anything. He’s just powerful and has a tough military. And if stopping Thanos at Knowhere was the best strategy they had, man does that suck because that backfired about as much as you could expect. Not only failed to stop him but gifted him another gem knowing full well that that was a possibility. Was kind of a really bad risk. | ||
Pandemona
Charlie Sheens House51335 Posts
Anyway, i still prefer the comic book way this went with Thanos killing absolutely everyone "with ease" the way it should be, not nearly dying to Thor and his big axe with a bit of Groot's "body" on it per se xD In the next film i hope Ironman really gives the run around to Captain Marvel as well, he best make sure he is the boss or does his this is my bat and ball and goes home. | ||
DarkPlasmaBall
United States42223 Posts
On May 09 2018 23:43 Silvanel wrote: As to dying scenes i am of the opinion they were ok, when spidey was dying i was actually thinking "wtf why is this taking so long, be gone already". On the more funnier note every one in theater was so silent during that scene and i just wanted to clap and scream "GO THANOS". It took so long because Spiderman sensed it was coming. Remember, he senses danger ahead of time, so not only was his agony much longer than everyone else's (as everyone else didn't realize anything except during the five seconds it took for them to crumble), but Spiderman also sensed literally half the universe succumbing to the same fate. That's probably why everyone else was silent... Spiderman got screwed so frickin hard by having the superability that he had. Plus the fact that, true to his character in previous movies, he totally idolizes Tony Stark and feels like he let him down, making things even worse. | ||
DarkPlasmaBall
United States42223 Posts
On May 09 2018 23:57 LegalLord wrote: You know, after thinking about it a bit more, the strategy of the heroes in this movie was really, really questionable. I'm not sure what they were going for. Of the separate little subplots, the only one that actually proved to be a constructive development was Thor getting his new weapon. Heading to Knowhere - a fight they couldn't win that just let Thanos take Gamora and gain a gem for free. Heading to Titan rather than changing course and making a last stand on Earth with the rest of the team? That just made the Earth battle a lot more difficult and gave Thanos the Time Gem, the one that made the biggest difference of all of them in terms of what he was actually able to do against the heroes. All in all it kind of feels like a self-imposed divide-and-conquer. The fact that Thanos struggled in some of those battles shows that he isn't really fully impervious, but the heroes split up and made it possible to be defeated. They didn't need the rest of the team for Titan. They didn't need the rest of the team to beat Thanos. All they needed was for Star Lord to stay home sick that day. I agree with you about Knowhere, but bringing the fight to Earth on purpose, where other families/ loved ones could be directly hurt, wouldn't be ideal. | ||
Sentenal
United States12398 Posts
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LegalLord
United Kingdom13774 Posts
On May 10 2018 02:56 DarkPlasmaBall wrote: They didn't need the rest of the team for Titan. They didn't need the rest of the team to beat Thanos. All they needed was for Star Lord to stay home sick that day. I agree with you about Knowhere, but bringing the fight to Earth on purpose, where other families/ loved ones could be directly hurt, wouldn't be ideal. Starlord certainly jobbed. But if they didn't divide the team they wouldn't have even had to depend on him not jobbing to win. The fight was inevitably going to come to Earth (because of Vision, at the very least) and they certainly did have the benefit of being able to fight at a battleground of their choosing. Wakanda proved to be an extremely effective fortress to protect against the incoming threat, and if they had more heroes available to both fight the armies AND protect Vision, they would have had a much easier time of it all. It was fairly clear that Thanos and their army are very single-minded in pursuit of the infinity stones, so they would attack there if all the heroes clustered in that spot. Given how close they got with what they actually had, all the heroes together would have a very good chance against Thanos with just three stones. | ||
Sentenal
United States12398 Posts
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Acrofales
Spain17190 Posts
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Uldridge
Belgium4255 Posts
Why stay in Titan with 6 people? | ||
LegalLord
United Kingdom13774 Posts
