The audience in my showing was silent too, but not unhappy, I think. Just in a state of shock.
I can only speak for myself, but my silence was because I hated it.
I enjoyed it, and it went where I anticipated it would go, having read the Infinity Gauntlet series some time ago. As far as a crossover event, it was well done and a solid first half. The real question is can they sell the reset in a satisfying way? Looks like its up to Captain Marvel.
My one issue: Thanos is shown as reasoned. He’s taking a Malthusian approach to over population. But he’s The Mad Titan. His whole raison d’genocide in the comics is because Dude is Crazy™. He worships Death and such.
I know there is an official Comics term for this - how Good Guys and Bad Guys fit into different categories. I think they moved Thanos from “Chaotic Evil” over to “Structured Evil” or something.
He was calm when I was expecting a bit more crazy.
Thanos is the textbook case of a villain who’s convinced he’s the hero of the story.
Sure, that’s cool. I don’t think that’s my point.
I found it - see this Wiki entry on Dungeons and Dragons: Alignment (Dungeons & Dragons) - Wikipedia
Most versions of the game feature a system in which players make two choices for characters. One is the character’s views on “law” vs “chaos”, the other on “good” vs “evil”. The two axes allow for nine alignments in combination.[1][2] These nine alignments can be shown in a grid, as follows:
Lawful good <–> Neutral good <–> Chaotic good
Lawful neutral <–> (True) neutral <–> Chaotic neutral
Lawful evil <–> Neutral evil <–> Chaotic evil
It feels like Thanos was moved from Chaotic Evil to Lawful Evil. But what the heck do I know??
Well, I don’t read comics, but I’ve been playing D&D since “elf” was a character class, and I agree that Thanos as he appears in the film is clearly Lawful Evil.
I like the Gamora-in-the-Soul-Stone idea. And yeah, the crowd in my theater gave a sad, “NO!” when the credits started.
The guy is literally omnipotent and he thinks the way to solve the universes overpopulation problem is to kill 50% of the people. He thinks this is a great solution and people will be thankful to him when it is done. He is absolutely batshit crazy. Just because he acts like he is being rational does not mean he is in fact rational. We’ve just been conditioned to expect “crazy” to look like the Joker.
I wonder if there was any point to Thor getting a new eye besides the film people just deciding they didn’t want Hemsworth in an eye patch any longer. I’m not looking for a huge plot-turning revelation but, aside from a butt joke, it felt like “Okay, Ragnarok is over. Reset!”
On top of the “50% isn’t going to change anything for long” issues, the stinger makes the point that having 50% of your population just go “poof” is going to be catastrophic in other ways. Missing drivers, airline pilots, nuclear plant workers, a collapse of government, etc. Thanks, Thanos!
Mmm. I disagree. It’s not that Thanos - as presented in the movie - is Evil. It’s that he doesn’t care. If he could advance his cause - balancing the universe - without wiping out half of all sentient life, he would. He just doesn’t see a path that includes that.
Lawful Neutral. Believes in rules and patterns, but doesn’t take others into account when operating within those rules and patterns.
Also, for a moment, he certainly didn’t wipe out 50% of all life. As my oldest pointed out, we didn’t see trees and squirrels and such evaporating. Thanos just took his shot at sentient life. And who the hell knows what happened to the viruses and bacteria and such.
Also, what happened to Thanos at the end there? Thor’s wound on him looked pretty mortal. Is he dying at the end? Will he recover? What’s with the Japanese arch and such?
Oh, and I would consider Thanos’ D&D alignment to be Neutral Evil. He believes in a need for balance (which he repeats over and over) between sentient life and the universe’s resources and that the best way to bring that balance is through acts of violence, theft and oppression (taking the stones by force and then murdering half the population).
As others noted, there’s better ways to encourage that balance but he’s Neutral Evil, not Neutral Good or True Neutral. Balance is his goal and evil is his hammer to achieve it.
I had a thought about that, too. Thanos said “you should have gone for the head!” Perhaps there will be some big cosmic do-over, and Thor will do just that.
it would have been ironic if Thanos himself dusted - due to his ‘random’ selection of who goes /stays.
I don’t go to MCU movies to see great acting (although it’s usually good acting). PTSD Thor speaking with Rocket was a great bit of acting.
I’m sure the gauntlet had some provisions in it like “don’t kill the one making the orders”, or Thanos himself said “errbody but me”
Saw it this weekend and thought it was a helluva ballsy move to end the movie like that. It took 19 movies but Marvel finally has it’s Empire Strikes Back ending. Although you can add me to the list of people who know how the real world works (contracts and sequels and such) so the ending is a bit less of a shock.
Spiderman’s death was truly heartbreaking. I chalked the length of his dusting up to the fact that he was in his suit still. He could feel himself dusting away, but the suit kept it from happening instantly, so he was scared. He’s just a kid you know.
The thing I loved most about the first Avengers movie was the way Joss handled all the characters and how real their interactions felt. They were very true-to-character. I feel the screenwriters did that here as well. Each character interaction felt very real to me and I applaud them for that.
Anyone else think it was kinda creepy watching Elizabeth Olsen (29) and Paul Bettany (46) have a relationship? On paper their ages aren’t HUGE, but Liz looks like she’s 22 and Paul looked about 50.
I’m excited about the next movie, but I am very curious as to where they’re going to go with it. This is the culmination of over a decade’s worth of storytelling and I fear they blew their load on THIS one and the next one will come up short. That being said, gotta trust the process.
Vision himself is like three years old though. So now who’s the monster?? 
I was thinking about how the heck they’re going to promote the next movie. If half of the cast is gone, then only half of the cast can promote the movie without spoiling who lives and who dies? If Zoe Saldana, Chadwick Boseman, and Tom Holland start promoting Infinity Wars 2, it pretty much says that they’re coming back. While we may expect that, does the studio want that? Most (all?) of the dead actors are already signed on to the sequel… so…
I definitely agree. For a character who’s traditionally been kind of a meathead, and who was considered by a lot of fans to be among the less-interesting MCU leads, his last two films (Ragnarok and Infinity War) have given him some surprising depth, and shown that Hemsworth is a pretty darned good actor, IMO.
Speaking of which, is this the first film to indicate that Wanda and Vision were dating? I mean, I know that’s comic book canon, but the last I saw of them movie-wise (in Civil War) there was, at most, some very mild flirting going on. I haven’t seen all the Marvel films, so I was just wondering if this has been established elsewhere, or this is the introduction of the relationship and we’re just supposed to go with it.
I spent the drive home from the movie updating my wife on who all the various characters were. 
Best question: Was the insect girl The Wasp? No, honey, that was Mantis.
Okay - let’s go with that: in the movie, he is Neutral Evil. I would still argue that in the comics he is Chaotic Evil. So that still represents the shift I am trying to articulate. The Thanos I think of is prone to outbursts and twitchy; maybe not Joker Chaotic, but Petulant Child Chaotic - ???
Again, not trying to slam the movie, just trying to articulate a key difference to my perception of Thanos to see if I was the only one.