I know I shouldn’t care this much, but right now I’m just feeling like it was such a waste… the MCU had so much potential to be something great, with strokes of casting genius like RDJ as Tony Stark, Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury (that one was a given), especially (as far as I’m concerned) Tom Hiddleston as Loki, even Chris Evans as Steve Rogers (he doesn’t seem to be a brilliant actor, but he fit into that role like it was made for him). They had Joss Whedon writing the first two ensemble films. Y’all hate him now because he turned out not to be a perfect feminist, but I saw “Firefly” before “Buffy” and I didn’t start liking his work for feminist reasons; it was for the storytelling, the snappy dialogue, the inventive characterization, the hints of philosophical themes, the distinctive voice. All of that was brilliantly on display in the first Avengers movie; AOU bit off more than it could chew, but I still admire the ambition and the ideas and I’m not nearly as bothered by the shipping choices as everyone else.

But with the possible exception of “Iron Man 3,” all of the MCU trilogies have suffered the curse of the modern superhero trilogy: the third one betrays the potential of its predecessors. Characterization crashed and burned in all of the part 3’s except IM. Could Whedon have evaded the curse if he had been writing “Infinity War”? I don’t know, maybe not… but the worst production of his I’ve seen was “Serenity,” which was definitely not bad (and no, I’m not considering the Wonder Woman script).

I’m kind of feeling the way I did about dumb choices in the LOTR movies – this could have been perfect, this was a convergence of opportunities that only comes around once, how could you screw this up? – only more so.