On May 10 2018 03:43 Sentenal wrote: There is no doubt they could have had a better strategy. I simply reject the notion that if heroes don't always choose the best or ideal strategy, then they are somehow stupid or incompetent. Much less when such decisions are made under stress, pressure, and with very little intel or time for planning. The problem is a lack of communication and coordination, a recurring issue with the Avengers members. While that alone is an understandable weakness, it’s both been explored and addressed a fair bit throughout the series and just far too incidental in this specific movie to be so easily accepted. Wherever and however they chose to fight, they should have had a larger strategy coordinated for the task, but it was pretty much “every task force for themselves” here. Not great to see it happen again, and especially without any acknowledgement that that’s a reason why they lost. | ||
Sentenal
United States12398 Posts
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LegalLord
United Kingdom13774 Posts
The only direct reference to that problem I can recall is Stark saying “I’m not on speaking terms [with Cap]” which is hella flimsy because it’s clear he was even then just about ready to suck it up and make the call. | ||
Acrofales
Spain17190 Posts
On May 10 2018 05:08 LegalLord wrote: Was one of the core focuses of Avengers 1 as well. And it was trivialized here, in that it’s never addressed in any useful way; more so it’s just forgotten the way inconvenient plot points are forgotten between films in the MCU. Here, that’s more of a convenient handwave for the problem that is justified by appealing selectively to older films than by any actual themes of the current movie. The only direct reference to that problem I can recall is Stark saying “I’m not on speaking terms [with Cap]” which is hella flimsy because it’s clear he was even then just about ready to suck it up and make the call. Ok, but they had no idea Thor was alive, or who the guardians even were. Returning to earth would have made sense to get backup from captain and black panther (and Wong?), but strange and iron man are kinda in a different ballpark from them. They'd be great at holding off stooges while they tackle Thanos, but conveniently there were no stooges on Titan anyway, so... /shrug. Also, captain wouldn't have lost his cool over Gamora (only over Bucky), so that would have been GG right there. | ||
Leporello
United States2845 Posts
Isn't that a much bigger plot-hole than not making portals galaxies away? Or why didn't Tony Stark turn the ship around and fly back home?... Which doesn't even make sense to me. Tony doesn't know shit in this movie, why would he do that? Dr Strange and Tony are both largely victims of circumstance in this movie, they're not really deciding anything. Strategy is a weird word to use here. I think this movie, more than any other Marvel Studios to date, is why some comics are referred to as "mythological". The movie actually sets that tone pretty hard right at the start. Strategy or logistics aren't really things here, even if it is talked about. The movie is more about god vs god, who could deserve it, who wants it, why, etc. As for the Avengers being in discord, they kept that continuity well, and it's still there. It didn't resolve in 1 or 2 films, although LegalLord is seemingly forgetting the War Machine scene, where he ignores orders from that General to reunite with Captain America. I'd say that's a bigger reference than Tony's internal dilemma. I can't think of any scene where the movie just forgets the division happened. It's ongoing, and I think the movie made it pretty clear it's a huge problem. Tony is basically alone. He doesn't even have Vision. It's not a focus to the movie, because it... shouldn't be? Like, maybe they're saving some of that for when they're not all running for their lives and dying, but actually achieving some success? Or maybe not, maybe it's something they'll stitch together character-by-character, like they did with War Machine in this one. | ||
Sbrubbles
Brazil5763 Posts
Dr Strange's change of attitude from "I will not trade the stone for anyone's life including my own" (paraphrasing here) to giving it up without using it's power to save iron man is so blalant and so stark (see what I did there?) that it just can't be bad writing. It was deliberate.Given that it was deliberate, the question is when did he figure out that he had to willingly give up the time stone or, alternatively, when did he figure out that tony stark had to survive no matter what? If it was before the movie, then all actions by Dr. Strange (including agreeing to go fight Thanos in Titan) can be justified by saying that he was doing it to get everyone where they ended up, that is, in order to lose to Thanos in a specific way that will be justified in movie 2. Another thing that I noticed was kind of a throaway line when they get to Titan. Someone (Peter Quill or Tony Stark, I don't know) says something like "the axis is off by 5 degrees" while mantis jumps in the background. This got me thinking, maybe this throaway line is actually a point about Thanos: his beliefs are based quite a bit on the catastrophy that happened on his planet, and he thinks it could have been averted by culling half the population. This would delusional, though, because the environmental consequences of having the planet axis change by 8 degrees is catastrophic no matter what, and his people were doomed either way. The message being that tyrants can't be trusted even if they are genuine about both their beliefs and their benevolence, because there's always a good chance they are delusional. Or maybe the message is about reading too much into a throaway line | ||
