Finally saw it yesterday and no longer have to avoid spoilers! Loved it from beginning to end, thought the pacing was excellent. A lot of people said that the movie felt over-stuffed, but I never felt that the heroes were tripping over one another. Some thoughts:
While I never liked Thanos as a villain in the comics, and I think of his motivations for mass-murder to be extremely contrived by the writers, I think the CGI team did nothing short of a spectacular job rendering his facial expressions with what I thought looked like genuine emotion. He looked sad, he looked regretful, he looked world-weary, he looked satisfied. His thought processes are extremely twisted and evil, but you get the sense that he genuinely feels.
I like that there wasn’t some big reconciliation/apology moment between Tony and Steve. Sure, heroes put aside their feelings for the sake of the universe, but PEOPLE find it very hard to put aside their shame and embarrassment.
I did not like that Gamora’s declaration of love for, and first kiss with Quill, happened in this movie rather than in a Guardians movie. I guess the writers (maybe with James Gunn’s input?) felt a need to make that happen before Gamora was taken by Thanos, but characters with their own movie series should have their big character moments happen in their own movie series.
Missed opportunity: Rhodes shoos away General Ross before Banner enters the room. It would have been nice to see what would have happened if Ross had actually encountered him. (Although, realistically, Ross wasn’t unaware that Banner was an Avenger in the first two movies, he just wasn’t on screen. So maybe nothing.)
Spider-Man’s death scene was heartbreaking, a real teenage-feeling moment. But on the other hand, having him among the dying when we know he has a sequel coming up (unless, I suppose, Avengers 4 introduces Miles Morales and the Spider-Man sequel featured him rather than Peter?) lessens the impact of all of the deaths.
I find that unlikely, as its announced release date is after Avengers 4. Nothing is impossible, but I think MCU movies post-Avengers 4 are unlikely to be set during the period of MCU activity up through Avengers 4.
That seems even crazier than changing actors, which is also crazy. The current release date is 2 months after Avengers 4, so they’d be asking people to totally forget that Tom Holland got killed a year ago and stayed dead a few months ago, and this movie doesn’t matter at all in the grand scheme of things since Spider-Man is now, actually, dead.
I think the studio knows it has a winner right now in Tom Holland and isn’t going to be in any hurry to push him aside. And you can’t just keep tucking films in between because (a) what are the stakes if you know that, a month later, Spidey dies and everyone is dusted and (b) it becomes more and more improbable that nothing that happened in those ‘lost chapter’ movies is referenced or matters in Infinity War.
Agreed. Messing around with the timeline like that (other than setting “Captain Marvel” in the ‘90s, which is different in so many ways) would be a terrible idea. I assume they know that.
But the thing to remember is that Spider-Man 2 is NOT a Marvel Studios movie. They’re making it, but they get no money from it. It’s Sony’s movie and they’re contractually obligated to make it, but that’s the last one they owe Sony under contract. I could see Feige doing an in-between plot because the future of that franchise isn’t his to worry about.
Spider-Man Homecoming made $880 million worldwide, so I’m guessing Sony will want to ride that as long as possible. If the contract they signed with Marvel Studios lets Marvel do whatever the hell they want creatively, up to and including killing off Tom Holland then making some crappy sidequel, they’d better fire most of their contract review staff.
I can’t believe that Sony has no say over the plot. Also, while Marvel doesn’t get any of the Spider-Man box office, it has all of the merchandising rights. So every successful Spider-Man movie is still cash for Disney/Marvel in the form of countless toys, backpacks, t-shirts and whatnot.
Spiderman will be rezzed, along with the 3.5 billion people who got dusted, because the phase four movies will need to take place in a world basically like our own. The dusting event will be undone. Tom Holland will be back, as will Chadwick Boseman. There will be consequences. Loki, Gamora and Vision may stay dead, and there may be deaths in Avengers 4, but no one is staying dusted. Not Spiderman and not you, if you got dusted by that website upthread.