Avengers: Endgame SEEN IT thread - SPOILERS AHOY!

[Banquet_Bear]

@MaxTheVool

My problem with the scene is not that we got a fist pumping moment of specifically female awesomeness (which could super-easily have been achieved in various other ways) or even a fist pumping moment of specifically female working-together awesomeness (probably somewhat tougher to organically write into the middle of a huge battle, particularly if you want them all to be working together as one unit); it’s that it’s logistically so ridiculous that it did (and continues to do so) take me somewhat out of the movie.

…and as I said earlier it was logistically ridiculous when Stark and Parker happened to run into each other and have an emotional moment. And it was logistically ridiculous that Peter Quill got rescued then hilariously kneed by Gamora. The Avengers movies are full of logistically ridiculous moments. As has been pointed out what happens to the planet when 50% of the population returns after five years of absence? How exactly does the mechanism of time-travel work in this universe?

So… there’s this huge battle, with lots of fog of war and confusion. At one moment on one place on the huge battlefield there is (ignoring the question of whether Captain Marvel should need help or not) a need for help. And, instantaneously, every single female hero from all over the battlefield, wherever they had been, whatever they had been doing, whoever they had been fighting; and NONE of the male heroes, no matter how near-by; all arrive in exactly the same place at exactly the same time to provide that help?

Or perhaps the heroes weren’t as spread out as we imagined. I mean Peter and Tony found each other. As did Gamora and Starlord. Thanos blasted Captain Marvel out of the sky and she happened to land right next to Stark and co. Perhaps the heroes were all fighting right next to each other.

Perhaps the women on the battlefield (just like in real life) were looking out for each other, had each others backs, and when the call went out they responded.

It really isn’t that hard to imagine how this happened. If you can wave away all the other ridiculous moments in the movie it is pretty easy to wave away this one as well.

It’s just silly. And yes, other silly things happen. For instance, the “characters always have time to have a heartfelt conversation and/or quips, even in the middle of an intense battle” cliche. I suppose that I’ve grown desensitized to them, because they’re so much part of the language of blockbuster action moviemaking. Whereas the “all the women from all across the battlefield, despite working happily with their male counterparts before and after this one moment, suddenly work together for one single gender-segregated mission” trope is not yet particularly common.

Well I’m afraid then you are just going to have to get used to it. We’ve been desensitized to the language of blockbuster action moviemaking where men (more often than not, white men) from all across the battlefield suddenly work together for one single “gender-segregated mission”. That trope is so particularly common nobody complains about it. If you hadn’t noticed its the default, its because it almost never happens in any other way.

But the language of blockbuster action moviemaking is changing. The language of blockbuster action moviemaking was written by white men. Do you know how many movies with budgets over 100 million have been given to woman directors? Nine. The first one was Kathryn Bigalow in 2002. The next wasn’t until 2011 with Jennifer Yuh Nelson and Kung Fu Panda. Lana and Lilly Wachowski in 2012. Patty Jenkins in 2017. Ava DuVernay was the first black woman to get a budget over 100 million and that didn’t happen until 2018.

And out of all of those movies only Wonder Woman and Captain Marvel (which was co-directed by a man) would fit what one would call a “blockbuster action movie.” Two movies in the entire history of film.

So when you talk about the “language of blockbuster filmmaking” you are talking about movies that have been made by white-men that pandered to white men. Which is why Black Panther was so successful. Which is why Captain Marvel broke a billion dollars. Because there are millions of people out there who hadn’t been pandered too that finally are starting to get movies that are pandering to them, we are getting a chance to see people who looked and acted like them onscreen. When I finally watched the movie Moana the other day I was literally in tears for the first twenty minutes of the movie. It was overwhelming. When Hollywood has never pandered to you but then they put people on screen that look like you and sound like you it makes all the difference in the world.

Which is why Captain Marvel sparked such a backlash from the goobers and why so many reviewers missed the subtleties and the nuances in the plotting: the movie didn’t pander to them.