WolfintheSheep
Canada14127 Posts
1) The Marvel Universe has a running theme of Tony waving his gigantic ego around and causing half the problems that the Avengers have to deal with. And his fallback has always been "I can do better next time", instead of "maybe I'm a moron". This movie was no different, so his actions were not shocking in the slightest. 2) The questions about a better strategy. Dr. Strange saw the future, and I think the overall point is that Thanos is so far beyond all of the other characters that they still would have lost. Their brief chance of winning on Titan was just taking the gauntlet away from him. Thanos is still the big-ass fucker that boxed the Hulk into submission. We don't actually know if Strange could open a portal all the way across galaxies to get the Gauntlet someplace safe, and Thanos thus far is the only person seen using the Infinity Stones as more than big sources of destructive power. End game is basically that Thanos uses the gauntlet and burns it out (the whole thing was busted and gone-dark after his genocide), which leads to... 3) My one complaint about this movie: could they have phoned in the reset button any harder? Of all the main cast that were killed off in the end sequence, Bucky is literally the only one without a slated sequel already announced. The next Avengers is obviously going to be the final swan-song of the original group (all of which are still alive), where hopefully we will see some permanent deaths that stick. | ||
DarkPlasmaBall
United States42223 Posts
On May 10 2018 15:46 WolfintheSheep wrote: Saw this tonight...so: 1) The Marvel Universe has a running theme of Tony waving his gigantic ego around and causing half the problems that the Avengers have to deal with. And his fallback has always been "I can do better next time", instead of "maybe I'm a moron". This movie was no different, so his actions were not shocking in the slightest. Can you elaborate on this, because I interpreted most of the character flaws* in the movie to other superheroes being too emotional, like how Captain America and Scarlet Witch aren't willing to sacrifice Vision (in fact, a lot of previous issues come from CA allowing destruction in the name of his selfish friendship with Bucky too) or Star Lord fucking everything up or the Hulk being too much of a sore loser to come out at all. *I understand that characters are allowed to have flaws, irrationalities, and other personal issues that permit them to make glaring mistakes. I just didn't see this movie as Iron Man specifically sabotaging it. | ||
Pandemona
Charlie Sheens House51335 Posts
So yeah, well played Thor you done goofed. On May 10 2018 15:46 WolfintheSheep wrote: Saw this tonight...so: 1) The Marvel Universe has a running theme of Tony waving his gigantic ego around and causing half the problems that the Avengers have to deal with. And his fallback has always been "I can do better next time", instead of "maybe I'm a moron". This movie was no different, so his actions were not shocking in the slightest. 2) The questions about a better strategy. Dr. Strange saw the future, and I think the overall point is that Thanos is so far beyond all of the other characters that they still would have lost. Their brief chance of winning on Titan was just taking the gauntlet away from him. Thanos is still the big-ass fucker that boxed the Hulk into submission. We don't actually know if Strange could open a portal all the way across galaxies to get the Gauntlet someplace safe, and Thanos thus far is the only person seen using the Infinity Stones as more than big sources of destructive power. End game is basically that Thanos uses the gauntlet and burns it out (the whole thing was busted and gone-dark after his genocide), which leads to... 3) My one complaint about this movie: could they have phoned in the reset button any harder? Of all the main cast that were killed off in the end sequence, Bucky is literally the only one without a slated sequel already announced. The next Avengers is obviously going to be the final swan-song of the original group (all of which are still alive), where hopefully we will see some permanent deaths that stick. The next movie is Captain Marvel who is going to be the one saving the universe and fixing everything in Avengers 4 and everyone will come back alive. It's going to be woeful | ||
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