I don’t think they were really in a position to worry about who’s plan it was at the time. Stark’s plan was “pin him down and take the guantlet” because .he knew they couldn’t beat him. Quill probably threw in “have Mantis put him to sleep.”
She was looking for them. At the end of Captain Marvel, it shows her responding to the beeper, so she finds out that Tony is out there somewhere (maybe a vague idea) and away she goes…
It showed his leadership as well - he stood up as the attackers came in while the others started to dash/run for cover. His fighting was the point. The Cops had just discussed the delay for the national gaurd and “do they know whats happening here?” “do we” and then cap shows up with a plan and the muscle to back it up -
which is?
A sergeant in motion outranks a lieutenant who doesn’t know what’s going on.
And a Captain in motion outranks almost everyone. Even, possibly, an ordinance technician at a dead run.
He said the fuel cells were cracked. I took it to mean they were able to fix it but by that point they were out of fuel.
Oh yeah, I remember that song from the '80s.
All of the speculation about the Snap loss and the five-years-later Return of every living thing that was Snapped-out by Thanos seems to forget that one of the gems in Thanos’ replacement gauntlet is the Reality Stone (the transformed Aethir that infected Jane). We never see or hear or read Thanos’ exact instructions or thoughts before snaps his fingers; the same is true of Professor Hulk’s and Iron Man’s usage. All we see is the trigger action* and the apparent results. Regardless of interactions by the Time or Power stones, Banner and Stark need only include a clause like “and everything is okay” in their wish composition to have the Reality Stone just plain make everything okay. And, yes, that’s intentionally a pretty broad brush with a lot of magic ink so that, addressing a common example, a remarriage would be nullified and the original couple would be back together and the kid that came out of the remarriage would still be around and, most importantly, everybody would be fine with it because the Red Gem would just plain take care of all those nanoscopic details everywhere.
Like others, I theorize that Thanos was more obsessed with proving his proposal was right and getting the resulting adulation than in helping anyone anywhere. We are not provided with his back-story, but it’s apparent he was crazy by the time he even made such a suggestion and the response from officials probably drove him even more insane. We Dopers, those uncredited officials who rejected Thanos’ idea, and fans on various other discussion boards obviously thought the idea through a lot farther than Thanos ever did. It’s also doubtful Thanos included an “everything will be okay afterward” clause in his command to the collected stones.
As for populations that never understood the Snap nor the Return five years later, well, that sounds like the impetus for a new cult amongst those beings, kind of like the Cargo Cults that sprang up in Melanesia. Some cults fade away, some persist, and some grow into widespread religions. For that matter, I have read some meta-analyses that talk about the Left Behind series as yet-another Christianity-based+ show like Greatest American Hero or Touched by an Angel.
When to take a bathroom break? Maybe when Tony gets Pepper’s permission and shows up at Avenger HQ. You know they’ll spend a bit of time on development but eventually succeed. Then again, you’d miss the funny trial-runs with Lang. I think the comedic scenes with Lang (and, later, Barton) served two purposes in addition to the comedy:
- They reminded us that Banner was a bio-medical expert, not a physics/engineering guy
- They repeatedly showed us that the time machine was a bit difficult to precisely control, even in the hands of the guy who helped make it@
- They set up the lack-of-surprise when Cap doesn’t appear on the (considerably smaller) landing pad where he left. That, in turn, gave us the pleasant surprise of seeing the aged Cap when they had the camera circle around to his face.
And that other Cap, where was she? Remember the end-credits teasers:
–At the end of IW, we see Hill and Fury trying to use the pager. Fury still turns to dust, but we fade out seeing something like “Message Sent” on the pager.
–Near the end of CM, we have a scene where Danvers gives Fury the pager and makes him promise to use it “only in emergencies.” Where was she going? Off to intervene in the Skrulls’ hunting of Kree refugees – either by relocating Kree exiles or by stopping the Skrulls who are hunting.
–During the credits after CM, we see Avengers HQ and some talk about replacing the pager batteries once already (with some kind of AC adapter, I guess) and then the device stopping its signal. Suddenly Carol appears behind Nat, surprising her&, and demanding, “Where’s Fury?”