And its why this moment: that only last a few seconds onscreen, didn’t work for everyone. It didn’t fit the cinematic language you are used too, it didn’t pander to your expectations.

Would I have objected just as much if it had been men? Hard to say, it’s literally never happened…

LOL

at least with a cast of this scale, with as many individual bad-ass male AND female characters, such that a sudden assembling of all the bad-ass male characters and specifically none of the bad-ass female characters would be so noticeable.

There has never been a movie with a cast of this scale in the history of filmmaking. There has never been as many individual bad-ass male AND female characters put to film together EVER. DIVERSITY ONSCREEN IS NOT THE DEFAULT. The first Avengers movie had a token woman who had no super powers. What happened in this Endgame wasn’t just an evolution, it was a revolution. It was a declarative statement. Phase 3 is ending. Welcome to Phase 4.

(Obviously there have been plenty of movies in the past with tons of bad-ass male characters and NO bad-ass female characters, but that’s not really a meaningful comparison.)

Oh come on. Of course it is a meaningful comparison.

To repeat myself from earlier:
As for the women-team-up scene, after a few hours of pondering, I’ve realized how I would do it, which would also solve another minor problem, which is that Thanos’s chief minions, who were quite serious mini-bosses in their own right last movie, barely registered.

Yeah, but I don’t want to see your movie. I preferred what I saw.

So one of the (male) minions is fighting one of the female good guys. They trade blows, then he gets the upper hand, and makes a derisive sexist comment, calling her a little girl, or something. Then we do a series of camera cuts all around the battlefield as triumphant music plays, showing all the female heroes kicking ass, ending back at the initial fight, and she responds with a one liner like “I’m not a girl, I’m a woman” (but more funny) and dodges his death blow and chops his ass in half.

This would have been far worse in my opinion. It frames the moment once again by something a man has done, while the moment in the movie is framed around agency and solidarity. It would have taken longer to show this onscreen. There are valid production reasons why they did the scene as they did. It would have framed it around a single battle with a mook instead of the final hit on Thanos before the endgame.

Same general celebratory effect, makes way more sense.

Makes more sense to you, but its effectively adding another subplot to an already overstuffed movie. None of the mooks spoke in the battle. But to set this up you’ve got to have a talking mook. The only mook that wouldn’t need a set-up is Ebony Maw, but having Ebony say a derisive sexist comment would be out of character. Its perfectly possible to do have filmed the scene as you suggest, but it involves adding a completely new plot beat, where as filmed its all about stopping Thanos getting the gauntlet.

But regardless: the men raging across the internet over the scene as shot they would be raging over your scene as well. It wouldn’t make any difference to them.

[Just1Lurk]

@muldoonthief

You can say that all you want, but it’s just not supported by the evidence.

Here’s Tony killing Savin and making a quip about it.

Here’s Tony attempting to kill Killian, though Pepper had to finish him off afterwards.

Here’s Tony killing Ebony Maw. with another quip.

So claiming that Tony won’t kill Thanos, Ebony Maw & the rest of the Black Order, and thousands of mindless vicious outriders, who are all intent on killing ALL OF HUMANITY, because “it troubles him greatly” is preposterous.

I don’t think Tony has a problem with killing bad guys, but he is very much bothered by innocent people dying.

1. Once he finds out his weapons are being sold to terrorists, he gets out of weapons manufacture immediately. This despite the harm it causes to his company.
2. In age of Ultron, he sends the Iron Legion to protect civilians.
3. Surely part of his motivation to create Ultron at all is to reconcile his powerful desire to protect people with his equally powerful desire to avoid responsibility. And when Ultron proves to be a threat, Tony takes responsibility and acts.
4. In Civil War, he agrees to the Sokovia accords basically because one innocent life was lost. Steve Rogers is more comfortable with the idea of collateral damage than Tony is.

But Thanos’ army? Dusted, no problem. And I can easily see him including a “No Hurting Innocents” proviso in the snap.

