Infinity Thoughts

So Avengers Infinity War happened. I enjoyed the experience of seeing it. But there's nothing interesting to say about it because while it has workmanlike quality, it's just too incoherent.



I'll at least explain why below the spoiler cut.



First off, the good things. Thanos is fine. He's the most characterization Marvel has given to any of its movie villains  You might enjoy SMG arguing that he's an inferior to the villain of Iron Man 2 who is fighting for revolutionary justice, but a villain who respects his enemies and sheds real tears at the sacrifices he has to make to accomplish his ethical goals, is still head and shoulders above... banal Patriarchy stand in that 70% of the movies have had.

His plan is stupid. And it's definitely worse than the comics version where he's trying to seduce Death. And it's a retcon from the earlier movies. But honestly? Aesthetically his plan's obsession with 50% and balance makes him credible as this alien, grand designer who we can't understand and is inevitably crushing us. Thanos is fine, and he gets the most screentime of anyone in the movie.

Every other character is basically adding spice and humor for a few minutes, and none of them are horrendous enough to make the movie stop in its tracks.

The main thing is the plot, and the incredibly pagan symbolism.

I mean pagan symbolism is no surprise in a comics or fantasy story. The Infinity Stones are the same as Captain Planet are the same as Voltron are the same as Avatar the Last Airbender are the same as Sonic the Hedgehog's Chaos Emeralds. The four-to-six macguffingems represent the elements of existence, and once brought together can restore harmonious balance to the world, returning us to an prelapsarian Eden. (I'd credit MCU for undercutting this by making this the *villain's* plan, except there's no sign the good guys oppose the existence of the gauntlet and stones, and they will almost certainly "fix everything" by using it themselves.)

It's not lazy plagiarism, so much as an incredibly potent meme, that people are addicted to seeing the world through the lens of, or at least epic stories. Robert Anton Wilson and  Balioc could probably write about how this mirrors the same themes recurring in Hermetic cults throughout Western history. I'd enjoy reading that.

So it's still Voltron to the DCU's Neongenesis. Fine, not like that is any surprise at this point.

***

Walter Chaw also has a decent review about the meaningless of deaths and victories in this sort of world. I recommend reading it for the quality of writing, but it's not going to say anything that shocks you.

The end, while emotionally and aesthetically well done, has been obviously a cop out from the day the movies were called Infinity War Part 1 and Part 2. It seems most likely that the "half" of all living beings who died went to another universe, and so you have two half-populated universes. This accords with what main characters died, because they're all split neatly into groups of people that can still have Whedon-style interactions with each other. Spidey, Strange, Drax, and empathy-alien can figure out how to get back to Earth together, etc. 

I wasn't thrilled by the ending, but I'm not exactly let down by it either.

***

I can't believe I'm saying this but... what's up with the plot? Not that it's bad. The "pacing" was fine and it was a pretty decipherable plot. (Most of the twists are easily visible, but, so what.)

Thanos is supposed to be an unstoppable force that you can't fight against or outsmart. He wants six gems to accomplish his goal.

So the writers felt there couldn't be any serious fight where it was in doubt whether he would get the stone or not, because the whole point is you can't fight him. So how does he get the stones?

• 2 stones are achieved through overpowering force, off screen.
• 1 stone is achieved through an actually interesting scene where he has to use his powers in an interesting way to get it. (It's not a good scene, but like, something happens and Thanos is being active at least, okay? Low bar.)
• The other 3 stones are achieved in the same way: so that Thanos can't force them, they are kept by someone who they can't be taken from. Thanos threatens to kill or hurt someone they care about, and the person relents and give it to Thanos.

This is in addition to other scenes (involving Gamora and Vision) where the choice is between "Thanos coming closer to his goal" and "person the subject cares about dying." There are at least six scenes specifically facing this choice, and just as many scenes where people discuss this choice.

And I can not find any rhyme or reason to the decisions they make.

People don't always decide "life is too precious." People don't always decide "stop/help Thanos at all costs." Good guys don't decide appreciably different from bad guys. Sometimes people are motivated by love, sometimes they're motivated by a longer term plan. Why is Wanda more willing to sacrifice what she loves than Loki? Why is Starlord more goal-focused than Dr. Strange?

Like, what is the moral message behind all this? "Thanos won because Dr. Strange, Gamora, and Loki are too darn soft-hearted?"

I hate to say "all these character choices were made just in service of what moved the plot forward to what the writers needed to happen." Usually even if that's the case, you can construct an unintentional message behind the alignment of these sorts of details. But in this case it's just so over the place there's nothing I can draw from it.