And I think that answers the question of how CM found Tony and Nebula. Somewhere in the full story [which the Russo’s were kind enough to spare us] from the surviving Avengers, Danvers would learn that Stark (and Strange and Parker) were on the ship with Dark Noseless. We’ll have to assume she had knowledge of Titan and “oh…those guys” from her period as a Skrull team member, knew where to go, and headed out as-fast-as-possible in order to arrive just-barely-in-time right in front of a dying Tony. And returning with the ship ‘in-tow’ would take longer than getting there, thus an explanation of why she took so long to bring it back to Avenger HQ.
And, although it set up a nice way to extend the movie and script, Tony’s insistence that he wasn’t willing to trade the family he had gained after the Snap for the universe-as-it-was before the Snap felt like a cop-out. Yes, he’s saying he loves his daughter very much and wouldn’t trade her for the universe. That shows he’s progressed considerably from the egotistical genius who built STARK tower in the middle of New York and rings well with audiences. But, honestly, it would have been just as easy to say Tony’s dream (which he was telling Pepper just before being summoned by Dr. Strange) was true – they had conceived a kid the night before and Pepper wasn’t even aware of it. They could go through their battles with Thanos, roll everything back to the end of Ragnarok, show Thor and Meek finding a new Planet Asgard, then re-run Mr. & Mrs. Stark jogging through Central Park and talking dreams, this time ending with Pepper saying, “How could you have known that? I only checked the [insert paid sponsor’s product name here] results this morning!”
Lastly, if Harley Keener showed up to Tony’s funeral, it was probably because he was invited by Pepper. At the end of Iron Man 3, we see that Stark has replaced all of the kid’s mundane tools in his shed with state-of-the-art technology. I’d bet he told Pepper to arrange that and she had a team get on it. The kid’s address would undoubtedly be in a Stark database somewhere. [I kinda thought the scholarship program introducing Civil War was inspired by the encounter in Tenessee.]
ETA: I’ve been hoping since the end of Civil War that somebody would have closely analyzed the recordings of the Stark Parents deaths and found an anomaly that proved the Barnes didn’t do it and that Cap was just being conciliatory when he said he knew about it – that the scene was a faked piece spliced in by Zemo. Alas, it was not to be. 
—G
- Like someone else suggested, basically a non-accidental action required by the glove so it knows to get involved, thus preventing it from accidentally turning some stray thought (Jeez, I hate these swarms of flies! I wish flies never existed!) into an unforeseen adverse result (Hey! How come there’s no chocolate left in the world? Oh, NOOOOOOOOOO!)
- Trying to present Christianity- or Bible-based themes to the masses without necessarily drenching viewers with holy water.
@ So why is it that Soddom – er, Nebula – is able to manipulate it perfectly to pull pre-IW Thanos (and accomplices) forward in time and right above Avenger HQ when she’s never even seen it before?
& Really? Our incredible super-spy didn’t sense CM’s presence first and empty a full clip at Carol before she got a word out? I’m not saying the bullets would have done anything, I’m just thinking there wasn’t anything in particular to suggest Danvers’ standard-issue uniform or her powers provided a stealth movement mode.
Finally saw it his weekend. I liked it, I have no real complaints - except Nat getting fridged so Mohawkeye could get his fucking happy ending.
I think you have your Skrulls and your Kree mixed up.
How do you figure her sacrifice fit the (somewhat loose) definition of fridging?
How is it not? Is your problem with my statement that she put herself in the refrigerator? Because that’s irrelevant. It’s a fridging because it does nothing for Nat’s story (c’mon, she didn’t even reference the red in her ledger or anything) but it’s entirely to serve the story of men - primarily Mohawkeye, but I’m including all the original Avengers in there. Damn straight, it’s a fridging.
And Tony gets a funeral, Nat gets an angry Hulk flinging shit off a dock…because one of the main writers thinks she’s just “been a cipher the whole time”. Let’s not forget, this is the same franchise that didn’t think she deserved action figures, even for recreations of her own damn scenes, so the erasure is not surprising.
s/
But hey, all the other little women had their cool scene at the end, so we should all be grateful, I guess? /s
I find this to be a bit of a stretch. I don’t see it working this way, and in fact I would hope it would not.