As for the movie, loved it. I recognized the A Force scene for what is was, but wasn’t bothered by it. I think the movie could have been improved by cutting out five minutes or so, and the older I get the more I wish they would bring back intermissions. I also would have liked them have done more with Thanos’ resurrected minions (like Tony killing Ebony Maw again), but that’s just minor quibbling. I”m definitely going to see it again.

[galen_ubal]

@AK84

Nothing which suggests that it was a secret. He presumably used an assumed name.
Plus, he is 12 years older than Steve Rogers was back I. ‘45 when he “died”.
People won’t necessarily make the connection beyond “resembles jacked Steve Rogers”.
His Sharon Carter interactions will be awkward though.

In films and in the Agent Carter series, the identity and picture of her husband is never revealed. It was one of the lingering questions in the series. And it was not definitively answered, before it ended.
The show was cancelled in early 2016, right after the storylines for what became Infiniti War & Endgame were written.
I presume it’s not a coincidence.

Bear in mind, Peggy was in the SSR/SHIELD - setting up a false identity would have been a doddle for her. (Credit to my wife for thinking that up).

[DPRK]

Don’t worry about Thanos: he gets killed all the time, no bigs.

[SlackerInc]

There were some definite flaws in this. Some seem to be things most agree on; others are divisive (I thought Black Widow’s death was lame); and at least one seems to be something most people like: Thor’s fat and drunken buffoonery, which my son and I both dissented from said general enjoyment.

But there was lots of good stuff too. I liked their general approach to time travel, and calling out other SF movies that work with a single timeline (which can be entertaining but is incoherent even for time travel logic which is notoriously problematic in general). And it ended strongly, starting with Stark’s death and continuing with Steve Rogers (a character I’m normally not that keen on) coming back having relived his life with Peggy. So thanks to recency bias I give this a pretty strong rating overall: B+. I rank it seventh of the 20 MCU films I’ve seen:

1. Avengers A
   Spider-Man: Homecoming A-
   Infinity War A-
   Iron Man A-
2. Captain Marvel B+
   Doctor Strange B+
   Endgame B+
   Age of Ultron B+
   Black Panther B
3. Iron Man 3 B
   Civil War B
   Ant-Man B-
   Ragnarok C+
   Guardians C+
4. Ant-Man & The Wasp C+
   Incredible Hulk C
   Thor C
   Winter Soldier C
   First Avenger C-
   Iron Man 2 D

[Chronos]

[Moderating]

I’m getting some reports about the discussion of the “woman power” scene being a problem in this thread. Now, on the one hand, I’ve been trying to avoid this thread as much as possible, because I haven’t seen the movie yet. But on the other hand, it’s still my job to moderate this forum. So I’m reading posts that are getting reported, but I’m trying not to read any more than I need to. And the post I read was not in any way acrimonious, and was critiquing the movie, which is after all what we’re here for.

What I’m saying is, if you think that a line of discussion in this thread is a problem, then make sure to report the specific posts that you think are problematic, not just the start of a discussion that later becomes problematic. Got that?

[Mosier]

@Quartz

Really? Why? Would nine male heroes converging at once have taken you out of the moment?

If it was done to deliberately pander to the audience’s male-ness, yeah.

[MaxTheVool]

@Banquet_Bear

But regardless: the men raging across the internet over the scene as shot they would be raging over your scene as well. It wouldn’t make any difference to them.

Are you counting me (and other posters in this thread) as part of “men raging across the internet”?

Because I am absolutely 100% certain that my reaction to that scene was not because I object to girl power or messages of uplift, it was because the logistics of the scene jumped out like a sore thumb. I’m quite sure that there are mouth-breathing cretins who are complaining just because women-sjw-feminazis, but that doesn’t mean everyone who had an issues with that scene is so motivated.

For instance, here’s a quote from Caroline Siede at the AV Club:

Part of what makes the moment so clunky is that it sacrifices all sense of internal logic in favor of simplistic iconography. (Look, I’m all for female solidarity, but if the fate of the universe relies on me successfully carrying a gauntlet across a field, I’d frankly much rather have Thor by my side than Mantis.)

