Yet another "should I be watching Infinity War yet" thread

No spoilers please! About Infinity War, or any other Marvel movies.

My wife and I are currently working our way through the MCU going by this ordering. We’re not all that far along; tomorrow night we’ll be watching Winter Soldier. There are only two items after Winter Soldier in this list that we’ve seen before: the two Guardians of the Galaxy movies.

We have tickets to see Infinity War on Saturday. I would have been fine waiting until we got there “naturally,” but she really wants to see it on the big screen.

So, are we going to be totally lost?

FWIW, we watched the first Avengers movie soon after is was released on DVD, without having seen the previous movies. We enjoyed the movie just fine, even if some of the details were lost on us. When we watched it again recently, after having the proper background behind us, it was like a whole new experience. Will this perhaps be similar, or are we making a mistake?

This is a movie that really requires you to have a very good grounding of what’s going on and who the characters are. There’s very little hand-holding or even storyline, it’s really focused on as a crossover event.

Winter Soldier is too early to leap into Infinity War. I would recommend Age of Ultron, Civil War, Doctor Strange, and Thor Ragnarok. They’re not absolutely crucial, but I think you’ll be lost otherwise and lose a lot of significant points being made.

If you can delay it a week and crash through those movies, I think it would be worth the effort.

You don’t need Ant-Man, Spider-Man Homecoming, or Black Panther, though of course they’re great movies and better in the context of the Marvel timeline than out of it.

I would drop Ant Man if you’re in a hurry, but otherwise; yeah. You really need at least Civil War, Ultron, and Dr Strange. Ragnarok is not REQUIRED… but it would help add a great deal of context, and is also a really fun ride (and the immediate prequel to Infinity War).

Honestly, I barely remember Ultron. Yes, I know it leads into Civil War in a Big Way and introduces some new people but once you’ve got your bearings on that, I’d say that if you had to shave it to the bone, do Civil War and Dr Strange today and I’d pick Ragnarok over Ultron if you had extra time (plus Ragnarok is a better movie in my opinion). Civil War will crash-course you in what you needed to know from Ultron and is a much more important lead in.

Civil War, Age of Ultron, Dr. Strange, and Thor Ragnarok would highly enhance your enjoyment, I think. If you can get tickets for a few days later and catch up on those, I’d highly recommend it, and I think you would enjoy the movie a lot more.

There is no reason to watch it just because it’s the current one, the previous ones are just as good and watching them all in order is a lot more satisfying.

Well, the reason is because his wife wants to see it this weekend.

You’ve seen both the previous Avengers movies as well as both Guardians of the Galaxy movies? Go and see this one.

Well, we’ve got our tickets and are meeting up with friends to see it, so we’re going tomorrow. I’ve been thinking about it from a different angle, though. I suppose we’ll just have to live with being confused over some stuff, but how much is Infinity War going to spoil previous movies that we haven’t seen yet? I’m not looking for anything specific, just answers like “a lot” or “a little.” :wink:

I’ve heard about some of the major plot points in the MCU, such as Asgard has been destroyed, and Captain America isn’t himself anymore. But I know no details about how these things came to be, and rather wouldn’t until we see the movies.

There is already way too much going down in this movie for them to waste time rehashing older movies. The most you’ll see/hear is a couple of sentences about what went down in Ragnarok.

No, he just saw Avengers I.

I’d really think you need to watch Avengers Ultron and Civil War. Civil War isn’t a side movie like Doctor Strange or Ragnarok.

I think they can skip Ultron if need be. Civil War will catch them up. If they’ve got time for one more movie, make it Civil War.

FWIW I saw Civil War and not Ultron, and I don’t think there was anything I didn’t get.

I saw Ragnarok without Thor I or II and I had no trouble following along.

I have not seen Dr Strange or any Guardians.

It’s quite possible I missed some subtleties, but the overall movies were enjoyable and understandable.

Although it wasn’t the MCU, the only time I was caught in a sequel-spoiler was Justice League. I kinda was a bit surprised to find that a certain major character was dead. I said, “hmm, I think I missed a major plot point by skipping Batman V Superman. Oh well. He’s not dead anymore anyway so it doesn’t matter.”

A couple days ago, Vulture published a guide to prepping for Infinity War. The article is here, but basically they say:

REQUIRED
The Avengers
Guardians of the Galaxy
Avengers: Age of Ultron
Doctor Strange

SUPPLEMENTAL
Civil War
Thor: Ragnarok
Black Panther

FOR THE THOROUGH
Captain America
Iron Man 3
Thor: The Dark World
Guardians of the Galaxy 2

[Moderating]
GESancMan, I know you’re the OP, but you said no spoilers for any of the Marvel movies, and other folks reading this thread might be relying on that. So I’ve added spoiler tags for the parts you said you already knew.

Thank you, I should have thought of that.

Did Agents of SHIELD get added back into the continuity?

Was it officially ever out of the continuity? I thought that they dealt with the continuity issue by just not putting anything too important in the show. Sure, there are a bunch of other supers, but they’re not Avengers.

Clark Gregg will be reprising his role as Phil Coulson in Captain Marvel. That’s set in the 1990s, though, so you tell me whether the TV show is in the same continuity as the movies.

I had read that the treatment of Inhumans hadn’t been run by Feige and, since the X-People were under contract to Fox, not having the Inhumans prevented the MCU from the next best alternative for the same sorts of stories. At the time, supposedly, he was trying to get it shut down and that he didn’t, at least, consider it canonical.