Two of these three throw me off, one especially. “Greatest American Hero” I watched as a kid and it didn’t strike me as Christian. But that was a long time ago. “The Leftovers” I obviously watched much more recently, and I *definitely *don’t agree that it is Christian.
ETA: Dibble is right: it’s a fridging.
Left Behind, not Leftovers. The Left Behind book were straight-up Christian apocalypse porn.
Yes, I suspect you’re right.
It’s been a while since I saw the movie and the switch from “They’re Invaders” to “They’re just refugees in need of help” caught me by surprise and left me confused by the time I got out of the theater.
There was an article around the turn-of-the-millenium that was discussing the upcoming Left Behind series (and, apparently movies, as well) and how they were the latest in a long history of Christian-themed shows that tried to provide a generally-positive message without going so far as to stab viewers with a pilum. The Lorne Greene led BattleStar Gallactica was cited as a “we’re the lost 13th Tribe of Zion, wandering on our way” tale, and the creator of Greatest American Hero was quoted as saying the message beneath the comedy was “Things would go much better if you’d just follow The Book – oh, you mean you ignored it and don’t even know where it is?” with The Book being a not so subtle reference to The Bible. Touched by an Angel was another, more obvious one; and Highway to Heaven was rather blatant but kinda got screwed over by Producer/Star Michael Landon’s sullied reputation.
The Leftovers was a different tale than the Left Behind series. 
–G!
Concur. Or Stark would have added “don’t let me die/well fine, resurrect me” to his snap.
I think SlackerInc is referring to the HBO show where the world suffers a “Rapture”-like event where 2% of the world’s population just vanishes.
Oddly enough, that would be the second role for actress Carrie Coon involving a story where people are “miracled” out of existence.
I don’t think I’ve heard that expression before. I think it certainly applies to what happened to Gamora in Infinity War. Which I guess makes Red Skull the Fridgemaster General.
I’m not sure what the specific rules are regarding the Powerglove Ex Machina Stark built to counter Thanos’s McGuffin Glove from Infinity War.
Oops! :smack: Yup, I didn’t read that carefully enough. My bad.
Right, good point. And dissolving the new marriage without eliminating the kids they had together? How does that work? Who gets the kids? How is their parentage explained? That is too weird and just not okay, fundamentally.
ORLY? What’s the first? (BTW, for those who haven’t seen HBO’s “The Leftovers”, which is one of the best TV shows ever made: they make it clear very early that it’s not a Christian Rapture. Someone observes that okay, sure: the Pope disappeared–but so did Gary Busey, not to mention his dickhead brother-in-law.)
BTW, there’s a movie called “The Rapture” from 1991, starring Tom Cruise’s first wife Mimi Rogers, playing a swinger who
converts to being a “Left Behind” type religious fanatic. She is actually shown to be correct in her theology at the end, although the movie–which I remember as being pretty good–doesn’t come across like Christian propaganda, especially given the nudity and hard-R sex at the beginning.
ETA: Yes, the Red Skull is definitely a fridgemeister!
The infrequent times I’ve heard the term used, along with reading the Wikipedia article, makes me think that the defining characteristic is a woman’s death (or rape or torture) being important not for her arc, but for a man’s. That is, the woman has no agency, she exists solely as a prop in the man’s story.
In this case, Nat sacrificing herself (a) was the most agency possibly for herself, and (b) was arguably a reasonable final step on her own arc. She had red in her ledger, and she chose to balance it out by sacrificing herself to save the life of the man who had previously saved her.
(Compare that to Gamora dying in Infinity War, which largely served the purpose of developing the character of both Thanos and Quill, without telling us anything about her.)
(All of that said, yes, I agree we should have gotten more of a funeral or memorial or something for her. But I don’t see how that makes it “fridging”.)
(All of THAT said, I’m curious to hear what other dopers think, I’m not super-confident in my position here.)
You and I remember Vormir very differently.