(Most of the article, she spends complaining about the fact that the scene is unearned because the rest of the movie isn’t woman-forward enough, so they’re using that scene to unduly pat themselves on the back.)
“Clunky”, “sacrifices all sense of internal logic”. I agree with both of those criticisms. So do many people, apparently. If you disagree, if you thought that that scene in no way stood out from the general level of comic-book-illogic of the rest of the movie, well, then I guess we just disagree.

[Banquet_Bear]

@MaxTheVool

Are you counting me (and other posters in this thread) as part of “men raging across the internet”?

…nope. How would that make any sense? Why would you “rage” over a scene that you wrote? I suggest you read what I wrote again. The people that are raging over the Captain Marvel scene or “the Girl Power” scene would absolutely rage over a scene where "the bad guy makes a derisive sexist comment about one of the woman heroes, it turns into a montage of all the woman fighting in the battle, and ends with the hero saying ““I’m not a girl, I’m a woman””

Because I am absolutely 100% certain that my reaction to that scene was not because I object to girl power or messages of uplift, it was because the logistics of the scene jumped out like a sore thumb.

And I think I have fairly responded to your critique of the logistics of the scene. Do you have any comment to make on the arguments that I made?

I’m quite sure that there are mouth-breathing cretins who are complaining just because women-sjw-feminazis, but that doesn’t mean everyone who had an issues with that scene is so motivated.

I’m glad you both agree that “mouth-breathing cretins” exist, and that the fact that I mentioned them in my post doesn’t mean I was calling either you or anyone else in this thread a “mouth-breathing cretin.” I do however think that its important to point these people out because we can’t pretend that these people do not exist.

I made an offhand comment about “goobers” (referring to gamergoobers and their ilk, I refuse to write the proper name because merely using their name tends to attract them) and you’ve spun that to mean something I didn’t. Nearly everything I wrote in response to you was in direct response to things you said. Your response is entirely unfair.

For instance, here’s a quote from Caroline Siede at the AV Club:

(Most of the article, she spends complaining about the fact that the scene is unearned because the rest of the movie isn’t woman-forward enough, so they’re using that scene to unduly pat themselves on the back.)

Caroline Siede is entitled (as are you) to express her opinion. There are plenty of women who agree with my opinion though as well, but I’m not going to cite them as a shield to protect my ideas from critique. Caroline isn’t participating in this thread, so Ill continue to respond to your opinions here, not hers.

“Clunky”, “sacrifices all sense of internal logic”. I agree with both of those criticisms. So do many people, apparently. If you disagree, if you thought that that scene in no way stood out from the general level of comic-book-illogic of the rest of the movie, well, then I guess we just disagree.

I’m stunned you came to that conclusion. Yes, if I disagree with your opinion then I guess we just disagree then.

[kaylasdad99]

My daughter and I just watched Infinity War to get a little idea what all the foofawraw was about.

When Thanos went to Vormir with Gamera to get the Soul Stone, frikkin’ RED SKULL was there to tell him how to get it!

How the HELL did RED SKULL get to a whole different planet, ALIVE, after I saw him DIE on Earth in WWII in the first Captain America movie?

Do these people have no respect for reality?

[Miller]

@kaylasdad99

How the HELL did RED SKULL get to a whole different planet, ALIVE, after I saw him DIE on Earth in WWII in the first Captain America movie?

Who said he’s alive when he shows up in Infinity War?

[galen_ubal]

@kaylasdad99

My daughter and I just watched Infinity War to get a little idea what all the foofawraw was about.

When Thanos went to Vormir with Gamera to get the Soul Stone, frikkin’ RED SKULL was there to tell him how to get it!

How the HELL did RED SKULL get to a whole different planet, ALIVE, after I saw him DIE on Earth in WWII in the first Captain America movie?

Do these people have no respect for reality?

The Red Skull didn’t die - he was sent away by the Tesseract at the end of the first Cap movie.

[Harrington]

A good movie of course, but not great. Most of it was a comedic caper on the scale of Pink Panther, more comedy than drama, not congruent with the events and ending of Infinity War, which was a better movie.

Shouldn’t Nebula have warned them that the Soul Stone required someone to die to get it? She said it in Infinity War: “They went to Vormir, he (Thanos) returned with the Soul Stone, she didn’t”* So she sends Clint and Natasha off with a toodle-loo, like sending kids off to grade school with sack lunches. She even plotted the coordinates into their ship’s navigation. There should have been a “So, how the hell do we get the Soul Stone” discussion.

Best part: When dozens of orange circles appeared in the sky. You knew what it was and it was awesome. Cap fighting himself (wish it would have lasted longer).

Funniest part: 2012 Cap: “I can do this all day.” Endgame Cap: “I know, I know.”

So Stormbreaker easily defeats a full Infinity Gauntlet and impales Thanos wearing it, but a weaker Thanos at the end of Endgame is now a match for Thor with Mjolnir and Stormbreaker?

How did the Avengers know snapping their fingers would undo everything and not half the universe again?

[bucketybuck]

@Banquet_Bear

No he didn’t.

Yes I did. There is nothing I didn’t “get” about the scene, and there aren’t enough :rolleyes: in the world to accurately respond to your posts.

[SlackerInc]

I don’t think we’re supposed to take the snapping as being a black box where it’s a mechanical function that has no mental component.

[bucketybuck]

@brossa

So I’m idly wondering whether changing Parker’s line would have solved bucketybucks precipitation of disbelief, or whether it was the women all physically converging at one time that was the problem.

Probably not. The issue is that Captain Marvell has just flown through a hulking great lump of space metal like it was wet tissue, through millions of tons of spaceship without even slowing down and it has literally just happened before landing beside Spiderman. And he looks at her and looks at the bunch of mooks and says “I don’t know how you are going to get through all that”.

Really? I had a pretty good idea how she was probably going to do it.

I have no problem with the women all converging, none whatsoever. If they had all converged to back up Scarlett Witch or even Danvers go toe to toe with Thanos I wouldn’t have passed any remarks. But they didn’t, they ganged up to help Danvers go from A to B immediately after she had demonstrated how little help she ever would need to go from A to B.

[HowSoonIsThen]

@Harrington

Shouldn’t Nebula have warned them that the Soul Stone required someone to die to get it? She said it in Infinity War: “They went to Vormir, he (Thanos) returned with the Soul Stone, she didn’t”* So she sends Clint and Natasha off with a toodle-loo, like sending kids off to grade school with sack lunches. She even plotted the coordinates into their ship’s navigation. There should have been a “So, how the hell do we get the Soul Stone” discussion.

She didn’t know what happened there, only that Thanos left with Gamora but came back alone. They certainly knew Gamora died while getting the stone, but there was no reason for them to assume she had to die to get the stone. They probably just figured she died trying to stop Thanos getting it. I don’t think there was any indication that the soul stone wasn’t just there for the taking like the others.

[bucketybuck]

@HowSoonIsThen

She didn’t know what happened there, only that Thanos left with Gamora but came back alone. They certainly knew Gamora died while getting the stone, but there was no reason for them to assume she had to die to get the stone. They probably just figured she died trying to stop Thanos getting it. I don’t think there was any indication that the soul stone wasn’t just there for the taking like the others.

When the two pairs split up, didn’t Nebula say the line, “I hope they don’t fall out…”

I can’t decide if she meant physically fall out of the spaceship which was now on autopilot, or if it was a subtle nod at what was to come?

[Banquet_Bear]

@bucketybuck

Yes I did. There is nothing I didn’t “get” about the scene, and there aren’t enough :rolleyes: in the world to accurately respond to your posts.

…except for the bit where you claimed that Captain Marvel didn’t need any help, yet she obviously did need help because ultimately she got taken down by Thanos. Your entire argument relied on this point.

[bucketybuck]

@Banquet_Bear

…except for the bit where you claimed that Captain Marvel didn’t need any help, yet she obviously did need help because ultimately she got taken down by Thanos. Your entire argument relied on this point.

No, it did not. I guess you just didn’t get it.